The Israel Lobby is hell bent on sabotaging President Barack Obama’s tentative plan to appoint former Sen. Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. And – with Obama now dithering about this selection – the Lobby and its neocon allies sense another impending victory....
Naftali Bennett: The David Duke of Israel
Naftali Bennett is the rising star of Israeli politics, and his party, Jewish Home, is projected to be the third largest in Israel: he is also an upfront racist who has made the presence of Africans in the country a major campaign issue, calling for their immediate...
Are the US and Israel Heading for a Showdown?
Here’s the question no one is asking as 2012 ends, especially given the effusive public support the Obama administration offered Israel in its recent conflict with Hamas in Gaza: Will 2013 be a year of confrontation between Washington and Jerusalem? ...
Why This Fight
There has been a lot of pushback against the neoconservatives' preemptive smear campaign against Chuck Hagel, much of it illuminating, but none as clear-headed as that by Paul Pillar in The National Interest, who starts out his piece this way: "The effort to...
A Third Intifada on the Horizon?
HEBRON, Occupied West Bank — A new Palestinian group called the National Union Battalions (NUB), comprising Palestinians from across the political spectrum, has called for a third Palestinian uprising, or Intifada. Simultaneously, Israeli intelligence is warning that...
The Paranoid Style of the Israel Lobby
The campaign to demonize Chuck Hagel in the run up to his possible confirmation hearings as Secretary of Defense is going full swing. As I told my readers the other day, “get ready for a mudslide of smears and innuendo as the [Israel] Lobby homes in for the kill.”...
Chuck Hagel: An Unconventional Realist
The knives are out: "Send us Hagel and we will make sure every American knows he is an anti-Semite." That’s what a top Republican Senate aide told the Weekly Standard in response to the news that President Obama is likely to nominate former Republican Senator Chuck...
The Sea and the River
“Palestine, from the Jordan to the Sea, belongs to us!” declared Khaled Meshal last week at the huge victory rally in Gaza. “Eretz Israel, from the sea to the Jordan, belongs to us!” declare right-wing Israelis on every occasion. The two statements seem to be the...
The Civilian Toll of Israel’s Bombs
GAZA CITY — When Israeli bombs struck the Abu Khadra complex for civil administration, they also gutted the sixth floor of the Abu Shabaan complex, located 10 meters across the road. According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), eight Israeli...
Cold Revenge
“Revenge is a dish that is best eaten cold” is a saying attributed to Stalin. I don’t know if he really said that. All the possible witnesses were executed long ago. Anyhow, a taste for delayed revenge is not an Israeli trait. Israelis are more impulsive. More...