Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's arrival in Washington shortly after President Barack Obama's victory on health-care reform had both symbolic significance and practical implications for the Likud leader. Obama's win was interpreted as Netanyahu's loss,...
Obama Can Stop Funding Illegal Settlements
Petraeus’ Cry
"Jewish Settlers Live High While GIs Die" is what Gen. David Petraeus is saying if we strip away the niceties. Is Petraeus' formulation anti-Semitic? Perhaps it would be better to talk of "Israeli settlers." But that portrayal is not accurate. The...
On the Road to Canossa
In January 1077, King Henry IV walked to Canossa. He crossed the snow-covered Alps barefoot, wearing a penitent monk's hair shirt, and reached the North-Italian fortress in which the Vicar of God had found refuge. Pope Gregory VII had excommunicated him after a...
The Tail That Wags the Dog
Just prior to leaving to meet with President Barack Obama this week, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet, "As far as we are concerned, building in Jerusalem is like building in Tel Aviv," and there would be no halting or restrictions...
Biden in Israel: Tiff or Tipping Point?
"Condemn" is not a word that rolls trippingly off the tongue of a U.S. politician addressing anything having to do with actions, however objectionable, by Israel. So it was no surprise that close observers of U.S. Middle East policy sat up a lot straighter...
Biden Brouhaha: Just a Matter of Bad Timing?
Some weeks the news is dominated by a single word. This week's word was "timing." It's all a matter of timing. The government of Israel insulted the vice president of the United States, Joe Biden, one of the greatest "friends" of Israel (meaning:...
Raze Illegal Buildings — Unless They Are Jewish
SILWAN, East Jerusalem -- Backed by armed security men, the municipal inspectors race their jeeps through the narrow alleyways and up a hillside crowded with buildings. Some of the homes are well-faced with stone; the naked concrete of others gives off something of a...
‘Lost Tribe’ on Fast Track to Israel
The Israeli government is reported to have quietly approved the fast-track immigration of 7,000 members of a supposedly “lost Jewish” tribe, known as the Bnei Menashe, currently living in a remote area of India. Under the plan, the “lost Jews” would be brought to...
The Liebarak
The business is registered in the name of Binyamin Netanyahu. But the reality is different. Netanyahu has never been more than a slick patent-medicine salesman. That is a type that appears frequently in American Westerns and sells an elixir that is good for...