I long ago came to the belief that American and European diplomats, think tank denizens, NGO activists, and sundry mediators and political activists are clueless about the Middle East and what makes people tick here. That belief has only been strengthened since the beginning of the so-called “Arab Spring”—and the insistence by almost every American […]
There is no more precious a commodity in the Middle East than water. Historically, when the Saudi peninsula had plenty of water, about 40,000 years ago, it acted as the land bridge to Europe during the second great exodus of early man from Africa. The fertile river valleys further north, in what is today […]
Welcome y’all to Israel’s goat-hunting season. This celebration of the verbal blunderbuss is one of those really strange events that only Israelis could have invented. The name was taken from an old Yiddish folk tale about a poor fellow in a shtetl who has a dozen children, lives in a one-room house, and is […]
The Obama-Netanyahu summit was one of the most carefully choreographed “reconciliation” meetings in recent history. When it was over, a poll found that 39 percent of Israelis said that their opinion of Obama had changed for the better, and 58 percent said that they now believed that the United States would not allow Iran to […]
It has been 45 years now since I set foot in Israel and in Jerusalem. I first arrived here in 1967 to cover the 6 Day War for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. So I have seen a lot. Tonight I’ve been asked to share some of my experiences and impressions over these years. […]
We have certainly been going through topsy-turvey times. Israel bashed the hell out of Gaza, but Hamas was able to claim victory…and was actually able to channel that claim into real diplomatic, political and economic gains. A national election has been underway now for weeks, but the only real fight has been between Shelly, […]
The final results of the US elections are now in. And, according to all the polls, the Israeli public decided that Romney should have won—even though his electoral promises about issues related to Israel did not go beyond those made by Barak Obama. Why the Israeli public reacted as it did says a great […]
We’re into a new Israeli election season. All the politicians are out telling anyone who will listen about all the wonderful things they have done and what they will do…if elected. But, as I have been cautioning for years, be careful. All this hoopla can be, and already is, a descent to that most […]
The Israeli election campaign has already begun. In the run-up to that campaign, one of the most notable, and remarkable, political events in Israel in 2012 was actually a non-event. At a time when Israelis were struggling to figure out how to deal with any number of basic moral issues such as whether to […]
The debate on what to do about Iran has become one of the most fascinating exercises in politicking that I have ever witnessed. Hardly a day goes by without someone leaking something about some aspect of the subject. At the same time, I certainly can’t recall a time when there was so much […]