From Alan Dowty
As the Goldstone report on the Gaza war wends it way up the UN food chain, casting further opprobrium on Israel at each level, it is legitimate to question Israel’s handling of this challenge. Did the Israeli response lessen or aggravate the damage?
There are serious critiques that could have been levied against Goldstone’s [...]
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From Robert O. Freedman
In his June 2009 Bar-Ilan University speech, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu asserted that Palestinian recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state” was one of Israel’s requirements for agreeing to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Both Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat,immediately rejected the requirement. However, [...]
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From Alan Dowty
In some respects, Ari Shavit’s widely-noted interview of Israel’s national security adviser, Uzi Arad, contained no great surprises. Arad’s insistence on “deep” acceptance of Israel (not just de facto acknowledgement of Israel’s existence) by Palestinians; leaving the door open, just by a crack, to a Palestinian state, while dismissing the possibility of any [...]
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From Alan Dowty
Some sixty years ago my mentor Hans J. Morgenthau posited as a cardinal rule of diplomacy that states should “give up the shadow of worthless rights for the substance of real advantage.” It is not clear whether Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has ever read Morgenthau, but he seems attuned to this basic [...]
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Posted in Alan Dowty, Bernard Haykel, Bruce Jentleson, Chuck Freilich, Egypt, Harvey Sicherman, Josef Joffe, Mark N. Katz, Mark T. Kimmitt, Martin Kramer, Michael Mandelbaum, Michael Reynolds, Michael Rubin, Michael Young, Michele Dunne, Philip Carl Salzman, Public Diplomacy, Raymond Tanter, Walter Laqueur on Jun 5th, 2009 3 Comments »
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On June 4, U.S. President Barack Obama delivered a much-anticipated address to the world’s Muslims, from a podium at Cairo University. (If you cannot see the embedded video above, click here. The text is here.) The following MESH members responded to an invitation to comment on the speech: Alan Dowty, [...]
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Posted in Alan Dowty, Diplomacy, Iran, Israel, Palestinians on May 20th, 2009 Comments Off
From Alan Dowty
The meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu has triggered a stampede of soothsayers. Every aspect of their encounter is scrutinized for clues to their personal chemistry and, by extension, the future course of U.S.-Israeli relations. But these relations are rooted in forces more fundamental than personalities, intriguing as these two iconic [...]
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From Alan Dowty
Israeli public discourse over Iran’s nuclear weapons program is dominated by two analogies: the Holocaust and the 1981 Israeli attack on the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq.
The prominence of the Holocaust—the most horrific genocide in human history—should be no surprise. Jewish history seen through the Zionist lens is a chronicle of powerlessness and [...]
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