Perhaps nobody told President Barack Obama that last week’s United Nations showdown over Palestinian statehood was the proverbial “Emperor’s New Clothes” moment for his Mideast peace effort. U.S. officials are, this week, once again trying to herd the Palestinians back into the same unconditional talks that President Mahmoud Abbas …
Netanyahu
Will the Palestinians Settle for a Rain-Check at the United Nations?
Move along, there’s nothing to see here.
The much vaunted September fireworks between Israel, the U.S. and the Palestinians at the United Nations is turning out to be a rather soggy squib. As things stand, by virtue of the choices made by President Mahmoud Abbas in the face of considerable pressure from his longtime sponsors in …
Why Obama’s U.N. Speech Won’t Raise U.S. Credibility in the Middle East
In a U.N. General Assembly address to which the world looked for a meaningful response on the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, President Barack Obama delivered a pretty good domestic reelection campaign speech. Pro-Israel voters and donors in the U.S. will have been reassured by the President’s passionate assertion of …
Can a Palestinian Authority Rooted in an Untenable Status Quo Survive the U.N. Clash?
Quiz question: Who is applying to the United Nations for membership of a Palestinian state not-yet-born? Is it
a) the Palestinian Authority, or
b) the Palestine Liberation Organization?
Much of the media reporting treats the two as if they were interchangeable labels for the same thing — hardly surprising, perhaps, given …
Why Palestinian Leaders are Doing Obama a Favor By Taking Their U.N. Bid to the Security Council
Friday’s announcement by President Mahmoud Abbas that he will next week present the U.N. Security Council with a formal request for U.N. membership of a sovereign state of Palestine may be better news for Israel and the U.S. than it might appear, even if it confirms the failure of the Obama Administration to stop the …
Why the Obama Administration is Failing in its Efforts to Stop the Palestinians’ U.N. Bid
The Obama Administration is flailing — and failing — in its eleventh-hour efforts to stop a U.N. vote on Palestinian statehood next week. It’s as if Washington has woken in a panic after sleeping through its diplomatic alarm clock, and discovering that it has missed history’s bus. The Administration has dispatched delegations of …
Israel’s ‘Diplomatic Tsunami’ Has Arrived, As Ambassadors Are Forced to Leave Turkey and Egypt
As a raucous mob of protestors on Friday stormed past passive Egyptian policemen, breaching the wall around Israel’s Cairo embassy and sacking the unsecured parts of the building, Israel turned for help to the Obama Administration. Looking to the U.S. to shield it from international opprobrium has become a familiar pattern for Israel …
Turkey Crisis: Unconditional U.S. Backing Has Helped Israel to Isolate Itself
Israel’s fallout with long-time ally Turkey is no isolated spat that will be repaired any time soon; it’s a dramatic illustration that no amount of U.S. backing can prevent the growing international isolation resulting from Israel’s handling of the Palestinian issue. Indeed, the unconditional nature of Washington’s backing may, in …
A Mideast Game of Thrones Threatens to Provoke a New Israel-Gaza War
Any reader of the George R.R. Martin Songs of Ice and Fire series (whose opening book, Game of Thrones, was turned into riveting television on HBO) might see a familiar pattern in the events that threaten to plunge the Israel-Gaza border into a new escalation of violence.
In Martin’s fantasy geopolitics, as in the real world, …
Massive Protests Raise the Question: Should Israel be More European or American?
Back in February when Egyptians took to the streets to overthrow longtime Israel’s longtime friend and ally Hosni Mubarak, many Israelis fretted over what ill wind the “Arab Spring” would bring. Would a more democratic Egyptian government veer away from the U.S.-Israel axis and ally with Hamas? Would it abrogate the Camp David treaty …
A ‘Dramatic Turnabout’ by Netanyahu on Peace Terms? Not Quite
With tens of thousands of young protestors on his streets in a social justice movement sparked by a housing crisis, some Israeli commentators have suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s best hope for quelling a domestic “rebellion” lies in changing the subject to the question of peace with the Palestinians. But …
Reluctant Revolutionary Abbas Urges Palestinian Street Protests to Back U.N. Statehood Bid
The biggest problem on the desk of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a protest movement — not of Palestinians, but of young Israelis, who have poured onto the streets in their tens of thousands demanding that their government resolve a growing housing crisis. Sure, the Obama Administration has failed in its effort on …
Amid Uproar, Israeli Lawmakers Vote to Punish Boycotters
Israel’s parliament late Monday night made it illegal to call for a boycott against the state or its settlements on the West Bank. The measure, which passed the Knesset 47 to 38, had the support of the right-wing coalition led by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who nonetheless failed to show up for the vote. Reports in the Hebrew …