“Israel has become so demonized” in human rights organizations, says Danielle Haas, former senior editor at Human Rights Watch (HRW), that there’s “no space to see Israelis as victims, or to absorb nuance or voices that challenge their orthodoxies. In a conceptual universe where Israel is an occupier-colonizer-apartheid state, it is a priori the aggressor, …
Continue reading “Confronting the Anti-Israel Narrative-Industrial Complex”
“I hate the ‘to be sure’ sentences,” an Israeli opinion leader once told me, referring to critiques of the Jewish state. For instance, “To be sure, Israel is surrounded by enemies.” Or, “to be sure, Israel faces a genocidal Hamas to its south and a more powerful genocidal Hezbollah to its north.” He hated the “to …
Continue reading “Israeli-Palestinian Peace Must Reflect Reality”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of a post-Gaza War Palestinian state spurred a predictable global response—with UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres calling it “unacceptable,” President Joe Biden reiterating support for the “two-state solution,” and the European Union threatening “consequences” if Netanyahu’s government doesn’t change its course. But the back and forth between Jerusalem (which is fighting a gruesome war with …
Continue reading “Why Benjamin Netanyahu Rejects Palestinian Statehood”
Working with Arab governments and the Palestinian Authority on a plan for the latter to run Gaza after Israel’s war with Hamas, Washington must be careful not to plant the seeds for the next Israeli-Palestinian war. The risks are not inconsiderable, based on the nature of the Palestinian Authority, its leaders’ reluctance to meet Washington’s …
Continue reading “Washington Must Not Plant the Seeds of the Next Israeli-Palestinian War”
With 1,300 Israeli Jews slaughtered and nearly 200 taken hostage, what’s more infuriating: that critics presume to tell Jerusalem how to conduct a war and run its government or that their views are shaped by blind ignorance and naïve hope? To its critics in America, Israel’s next steps are straightforward. Yes, hunt down Hamas, but don’t let …
European Jews are not real Jews, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared the other day, and Hitler killed Jews not because of their religion but because of their “social role” in lending money. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, didn’t want Jews from Arab countries to immigrate to Israel, according to Abbas, and he attacked Jewish institutions in Arab …
Continue reading “Israeli-Saudi Normalization Won’t Solve The Palestinian Problem”
“Israeli authorities do face legitimate security challenges,” Human Rights Watch acknowledged after accusing Israel of committing two “crimes against humanity” – apartheid and persecution – against Palestinians. It was a grudging, and altogether disingenuous, admission in a new 217-page report about Israeli actions in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem that ignores history and …
Continue reading “Human Rights Watch did a one-sided takedown of Israel”