Opinion and Analysis:

Week ending 11 June 2014

1. Further ugly vibes from the Obama Administration
Isi Leibler, Word from Jerusalem, 10 June 2014

The gloves are off. The White House has now unequivocally designated Israel as the scapegoat and is meting out punishment for the disastrous outcome of the peace negotiations it initiated.

2. Why isn’t there enough anti-Semitism to make the Jews happy?

Larry Gellman, Jerusalem Post, 9 June 2014

Jew hatred in the US is racism and bigotry felt and acted upon by individuals and small groups of hateful people.

3. “Cold blooded murder” or a war on terror?

Jonathan Halevi, JCPA, 9 June 2014

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, claims that all the Palestinian “victims” since the beginning of the negotiations in August 2013 “were killed in cold blood” by Israel.  A check of the names of those killed reveals a completely different picture and refutes Erekat’s allegation.

4. Diaspora to Israel: We need you to change

JJ Goldberg, The Jewish Daily Forward, 6 June 2014

The institute found repeated emphasis on three fraught themes. One was near-unanimous objection to Orthodox domination of Israeli religious life and the lack of Jewish religious pluralism. Participants felt the Jewish state excludes them personally as Jews. A second was concern over democratic treatment of minorities. The report notes a tendency among Diaspora Jews to “conflate” Jewish and democratic values, so a shortcoming in one becomes a deficiency in the other.  The third theme, perhaps most alarming, was fear that Israel isn’t sufficiently alert to the damage its behaviour does to its standing in the world — and, consequently, to Jews’ own standing and security in the countries where they live

5. At the United Nations: The ‘rights’ charade

The Tribune Review, Trib-Live Opinion, 6 June 2014

The U.N. Human Rights Commission was … an organization so contemptible that even former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said it “cast a shadow on the reputation” of the U.N.

6. Israel’s achievements in science deserve some attention

Joe Schwarcz, Montreal Gazette, 6 June 2014

The number of scientific discoveries made by Israeli scientists is astounding, especially when the size of the population is taken into account. They range from the Pillcam, a capsule equipped with a camera that when swallowed records images of the digestive tract, to Copaxone, an immunomodulator drug for treating multiple sclerosis.

7. Disaster in the Levant: Syrian Civil War in its fourth year

Jonathan Spyer, Middle East Forum, 2 June 2014

Syria today has in many ways ceased to exist as a coherent entity. Since mid-2012, the regime of Bashar Assad has ruled over only a minority of the territory of the country (about 40 per cent) and a bare majority of its population. No united successor regime has arisen in the area not controlled by the regime.

8. Palestinian leaders don’t want an independent state

Efraim Karsh, Middle East Forum, Summer 2014

The Palestinian leadership’s serial rejection of the numerous opportunities for statehood since the Peel Commission report of 1937 casts a serious doubt on its interest in the creation of an independent state. Instead of engaging in the daunting tasks of nation-building and state creation, all Palestinian leaders without any exception have preferred to immerse their hapless constituents in disastrous conflicts that culminated in their collective undoing and continued statelessness. At the same time, of course, these leaders have lined their pockets from the proceeds of this ongoing tragedy.

9. Surrounded by failure

Dr Norman Bailey, Globes, 27 May 2014

The list of failed states in Israel’s part of the world is growing, with Libya the weirdest.