BY MICHAEL OREN, WSJ— ‘Nobody has a monopoly on making mistakes.” When I was Israel’s ambassador to the United States from 2009 to the end of 2013, that was my standard response to reporters asking who bore the greatest responsibility—President Barack Obama or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—for the crisis in U.S.-Israel relations. I never felt like I…
By DAVID LAZARUS, ISRAEL TODAY— The US State Department in 2014 condemned Israel as one of the most “unacceptable” countries in the world, just behind North Korea. According to an article published last week by Foreign Policy, over the past year the Obama Administration State Department cited Israel for “unacceptable behavior” more times than Pakistan,…
By HOWARD LAFRANCHI, JWREVIEW— Elections can sometimes lead to new beginnings and bold initiatives, but few Middle East experts expect a rosy hue to suddenly color US-Israel relations after Tuesday’s national elections in Israel. Two key reasons explain why recent tensions in relations are likely to continue, analysts say: differences over the approach required to…
By MICHAEL FREUND, JPOST— Anyone who thought that a victory in the November elections would bring out the softer, gentler side of Barack Obama’s policy toward Israel was bound to be in for a rude awakening. It was, after all, fairly clear that in the run-up to the presidential balloting, Obama was on his best…
By Ralph Peters, NY Post “It’s those damned Jews.” That’s the muffled message I hear when, pretending to represent our national interest, voices call for the abandonment of Israel. We’ve heard it from agenda-driven scholars who write that our alliance with Israel is responsible for our problems in the Middle East. More worrisome still, I’ve…
by Wesley Pruden, Washington Times This is the moment a certain number of a certain breed of Democrats have been waiting for. The latest outburst of bad feeling between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu can be the cover they seek for finally putting the Jews in their place. First the president went to the Middle…
By Yoram Ettinger The February 2010 visit to Israel by Admiral Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff, sheds light on the larger context of US-Israel relations, which transcends the Arab-Israeli conflict, leverages Israel’s unique capabilities, and benefits both the US and Israel. The visit reaffirms that US policy toward Israel is based, primarily, on…