Hamas

I said in an earlier post on the Obama administration and the Goldstone commission that Hamas might “benefit if next year’s scheduled elections go forward.” That was poorly phrased. What I meant was that Hamas stands to benefit from the weakening of more moderate factions. Because, as George Washington University’s Nathan Brown emailed me, I [...]

The House will shortly begin debating a resolution to denounce a U.N. report into Israeli and Hamas war crimes in last year’s Gaza war co-sponsored by Rep. Howard Berman’s (D-Calif), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The author of that report, South African Judge Richard Goldstone, wrote last week to Berman and his co-sponsors, [...]

Last week, Richard Goldstone, who investigated Israeli and Hamas war crimes in Gaza for the United Nations, wrote to Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) to say that a resolution co-sponsored by Berman, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, denouncing Goldstone’s report was significantly factually inaccurate. A spokeswoman for Berman, Lynne Weil, told me that [...]

After receiving a letter from Richard Goldstone, the South African judge who investigated Israeli and Hamas war crimes in Gaza, to dispute an impending bipartisan House resolution denouncing his report, staffers for Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) are “conferring” with staffers for bill co-sponsor Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s (R-Fla.). “Chairman Berman is studying Judge Goldstone’s letter,” Berman [...]

In a statement to be sent to supporters, J Street, the pro-Israel-pro-peace American Jewish lobby group, is urging members of Congress not to pass to significantly modify a resolution condemning U.N. investigator Richard Goldstone’s report into war crimes committed by Israel and Hamas during last year’s conflict. That resolution, strongly supported by other American Jewish [...]

TWI has acquired the text of a congressional resolution that may be introduced in the next few days condemning the findings of U.N. investigator Richard Goldstone’s report into war crimes during Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza this past winter.
The resolution — drafted by Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), Dan Burton (R-Ind.), Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) and [...]

If I gave a speech saying that Israel had the right, invested in it by God, to permanently rule over millions of disenfranchised Palestinians in violation of their rights and their legitimate aspirations, I’d be outing myself as a dangerous fanatic who has no problem with a Jewish democracy becoming a Jewish apartheid state. So [...]

This post is going to get filled, really fast, with irresponsible speculation. So let’s have some fun.
This Washington Post story about the Washington debate over Iran is revealing for two reasons. First, the administration doesn’t seem to be phased by Manichean, inwardly focused arguments through analogy about why President Obama needs to intercede, rhetorically, into [...]

So be cynical and presume that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Sunday speech on peace with the Palestinians isn’t going to commit Israel to anything major and will merely attempt to placate a ticked-off Obama administration. Eli Lake at The Washington Times says you’d be wrong and Netanyahu will instead for the first time embrace [...]

There’s so much to say about President Obama’s historic speech in Cairo today. But for now, I want to focus on the aspects of it that conservatives insisted wouldn’t exist. Sean Hannity, for one, blasted the exercise yesterday as an “apology tour,” and while the facts of the speech won’t get in the way of [...]