Israel

Below is an article by Roger Cohen in the New York Times, which favorably references an op-ed by David Harris, the head of the American Jewish Committee. Cohen means to demonstrate that even Harris thinks that Netanyahu “blustered” too much about Iran in his speech before the United Nations General Assembly this week. (Incidentally, he […]

Credit: frontporchaustin.org In just the past ten days, irate Palestinian negotiators briefly suspended peace talks after an Israeli army raid in the Qalandiya refugee camp ended with the deaths of three Palestinians, the pro-peace organization Minds of Peace held a public summit between regular Israelis and Palestinians in the streets of Jerusalem and signed a […]

After many years and a lot of prodding from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the Israelis and the Palestinians will be resuming peace talks. Both sides are moving forward reluctantly, and with little optimism toward a successful outcome. Abbas had initially demanded an official settlement freeze before coming to the table, something that Netanyahu […]

Source: Wikimedia Commons Ever since United States Secretary of State John Kerry revealed to international media on July 19 that he had reached an agreement between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government to resume direct negotiations, there has been a torrent of reactions and commentary on the issue. Some of this has focused on […]

Credit: The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs In the past couple of months, two interesting polls have been published on Israeli and Palestinian public opinion. The first (published in late May), which was commissioned by the Israel Peace Initiative and conducted by the Israeli company New Wave Research, found that 55 percent of Israelis […]

Jews have lived in the land of Israel for thousands of years. They faced several forced expulsions, the most recent lasting nearly 2,000 years. Even throughout that time, Jews lived in the Levant continuously, albeit in much reduced numbers. Two stories appeared this week in the press about archeological discoveries in Israel. In December 2012, […]

Credit: Jewish Telegraphic Agency On Monday, June 24, a new law that would regulate Bedouin settlement in Israel’s Negev region passed its first reading in the Knesset with a slim 43-40 margin. The bill, commonly referred to as the Prawer plan, provides a comprehensive solution to the issue of Bedouin villages in the Negev by […]

In 1967, in the wake of the Six-Day War, the Arab League convened in Khartoum and issued their Three Nos: No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel. Thirty-five years later, in 2002, they met in Beirut and offered their solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict: The Arab Peace Initiative (API). The […]

Amidst all the news reports and speculation about a renewed push for a two-state solution to end the Arab-Israeli conflict, many have been very vocal about why the two-state solution is simply not the right way to end the conflict. These critics lament that the two-state solution is a crying injustice to either the Palestinians, […]

Credit: Jim Young/AP, Pool Much attention has been paid to United States Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent visits to Israel and the Palestinian territories. As Kerry shuttled back and forth between officials on both the Arab and Israeli sides, reporters have scrambled to provide details about the meetings. Yet the only concrete thing that […]

Credit: Ali Yenidunya/enduringamerica.com Although the Arab-Israeli peace process has been and continues to lie in a coma, a few weeks ago a notable attempt was made to jolt it back to life. On April 29th, Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani of Qatar, representing the Arab League, publicly announced an amendment to the Arab […]

This week, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu flew to Russia in an attempt to dissuade Putin from selling Syria the S-300, a long range surface-to-air missile system. While Netanyahu was en route, Moscow leaked that the missiles had already been delivered. During a three hour meeting with Netanyahu, Putin went further, warning him against future Israeli […]