The burning question following the United States’ cruise missile strike against the Al Shayrat air force base in Syria on April 6 is whether the Trump administration has fundamentally changed its policy toward the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Less than a week before two U.S. destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea fired 59 […]
One of the strengths of Israel’s special relationship with the United States is its bipartisan character. Democrats, Republicans and third party politicians regard Israel as a valued ally whose values and pro-Western foreign policy are completely in line with theirs, notwithstanding the disputes arising out of Israel’s extremely controversial settlement project in the West Bank. […]
It has been obvious, to some at least, that Israel’s protracted and bloody conflict with the Palestinians can best be resolved by means of a two-state solution. This would necessitate the creation of a Palestinian state in areas where Palestinians form a vast majority of the population, namely the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. […]
Tensions between two bitter old enemies, Israel and Syria, have flared up again. On March 17, Israeli F-16s struck a Syrian military site near the city of Palmyra, reportedly bombing a convoy of vehicles carrying Scud missiles to Hezbollah bases in Lebanon. Syria retaliated by firing several S-200 missiles at the Israeli jets flying back to […]
Women have always served in the Israeli armed forces and are an integral part of it, but in the past few years, they’ve played an increasingly important role in Israel’s defence. From training new recruits and flying aircraft to manning outposts and driving tanks, they form an indispensable component of Israel’s defence shield. “Since the […]
Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Liberman has issued a warning that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be wise to heed. In an appearance before the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee a few days ago, Liberman warned that Israel’s annexation of the West Bank would spark a crisis with the United States, its chief benefactor and […]
Late last month, for the seventh time in six years, Russia vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution in defence of its ally, Syria, which has been embroiled in a civil war since 2011. The resolution, proposed by France and Britain and supported by the United States, condemned Syria for deploying banned chemical weapons against rebel […]
Credible politicians should not indulge in self-deception, but that’s exactly what Ayoub Kara, the Israeli minister-without-portfolio, did recently. On February 14, a day before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump were due to hold their first formal meeting at the White House, Kara floated a ridiculous trial balloon that quickly ran out […]
Donald Trump won the presidency of the United States as a disrupter of received convention. Judging by his first official meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, D.C. on February 15, the newly-inaugurated president has no intention of changing his disruptive and confusing style. At a joint news conference with Netanyahu prior to […]
For the sake of peace, one can only hope that Israel’s ill-conceived Regulation Law, passed earlier this month by the Knesset by a margin of 60 to 52, will be declared null and void. Sponsored and promoted by Naftali Bennett’s far right Jewish Home Party, which calls for the annexation of much of the West […]