Bibi’s Big Surprise
Project Syndicate, March 18, 2015
NEW YORK – Binyamin Netanyahu proved the pollsters wrong – not once, but twice. In the weeks and days leading up to Israel’s election, his defeat was widely predicted. Then, in the hours after the vote, exit polls suggested parity between his Likud party and the center-left Zionist Union, led by his chief rival, Yitzhak Herzog, with a slight edge for the right-wing bloc. Several hours after the polls closed, it turned out that Likud was the big winner, gaining 30 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, compared to 24 for the Zionist Union.
A new Israeli policy on Syria: Should Israel threaten intervention?
Brookings post blog, February 13, 2015
It is time for Israel to reconsider, in coordination with the United States, its policy toward the Syrian civil war .
For nearly four years, since March 2011, Israel has been sitting on the fence. Israeli policymakers and analysts are divided into two schools with regard to Syria’s future. The first, known as “the devil we know” school, argues that with all his faults Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his regime are preferable to an Islamist or jihadist alternative, and to the anarchy that is likely to ensue should the regime collapse. The other school argues that as the 2006 war in Lebanon amply demonstrated, the axis of Iran, Assad’s Syria, and Hezbollah presents a far more serious threat to Israel.
Gaza cease-fire dispute is another bitter twist in Israel-U.S. relations
The Gaza conflict has further exposed and aggravated the tense relationship between Netanyahu and Obama, as well as the consequences of America's diminished role in the Middle East.
Haaretz, July 30, 2014
Israel in a Middle Eastern china shop
The Times of Israel, July 2, 2014
During the past three years Israel has responded to the Arab Spring and to the “great unraveling,” as its sequel is commonly called, with commendable caution. But more recently, in response to the remarkable success in Iraq by the Jihadi organization ISIS (The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), there have been indications that that caution is being abandoned. Several Israeli spokesmen have offered aid to Jordan should ISIS try to attack the Hashemite Kingdom and Prime Minister Netanyahu on Sunday stated that Israel should support the Kurdish quest for independence. It is imperative for Israel to return to the restraint of its original response to its tumultuous environment.
Israel’s Ukraine Dilemma
Project Syndicate, April 23, 2014
TEL AVIV – As if there were not already enough tension between Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government and US President Barack Obama’s administration, Israel has refused to join the United States and its other allies in condemning Russia’s annexation of Crimea. But that decision, though risky, is not altogether surprising: The US, after all, lacks an effective policy toward Russia in the Middle East, making it difficult for countries like Israel to stand up to the Kremlin.