Al Jazeera (Reuters): “Panetta: Israel must ‘get to the damn table’”New York Times: “Defense Chief Says Israel Must Mend Arab Ties”Fox News: “Panetta Scolds Israel on Peace Talks” Sometimes media can make a public event into a Rorschach test, reporting what they are predisposed to want us to see. Coverage of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s speech to the Saban
Finally, it is interesting to speculate how this reads from a Palestinian perspective. Brimmer seems to imply that not only can the Palestinian initiative succeed in delivering its primary goal of a propaganda victory with possible international legal ramifications. It could provoke a congressional response that will further weaken the U.S. in Turtle Bay and
An Israeli-owned company sells an oil tanker to Iran Lenin reportedly said of capitalists that they “will sell us the rope with which to hang them.” Israel seems to have encountered a contemporary version of this trope with the announcement by the U.S. State Department that it is placing sanctions on a large Israeli company,
Just a few months ago General Jim Jones, the former U.S. National Security Advisor, told the Herzliah Conference that if God has allocated just one crisis for President Obama to resolve during his term in office, it should be the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is, indeed, a conflict that must be resolved – for the future
Largely obscured by the Carmel forest fire, two related developments last week call to mind the sad old epigram: in the Middle East, an optimist thinks things could be worse, while a pessimist knows they will be. The United States announced it will no longer push for a further Israeli 90-day building freeze. At about the
The U.S. proposal for a ninety-day building freeze in the territories is a riddle. Prime Minister Netanyahu and Secretary of State Clinton evidently hammered out an American proposal Netanyahu believes he can get through his cabinet, one that would have Israel freeze settlement construction for ninety days in a one-off deal that includes American incentives.
According to Jewish tradition, the Almighty weighs our deeds and judges us in the ten days between Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. This period is called “Days of Awe,” a metaphor that also accurately evokes the current state of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.We find ourselves poised between the opening
Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent trip to Greece, reciprocating the visit of Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou to Israel last month, should have caused some rethinking in Ankara. Even if we take at face value the Israeli and Greek assertions that the meetings were not directed against Turkey, closer strategic cooperation between Israel and Greece will necessarily
While in the U.S. last week for AJC’s stirring annual meeting in Washington and a series of speaking engagements at AJC offices along the eastern seaboard, I read an eye-opening book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart, by Bill Bishop with Robert G. Cushing. Bishop is a journalist
Some observers close to the Israeli government are expressing concern over reports of a meeting of former U.S. national security advisors with President Obama at which there was said to have been discussion of a new peace process strategy if Israeli-Palestinian negotiations—still blocked by Ramallah—fail to produce results. Although the Administration has subsequently and repeatedly denied
The U.S. Army gave us the acronym “snafu.” As the Oxford Dictionary explains: “situation normal—all … fouled up,” meaning “a confused or chaotic state; a mess.” The U.S.-Israel relationship appears to be settling dangerously into a semi-permanent snafu. There is open, if officially unacknowledged speculation that Obama seeks to unseat Netanyahu, which would theoretically produce a government
Media frenzies often divert attention away from substance. So it was last week when U.S. Vice President Joe Biden visited Israel and the Palestinian Authority. His well-publicized mission was to raise confidence between the parties and launch proximity talks, but the PA and Israel have urgent preoccupations elsewhere. The PA, facing fierce competition from Hamas,
On January 12, George Baghdadi reported on CBS News: “Syria on Tuesday summoned the highest-ranking American diplomat in Damascus and protested Washington’s ‘unfriendly procedures’ on Syrians wishing to travel to the States, warning it would take reciprocal measures if the move was not annulled.” Think of the apocryphal murderer who kills his parents and asks
For some Israeli analysts, new strains in U.S.-Israel relations in 2009 shook confidence in the longstanding alliance. They point to the cumulative effect of several factors: missteps by the adamantly pro-Israel Bush Administration that had the effect of strengthening Hamas and, with the Iraqi decapitation, the Islamic Republic of Iran; the economic crisis with its
In January 2007, Israeli historian Benny Morris published a vision of Iranian nuclear potential that is every Israeli’s nightmare: One bright morning, in five or ten years …the orders will go out and the … missiles will take off for Tel Aviv, Beersheba, Haifa and Jerusalem, and probably some military sites, including Israel’s half-dozen air
When we see images of a soldier from something called the “master race” shooting a baby and his buddy killing a helpless young girl, we assume they portray events from the Nazi years, perhaps the Warsaw Ghetto. But the soldiers in the drama shown last week on Turkish state-owned television are Israelis, and the victims
In his biting poem “Pink Eyeglasses,” the great Hebrew poet Natan Alterman wrote of the power of illusion to distort even the most honest analysis: “The lens gives the color and the heart follows.” During the Ten Days of Repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, all of us—and especially our leaders—need to look through
It is hard to recall a marathon week such as the one we just had in Israel. Visits by Secretary of Defense Gates and National Security Advisor Jones—with large delegations of senior staff, including White House advisor Dennis Ross—followed close on that by Senator Mitchell. Senior Israeli government officials are keeping uncharacteristically mum, but it
In 2001 I wrote this article about a fundamental misunderstanding of the conflict that Palestinian negotiators brought to Camp David. Has this changed?
