Who will be the first to draft resolution to handle this: The Anti-Defamation League takes the unexpected step of criticizing Gen. David Petraeus, the widely respected commander of U.S. troops in the Middle East and South Asia, for his recent comments to the Senate Armed Services Committee that lack of progress on Israeli-Palestinian peace sets …
Foreign Affairs
The Rot is Deep
This is kind of crazy: It is a morbid theme, but one that no superpower can ignore. So the Obama administration has quietly reviewed, and revised, the sequence in which Pentagon civilian officials would take command should Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates die unexpectedly, say in a surprise attack. An executive order published without fanfare …
I’m Proud to Live In Israel’s Client State of America
Cute: The discord between the United States and Israel over Jewish building in East Jerusalem deepened Tuesday with Israeli officials saying they would reject demands by Washington and expressing anger over the public upbraiding of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the Obama administration. On a day of scattered disturbances by Palestinians in East Jerusalem, news …
I’m Proud to Live In Israel’s Client State of AmericaPost + Comments (47)
What They Mean By Moderate
Everyone is linking this Goldblog post: I’m not actually suggesting that the White House is directly meddling in internal Israeli politics, but it’s clear to everyone — at the White House, at the State Department, at Goldblog — that no progress will be made on any front if Avigdor Lieberman’s far-right party, Yisrael Beiteinu, and …
The Obvious Rears Its Ugly Head
Since there’s always more than enough time to do things the right way after all other approaches are exhausted: In an about-face, the Mexican government has begun refocusing much of its energy on attacking social issues in Ciudad Juárez, in what officials say privately could be an experiment for other Mexican cities that are consumed …
They Aren’t Even Going to See It Coming
Wading through about a dozen attacks at Commentary magazine on the Obama administration for, at the very least, demanding that Israel act like an honest broker with their “closest allies,” I found this fromNoah Pollack: To add to John’s piece, there are probably a couple more layers of political foolishness here. One is the timing. …
Not Backing Down
Really starting to look like the Bibi really, really over-reached: The President’s top adviser David Axelrod told me that approval of new housing units by Israel in the Arab section of Jerusalem during Vice President Biden’s trip there last week was an “affront” and an “insult”. “What it did was it made more difficult a …