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...
The Gaza Strip, a 365 squared km sliver of Palestinian territory nestled, or more normally squeezed between Israel and Egypt has been out of the news this summer. And that should prompt a sigh of relief. It can also be considered something of a surprise.
The regularity of flare-ups between Israel and Hamas, leading to devastation for Gaza's civilian population of 1.9 million, most recently in 2012 and 2014 meant this summer was anticipated as a potential flashpoint. Concern was further heightened when a notorious hardliner, Avigdor Lieberman, was named as Israel's ...
As its era of global dominance ends, the United States needs to take the lead in realigning the global power architecture.
Five basic verities regarding the emerging redistribution of global political power and the violent political awakening in the Middle East are signaling the coming of a new global realignment.
The first of these verities is that the United States is still the world’s politically, economically, and militarily most powerful entity but, given complex geopolitical shifts in regional balances, it is no longer the globally imperial power. But neither is any ...
PRINCETON – Those who lead Israel’s defense establishment often come to consider peace with the Palestinians a necessary condition for the country’s security. Being tasked with maintaining the territories Israel has occupied since the Six-Day War in 1967 evidently causes the military and security brass to support political measures that would end the occupation. And yet the government shows no interest in pursuing a permanent settlement.
To appreciate this divide, consider the late Meir Dagan, who served as Major General of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and then as Direc...
In a region full of upheaval and bloodshed, Tunisia, with its relatively peaceful transition, progressive constitution, inclusive politics, and free and fair elections, has stood as a lone shining example. Five years after igniting the Arab Awakening and inspiring the world, the bloom has come off the Jasmine Revolution. A combination of internal headwinds and regional whirlwinds are extinguishing Tunisian hopes for a consolidated new social contract. “Each of us here is a time bomb,” warned one protest organizer in the town of Kasserine.
With each passing day, disillusion...
TEL AVIV – The late American diplomat George Ball once argued that Israel needed to be saved from its own suicidal policies “in spite of herself.” In a 1977
Foreign Affairs article, he called for an even-handed push by the United States for an Arab- Israeli peace. But, while Ball’s realistic position on the Israel-Palestine conflict is not uncommon among US State Department officials, it has remained off-limits for America’s political establishment, which has long upheld an almost sacred consensus on Israel – until now.
To be sure, to some ...
It seems there is no line Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t cross to defend settlements. Israeli law says settlers can’t steal Israeli-recognized Palestinian private land for their own purposes? Netanyahu leaves no principle of rule of law unchallenged in the effor to "legalize" the settlers’ actions. The boycott-divestment-sanctions (BDS) movement challenges Israel’s legitimacy? Netanyahu jumps on the chance to exploit the BDS threat to legitimize settlements, accusing anyone who differentiates between Israel and settlements of embracing BD...
