The UN Human Rights Council last week endorsed the Goldstone report over Gaza. Israel may soon have its own Pinochet moment. Leading Jewish American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg is worried, however, and his reasoning is revealing: Tactics deployed to hurt Israel inevitably cause collateral damage. It’s a good thing that the United States, and a handful…
Showing all posts tagged United States
Where US policy should be heading in the Middle East
Jewish lobby J Street, severely upsetting the Zionist establishment, is having its first annual conference at the end of October in Washington DC. I’ll be attending and working on a number of projects there. According to the Forward, “it is still struggling to prove its pro-Israel credentials” (whatever that means.) Too critical of Israeli government…
How many Arabs need to be killed before action is taken?
The fall-out from the UN’s Goldstone report over Gaza is that Israel is once again seen as existing above the law: “That President Obama is receiving the Noble Peace prize after his failure to speak out during the Gaza war, and after his administration’s protection of a state that has committed war crimes, is an…
Just don’t rely on Washington to solve your Zionist/Arab question
The Washington Post discovers that the Middle East peace process is going nowhere. In fact, it’s moving backwards: When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mitchell report to the White House next week on the administration’s goal of restarting the peace talks, they will be describing a situation that has arguably regressed, particularly in…
When two-states die, Israel has a slight problem on its hands
A recent piece in Israeli paper Ma’ariv by Avshalom Vilan, a former Meretz Knesset member, articulates the growing fear of some Israelis that apartheid in the occupied territories is simply unsustainable: Regrettably, however, it is more important to the Israeli leadership to safeguard the coalition than to safeguard the state. Instead of grabbing the bull…
Chomsky could influence “terrorists” badly
America, sometimes you can be hilariously counter-productive and anti-intellectual: Professor Noam Chomsky may be among America’s most enduring anti-war activists. But the leftist intellectual’s anthology of post 9-11 commentary is taboo at Guantanamo’s prison camp library, which offers books and videos on Harry Potter, World Cup soccer and Islam. U.S. military censors recently rejected a…
Israel controls the process from start to finish
The sound and feel of utter failure. Washington’s so-called power is deemed irrelevant once again: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is scheduled to open the Knesset’s winter session on Monday with a diplomatic speech that, despite two meetings in the last three days with US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, is not expected to include an…
Debating the role of the US in a majority Muslim country
A few days ago I spoke at a session here at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival with Fatima Bhutto that discussed the role of Barack Obama in the world. An Indonesian blogger argues that Bhutto and I were too skeptical towards the US President and we shouldn’t expect the US to solve the world’s…
Who is an American Jew and where are you?
The future of American Jewry? Less liberal, more Orthodox and maybe more pro-Israel with the involved Jewish crowd (though growing numbers of young, American Jews are opposed to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land): The ranks of secular and religiously liberal American Jewry will be greatly diminished by the end of this century, leaving behind a…
Middle East peace will only come through work, not pretty speeches
Haaretz: The differences between Israel and the Palestinian Authority appear to remain substantial even after a series of meetings with the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell. Positions may have even hardened, with no breakthrough imminent, despite U.S. President Barack Obama’s winning of the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Peace Prize is…