Arab Israel conflict
June 3, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is now in the ninth year of his four-year term. He is an illegitimate leader of a kleptocratic pseudogovernment. Abbas recently forced the resignation of the widely respected caretaker Salam Fayyad as Prime Minister and has now appointed one Rami Hamdallas to succeed him. Hamdallah is president of An-Najah National University in Nablus. In the Jerusalem Post, Abu Khaled Toameh reports that Secretary Kerry has
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May 27, 2013 — Scott Johnson
David Horovitz is the founder and editor of the Times of Israel and an extremely reasonable man. When he emails to let me know that he has “just written and published this rather angry op-ed,” as he did this morning, I pay attention. David’s column is “Memo to Kerry: It’s not the economy, stupid.” Subhead: “The secretary’s ridiculous talk of $4 billion in private investment for the Palestinians demonstrates that
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April 5, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Extending the theme of personal testimony this morning a little further than it should go, I want to turn to the IDF Blog for a report you won’t catch in the mainstream media: On September 23, 2011, Asher Palmer, 25, was driving with his infant son, Yonatan, on Route 60 near Kiryat Arba. He was headed towards Jerusalem to visit his pregnant wife. Driving in the opposite direction was former
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April 3, 2013 — Scott Johnson
We turn the floor over to Andrew McCarthy: My column last weekend dealt with the travesty of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s apology to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, under great pressure from President Obama, for Israel’s self-defense against Turkey-based jihadists who attempted to break its lawful blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza. Netanyahu not only apologized but added to the humiliation by agreeing to Erdogan’s demand that Israel compensate the “victims” of the
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April 1, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Western governments funnel hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian non-government institutions. One such is Hanan Ashrawi’s MIFTAH, which describes itself this way: Established in Jerusalem in December 1998, with Hanan Ashrawi as its Secretary-General, MIFTAH seeks to promote the principles of democracy and good governance within various components of Palestinian society; it further seeks to engage local and international public opinion and official
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March 28, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The IDF has posted the video below taken last month of two terrorists captured by Israeli soldiers as they prepared to fire at passing Israeli vehicles. The Times of Israel reports: The video was recorded on February 15 by two female soldiers who spotted the terrorists from a military observation post near Beit Fajjar, a Palestinian town next to Gush Etzion, approximately 23 kilometers (14 miles) south of Jerusalem. After
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March 24, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The President of the United States had some incredibly foolish things to say during his trip to the Middle East. Some of them were said during his press conference with Mahmoud Abbas, the Chairman of the PLO and the President of the Palestinian Authority, now serving out the ninth year of his four-year presidential term. The Wall Street Journal has posted a transcript of the press conference here. Standing under
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March 18, 2013 — Scott Johnson
We have covered the death of the son of BBC Gaza picture editor Jihad Masharawi at the outset of Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense in some detail. Jihad Masharawi eloquently condemned Israel for the death and the BBC, the Washington Post and other organs of the mainstream media turned it into an international sensation. They turned it into a sensation so long as they could attribute responsibility (wrongly, regardless of
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March 15, 2013 — Scott Johnson
I try to discount reports of future White House doings, but veteran reporter Neil Munro’s Daily Caller article — Obama will press Israel to mollify furious Arabs” – is sourced to Ben Rhodes, the president’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications. Rhodes contributes another chapter in the praise of folly that Obama has brought us over the past four-plus years: “It is obviously a good thing that the people
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February 16, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Elliott Abrams is the Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. His CFR blog is Pressure Points. He served, most recently, on the staff of the National Security Council staff during the Bush administration commencing in June 2001, first as a deputy assistant to the president and later as deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy. We recently featured a column by Abrams based
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January 17, 2013 — Scott Johnson
On February 16, 2002, a Palestinian terrorist blew himself up in a packed pizzeria in the Israeli town of Karnei Shomron, killing American citizens Keren Shatsky, 15, and Rachel Thaler, 16 and Israeli teenager Nehemia Amar, 15. The Israel Law Center does not want to forget what was revealed in the apparently privileged document inadvertently produced by the Palestinian Authority/PLO in the lawsuit brought against them in federal court by
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December 8, 2012 — Scott Johnson
A reader writes to comment on “Terrorist theater, WSJ edition,” posted earlier this week and taking issue with the photo above. This made me laugh: I am currently deployed in Kosovo with the South Carolina Army National Guard, and just read your article about the photos of Palestinian children ostensibly “pushing” israeli soldiers shields. Prior to our deployment to Kosovo, we had to train in Riot Control measures. Repeatedly. We
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December 5, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Dr. Allon Friedman is a man after my own heart. He is associate professor of medicine in the division of nephrology at the Indiana University School of Medicine and a student of Palestinian fauxtography. When he saw the photo below published with this article by Joshua Mitnick in the print edition of the Wall Street Journal, he wrote to question its authenticity. Dr. Rriedman wrote the Journal: Sir, I wish
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December 1, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Today’s excellent Wall Street Journal editorial reminds me of a point I overlooked in writing about the absurd United Nations nonmember observer state Palestine. It represents another broken promise: In effect, the General Assembly voted to violate the 1993 Oslo Accords, which are the legal basis for Mr. Abbas’s Palestinian Authority and require negotiations with Israel to create a state. When the world next asks Jerusalem to take “risks for
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November 30, 2012 — Scott Johnson
The United Nations General Assembly voted 138-9 (with 41 abstentions) on Thursday to upgrade Palestine to a nonmember observer state of the United Nations. The New York Times story is here; the Washington Post story is here. The UN has posted an announcement here. From its new perch the Palestinian Authority will have a few more tools to harass the legitimate government of Israel, but you can see why UN
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November 29, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
I’m a fan of Lee Smith. However, I was not persuaded by his argument that Israel won and Hamas lost their latest confrontation. Smith acknowledges that Hamas claims victory and that many Israelis concur with Hamas on this point. In fact, initial opinion polling showed a majority of Israelis dissatisfied with the outcome of the confrontation. But Smith contends that both sides have it wrong. Hamas’ proclamation of victory should
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November 29, 2012 — Scott Johnson
I wrote about the photograph of BBC Arabic editor Jihad Masharawi holding the shrouded body of his 11-month-old son in posts here, here and here. The photograph depicted Masharawi outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The young Masharawi’s death was attributed to an Israeli air strike. The photograph went viral on the second day of the conflict between Hamas and Israel, being featured on the Web and in newspapers around
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