Peace Now & APN: Freeze construction in the “settlement blocs,” too
Belated praise for Top Five Bogus Excuses for Opposing a Settlement Freeze, a detailed refutation of several canards by the estimable Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now and Hagit Ofran, who run’s...
View ArticlePoll: Many Israelis want American Jews to be “critical friends”
Do Israelis think American Jews should support Israel by sticking to the Israeli government’s positions? The answer is “a decisive `No,”’ writes pollster Dahlia Scheindlin in the Jerusalem Report (June...
View ArticleThe perils of American incrementalism
The pro-Israel peace camp, my camp, has been content to settle for incremental American diplomacy. We’ve rallied around the Obama team and its call for freezing settlements, for small but friendly...
View ArticleGeorge Mitchell rejects the “F-word”
Much of the media are dismissing today’s Obama-Netanyahu-Abbas summit as an abject failure. Check out the Guardian, which uses the word “failure” no less than three times in its chronicle of the UN...
View ArticleIs a breakthrough feasible? Alon Ben-Meir says yes
NYU Professor Alon Ben-Meir sees reasons for hope. It seems to me that ALL of the scenarios he envisions would need to occur in order for a breakthrough to occur. That is unlikely. But stranger, more...
View ArticleThe myth that “Israel has no partner” for peace
The claim that “Israel has no partner for peace” is often trotted out by Israeli and American Jews. Sometimes it is backed up by the argument that the Palestinians are in political disarray, and that...
View ArticleWhere are the “moderate” settlers?
The Israeli media are filled with dire warnings of escalating, violent resistance to the construction freeze proclaimed by Netanyahu. A recent, on-line headline in Haaretz announced: “Settlers Ready...
View Article“Can’t anybody here play this game?”
In A Peace to End All Peace, David Fromkin’s history of the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the making of the modern Middle East, we follow British statesmen and military leaders as they make one...
View ArticleObama should not be afraid of AIPAC
Despite recent tension with Israel, President Obama’s approval ratings have remained consistently high among American Jews, according to a new J Street poll. He was viewed favorably by 62% in March...
View ArticleIs there any hope?
We’ve been here before, of course. We’ve been here so many times I’ve lost count. Most of what needs to be said about the upcoming Israeli-Palestinian peace talks was expressed in a poem written nearly...
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