September 5, 2024

Gaza -- Who does it Belong to?

Did you know that prior to Israel’s Declaration of Independence on May 15, 1948, that Gaza was part of the Palestine Mandate and the Jews were entitled to sovereignty over it? UN General Assembly resolution 181 in 1947 divided the ...

June 17, 2024

The US ignores Israel’s right to the land and promotes a Palestinian State instead

I recently critiqued an interview of Columbia University's Prof. Jeffrey Sachs by Judge Andrew Napolitano on U.S. policy on Gaza. The judge started out by referring to "the slaughter that was going on in Gaza.” How can ...

December 28, 2023

Israel Is in a Strong Position, Not a Weak Position

At first glance, Israel appears to have no choice but to buckle under U.S. pressure. After all she needs the resupply of munitions and the protection of the U.S. veto at the United Nations Security Council. The New York Times reports The U.S. want...

December 15, 2023

Biden is Using the Gaza War to Advance the Two-State Solution.

President Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, once said, “Never let a crisis go to waste.”  The Biden administration is following this dictum by nominally supporting Israel’s goal of destroying Hamas in order to ad...

July 1, 2023

Is the King of Jordan abdicating?

The president of the Jordan Coalition for Change, Abedalelah Amaala, tweeted on June 29 (translated from Arabic) Abdullah II, Rania, his son Hussein, his hope, his prime minister and his entire government are outside Jordan in a tourist res...

January 22, 2023

UN Security Council Resolution 242 and the Misrule of Law

Israel is the legal owner of all lands west of the Jordan River, as the San Remo Resolution of 1920, The Palestine Mandate of 1922 and Section 80 of the United Nations Charter prove. After the Six Day War in 1967, the United Nations Security Counc...

January 10, 2023

After the Oslo accords, the 'Jordan Option'

I recently suggested that Israel should terminate the Oslo Accords and deal with the violence that diplomatically and otherwise will ensue. That would bring us to the pre-Oslo days, which, by the way, was a time of good relations between the ...

January 4, 2023

Debunking the Arab narrative on Israel that keeps popping up again and again

  The high mark of the rights of the Jews to Palestine, formerly known as Judea for 1,000 years, was not the 1917 Balfour Declaration, (which was just a declaration), but the San Remo Resolution of 1920. In my article, Jordan is Pales...

December 31, 2022

Israel Should Terminate the Oslo Accords

Dozens of Knesset Members have written a scathing letter to the EU’s top officials accusing them of animus against Jews and Israel in light of leaked program on the West Bank's  Area C. Lazar Berman wrote a detailed article on the l...

October 2, 2022

Russia and Israel: Annexation and International Law

Russia just annexed four provinces previously considered part of Ukraine. Annexing the land of another country acquired by war is illegal according to international law… or so they say. But if the residents of such land decide by referendum...

September 11, 2022

Blaming Israel for the Palestinian Authority’s Internal Problems

Axios reported, U.S. urges Israel to take steps to stabilize Palestinian Authority. It’s an old story; the Arabs cause trouble and Israel is blamed. Two examples of this pattern are; After the intifada in 2001 in which 1038 Israelis we...

August 21, 2022

Jordan as the Homeland for Palestinians

While the Jordan Option has been discussed for 40 years now, it has not gotten any traction in its original form.  It posited that Jordan was Palestine and aspired to co-opt the Hashemites to embrace this concept. But the Hashemite Kingdom wa...

July 26, 2022

Two-State Solution or Jordan Option? Your choice.

President Biden has come and gone with little to show for it.  But he has, however, left some debris in his wake that will set the stage for Israel's coming election. While he reaffirmed his support for the Two-State Solution (TSS), ...

July 14, 2022

Israel can say 'no' to US demands and more often than not, the sky won't fall

Stephen Flatlow, whose daughter Aliza was killed in a Palestinian terror attack in 1995, writes:  There's a need for gestures before Biden arrives He reports that every time a U.S. president visits Israel, the State Departmen...

May 13, 2022

How the Jordan Option will impact Israel

The Jordan Option, as articulated by Mudar Zahran, the secretary general of the Jordan Opposition Coalition, and me, anticipates that King Abdullah will abdicate, willingly or otherwise, and that Mudar Zahran will take over Jordan as its leader. D...

May 2, 2022

Jordan is Palestine

Yes, it is. The Arab propaganda machine, aided and abetted by the UN, EU, US, and most of the global media would have you believe otherwise. They demand that the Palestinians living in Judea and Samaria and Gaza be granted statehood on all lan...

January 9, 2022

Israel should declare 3 No’s

In June 1967, Israel defeated five Arab armies in what became known as the Six-Day War.  That war actually began when the Arabs invaded Israel immediately after her Declaration of Independence in 1948. The Arabs had hoped to destroy Israel and ...

July 8, 2020

Will President Trump bring King Abdullah to Heel?

Last Spring, seven GOP legislators threatened Jordan with economic sanctions and the withholding of aid money if it didn’t extradite the infamous terrorist, Al-Tamimi.  Al-Tamimi was involved in the terrorist bombing of the Sbarro Pizze...

February 14, 2020

The Two-step Solution to The Palestinian Problem

Last week, the Trump team tabled  “Peace to Prosperity” otherwise known as The Deal of the Century, in which they set out their vision for achieving peace. It includes the creation of a Palestinian “state.”  The Pale...

August 14, 2019

How the 'Jordan Option' will affect Israel

The "Jordan Option," as articulated by Mudar Zahran, the secretary general of the Jordan Opposition Coalition, and me, anticipates that King Abdullah will abdicate, willingly or otherwise, and that Mudar Zahran will take over Jordan as its ...

June 10, 2019

Rescuing Trump’s Middle East ‘Deal of the Century’

Almost from day one of his presidency, Pres Trump appointed Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt to produce a plan for the Middle East which would end the conflict once and for all. This was later dubbed the Deal of the Century. What was encouraging ab...

April 28, 2019

Trump’s 'Deal of the Century' and Jordan as the Palestinian State

Jared Kushner, President Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, recently told 100 foreign diplomats in the Blair House, that the Plan sometimes referred to as the Deal of the Century will be rolled out after the new Israeli government is sw...

February 24, 2019

Trump's War against UNRWA Will Benefit the Palestinian 'Refugees'

In August 2017, President Trump declared war on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) by rejecting its estimate of over 5 million Palestinian refugees, suggesting that the number was more like 500,000. In effect he was saying that a new ...

October 28, 2018

The Jordan Option: The Only Game in Town

President Trump walked back his remark that he supports a two-state solution.  He now supports whatever the parties want.  That isn't an improvement.  For 30 years, the parties have not been able to reach an agreemen...

September 12, 2018

Will Trump's Deal of the Century Solve the Middle East's Problems?

In a recent interview, Jason Greenblatt, a special representative of the president, said, "Our plan begins with reality.  It recognizes the history of the conflict, of course, but [other plans] were always relying on tir...

April 15, 2018

What is needed is a new Sykes-Picot Agreement

During World War I, (May 1916), Britain and France entered the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which was a secret convention, with the assent of imperial Russia, for the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. They agreed that 1) Russia would acquire Armen...

March 25, 2018

Israel, film, and public diplomacy

Martin Sherman, the foremost right-wing thinker in Israel, wrote in a 2012 article “Comprehending the Incomprehensible”: “One of the gravest strategic threats facing Israel is its accelerating international delegitimization. This...

December 17, 2017

The Jordan Option

Geert Wilders, the leader of the Freedom Party in the Netherlands, just tweeted “Jordan=Palestine. So, the capital of Palestine is not Jerusalem but Amman.” It can’t get any simpler than that. The primary stumbling block to Is...

December 10, 2017

Ted Belman explains the 'Jordan Option'

...

October 13, 2017

Ted Belman explains The Ultimate Alternate Solution

Ted Belman, editor and publisher of Israpundit, is speaking at ILTV studio about the upcoming conference in Jerusalem that will focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. ...

July 13, 2017

King Abdullah of Jordan Needs to Abdicate

I met Mudar Zahran, currently the Secretary General of the Jordan Opposition Coalition (JOC), some six years ago and have kept closely in touch with him over the years.  I watched the JOC being formed and take shape, just as I watched their plan...

May 28, 2017

Trump in Search of Middle East Peace, Not a Peace Agreement

As he flew off to Rome, the New York Times published a major report on President Trump’s Middle East trip that it titled “Trump Leaves Middle East With Hope for Peace, but No Plan for It.” The article didn’t reflect the title,...

May 18, 2017

Trump’s plan to defeat radical Islam

In Feb 2016, Lt. General Mike Flynn became an advisor to candidate Donald Trump. Trump was interested in his views of how to defeat radical Islam. In the summer of that year, Flynn published his book The Field of Fight: How We Can Win The Global War ...

April 16, 2017

The Deal of the Century

There is no end in sight for the Syrian War because both sides have a lot of fight left in them. This is due in part to the fact that losing is not an option for either and both sides are being financed by oil money. What started as a civil war in...

March 12, 2017

The 100-year betrayal of Israel by the West

One hundred years ago the British government published the Balfour Declaration which stipulated: “His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their bes...

February 20, 2017

One State or Two States?

President Trump told Prime Minister Netanyahu in their joint press conference on Wednesday, he “likes the one both parties like.” He also said on another occasion that he wasn’t going to pressure Israel to make a deal. The import...

February 2, 2017

The Ultimate Alternate Israel-Palestine Solution

The GOP unanimously approved a pro-Israel platform at their convention in July 2016 which stipulated: “The U.S. seeks to assist in the establishment of comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East, to be negotiated among those living i...

January 1, 2017

Since when did the Palestinians become entitled to a state?

As Newt Gingrich said in 2011, “The Palestinians are an invented people.” In 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization was formed to liberate Palestine through armed struggle. But it took years for the notion of a Palestinian people ...

December 26, 2016

Trump appoints the right team to regain the Middle East

The Trump administration is dedicated to undoing the harm done by the Obama administration in the Iran Deal. To succeed, it needs the right team. Relatively few people have heard of the Center for Security Policy. That’s about to change beca...

December 18, 2016

Trump’s New World Order

The first hint of Donald Trump’s vision of a New World Order came when he said in a speech during the primaries that NATO was “obsolete.” The UK Independent wrote about that speech, As currently constituted, he says, NATO is il...

October 15, 2016

Why I am still voting for Trump

Last week, a number of women came forward alleging that Donald Trump made unwanted sexual assaults on them, including “groping.” To their credit, a number of Christian leaders stood by him by giving him the benefit of the doubt. I w...

September 25, 2016

Trump Sees the Jihadist Trojan Horse

Ever wonder why there are so many Muslims and Muslim countries in the world? Over the millennia many countries were conquered, but didn't remain Persian or Greek or Roman as the case may be. You see, the countries conquered in the name of Islam, ...

July 10, 2016

The New Middle East

The Obama Era opened with his Cairo speech, in which he embraced Muslims in general and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular. He planned to depose the secular dictators and replace them with the Muslim Brotherhood. Thus Gadhafi, Mubarak and Assad wer...

June 14, 2016

Orlando jihad massacre: Hillary Clinton makes a very important point that Trump missed

Donald Trump’s great speech following the Orlando jihad attack failed to single out the ideology that must also be defeated.  Much to my surprise and appreciation, Hillary did just that, in yesterday’s speech, in spades. It...

June 5, 2016

A New Middle East Peace Paradigm Being Born?

Peace plans are busting out all over.  First we hear that prominent “pro-Israel” American Jews are putting forward a plan for the next administration to consider.  Then we hear that 214 retired IDF Generals have put forward thei...

March 6, 2016

Israel’s so-called ‘right-wing’ government

The Netanyahu-led Government of Israel is often labeled "right wing." But is it, really? The right in Israel rejects the creation of a Palestinian state, whether or not demilitarized, and supports settlement construction in Area C of Jud...

January 10, 2016

The State of the Two-State Solution

The Two State solution is dead but rather than bury it, the US and the EU want to embalm it, in the off chance that it can be brought to life in a decade or two. In the meantime they are doing their utmost to prevent Israel from building Jewish homes...

December 27, 2015

America has jumped from the Middle East frying pan into the fire

In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration struggled to define the enemy and to decide how to defeat it. Even though 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis and the Saudis were involved in the planning and financing of the attack, President Bush allowed...

November 15, 2015

What Netanyahu Wants

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a man both ends of the Israeli political spectrum love to hate, but for different reasons. The Israeli left hates him because they can’t unseat him and because he is, in their minds an obstacle to peace. The...

November 2, 2015

Natural selection among Jews

Among Israelis, the secular socialists, otherwise known as Mapainiks and Communists, are descended from people who made Aliyah (returning to Israel from the diaspora) in 1900, give or take 20 years, with the intent of becoming “new Jews” ...

October 4, 2015

Abbas's UN bombshell proved to be a dud

Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas’s bombshell speech to the United Nations General Assembly this week proved to be a dud. He repeated the same old lies about Israel’s alleged default on the Oslo Accords and merely threatened to aba...

August 8, 2015

The Iran Deal is bad for America, very bad

(This post made use of the work of MILG-OPS.) In discussing the Iran Deal, most people are focused on the trees rather than the forest By focusing on the details, we have discussed the efficacy of inspections, the breakout time required, t...

July 27, 2015

An Agreement Is Only as Good as the Will to Enforce It

The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles just published an article by Rabbi John Rosove titled "Many Israeli Experts Believe the Iran Deal is a Supportable Deal Despite its Flaws."  He is self-described as a progressive Reform Zionist and nat...

July 16, 2015

The timeline of Obama's Iran capitulation

Some suggest that President Obama was naïve, or misguided, or a poor negotiator to end up with such a bad deal.  Normally this would be true – if one believed that Obama really wanted what he said he wanted.  But I don't beli...

July 10, 2015

Democrats are distancing themselves from Israel

The Jewish National Fund  (JNF)commissioned a poll on elite attitudes toward Israel conducted by Frank Luntz. World Net Daily reported: Political consultant Frank Luntz says a new survey of elite Democrats shows three...

May 3, 2015

The Curious Supporters of the Corker Bill

Under no circumstances should Iran be allowed to get the bomb, given that they are the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, have killed many American’s and constantly chant death to America. For those who care, it is also dedicated to de...

April 2, 2015

How to end the Middle East conflict in four easy steps

Dennis Ross and David Makovsky in Israel’s Drive Toward Self-Destruction, argue that Prime Minister Netanyahu must offer up hope to Palestinians or face a revived de-legitimization movement. They’re certainly right to point out that the d...

March 29, 2015

Let's Get Real: Re-evaluating the Two-State Approach

President Obama is insisting on the creation of Palestine with a border separating it from Israel based on the ’67 lines plus swaps. In doing so he is ignoring United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which grants Israel the right to sec...

March 18, 2015

Netanyahu was the author of his near defeat and his great victory

Shortly after President Obama’s inauguration in 2009, Likud, with Netanyahu at its head, was tasked with forming the Israeli government.  Netanyahu was concerned to balance the pressure he was under by the right wing of Likud, so he invite...

February 24, 2015

The West has dealt itself a weak hand in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The Western countries have dealt themselves a weak hand, yet they are going all in. Israel need only call their bluff.  The pot they hope to win is an agreement, misnamed as a peace agreement, which will establish a Palestinian state on the ...

January 31, 2015

How and why Israel is pilloried by the world

In August of last year, former Associated Press reporter Matti Friedman published an essay in Tablet titled “An Insider’s Guide to the Most Important Story on Earth”. In it he highlighted how, and why, news organizations g...

December 14, 2014

From Bad to Worse on Palestine

The world is totally committed to the two-state solution for the Palestinians. Country after country in Europe is passing non-binding resolutions to recognize Palestine in principle. The parameters of the deal which have been set in stone, notwi...

December 14, 2014

An Epic Battle on the Two-State Solution

An epic battle took place a week ago in Washington at the Saban Forum on the Middle East, Israel-US relations and the Arab-Israeli conflict.  You probably never learned about it because American media virtually ignored it. The battle occurred...

November 30, 2014

The Temple Mount Controversy

Jerusalem is sacred to Jews and has been for over 3000 years. According to the Tanach, (Hebrew Bible) King Solomon built the First Temple (aka Solomon’s Temple) there around 960 BCE according to the building specifications in the Torah. He inte...

October 26, 2014

The 'Peace Process' Maintains the Conflict

John Kerry is insane.  He keeps restarting the peace process, expecting a different result. For any negotiation to end in an agreement, the parties to the negotiations must want an agreement at a price they are willing to pay, or they must ne...

October 5, 2014

Obama and Netanyahu: Intractable differences

Two speeches at the United Nations General Assembly illustrate the vast gulf separating the leaders of the United States and Israel.  Not only is there daylight between Pres. Obama and PM Netanyahu, there are intractable differences. PM Netan...

August 3, 2014

Free Gaza from Hamas

Will Hamas agree to be demilitarized? The short answer is "No."  From the point of view of Hamas, effective demilitarization will be the death of them. For them, chances of staying alive are better if they keep fighting.  They ...

July 25, 2014

Netanyahu's Game Plan

On the morning of July 23rd, I interviewed in depth a leading expert on the politics in the Middle East who is also a welcome visitor to the prime minister's office. What he had to say fascinated me. Gaza Israel wants to dest...

July 11, 2014

Bomb Gaza, Win the War

The Assault on Israel’s Right to Self-Defense was described by Abraham Bell in his article on International Law and Gaza. Dr. Avi Bell is a member of the Faculty of Law at Bar-Ilan University, Visiting Professor at Fordham University ...

May 12, 2014

Israel Must Continue to Build East of the Green Line

In his first term in office, President Obama targeted Israel’s settlement activity with a vengeance, like no one before him ever had.  He continued the American policy of calling them “illegitimate,” whatever that means, rather...

April 7, 2014

What Israel could learn from Egypt's General Sisi

Israel could learn a thing or two from General al Sisi of Egypt. He recognizes that the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas are a threat to his regime because they resort to violent protests and terror. Accordingly he banned the Muslim brotherhood and arres...

February 28, 2014

A Unilateral West Bank Solution?

In a recent interview, Michael Oren, the former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., said that Israel should consider unilaterally withdrawing from parts of the West Bank and declaring its own borders if the current peace negotiations with the Palestinian...

February 9, 2014

The U.S. Should Cut a Deal with Israel and End the Conflict

For the last 30 years, the US has been pushing Israel to withdraw from all territories occupied as a result of the six day War in 1967. In doing so, they are running contrary to the UNSC Res 242 that permitted Israel to remain in occupation until she...

January 18, 2014

The Two-State Solution is Dead

The Two-State Solution is dead. All that remains is for the U.S. to declare it so. Palestinians leaders and Israeli leaders have made it clear. In a speech on Jan 10/14, Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas made it crystal clear that he ...

January 5, 2014

Kerry's 'Fair and balanced' is unfair to Israel

Secretary of State Kerry left Israel this morning for Jordan and Saudi Arabia.  His parting words were: "I can guarantee all parties that President (Barack) Obama and I are committed to putting forward ideas that are fair and balanced.. .." ...

January 4, 2014

Will Netanyahu accept the Kerry Framework?

Secretary of State Kerry is back in Israel pushing for the acceptance of his Framework. It is reported that this framework requires Israel's agreement that borders will be based on 1967 lines plus swaps, among other things. The Palestinian Authority ...

December 15, 2013

A Land for Peace Deal Is a Mistake of Historic Proportions

Herb Keinon, writing in the JPOST, makes the point that in present negotiations between Israel and the PA, Sec. Kerry is prepared to concede on most of Netanyahu's security demands but expects Netanyahu to concede the land demands of the PA supp...

December 1, 2013

Israel is incapable of saying 'no'

America has forced Israel to: 1. Accept the Roadmap which contained the Saudi Plan and prohibited settlement construction. Israel's 14 reservations meant nothing and UN Security Council Res 242 was forgotten about. 2. Sign the Rafah Agreement tha...

December 1, 2013

Surviving the New Middle East

The US is embracing fundamentalist Islam. First, she embraced Sunni Muslim Brotherhood and now its the turn of Shiite Iran. The US certainly doesn't want to take the side of the Sunnis against the Shiites. And she is tired of taking the side of Israe...

October 13, 2013

Can Israel be both Jewish and democratic?

PM Netanyahu has made it clearer than ever that the PA must recognize "Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish People."  But Israel must decide how Jewish it wants to be. Most Israeli Jews embrace the mantra that Israel should be bo...

August 11, 2013

Obama Moving to an Imposed Solution on Israel?

Barack Obama, when running for president the first time, surrounded himself with a host of vehemently anti-Israel advisors, including Lee Hamilton, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samantha Power, Susan Rice, and Gen. James Jones, many of whom advocated imposing...

August 9, 2013

It's Kerry that's not acting in good faith

The US was quick to react to yesterday's announcement that the Civil Administration had approved the construction of 878 units outside the settlement blocs east of the green line. State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said when talking to reporters:...

June 17, 2013

Israel's Right to Negotiate

Israel National News had a breaking news item this week under the title "Kerry Expects Israeli Concessions to PA down the Line." We are told, The US has requested the EU give them sole responsibility for brokering peace with the PA, and Secretary J...

May 31, 2013

Why Israel will attack this summer

Sooner or later Israel will have to bomb Iran. Better sooner, because Iran is quickly approaching Israel's red line. Since intelligence is never precise, why wait 'til the last minute? Summer and early fall is the best time to attack because that's ...

May 12, 2013

Netanyahu's negotiating tactics need revision

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' precondition for starting negotiations is that Israel accept the pre-1967 armistice lines as the basis for those negotiations.  Of course, east Jerusalem, including the entire Old City, is on the A...

May 5, 2013

The Arab Peace Initiative Is a Sow's Ear

Secretary Kerry hopes to re-energize the peace process by making a silk purse out of the Arab Peace Initiative. He met with representatives of the Arab League this week and got them to allow for swaps in their demand for Israel to withdraw to the '...

March 15, 2013

Time to Abandon the Two-state Solution

The peace process reached an impasse over four years if not a decade ago. The PA has refused to negotiate without receiving major concessions in advance. President Obama was not able to kick-start negotiations even though he came out in favor of a se...

November 25, 2012

Qatar Casts a Giant Shadow

Qatar is a small country with few people (1.87 million of which only 300,000 are citizens), yet it casts a giant shadow over N. Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. It has the highest GDP per capita in the world and the highest energy reserves per ca...

November 21, 2012

Self-defense and its limitations

Nearly everyone acknowledges Israel's right of self-defense. How could they do otherwise? It is in the UN Charter. Article 51 provides: "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an ar...

October 27, 2012

The Response to 9/11

The liberal left was very critical of President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and the so-called "neocons" for getting the U.S. into war with Iraq, an antipathy occasionally extending to the war in Afghanistan.  Whenever such criticism was voiced to me,...

September 9, 2012

The Eradication of Israel

‎According to Franklin Lamb, Foreign Policy Journal, the pro-Israel Community is all hot a bothered by an alleged new study: "It's a paper entitled "Preparing For A Post Israel Middle East", an 82-page analysis that concludes that the American nat...

August 1, 2012

Romney's Jerusalem Doctrine

By acknowledging he was in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, Romney laid out a Middle East policy path for his presidency, should he be elected. In the last week, spokespersons for the State Department and for Obama were pressed on the issue of Jerus...

July 29, 2012

Is The Two-State Solution Doable?

Is the two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians doable?  Dani Dayan, Chairman of the Yesha Council ‎of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria, thinks not. Seth Mandel thinks ‎otherwise.‎ The NYT published a strongly worded Op-Ed...

July 11, 2012

The West Bank May Never Be the Same

A legal tsunami gathering strength in  Israel will soon  engulf the region.  An official report is soon to be released that says the Fourth Geneva Convention (FGC) does not apply to Judea and Samaria aka West Bank and that Israel has e...

June 10, 2012

Can Israel Defy the World?

When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the political right accuses the left of pursuing a fantasy -- namely, that peace is possible.  At the same time, however, the right suffers from what many consider its own fantasy: that Israel c...

May 27, 2012

If Only the Left Would Abandon Israel

Shaul Magid, professor of Jewish Studies at Indiana U, asks, "What if the Left Abandonned Israel?" and suggests that Israel would go to hell in a handbasket.  "Be careful what you wish for," he warns. For him, the left are "basically liberal-min...

March 31, 2012

The U.N. Acts in Violation of International Law while Claiming to Uphold It

The United Nations' Human Rights Council has resorted to official enquiries as a precursor to damning Israel -- the most recent of which was the Goldstone Enquiry on Cast Lead, Israel's attack on Hamas in Gaza.  And we know how that turned out. ...

March 11, 2012

Sarah Palin and Zev Jabotinsky, The Odd Soulmates

Stop laughing and bear with me a moment. For those not familiar, Zev Jabotinsky  (1880 to 1940) was recognized as the greatest orator of his era who led the fight for Jewish national liberation. We often read that either you love Palin or you ha...

March 4, 2012

Israel fiddles while Syria burns

"No peace, no war" has been the arrangement with Syria since 1973. The outcome of the present civil war in Syria has the potential to change that arrangement for better or worse. Israel has stayed out of the fray at least publicly. No covert actions ...

February 26, 2012

Why is Obama in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood?

Dr. Essam Abdallah, an Egyptian liberal intellectual, in an article published last October in the leading liberal pan-Arab journal Elaph, refers to certain reports coming out of Washington: These reports reveal the depth of the below-the-surfac...

February 12, 2012

The Poor Palestinians

If you thought the title was referring to the Palestinians living in Gaza, or even Judea and Samaria, you were wrong.  From my vantage point, these Palestinians have it pretty good, whether in relation to Palestinians living elsewhere, even in J...

February 12, 2012

R2P is a doubled edged sword

In Saving Syria, Irwin Cotler laments the ineffectiveness of the UN in coming to grips with Assad's slaughter of his people. Cotler, Being a humanitarian and a leading human rights lawyer, values the notion of Responsibility to Protect, known as R2P....

January 30, 2012

Hamas denounces Jordan as Palestinian homeland

The head of Hamas has found it necessary to speak out against the rising movement to allow the Palestinian majority to replace the Hashemite monarchy with a democratic regime that would become the Palestinian homeland. Khaled Meshaal, the head of Ham...

January 29, 2012

Palestine, Back to the Future

There was a time when the lands now known as Israel (including Judea and Samaria and Gaza) and Jordan were called "Palestine."  In fact, the Balfour Declaration of 1917 declared that "His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment i...

January 19, 2012

Want Peace? Democratize Jordan

I have not been a fan of the "Jordan is Palestine" option, however it was defined, because it required the consent of King Abdullah.  I preferred a unilateral, made in Israel solution. But that was then and this is now. Mudar Zahran, a Jordanian...

January 1, 2012

If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem...

Daniel Seidemann, the author of "The Myth of Undivided Jerusalem," published by The Atlantic, is the founder of Terrestrial Jerusalem, an "Israeli" non-governmental organization that works to prevent developments, even if good for the city's resident...

December 24, 2011

The Jews, the Communists, and the Democratic Party

I just began reading Blacklisted by History; The Untold Story of Joe McCarthy.  It seeks to establish that many of the people that McCarthy targeted unsuccessfully were later proven to be communists.  It brought back many memories for me. I...

November 15, 2011

The End of the 'Peace Process' Era

The Palestinian/Israeli conflict has entered a new era.  Since the UNSC passed Res 242, it had been focused on the "peace process," which included the Madrid Conference, the Oslo Accords, the Roadmap, Annapolis, and, finally, Obama's heavy-hande...

November 4, 2011

Is the U.S. a friend or enemy of Israel?

This question always elicits different opinions.  Obviously, in part, the answers depend on one's definition of "friend" or of "enemy." The most famous articulation of U.S. policy vis-à-vis Israel was made by Henry Kissinger in 1975 when talking...

September 25, 2011

Propaganda is War by Other Means

There are those who embrace conspiracy theories of a government plan behind major attacks like 9-11 and Pearl Harbor, to lead us into war. As outlandish such theories appear to some, many embrace them because they believe that the government always m...

August 28, 2011

The Real Obstacles to Peace

Once again, the US, the UN and the EU have criticized Israel for announcing new settlement construction in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) calling such construction "obstacles to peace".  At the same time they ignore the real obstacles to pea...

August 21, 2011

Israel's Great Divide

  Islam divides the world into the Dar al Harb (the land of war) and Dar al Salaam (the land of peace).  n Israel the great divide is between the "Peace" Camp (PC) and "War" Camp (WC).  Of course there are many people who are not part ...

July 10, 2011

Israel is Sitting Pretty

Israel is sitting pretty.  Sure she has problems, but her future is bright.  Even her present is not too shabby. Of immediate concern is the attempt by the PA to gain recognition and membership in the UN in the upcoming session in September...

April 10, 2011

The Repercussions of a UN Recognition of Palestine

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has been hard at work of late lining up votes in the UNGA for the recognition of the state of Palestine with pre '67 borders with the eastern part of Jerusalem as its capital.  They intend to use the "Uniting ...

February 20, 2011

The settlements are neither, 'illegitimate' nor 'illegal'

Secretary Clinton delivered a speech at the Brookings Institution in December 2010 in which she said, "We do not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity."  In her recent interview with Christine Amanpour, she said, ...

December 27, 2010

What to expect in the peace process

Israel has made a switch from concessions-based diplomacy (it's about time) to security-based diplomacy. So I was informed when I attended a panel discussion in Jerusalem which was organized by Hadar-Israel.The panelists included Maj-Gen (ret) Amidro...

December 19, 2010

America's Israel Policy Stuck on 1949

American policy regarding the Arab/Israel conflict has not changed since the Armistice Agreement in 1949.  U.S. policy has sought to achieve a holy balance in the conflict. This policy had its origins in the tripartite U.S.-British-French declar...

November 28, 2010

The Unholy U.S./Muslim Alliance

Avi Lipkin, a Jew, in his book, Israel's Bible Bloc, explained how he came to embrace Christians as Israel's best friend. In 1991, as the IDF spokesperson, Lipkin was invited to speak to the Dallas Council on World Affairs. They were part of the famo...

November 26, 2010

The History Channel Rewrites Middle East History

The History Channel posts a reminder, Nov 29,1947. U.N. votes for partition of Palestine but their article is pure Arab propaganda and gives the lie to history."Despite strong Arab opposition, the United Nations votes for the partition of Palest...

November 7, 2010

Would President Palin End the Futile 'Peace Process'?

Come hell or high water, President Obama is determined to create a Palestinian state during his watch. He has been doing his utmost to attack and pressure Prime Minister Netanyahu to support the two-state solution, which Netanyahu did in part in his ...

October 16, 2010

Netanyahu's Declaration of Independence

.No doubt PM Netanyahu would have rather spent the last 18 months in hell than to have spent it participating in the peace process under brutal pressure by the Obama administration. Come to think of it, it must have been hell.Keep in mind that Netany...

September 26, 2010

The Arabs Are Still Stuck on Rejection

Last week, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad angrily left a U.N. Ad-Hoc Liaison Committee meeting and canceled a scheduled subsequent press conference with Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon in New York. This was after Ayalon refused to appr...

September 22, 2010

US support of PA undermines compromise

Foreign Policy reports on a talk Pres Clinton gave on peace prospects . Here's a few things he got wrong;-The "most pro-peace Jewish Israelis" are the Sabras, who he described as native-born Israelis whose roots there date back millennia, b...

September 6, 2010

The Significance of the Israeli Settlements Freeze

Why would anyone want to enter into negotiations for a settlement of anything in which he had to beg the other party to participate? Or even more so in which he had to give real concessions to the other party just to sit at the same table?What can po...

August 31, 2010

Another reason to reject the Two-State solution.

In any imagined deal, except for Israel possibly accepting a token amount of "refugees", everyone assumes they will resettle in the new Palestine. This may seem doable but in reality it would prevent a peaceful two-state solution from emerg...

August 29, 2010

The Truth About 'The Occupation' and 'The Settlements'

The pro-Palestinian propaganda machine has succeeded in stigmatizing the Israeli occupation and the settlements. Time and again we hear about the "brutal occupation" and the "illegal settlements." We rarely hear the truth in oppos...

August 21, 2010

Iran, the spoiler

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 ...

August 15, 2010

The Arab mentality

I hooked up with Michael Totten today and we headed to the Old City to talk to some Arabs. Michael, as you may well know, is a well know ME journalist who writes for the likes of Commentary, Pajamas Media, City Journal and others.As it turned out we ...

July 25, 2010

The two-state solution is dead. Long live what?

Before delving into the question of what follows the death of the two-state solution we must get a certificate of death.  This may prove to be more difficult than getting a certificate of live birth for President Obama.Almost everyone prefers to...

July 18, 2010

Parameters for a Final Peace Agreement between Israel and the PA

It is safe to say that the purpose of the Netanyahu-Obama meeting on July 6 was to demonstrate that the two are friends and that the U.S.-Israel bond is unbreakable. Obama needed to send such a message going into the November elections, and Netanyahu...

June 27, 2010

Israel's PR Is Not the Problem

When Israel loses yet another PR battle, many of her friends complain that she is partly to blame because she is woefully inept when it comes to PR. I am not one of them.Glenn Jasper, Ruder Finn Israel, recently suggested that Israel should have all ...

June 11, 2010

The Shifting Sands of the Middle East

Shimon Peres, President of Israel, has, for the last thirty years, called for a New Middle East. In fact, he wrote a book by that title in 1993, the year of the Oslo Accords. He believed that economic cooperation in the ME was the starting point for ...

June 7, 2010

Obama and Hamas

President Obama is not letting the flotilla crisis go to waste. He is using it as a springboard to change U.S. policy regarding Hamas. In his words, uttered in a recent interview by Larry King, "Time to move forward and break out of the impasse,...

May 3, 2010

Sarah Palin Is on a Roll

Since resigning from her governorship last July, Sarah Palin hasn't made a false move. This is surprising for someone who is more passionate than cautious and one reputed to be...well, you know, a dummy.Her book tour went exceedingly well. She has re...

April 13, 2010

Obama's Pie in the Sky

There is no solution to the final status issues of Jerusalem, borders, and refugees that both sides will agree to. Nevertheless, President Obama is committed to achieving an agreement.Recently, two top administration officials advised David Ignatius...

April 4, 2010

Saudi Arabia and the Peace Process

The trouble with the peace process is that it is rigged against Israel. It is a vehicle forced on her by the international community to enable it to impose its will on her.It all started with UNSC Res 242, which established the principle of land for ...

March 10, 2010

Obama Aims to Impose a Solution on Israel

President Obama intends to impose a solution on Israel.During the lead up to his election victory, he surrounded himself with a host of vehemently anti-Israel advisors including Lee Hamilton, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samantha Power, Susan Rice and Gen Jo...

December 7, 2009

Obama Aims to Impose a Solution on Israel

President Obama has surrounded himself with a host of vehemently anti-Israel advisers including Lee Hamilton, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samantha Power, Susan Rice, and Gen. Jones, many of whom advocate imposing a solution on Israel.So it was no surprise t...

December 2, 2009

The Palin Brand

Could British politics teach us something about Sarah Palin's political future? David Frum -- not my favorite conservative -- recently published What the Tories Have to Teach Us in Commentary Magazine. In it, he notes that the Conservative Party in t...

November 24, 2009

Annex Judea and Samaria

When PM Salam Fayyad released his plan to "establish Palestine as an independent, democratic, progressive, and modern Arab state, with full sovereignty over its territory in the West Bank and Gaza, on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its...

May 3, 2009

Middle East Justice For All

The Arabs cry out for justice.  The Jews cry out for security.The Arabs demand their rights, even non-existent rights like the "right of return".  The Jews have forgotten they have any rights.As a result, the world considers the P...

February 6, 2007

Democrats and World War IV

Hillary Clinton recently said:"If I had been president in 2002, I would not have started this war." "If we in Congress don't end this war before January 2009, as president, I will." Both of these certitudes ignore the context and ...

August 28, 2006

President Bush Should Change His Strategy in Iraq

President Bush was asked about Iraq at his press conference last week and answered, 'The strategy is to help the Iraqi people achieve their objectives and their dreams, which is a democratic society. That's the strategy. The tactics — now, eit...

March 15, 2006

The Real Tragedy in Israel

A narrative has emerged that Israel's settlements in the West Bank are a "tragedy." The fatal flaw lies in the original sin of supposedly lawless occupation of land, in contravention of the Geneva Convention. It makes a strong emotional pitch to a se...