Strangely enough, there hasn’t been a great deal of congressional reaction to Israel’s deadly Monday attack on an aid flotilla making its way to Gaza. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has been uncharacteristically quiet on the topic, for instance. And More…
…Sort of.
While the entire Mideast-centric wing of the foreign-policy community waits to see if the Obama administration will actually offer its own plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with an independent Palestinian state — to say nothing of the bated breath in Mideast capitals — Jim Jones, President More…
Sure to give agita to the Israeli embassy in Washington: The Center for a New American Security publishes a 100-page multiple-case study of how the international community could midwife a Palestinian state from a security perspective.
It’s a long study, with seven authors, and I’ve barely made a crack More…
“What I worry about,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told a gathering yesterday at the Center for Middle East Peace, is that “a failure to act now when there are changed circumstances, including the Arab Peace Initiative, including the very broadly shared fear of Iran’s intentions and actions, will More…
Amb. Michael Oren pointedly snubbed J Street when the pro-Israel/pro-peace/progressive American Jewish lobby group offered to let him speak at its first annual conference last fall. Now, Oren appears to be mending fences, meeting with J Street executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami. Here’s J Street’s account of their first meeting More…
Speaking at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and South Asia, was asked at the start of an hour-long presentation what he meant during recent congressional testimony when he waded into the treacherous waters of the Mideast More…
Here’s a tea leaf, and, I’m afraid, a 2006-vintage joke. As an indication of President Obama’s continuing displeasure with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — displeasure that apparently is compelling some within the administration to advocate proposing a comprehensive U.S. Middle East peace plan — Obama will meet with nine More…
An anonymous administration official runs an idea up David Ignatius’ flagpole: Frustrated with the poor-to-intransigent pace of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which are barely at the “indirect” phase, President Obama is considering proposing his own Mideast-peace plan. That’s something the two-state-solution community urged him and Secretary of State Hillary More…
Just up on her Facebook page, this critique of the Obama administration’s approach to dealing with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
The Obama administration has their priorities exactly backwards; we should be working with our friend and democratic ally to stop Iran’s nuclear program, not throwing in the towel
Asked by Yochi Dreazen of The Wall Street Journal at a press conference this morning to address Gen. David Petraeus’ recent testimony that the Israel-Palestinian conflict’s persistence “foments anti-American sentiment,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that he didn’t know if it had a “direct” influence on U.S. security, but “the More…
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