This week’s meeting between Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal highlighted their common strategic goal, despite their bitter rivalry in recent years: The Palestine Liberation Organization’s Phased Plan aimed at the establishment of a Palestinian state in all of what was Palestine within the Ottoman/British Mandate borders. Abbas (who is both
Yoram Ettinger
The discussion about the cost of a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities has added value only if it is intended to advance the attack and neutralize the potential response from Iran and its allies. The discussion becomes harmful, plays into Iran’s hands and threatens Israel’s existence if it reflects hesitancy, skepticism, aiming to preclude
The collapse of Israeli-Palestinian agreements from the 1993 Oslo Accords until today stems from the fact that both Israeli and US leaders ignore the real root of the conflict. The heart of the conflict is the denial of the existence—and not the size—of any non-Muslim entity on land that, in the eyes of Muslims, is
At the outset of 2012, irrespective of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the “Palestinian issue,” the defining geopolitical and religious schism in the Middle East is boiling, exacerbating violent intra-Muslim fragmentation. The battle inside Islam is taking place on the religious, tribal, ideological and geographical levels. The Syrian death toll is approaching 7,000, trending toward Papa
Rogue Islamic regimes rank among the leaders of the unholy alliance of state-supported and state-sponsored global narcoterrorism. Narcoterrorism has become a most effective weapon—economically and operationally—in the battle against the most effective opponent of rogue regimes, the U.S. These regimes aim to undermine the U.S.’s homeland security, to injure U.S. morale, morality and social fabric,
The assumption that tougher sanctions could deny Iran nuclear capabilities, pacify Iran’s nuclear program and produce a regime change in Tehran all defy reality. These assumptions, and the suppositions that Mutually Assured Deterrence would enable the free world to coexist with a nuclear Iran and that the cost of a military pre-emption would be prohibitive,
Israel’s battle against Arab “Palestinian” terrorism and conventional military threats must not be inhibited by its ties with the USA and Egypt. In 1982, Prime Minister Begin launched a comprehensive war on PLO terrorist headquarters in Lebanon. In 1981, he ordered the bombing of Iraq’s nuclear reactor. Both operations were executed irrespective of bullying US
In order to comprehend U.S. foreign policy in general, and U.S. special ties with Israel in particular, one needs to be familiar with U.S. domestic policy and with the U.S. state of mind. For instance, since 1776, the U.S. has never been governed by a Europe-style left-wing government. Today, the number of self-identified conservatives is
Western policy-makers grow increasingly-reconciled to co-existence with a nuclear Iran. They assume that, notwithstanding the radical rhetoric, the Iranian leadership is pragmatic, cognizant of its limitations, unwilling to expose its people to devastating Western retaliation and considering nuclear capabilities as a tool of deterrence – and not as an offensive weapon – against the US,
The idea that a Palestinian state can lead to enduring peace in the Middle East has become a diplomatic obsession for American policy makers. Bringing such a state into being has become the equivalent of finding the Holy Grail. In fact, however, a Palestinian state would not only fail to bring peace and stability to
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