Israel
January 17, 2019 — Scott Johnson
New York Times columnist Bret Stephens has responded to my post “It started in January 2017” with the following message, which I am pleased to post essentially verbatim: Dear Scott, I noticed your piece based on my interview with Gadi Eisenkot. Your entire premise is mistaken. I asked him directly if Trump’s election had anything to do with the change in policy. He categorically denied it. The change in strategy
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January 15, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Bret Stephens is a proud NeverTrumper; he supported Hillary Clinton for president and still wishes she had won the election. In his informative column on the war fought by the Israel Defense Forces against Iranian elements including Hezbollah and the Quds Force in “the campaign between the wars,” however, we can find a hidden message that belies his NeverTrumpism. Analyze this: By 2016, [just-retired IDF chief of staff Gadi] Eisenkot
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January 11, 2019 — Steven Hayward
Robert P. George of Princeton offers this prediction: You will be able to watch something as if in slow motion over the course of the next few years: the collapse of support for Israel by Democratic Party politicians who harbor ambition for national office. It will follow the pattern we saw of collapse of support for the pro-life cause by leading Democrats in the period of 1973-80 (and particularly 1973-76).
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December 19, 2018 — Scott Johnson
I want to take the liberty of highlighting four paragraphs from Bret Stephens’s New York Times column of December 13: “When anti-Zionism tunnels under your house” (accessible via Outline here). Stephens’s column silently responds to his colleague Michelle Goldberg’s December 7 column “Anti-Zionism isn’t anti-Semitism,” a column that gives cover to the likes of Minnesota Fifth District Rep.-elect Ilhan Omar: Anti-Zionists are not advocating the reform of a state, as
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December 12, 2018 — Scott Johnson
I missed accounts of the White House parties and reception that were held in observance of Hanukkah last week. Eight Holocaust survivors from Brooklyn were in attendance at the first (afternoon) party. President Trump made three sets of formal remarks. Yeshiva World comprehensively documents the proceedings in “VIDEOS/PHOTOS: Trump Hosts Annual White House Chanukah Party; Joined By Holocaust Survivors & Parkland Shooting Victim’s Dad.” The family of Parkland mass shooting
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November 17, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Every year the joke that is the United Nations passes a resolution condemning Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights. Every year, the U.S. abstains from voting on the resolution. Every year, it passes with only Israel voting against it. But not this year. This year, the Trump administration decided to oppose the resolution. It passed by a vote of 151-2. Bravo, President Trump. The Golan Heights tower over Northern Israel.
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November 16, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Minnesota Rep-elect Ilhan Omar presents as a case study in the way the Democrats hate now. I have pursued the case study for Power Line readers in numerous posts as well as for Weekly Standard readers in “The anti-Israel seat” and City Journal readers in “A question for Democrats.” I wrote all the most prominent Minnesota Democrats I could think of for their comment on the Omar case. To a
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November 12, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post blasts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for not taking a hard line on Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Diehl’s op-ed comes as no surprise. The Post hates Netanyahu and Khashoggi wrote op-eds for for the paper. Diehl is normally a pretty sensible guy. But in this instance his rage has steered him off course. Virtually every
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October 17, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Someone or other in Gaza seems to want to get a war on. This morning in Beersheba, Israel, a mother saved her three children’s lives by hurrying to their shelter as a Palestinian rocket fired from Gaza blew up their bedrooms. The IDF has posted the video below. Hillel Neuer adds via Twitter: “This morning in Geneva, Switzerland, I am at the UN Human Rights Council, and they couldn’t care
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September 12, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post’s board of editors attacks John Bolton for a speech in which he harshly criticized the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Post doesn’t defend the ICC. In an understatement, the Post agrees that “the court has its defects.” However, the editorial board castigates Bolton for using his “first significant public address” to talk about what the editors deem an irrelevancy. The editors think Bolton should have discussed Syria,
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September 11, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, the Trump administration ordered the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington, saying that the PLO “has not taken steps to advance the start of direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel.” That’s for sure. The Washington Post’s account of the story is here. You can almost see the tears Karen DeYoung shed writing it. In the paper edition, the story’s subtitle is “another blow to Palentinians.” Perhaps.
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August 27, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
The Trump administration has cut more than $200 million in aid for the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza. This decision followed a review by the State Department “to ensure these funds are spent in accordance with U.S. national interests and provide value to the U.S. taxpayer.” According to the Washington Post, the cut “effectively means the United States is giving no money to the Palestinians.” I’m not sure that’s the
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July 23, 2018 — Scott Johnson
In case you missed it over the weekend, I want to take the liberty of noting my City Journal column “A question for Democrats.” In the column I posed the question raised by Ilhan Omar to prominent Minnesota Democrats. I added a footnote to the City Journal column with Moynihan’s answer to the question in the post “Return of ‘Zionism is racism.'” Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar is running for reelection
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July 19, 2018 — Scott Johnson
As she mounts her campaign to take the congressional seat representing Minnesota’s Fifth District, Ilhan Omar is sticking with the proposition that Israel is an “apartheid regime.” I think this raises a question of decency for which Democrats should be held to account. I noted this in my Weekly Standard article on Omar and have a column coming out specifically addressing Omar’s anti-Israel animus, to which I want to append
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July 16, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Last week the Israeli government briefed a few select reporters on the dramatic Mossad heist of documents from Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The government invited these reporters to review key documents from the heist. The government briefing included either David Sanger or Ronen Bergman from the New York Times and Gerald Seib from the Wall Street Journal. The Sanger/Bergman account of the heist is published as “How Israel, in Dark
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June 28, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Iran’s national soccer team received a hero’s welcome on its return to Tehran from the World Cup. The team missed out on the Round 16, but only narrowly. It defeated a decent Moroccan team, drew with Portugal, the current European champs, and lost 0-1 to Spain, one of the tournament favorites. That defeat could easily have been a draw or even a victory. Benjamin Netanyahu, a soccer fan, praised the
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June 24, 2018 — Scott Johnson
State representative Ilhan Omar has yet to complete her first term in the Minnesota legislature, where she has accomplished approximately nothing of substance, though she has now secured the DFL endorsement to succeed Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Keith Ellison in Congress. In the brief Weekly Standard article “The anti-Israel seat,” I conclude with observations related to Omar’s frank hatred of Israel. She doesn’t sugarcoat it. She calls Israel an “apartheid
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