Rex Tillerson, assuming he is confirmed as secretary of state, will immediately face an unusually broad array of challenges. Some of these derive from the unusually disordered state of the world, others from the unusually wide uncertainty about the new American president's intentions.
Among the challenges which would face any American secretary of state at this juncture of history are the half-dozen large and small wars in which the United States is currently engaged, the competition with other major powers, notably China and Russia, the threats from hostile regional powers like N...
I just returned from the Syrian-Lebanese border, a mere 150 miles from Aleppo, where unspeakable savagery is underway.
The Assad regime is committing horrific war crimes — from mass murder and industrial-style torture to forced starvation and barrel bombs, even the systematic rape of women, children, and men in detention centers. Thus far, 500,000 Syrians have been slaughtered, 6 million people displaced internally, and another 5 million forced to flee as refugees across the border. This is the textbook definition of genocide.
Aided by the Russian army and Iranian militias, th...
There has been much speculation during the electoral campaign season whether there is still something President Obama could do before the end of his term to change the course of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Most of this speculation has focused on the possibility President Obama would finally support a UN Security Council resolution that spells out terms of reference for a two-state agreement, ending Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.
The critical moment of decision for such a presidential intervention is now, as Israel is about to cross a line with its illegal settlement project ...
Appearing before a meeting of the Knesset State Control Committee on the Foreign Ministry and Israel’s public diplomacy last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Israel's international standing is on an upward trajectory. For understandable reasons the Prime Minister may have been somewhat embellishing his track record, but his claims should not be too quickly dismissed or belittled.
In just the last few weeks, Netanyahu can list an impressive trip to Africa, the Egyptian Foreign Minister visiting Jerusalem alongside that country’s efforts to renew peace talk...
In the late sixties or early seventies, when I served as the executive head of the Synagogue Council of America, the coordinating body for certain social action and interreligious activities of the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform national rabbinical and congregational organizations in the United States, I had a private conversation—one of many—with Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, who was considered the leader of modern Orthodoxy in the United States, if not the world.
Rabbi Soloveitchik had just completed a high-level seminar attended by a select group of rabbis and Christian mi...
