Leonard Cohen’s signature song, the rich and resonant Hallelujah, has morphed into an anthem beloved by millions of his fans. Yet strangely enough, his record label, Columbia Records, categorically rejected it when it was submitted in 1984, puzzling and crushing Cohen. To this day, it remains unclear why this happened. Not even Clive Davis, a former […]
Israel’s new prime minister, Yair Lapid, faces a multitude of uncertainties as the country heads toward its fifth election since 2019. Lapid, the leader of the centrist Yesh Atid Party, took over as caretaker prime minister after he and his political partner, Naftali Bennett, dissolved the 24th Knesset after several crises. Lapid will also continue […]
For a relatively brief moment after World War II, the Zionist movement and the newly-formed state of Israel enjoyed the unanimous support of the Soviet Union, its East European allies and the United States. This short-lived interregnum was a unique period when, as Jeffrey Herf observes in his superb book, Israel’s Moment: International Support for and Opposition […]
Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, was internationally ostracized following the murder of Saudi journalist/dissident Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed the order to kill and dismember Khashoggi had come from the “highest levels” of the Saudi government, but he […]
Egypt, in 1979, was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, but until about two years ago, bilateral relations were invariably chilly, if not downright frigid. In virtually every aspect, Israel’s relationship with Egypt was unremittingly cold, the direct result of Egypt’s wholehearted embrace of the Palestinian cause and grassroots Egyptian […]
Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz has confirmed that Israel has joined a new Middle Eastern military partnership composed of, among other nations, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and the United States. Known as the Middle East Air Defence Alliance, it is designed to fend off missile, rocket, and unmanned drone attacks from Iran, whose nuclear […]
There is a disconsolate strain of illiberalism in Israeli society that runs disturbingly deep. Recently, Matan Kahana, the deputy religious affairs minister, told high school students in the West Bank settlement of Efrat that, if possible, he would transfer Israeli Arabs to Europe with the press of a “button.” Kahana, a member of Prime Minister […]
Once heavily dependent on the import of oil and natural gas, Israel has become a net exporter of energy. Thanks to its discovery of major gas fields off its coastline in the past 13 years, Israel has consolidated its role on the global energy market. In recent years, Israel has exported natural gas to Egypt […]
Israel and Syria, the bitterest of enemies, have been locked in a state of war for more than seven decades now, notwithstanding several diplomatic attempts by the United States and Turkey in recent years to broker a peace agreement. The last such effort, initiated by the U.S., took place secretly from April 2009 to March […]
Israel’s undeclared war against Iran is intensifying. In the past month, Israel has carried out a series of attacks against Iran and Iranian interests in Syria, Iran’s chief Arab ally. Iran, in turn, has threatened a harsh armed response. On May 22, Israel assassinated a top-ranking officer of the Quds Force, an arm of the […]