Every once in a while I run across someone on the internet who insists that Muslims are out to exterminate Jews. Or they insist that someone who has a "demonic view of Israel" is anti-Semitic. This is nonsense. Being against the policies of the Israeli government--even being against Israel as a Jewish State-- is not in itself anti-semitism.
Those who want to build, build, build settlements in the West Bank and jeopardize any chance of Palestinians having a reasonably contiguous viable state--those who are just fine with forcing Palestinians to live under martial law in the West Bank--those who see nothing immoral with throwing Palestinians out of their homes and off their land, are desperate to deny that Palestinians have any claim to the land. I want to address two of their biggest talking points in this post. Before I discuss these issues I want you to watch the following video exchang
Finally, John Kerry blasts Israel for sabotaging the peace talks by its never-ending construction of settlements. It's about time!
Over a year has passed since my proposal to solve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict while simultaneously addressing the Iran nuclear crisis. I still think it is a mistake to treat the two issues separately since we miss opportunities by artificially compartmentalizing our foreign policy.
Bibi Netanyahu has repeatedly demanded that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a "Jewish State" for peace talks to go anywhere. It is not enough for the Palestinians to recognize Israel's right to exist peacefully as a normal state. No, according to Netanyahu the Palestinians have to go beyond that and recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State. Israel hasn't always demanded this. It did not require that either Egypt or Jordan recognize it as a Jewish State bef
Ask almost any supporter of Israel about how the Arab/Israeli conflict started and they are likely to mention Arab attacks against Jews in 1920/21 that left 47 Jews dead and 150 wounded. They may point to Arab rejection of Churchill White paper of 1922. Undoubtedly they will point to the attacks in Hebron in 1929 in which more than 60 Jews were murdered and the rest were driven out of the city. Or they will recall in horror how the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem,
As Joel Braunold points out in his Open Zion article, intervening in Syria is both a security imperative and a risk. I agree with everything he says, but I think he missed the most important reason to intervene in Syria. Israel is watching this very carefully to see if Obama's red line in Syria means anything. If we fail to launch some sort of attack (preferably as part of a multinational force), then Israel will conclude that we have a backbone made of silly putty. Israel will conclude that it can not count on us to keep our w
Read this article in Slate which describes how Israeli actions are pissing off the rest of the world.
I attended a rally today at Cornell University to protest Israel's bombardment and threatened invasion of Gaza. Or rather, I attended two rallies going on at the same time. .
Israeli historian Benny Morris wants to see a war with Iran. He is frothing at the mouth and screaming "Attack! Attack!, Attack! Kill! Kill! Kill!" Well, maybe I'm exaggerating a little. OK, so maybe it's more than a little. But he certainly seems to support Israel taking military action against Iran within the next few weeks if Obama doesn't give Israel an iron-clad guarantee that the U.S. will attack Iran by March 1, 2013 if Iran does not abandon its nuclear weapons program. Read his column NOW before proceeding with my rebuttal.
