Once hailed by Western pundits as the technocrat-magician who would conjure a Palestinian state into being through irrepressible institutional competence, Salam Fayyad has been unceremoniously sidelined from his job as Palestinian Prime Minister according to a deal announced Tuesday — a sign of the collapse of the illusions …
Netanyahu
Israel and Iran: Covert Warfare Raises Risks of Retaliation, and Conflagration
If Iran’s leaders actually believe their official insistence that last weekend’s blast at the Bid Ganeh Revolutionary Guard Corps missile base was an accident, the event is unlikely to make any difference to regional stability. But if Iran, instead, believes claims — and widely held suspicions in Tehran — that the blast, which …
Thwarted at the U.N., Is Palestinian Leader Abbas Headed Off Into the Sunset?
President Mahmoud Abbas’ attempt to persuade the U.N. Security Council to admit a state of Palestine as a full member of the international body has, all too predictably, hit a wall. The technical U.N. committee to which the issue was referred , not surprisingly, failed to reach a consensus (because there’s no consensus among Council …
Sarkozy to Obama: “I Cannot Bear Netanyahu. He’s a Liar.”
Despite the protective efforts of some of the courtlier members of the Fourth Estate, what the President of France said to the president of the United States about the Prime Minister of Israel was on front pages Wednesday, along with what the American president said in reply.
“I cannot bear Netanyahu. He’s a liar,” Nicolas Sarkozy …
U.N. Body Accuses Iran of Nuclear Weapons Research, But Can Military Action Stop Tehran?
The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog has finally lent its imprimatur to the suspicion that Iran is using its atomic energy program to put the means to build nuclear weapons within its reach. That’s the upshot of Tuesday’s report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran, making it the agency’s harshest finding yet on Iran’s …
Bracing for the Iran Nuclear Report: Will ‘Military Action’ Rhetoric Develop its Own Momentum?
If the proverbial “drumbeat” for war with Iran has grown more insistent in recent weeks, it’s about to turn into something akin to the opening bars of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man“. That’s because the International Atomic Energy Agency is expected, in a report on Iran’s nuclear program due for release early this week, to suggest that the …
You Say You Wanna Bomb Iran? Take a Number and Stand in Line
Yes, you heard right: Britain is preparing to bomb Iran. Well, that’s if the latest reported leaks from the British government are to be believed. The Guardian — not known, like some of its British rivals are, for frequent breathless front-page claims of imminent military strikes on Iran — reported Wednesday that Britain’s Defense …
Smart Power? Not in the Middle East
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the ideal test-bed for the proposition that the United States can compensate for the decline of its ability to influence events through military and economic muscle through “smart power“, putting diplomacy in the lead and leveraging more limited U.S. hard power through coalitions and making use …
Gilad Shalit and the End of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process
As momentous as Tuesday’s release of Sergeant Gilad Shalit and 477 Palestinian prisoners (with another 550 to freed within two months) may be, it is unlikely to be a game-changer — or a milestone on the road to peace. Indeed, while the spectacle of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu breaking the ostensible taboo on negotiating with …
Who Gains, Who Loses in Israel-Hamas Prisoner Swap to Free Gilad Shalit?
Win-win outcomes are all too rare in the Middle East, but the agreement that will see Hamas free captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for a reported 1,000 Palestinian prisoners will allow each of its stakeholders to claim victory.
Details of the deal concluded in Cairo under Egyptian mediation remain sketchy, but it is …
Why Cutting U.S. Aid to Abbas Could Hurt Israel More Than it Hurts Palestinians
“This is going to hurt me a lot more than it’s going to hurt you” may be a cliche once tossed out by parents about to spank their children, but it could well prove to be the case if Congress proceeds with plans to punish the Palestinians for seeking U.N. recognition by cutting off U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Listening …
Is Israel Again Weighing an Attack on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities?
“I think the most effective way to deal with Iran is not on a unilateral basis,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters in Israel on Tuesday, stressing that the Israeli government needed to act in concert and consensus with the international community. Israeli reporters noted his repeated use of the word together when it came …
Why the Pentagon’s Panetta is On a Hiding to Nothing in Israel
Israel is becoming increasingly isolated, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned on Sunday, on the eve of his arrival there for talks with his Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The — perhaps unconscious — subtext of that warning, of course, is that Israel’s isolation in the Middle East accelerates the decline of …