Op-Eds

It’s no secret that Israel has been banging away at Iranian targets in Syria for years. But just as there is a good reason for ambiguity about Israel’s nuclear weapons capabilities, there’s also good reason not to brag about targeting Iranian assets in Iran. So Israel has been keeping quiet. Until now. Here’s part of what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu...

It ought to be possible to dislike and even fervently oppose U.S. President Donald Trump without having to associate with supporters of hatemongers like the Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan. Nor should it be necessary for his critics to embrace those who champion hatred for Israel and a BDS movement that is saturated with anti-Semitism. Yet that is the choice...

On Jan. 11, the governments of the United States and Poland announced plans for a “Ministerial to Promote a Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East.” The Polish foreign minister stated that he hoped that the conference would bring the positions of the United States and Europe closer to each other. Two days later, the Iranian foreign ministry...

There have been inexplicable phenomena in the Middle East for some years now. Any attempt to explain them logically comes up against a dead end, and gives way to conspiracy theories. How can one logically explain both Israel’s and the United States’ prostration to Qatar? Theories range from the conspiratorial, such as Qatari infiltration of the two governments, to...

On New Year’s Day, a law banning Jewish religious slaughter went into effect in the Flanders region of Belgium. But as far as the legislators who passed the legislation and the voters who support them, this abridgement of the religious freedom of the Jews of Antwerp is a small price to pay in exchange for a measure that they...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made a public declaration of Israel’s interest in having the United States recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.  Senators Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz have introduced legislation urging just that. Why now? There is no “peace process” – certainly none that involves Syria – and little push in international circles to force Israel to cede the...

For some observers, this past weekend’s revelations about Israeli strikes against Iranian targets in Syria was just politics as usual in the Jewish state. Some pundits treated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s public acknowledgement that the Israel Defense Forces has struck specific Iranian military targets in Syria as an attempt to distract the voters from his personal legal woes...

A cartoon in Ha’aretz (January 14) shows Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, in a room with his cyber hackers. One of them asks his president something to the effect: “Are we on the side of the Hasidim or the Litvaks (who normally oppose the Hasidim) in the next Israeli elections?” The two ultra-Orthodox factions who adhere to different versions of...

“Segregated Highway Opens in West Bank,” The Washington Post headline blared this week. “Israel Opens ‘Apartheid Road’ in Occupied West Bank,” announced Al Jazeera. Apartheid? Segregation? Not even close. Like so much of what pretends to be news reporting about Israel these days, this latest “Israeli racism” allegation is just another cheap attempt to smear the Jewish state. This newest prop in the Palestinian...

"All our dignity," observed Blaise Pascal back in the 17th century, "consists in thought... Let us labor then to think well: this is the foundation of morality." To be sure, this simple truth is being neglected by more and more Americans in the openly retrograde "Trump Era." The expected consequences are easy to identify and certain to disappoint. The corrosive Trump...