Why Jerusalem Remains Relatively Quiet during the Gaza War
Recently I called up an Arab friend in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Kufr ‘Aqab. Having just returned from Israeli military reserve duty, I felt out of the loop and wanted to know what’s happening, especially why East Jerusalem’s Arab population seemed to react to this war differently than it had in previous rounds of […]
Spanish Bull: Sanchez and Recognition of a Palestinian State
During the Middle Ages, Jews were persecuted and expelled, repeatedly at times, from every European country – but the one the world remembers most is the expulsion from Spain in 1492 of what had been the world’s largest Jewish community. This ancient wound was very much in the foreground when on May 28, 2024 Spanish […]
A Truce to End the War in Ukraine
Public support in the West for the war in Ukraine rests upon three frequently repeated assumptions: Russia’s invasion was unexpected and unprovoked.Ukraine is a unified and democratic nation.Ukraine can win the war and regain its lost territory. None of these is true. The United States strongly opposed the Soviet Union placing missiles in Cuba. Washington […]
The Failure of the "Economic Peace" Model in the Middle East
On September 26, 2021, Israel’s then Prime Minister Naftali Bennet took the podium at the UN General Assembly and laid out a grand vision for the Middle East. It was a modernist, advanced, technological future (as befitted Bennet, a former high-tech entrepreneur) in which Israel would play a major role – focused upon a world […]
Quo Vadis Germany: Is It Ready for an Era of Great Power Conflict?
The German term Zeitenwende, or historic turning point, entered the American political lexicon three days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, on February 24, 2022. On that day, Chancellor Olaf Scholz convoked a special session of the Bundestag and employed this term to underscore the need for a dramatic change in Germany’s foreign and national security […]
A European Plea to Biden
I admire America and feel nothing but deep respect and gratitude for it. Yes, I’m familiar with the reservations among many in Europe, ranging from Vietnam to Guantanamo, from the death penalty to the right to bear arms, from Afghanistan to the second Iraq war. My feelings for America are stronger. That’s because they are […]
A Multinational Authority for "the Day After" in Gaza
Hamas’s terrorist attack of October 7 and the Israeli, American, and Iranian/Iranian proxy responses have already fundamentally changed the Middle East. The priority now rightly is on ending the fighting, yet history shows that what comes after a war is as important as combat results in securing a lasting peace. To ensure that an attack […]
Turkey and Israel Ties at Low Ebb, But Could Recover
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has a rocky relationship with Israel and bilateral relations have currently reached a nadir. But Erdoğan pursues a transactional foreign policy in general and, if interests re-align, he could once again restore robust relations with Israel. A long-time supporter of Hamas, Erdoğan bitterly criticized Israel’s 2008 incursion into Gaza that […]
Germany’s Far Right Gets Their Day in Court
When he was arrested by German federal police in December 2022, the 72-year-old tweed-jacketed Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss may have looked like a harmless old aristocrat. But on May 21, he went on trial in Frankfurt for plotting a coup d’état to topple the German government on what he called “Day X.” In all, three […]
Israel and Greece in the Aftermath of October 7
On September 1, 1982, Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat stepped off the Greek cruise liner Atlantis, which had ferried him and some of his inner circle from Beirut to a marina just south of Athens, exiled by Israel’s invasion of Lebanon earlier that year. He was warmly welcomed on the dock by Greek Prime […]
The Empathy Gap
One of the most striking characteristics of the war in Gaza is a severe deficit of empathy. Israelis and Palestinians indicate that they have no emotion left for the other side. The stress would be too unbearable. In addition, each side tends to dehumanize the other, deny the other’s suffering and promise vengeance and violence […]
Israel and the World After October 7 - An Interview with Bernard-Henri Lévy
ParisThere are few men who feel the pain of distant upheavals as acutely as Bernard-Henri Lévy, 75, a French philosopher, filmmaker and public intellectual. Born to a wealthy Sephardic family in French Algeria, he cut his teeth as an international activist in his support for the war of secession against Pakistan by the erstwhile East […]
