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Obama and Israeli Politics
There is a lot of buzz about this Peter Beinart piece on President Obama’s mismanaging his strategy toward the Israel and the peace process. Leaving aside the larger question about what it says about...
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Friday Gallimaufry
Since there isn’t any one particular subject that I feel compelled to write about today, I thought I’d pay tribute to my all-time favorite website and share some brief thoughts on a bunch of...
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Obama and Erdoğan
David Ignatius’s column in yesterday’s Washington Post argued that the heart of the U.S.-Turkey relationship is the one between President Obama and Prime Minister Erdoğan. Ignatius detailed the way in...
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Obama, Erdoğan, And The Infamous Baseball Bat
For those who haven’t been paying attention, President Obama and Prime Minister Erdoğan spoke on the phone on Monday about the situation in Syria, but apparently far more newsworthy is the fact that,...
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Netanyahu’s Outburst Is Not About The Presidential Campaign
We Americans have a tendency to look at situations and think that they revolve around us. The best recent example of this has been the debate over America’s role in the Arab Spring (or Arab Awakening,...
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Guest Post: Are Turks And Americans Friends?
Today’s post comes from the great mind of Alexander Slater, who aside from being a close friend and one of my all-time favorite intellectual sparring partners is also a counsel at O’Melveny &...
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It’s Not The Size Of Government That Matters, But How You Use It
Every so often I feel compelled to write something that has nothing to do with Israel or Turkey, the wider Middle East, or foreign policy in general, and today is one of those days. Instead of my usual...
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Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones, And So Will Words
Frustrating the deeply held convictions of “Zionist Occupied Government” conspiracy theorists everywhere, it has not exactly been a banner week for the U.S.-Israel relationship. First there was the...
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The Bilious Bond Between Bibi, Barack, and Boehner
Anyone reading this blog knows by now that it has been a wild and wacky 24 hours in the never-ending soap opera that is Prime Minister Netanyahu and his involvement – whether direct or indirect – in...
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Losing The Forest Of Iran Policy For The Trees Of A Nuclear Deal
There has been tons of discussion over the past week about Mike Doran’s recent voluminous piece in Mosaic in which he argues that President Obama’s foreign policy in the Middle East – his approach to...
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What To Listen For In Netanyahu’s Speech Today
This morning’s Bibi Netanyahu speech to Congress is must-see tv if for no other reason than to observe the culmination of all the histrionics of the past month, but there is also one key thing in my...
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My Quick Takeaway from Bibi’s Speech
I doubt there’s anyone reading this who didn’t watch (or at least read the transcript of) Bibi Netanyahu’s speech themselves yesterday, and everyone has their own well-informed opinions by now so I...
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Getting the U.S. and Israel Back On Track
Now that the Israeli elections are in the rearview mirror – although coalition negotiations are still ongoing – it is time to assess the damage to the U.S.-Israel relationship and figure out how to...
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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the Iran Nuclear Deal
There are two huge pieces of news today that interest me, and while the one I really want to write about is the New Horizons spacecraft reaching Pluto and sending back amazing pictures and data on...
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Truth In Advertising
There has been much sound and fury over the past couple of weeks over labeling; more specifically, over the labeling rules for goods coming into the United States that are produced in the West Bank....
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How To Lose Friends And Not Influence Anyone
Israel in the last week has presented two classic case studies on strategic blundering and on precisely how not to conduct a successful foreign policy. One of these cases resulted in little more than...
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The Fight To Frame The Iran Deal
If you thought that the seemingly never-ending battle between the United States and Israel to shape how the Iran deal is viewed was finally over, you’d be wrong. At a press conference last Thursday,...
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UNSCR 2334
In the wake of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, there are two points that need to be emphasized. The first has to do with the resolution itself, the second with how we got here and...
View ArticleThe Fruits of a Failed Settlement Policy
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, treating all settlements as equal in the eyes of the United States is a dangerous game. The reason is that if all settlements are the same, then the...
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