Israel

Anti-Israel boycotts used to be a thing for left-wing loonies. No more.

Rand Paul is a grandstanding obstructionist whose chief joy seems to be blocking the few bills on which there is wide agreement.

Michael M. Rosen on border barriers and the human future—a review of ‘The Age of Walls’ by Tim Marshall.

A hudna is not a resolution.

The possibility that the country of five million could be a peace broker.

Another win for Israel and Trump.

Christoph Irmscher reviews Benjamin Balint’s book on the international legal battle over the fate of Kafka’s manuscripts.

John Podhoretz on retelling for a new generation the story of Eichmann’s capture and trial.

Legislation names Hezbollah, Hamas, the Islamic State, and Boko Haram as examples.

Yossi Klein Halevi on trying formulate a 21st century Israeli and Jewish narrative.

South Africa recalled its ambassador to Israel two weeks ago to condemn the “violent aggression carried out by Israeli armed forces along the Gaza border.” Hamas, however, soon admitted that 50 of the 62 Palestinians killed were members of the organization, upending South Africa’s premature claim…

Recent events in Gaza demonstrate the growing chasm between reporting and reality.

A debased national movement at 70.

But is it just sound and fury from Kim?

They’re not protests. They’re suicide-riots.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Ehud Barak was Israel’s 10th prime minister. Before and after that, he was Israel’s minister of defense. He also served as minister of foreign affairs, and chief of the General Staff of Israel’s defense forces. Today Barak and I had a wide-ranging conversation in which we spoke about Iran, Lebanon…

The president of Columbia University this week criticized Israel for expelling an American professor who endorses Palestinian terrorism. That’s the same Columbia University which has never apologized for expelling a student who protested the university’s friendly relationship with the Nazis in the…

Netanyahu’s address triggers heated rhetoric from opponents and detractors of the deal.

Heads, Iran wins. Tails, the U.S. Loses.

The Israeli prime minister said his country has obtained thousands of the Islamic Republic’s secret documents.

Nellie Bowles, a New York Times technology reporter recently claimed that it is a “far-right conspiracy” that the “Palestinians Pay $400 million Pensions For Terrorist Families.” She’s wrong.

The borders around the 140-square-mile Gaza strip are guarded heavily by both its neighbors, Israel and Egypt, and the sea lanes are blockaded. Israel has lately managed to stop the rockets that the Palestinian radical group Hamas, which runs Gaza, has been firing into its southern cities. Israel…

To say antisemitism is on the rise in Europe is commonplace. A dismayingly high percentage of Europeans (often in the 40s, according to surveys) believe Jews are too powerful in their countries' governments, too influential in their media, and probably more loyal to Israel than to the countries in…

I am not typically late for things. Except, one morning in March of last year, I was running late to a doctor’s appointment for my wife and me. She was already there, having let me sleep in since I had been up late the night before. Not for work or anything. But to watch Team Israel in the World…

Correction, 3/20/18: The piece originally stated that at the end of the Six-Day War in 1967, "Israel took over the Palestinian territories." During the Six-Day War, the territories in question belonged to Jordan, not "Palestine." The piece has been updated accordingly.

What's in this week's issue? Editor in chief Stephen F. Hayes has a breakdown of what is in this week's issue:

"The powerful Jews are my enemy," remarked Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan at his organization’s annual “Saviours’ Day” celebration in Chicago on February 25. That was just one of several of his choice anti-Semitic tropes. Another one, oddly stated in the third person: “The FBI has been the…

After President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move its embassy accordingly, western politicos and commentators heaped contempt on the move and predicted violence and bloodshed in Israel and in the Arab street. Hamas, the Islamic terror…

Legislation that would pressure the Palestinian Authority to stop monetarily rewarding acts of terror is moving toward final passage, according to one of the bill’s top backers.

Guatemala will relocate its embassy to Jerusalem in May, two days after the United States is slated to make the same move, the country’s president said Sunday.

The Trump administration recently announced that it will “reassess” American aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA). That’s the agency charged with overseeing Palestinian refugees displaced in 1948 and, of equal importance, their descendants. The United States will…

For more than 20 years, Saeb Erekat has been the main Palestinian negotiator in the “peace process” with Israel. This week (writing in the New York Times) he attacked the ability of the United States to be the “sole broker” or even an “honest broker” in peace talks between Israel and the…

The recent clash between Iran and Israel is the latest indication that there’s some unfinished business to attend to in Syria even with the decline of the civil war and the territorial defeat of ISIS. In the skirmish over the weekend Iranian troops launched an Iranian-made attack drone against…

“How odd of God / To choose the Jews,” a scrap of verse by the English journalist William Norman Ewer, has over the years had many answering refrains. “Not odd, you Sod / The Jews chose God” is one; “What’s so Odd / His son was one” is another; and a third goes “This surely was no mere…

By any traditional standard, Israel won its 50-day war against Hamas in 2014. It incurred far fewer casualties than its Palestinian adversary. It rooted out much of the Gaza Strip’s terrorist infrastructure, including tunnels the militant group had burrowed to transport fighters into Israel. And it…

Zichron Ya'akov, Israel

Hans Keilson was not quite 23 years old when, in December 1932, he came home from his hospital job to news from his mother. “Someone named Loerke called,” she said. “He called to congratulate us. He’s going to recommend your novel for publication.” The call had been from the poet Oskar Loerke, on…

On December 21, Ambassador Nikki Haley delivered the remarks below to the United Nations General Assembly. The resolution then before the U.N. chastised the United States for its decision on December 6 to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and demanded the rescission of that policy. After…

The U.N. General Assembly voted Thursday on a resolution that rebukes the Trump administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, calling it “null and void,” with 128 votes in favor, 9 against, and 35 abstentions.

In a March 2016 speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference, Donald Trump declared that if he became president, he would “move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem.” His choice of phrase—“eternal capital”—perhaps bears some…

Last week, President Donald Trump openly acknowledged what everybody knows: that Jerusalem in the capital of Israel. He promised that the United States would build an embassy there and thus defied America’s foreign policy establishment, the European Union, the British foreign secretary, the French…

It’s become a joke around Washington that every week is “infrastructure week” at the White House, a policy focus derailed usually within the first few hours of Monday by news developments (or President Trump’s tweets).

President Trump’s decision to “officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel” is a high-risk statement that acknowledges “the obvious.” His intent to move the US embassy from the beachfront at Tel Aviv to Jerusalem restates that obvious without necessarily raising the risk. By granting…

President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced plans to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, describing the move as a “recognition of reality.”

A bill that would pressure the Palestinian Authority to stop financially rewarding acts of terror against Israelis and Americans easily passed the House of Representatives Tuesday.

When it comes to Syria, Israel has a message and the government hopes a wider audience is listening. It was delivered in the form of two strikes inside Syria over the last week. By itself, an Israeli strike inside Syria is nothing extraordinary. The Israelis have long broadcasted their red lines in…

Democratic lawmakers are at odds about whether the president should declare Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a recognition he is expected to make Wednesday.

President Trump has a growing Palestinian problem. Without steadfast U.S. insistence on Palestinian accountability and the supremacy of American law, it is about to get a whole lot worse for Israel and America.

As Oscar Wilde might have said, to lose one minister is unfortunate. To lose a second minister in the space of two weeks looks like carelessness, especially when the minister appears to have pursued secret diplomacy at odds with the positions of the Foreign Office,. To place a third minister under…

A witness called before the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on campus anti-Semitism is drawing fire from pro-Israel groups for defending comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany and downplaying the targeting of Jewish students.

Donald Trump’s feud with North Korea’s “Little Rocket Man” notwithstanding, the most likely major war on the horizon is one between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia that, thanks to years of experience and an increasingly lethal arsenal, has become part of the vanguard in Iran’s…

My first contact with Leon Wieseltier was by letter. The year was 1977. Written on Balliol College, Oxford, letterhead stationery, the letter informed me that I was a force for superior culture in America, one of the few contemporary intellectuals worthy of respect, and through my writing the all…

On November 2, 1917—a hundred years ago this week—the British government sent a letter to Lord Walter Rothschild, declaring its “sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations” and promising Britain’s support in “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

November 2 marks the centennial of Britain’s Balfour Declaration, the first international recognition of a Jewish homeland. The Declaration was enshrined in the Covenant of the League of Nations in 1922, and effectively reaffirmed by a United Nations vote in 1947. The Declaration was impelled…

The United Nations is earmarking millions of dollars for Palestinian efforts to pursue international legal action against Israel over the next four years, triggering outrage on and off Capitol Hill and fueling calls to re-examine U.S. funding of the U.N.

The Trump administration is finally providing guidance on new Russia sanctions passed by Congress in August, issuing long overdue details on which entities tied to the Russian government will be targeted.

On November 2, 1917—a hundred years ago this week—the British government sent a letter to Lord Walter Rothschild, declaring its “sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations” and promising Britain’s support in “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

In recent months, Palestinians and several figures on the British left have called on the United Kingdom to apologize formally for its imperialistic audacity in issuing the Balfour Declaration—the November 2, 1917, pronouncement in which Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour stated that “His…

With police intensifying their long-running corruption probes, Israel is awash with speculation that Benjamin Netanyahu’s days as prime minister may be numbered. Opponents—both within the Likud party and without—have been organizing. Sensing the danger, Netanyahu and his allies have fought back,…

With police intensifying their long-running corruption probes, Israel is awash with speculation that Benjamin Netanyahu’s days as prime minister may be numbered. Opponents—both within the Likud party and without—have been organizing. Sensing the danger, Netanyahu and his allies have fought back,…

Ever since John Kelly was tapped as White House chief of staff, right-wing news outlets have been publishing articles making harsh allegations about Donald Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster.

Among Israelis and Palestin­ians, there’s little optimism about renewed American efforts to negotiate a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. In Ramallah and Jerusalem, officials, journalists, and policy analysts have watched as industrious U.S. activity in the Clinton, Bush, and Obama…

Among Israelis and Palestin­ians, there’s little optimism about renewed American efforts to negotiate a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. In Ramallah and Jerusalem, officials, journalists, and policy analysts have watched as industrious U.S. activity in the Clinton, Bush, and Obama…

Nathan Thrall is a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, where he focuses on the Arab-Israeli conflict. A frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books, Thrall has also written for Commentary, which is to say he’s a writer who specializes in…

Dorit Rabinyan's latest novel chronicles nine months in the lives of Liat, an Israeli woman, and Hilmi, a Palestinian man. The two young adults come separately to New York to study and to make their fortunes. When they meet in the autumn of 2002, they fall immediately in love. But it isn't long…

Dorit Rabinyan's latest novel chronicles nine months in the lives of Liat, an Israeli woman, and Hilmi, a Palestinian man. The two young adults come separately to New York to study and to make their fortunes. When they meet in the autumn of 2002, they fall immediately in love. But it isn't long…

Two secret documents obtained by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz purportedly show that the Obama administration was eagerly trying to sponsor a final agreement between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority that would end the five decades of conflict in the West Bank.

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, editor-in-chief Stephen F. Hayes weighs in on Trump's Middle East tour and the clarity of his message on terrorism.

In an effort to debunk a story dogging him for the last several days, President Trump seems to have revived questions. The story is the report that Trump, in his May 10 meeting in the Oval Office with two top Russian government officials, revealed up-to-then classified intelligence from a foreign…

Can President Trump broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians? That's the "ultimate deal" that will be on the president's mind as he travels Monday to Israel. Here's more from the New York Times:

The controversy over a meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian officials, which grew Tuesday to engulf Israel, will not harm intelligence sharing between Washington and Jerusalem and is unlikely to negatively affect the president's upcoming visit to the country, according to a top former…

A hotel in Qatar with links to the United States has decided against hosting a Hamas press conference Monday, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned. The cancellation came after reports that the company could face penalties for providing material support for terrorism if it held the event.

There aren't too many scholarly journals that can be read recreationally; one of them is the Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR). Despite what the name might suggest, the BAR is in no sense a religious publication; it is, rather, a serious academic look at discoveries and developments in the…

This post has been updated for clarity and to reflect that the location of the event was changed from City Centre Doha to Intercontinental Doha. After publication, the event was moved once again, as we reported here.

President Donald Trump is likely to announce the relocation of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem during a coming trip to Israel, a Republican lawmaker close to the issue said Thursday.

Two weeks ago, Israel Defense Force Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot took the unusual step of confirming claims in the media about the May 13, 2016, killing of Hezbollah military commander, Mustafa Badreddine. A video report last month on the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya network had claimed that Badreddine’s…

The Senate confirmed President Trump's pick for ambassador to Israel Thursday in a near party line vote.

After going 3-0 in the first round of the World Baseball Classic, Israel moves on to the second round of pool play this weekend in Tokyo when it squares off against international powerhouse Cuba Saturday (10 p.m. EST). The other two teams in Pool E are the Netherlands, whom Israel defeated…

President Donald Trump's pick for Israel envoy passed the Senate committee stage with full Republican support Thursday, despite lingering doubts from some Democrats on the panel.

President Donald Trump's pick for ambassador to Israel is likely to gain the support of a Democratic senator on the Foreign Relations Committee, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has confirmed.

Congressional leaders are moving to cut off all taxpayer dollars to the Palestinian Authority if it continues monetarily rewarding terrorists for attacks on Israelis and Americans, top Republican lawmakers said Tuesday.

In 1992, the exiled Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide spoke to Jewish leaders in New York City. Having studied for three years in Jerusalem, he spoke to them in Hebrew as well as English. Aristide was slightly shocked to discover, after the talk, that he was not understood: Most of the…

President Donald Trump's Israel envoy will get at least some Democratic backing in the committee set to vote on his nomination, according to a top lawmaker who spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, though several Democrats say they are still troubled by many of his past remarks and positions.

What a difference an election makes. Benjamin Net­­an­yahu, for eight years scorned and insulted by the Obama administration, found himself warmly embraced in the Trump White House last week. No more name-calling, no more deliberate "daylight" between Israeli and American positions, no more…

What a difference an election makes. Benjamin Net­­an­yahu, for eight years scorned and insulted by the Obama administration, found himself warmly embraced in the Trump White House last week. No more name-calling, no more deliberate "daylight" between Israeli and American positions, no more…

President Donald Trump's nominee for ambassador to Israel took a sober tone Thursday, as David Friedman, labeled a firebrand in the run-up to his confirmation hearing, moderated his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and repeatedly expressed regret over inflammatory comments he made in the…

This week, Israel's prime minister will visit Washington and meet with our new president. They will have a complex agenda.

Democratic Senate whip Dick Durbin has told THE WEEKLY STANDARD that he is formulating an amendment that will criticize the Trump administration for failing to mention Jews in a recent statement marking Holocaust Remembrance Day. Durbin plans to add the language to a Senate measure aimed at…

The Senate's number-two Democrat is facing a flood of phone calls urging him to drop his objection to a bipartisan measure condemning an anti-Israel United Nations resolution, according to a leading pro-Israel group that spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The Trump administration is reviewing the release of millions of dollars for Palestinian projects made by the Obama administration in a last-minute transfer that flouted congressional objections, according to statements provided to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior editor Lee Smith, on Obama's abysmal foreign policy record on Israel, Russia, and Iran.

Congress has limited options for responding to a United Nations Security Council resolution critical of Israel, according to a top Palestinian official who spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

On Thursday, President Obama announced an end to the "wet foot, dry foot" policy that allowed most Cuban migrants who reach the United States to become legal permanent residents after one year.

President-elect Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state Rex Tillerson denounced the Obama administration Wednesday for a range of moves against Israel and reiterated vows made by the president-elect to bolster relations with the Jewish state.

An assembly of pro-Israel leaders will head to Capitol Hill Wednesday to urge support for measures that call to repeal a recent United Nations resolution and to move the United States embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

The Obama administration has one week to hand over all documents involving a United Nations resolution critical of Israel to a congressional committee, amid allegations from Israeli officials that the administration worked behind the scenes to pass the resolution.

One of the most interesting figures in the bible is King Hezekiah—reformer, builder, and entirely historical, attested to in a passel of extra-biblical sources. New sources have been excavated over the last few weeks.

A bipartisan Senate push to censure the United Nations over a recent anti-Israel resolution is being stalled by a top Republican working to insert language increasing pressure on the U.N., an effort that has left the pro-Israel community seething and will make the measure irrelevant, according to…

Secretary of State John Kerry recently gave a speech highly critical of the Israeli government. Supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were outraged; critics, on the other hand, were gratified. And then, just about everyone picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and turned their…

Not long ago, I was talking to a Fatah official about Palestinian aspirations, especially his party’s sharp emotions about Hamas, the Palestinian fundamentalist movement that rules Gaza and would gladly overthrow the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority on the West Bank. Fear, loathing, secular outrage…

The House of Representatives on Thursday voted to condemn a United Nations resolution critical of Israeli settlements as anti-Israel and one-sided, in a rebuke of the Obama administration's decision to allow the resolution to pass.

Republican senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham are joining forces to propose legislation that will cut off American taxpayer funding of the United Nations until the international body reverses its December 24 Security Council resolution on Israel.

Majority leader Kevin McCarthy and Foreign Affairs committee chairman Ed Royce announced Monday night that the House of Representatives will hold a vote Thursday on a resolution blasting last month's United Nations Security Council resolution regarding Israeli settlements. The Obama administration…

So long as everyone expected a Hillary Clinton victory in November's presidential election, high-minded rhetoric ruled the day at the White House. Michelle Obama's quote from the Clinton campaign trail—"When they go low, we go high"—became something of a mantra. Initially, Barack Obama even spoke…

Australia's foreign minister, Julie Bishop, says her country would have opposed the recent United Nations resolution that condemned Israeli settlements. The United States abstained from voting on the resolution. Here's the Sydney Morning Herald:

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with contributing editor Elliott Abrams on his recent essay, "John Kerry's Final, Harmful Insult to Israel."

In the Obama administration's waning days, global challenges to American interests abound. In Syria, which will be a bloody stain on the reputations of Barack Obama and John Kerry, the killing continues. The effort to free Mosul from ISIS is slowing. The rise of Iranian influence in the Gulf and…

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday his government has "absolutely incontestable evidence that the United States organized, advanced, and brought" an anti-Israel resolution to the United Nations Security Council. In an on-camera statement from Jerusalem, Netanyahu said he would…

Secretary of State John Kerry accused the Israeli government of undermining prospects for a two-state solution Wednesday and defended the Obama administration's decision to allow the passage of a United Nations resolution critical of Israel, underscoring that Israeli settlements "only invited U.N.…

In his Wednesday speech on the Middle East, outgoing secretary of state John Kerry said a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinian people was the only way to achieve piece. Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee for president, also scolded the leadership of the democratic Jewish state of…

Israel needs to "stay strong" until Inauguration Day, President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday, when he vows there will be a shift in policy toward the American ally.

Secretary of State John Kerry will lay out his vision for the Middle East peace process Wednesday, according to a State Department spokesman, less than a week after the Obama administration allowed the passage of a United Nations resolution critical of Israel.

President-elect Donald Trump described the United Nations like it was a diplomatic holiday party Monday, saying it has "great potential" but implying it does little good.

Israel's deputy minister and former ambassador to the United States said Tuesday that he and the Israeli government "welcome" the proposed plan of incoming president Donald Trump to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Sources tell the Washington Free Beacon's Adam Kredo that Vice President Joe Biden lobbied foreign leaders whose countries sit on the United Nations Security Council to vote for a resolution that calls for the end of Israeli settlement activity. Here's an excerpt from the Beacon:

Israel is in real trouble. Not because of Obama's parting shot at the Jewish state and its prime minister. No, the real trouble for Israel, says the New York Times, comes from the fact that Donald Trump is about to become president. It seems that Trump's ascension to our highest office and his…

When 14 members of the United Nations Security Council voted in 2011 for a resolution condemning the expansion of Israeli settlements as illegal, the Obama administration exercised the United States's veto power to block its passage. Opposition to settlements beyond Israel's borders established in…

Editor at large William Kristol's weekly Kristol Clear podcast, where he discusses President Obama's abandonment of Israel at the United Nations, Christmas movies (Die Hard), and looking back at the year of Trump.

For all eight years of the Obama administration, Democrats have made believe that Barack Obama is a firm and enthusiastic supporter and defender of the Jewish state. Arguments to the contrary were not only dismissed but angrily denounced as the products of nothing more than vicious partisanship.…

The United Nations Security Council passed on Friday a resolution calling for an end to further Israeli settlement—with the United States government and its U.N. ambassador Samantha Power abstaining from the vote. The United States is one of five permanent members of the Security Council with veto…

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought out President-elect Donald Trump to help derail a United Nations resolution critical of Israeli settlements after it had been learned that the Obama administration would not veto it, an Israeli official told the Associated Press.

To fill the position of U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Donald Trump has nominated David Friedman, an accomplished lawyer and an adviser to Trump on Israeli issues. Friedman is something of a political outsider, but in a Trumpian world, that may actually be an asset. And like Trump, he has something of…

American military assistance to Lebanon should be reevaluated in the coming year, top congressional sources and experts tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD, following reports that equipment provided to the Lebanese army had been transferred to the Hezbollah terrorist organization and used to boost the Assad…

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday ripped last summer's landmark nuclear deal with Iran and said he would work with president-elect Donald Trump to remedy its shortcomings.

On Monday, the New York Times published a characteristically invidious column by former president Jimmy Carter calling on his lame-duck successor, Barack Obama, to recognize a Palestinian state. Intelligent observers have already picked apart the article itself, which has plenty to say about…

Trivia question: Who wrote the first political autobiography? He flourished more than 300 years before Caesar, may have been a eunuch, and lived a very eventful life. The man who wrote it was a high official in an empire, became a national leader, the restorer of a city, arguably penned the first…

Trivia question: Who wrote the first political autobiography? He flourished more than 300 years before Caesar, may have been a eunuch, and lived a very eventful life. The man who wrote it was a high official in an empire, became a national leader, the restorer of a city, arguably penned the first…

A group of Democratic lawmakers met with an alleged member of a terrorist organization during a trip funded by an anti-Israel nonprofit last spring, according to government documents obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

While your attention was diverted to America's elections, a fierce debate was underway among Israel-bashers. The debate is over the precise parameters of the obviously essential boycott of Israel. And it took place, quite properly, in the pages of The New York Review of Books, where just how much…

The organizers of an anti-Israel conference held over the weekend at George Mason University restricted press access only to "movement outlets" that support economic warfare against the Jewish State, according to statements provided to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by a media coordinator for the event.

Martin Kramer is the founding president of Shalem College in Jerusalem, where he also chairs the department of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies. He is the author of several books, including Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle East Studies in America, and The War on Error: Israel, Islam,…

Charles Krauthammer writes in his syndicated column Friday about the United Nations's cultural agency's recent decision to condemn the state of Israel—and the Obama administration's apparent acquiesence to the global campaign by nations hostile to Israel against the United States's strongest ally…

U.S. lawmakers are urging members of the United Nations' cultural body to oppose a resolution that will effectively sever Jewish and Christian ties to holy sites in Jerusalem, only a week after the body passed a similar, controversial measure.

The historian Jeffrey Herf's profound new book shows that German-animated left-wing terrorism targeting Israel was not a tactic but rather part of a long-war strategy to destroy the Jewish state. Academic study and journalism on the now-defunct East German Communist state and radical West German…

Members of Hillary Clinton's inner circle agreed to leverage support for Israel with donors but to remain silent on the subject around Democratic activists, according to hacked emails published by WikiLeaks.

A Christian pro-Israel group flooded the United Nation's cultural arm with thousands of condemnatory emails Monday, after the body passed a draft resolution last week denying Jewish and Christian ties to holy sites in Jerusalem.

So the November 24 deadline for reaching a comprehensive agreement with Iran over its nuclear program—itself an extension of an earlier deadline—has come and gone with a whimper, and with another extension. The frenetic, feverish, and foolish pursuit of a deal by the Obama administration, marked by…

A top senator is condemning the United Nations’ cultural organ for approving a draft resolution Thursday that effectively denies Jewish and Christian connections to holy sites in Jerusalem, after more than two-dozen countries, including U.S. allies, abstained from voting on the measure.

The Obama administration is manufacturing a crisis with Israel in anticipation of a post-election diplomatic push targeting the Jewish state, and this past week launched a series of broadsides criticizing the Israelis through the media and in press briefings, according to congressional sources and…

I’m famous! Or, well, actually I'm completely obscure.

As reported, the White House Friday struck "Israel" from a press release concerning the location (Jerusalem) of the memorial service for former prime minister Shimon Peres. But the White House has not always been so successful in "correcting" what it apparently believes is an error. A July 2015…

President Barack Obama traveled to the memorial service for former prime minister and Israeli founding father Shimon Peres Friday. The service was held at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, the site of the national cemetery of Israel. The White House press office released to the public Obama's remarks at…

Jerusalem

President Obama and his defenders are trumpeting the new aid agreement with Israel as proof that he is the best friend Israel ever had in the White House. In fact, it's a bad deal and should be treated the same way Obama treated prior agreements he didn't like: It should be forgotten by the next…

The University of California in Berkeley has brought back a student-led course on "Palestinian history" that had been condemned as anti-Zionist and biased against the state of Israel. The course, worth one academic credit, advocates a "decolonial alternative" for the region and had previously been…

President Obama and his defenders are trumpeting the new aid agreement with Israel as proof that he is the best friend Israel ever had in the White House. In fact, it’s a bad deal and should be treated the same way Obama treated prior agreements he didn't like: It should be forgotten by the next…

The New York Times editorial board took a break this past week from its usual practice of blaming Israel for being the cause of assaults against her. On Wednesday, after the terror attack on Jews praying in a synagogue in Jerusalem, the Times editors ruminated:

Lawmakers intend to grant Israel aid on top of a multi-billion dollar package struck between the nation and the Obama administration, ignoring an agreement Israel made with the United States to refuse any additional funds from Congress for two years.

A cancelled event advocating for economic boycotts of Israel has been rescheduled down the street from its original location in one of the House of Representatives office buildings, according to an invitation obtained Thursday by THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The Democratic House lawmaker who had anonymously sponsored a controversial House event advocating for economic boycotts of Israel withdrew her sponsorship Tuesday, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has confirmed, and the briefing has also been cancelled.

Democrats in Congress are distancing themselves from a Capitol Hill briefing that will advocate for economic boycotts against Israel, as the event garners public attention but the lawmaker or lawmakers sponsoring it have not identified themselves.

Uri Bar-Joseph is a professor of political science at the University of Haifa and a former intelligence analyst in the Israel Defense Forces. His just published book, The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel, is the remarkable story of how Cairo playboy Ashraf Marwan betrayed his father-in-law,…

Before Israel-based documentarian Shimon Dotan ever screened his film, The Settlers, at Syracuse University, he received an email telling him that it was a bad idea.

George Soros's philanthropy network sought to obscure its close coordination with a liberal Jewish advocacy group connected to the Obama administration and to campaigns designed to increase pressure on Israel and bolster the U.S.-Iranian relationship, newly leaked documents show.

Over the last three years of the Syrian Civil War, Hezbollah has increasingly operated as a regular army rather than in its traditional, decades-long role as a guerrilla force. The Shiite group has operated Syrian tanks and artillery, jeeps with recoilless rifles, and is even rumored to have…

Puerto Rico won its first Olympic gold medal Saturday when Monica Puig defeated Angelique Kerber to take the top prize in women's singles in tennis. Puerto Ricans on the island and off were ecstatic—like Hamilton author Lin-Manuel Miranda, who celebrated in a series of tweets—as Puig joined Puerto…

Israeli law enforcement officials have charged Mohammed el-Halabi, an employee of World Vision, a child welfare organization supported by Christians throughout the world, of funneling millions of dollars to the anti-Semitic terror organization Hamas.

What a week for anniversaries! Thursday we'll be celebrating the first year of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It's Barack Obama's major foreign policy initiative, which ostensibly prevents Iran from a nuclear breakout, but in reality paves the way for the White House's realignment with the…

A new report posted today by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), led by chair Rob Portman (R-OH) confirms that the U.S. State Department funded an Israeli political organization that later ran a campaign dedicated to ousting Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A deputy head in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard threatened that the Tehran-backed Lebansese terrorist group Hezbollah had the missile capability to launch a sustained attack on Israel. The Jerusalem Post reports:

The Senate Appropriations Committee passed a measure Wednesday combating the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, despite resistance from a group of Democrats. The committee passed the amendment, which is an outgrowth of the February Combating BDS Act of 2016, 21-to-9, as…

The Democratic Platform Drafting Committee voted against an amendment that would have condemned Israeli "occupation and illegal settlements" and legitimized the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement Friday.

In a speech to the European Parliament Thursday, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas accused rabbis of "demanding" that the Israeli government poison Palestinian water.

A Democratic senator has blocked a measure that combats the anti-Israel Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement due to its use of the term "Israeli-controlled territories." But the senator voted for a bill—now a law—that contained similar language months ago.

Cornel West and James Zogby lobbied to include the term Israeli "occupation" in the official Democratic platform during a meeting of the party's platform drafting committee last week.

Camp Shomera, on the Israel-Lebanon border

The Democratic National Committee has accepted Bernie Sanders-appointed pro-Palestinian activist James Zogby to its platform drafting committee in an attempt to ease interparty tensions.

Bernie Sanders’s recent interview with the New York Daily News editorial board revealed gaps in his knowledge of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that suggest, at a minimum, he isn't paying attention. Instead he is relying on old Socialist memories of the Israel he visited decades ago.

Jerusalem

On March 3, 2015 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to the U.S. Congress to blast President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. From that day to this, Netanyahu's critics have claimed that his speech was a huge mistake that politicized the nuclear issue, offended Democrats, and reduced…

Late last year, a group of Oberlin students delivered a list of demands to the Ohio college's president and trustees. The demands were ostensibly meant to redress wrongs suffered by the college's black students. (Oberlin's president has just offered a thoughtful response, which can be read here.)…

California is reeling from a drought, rather like the one suffered by Israel in 1998-2002. California, with an 840-mile coastline on the world's largest ocean, has a water shortage; Israel, with a mere 170-mile coast line, does not. Israel invests in desalinization; California is building a…

In a move that has sent shockwaves throughout Egypt, the Coptic Pope, Tawadros II, travelled to Jerusalem Thursday at the head of a distinguished delegation of bishops from the Coptic Church. The short flight from Cairo to Tel Aviv can be measured in minutes; the psychological distance stretches…

Barack Obama and John Kerry have yet to comment on the death of an American murdered last week by Palestinian terrorists. Ezra Schwartz, an 18-year-old from Sharon, Massachusetts, was spending a year in Israel when terrorists fatally attacked him last Thursday, not far from Jerusalem.

The Germans are angry with the Greeks for retiring at age 50 and counting on Germans to keep working until they are 65 so as to have enough cash to lend to Greece. The French are angry with the Germans for demanding such harsh and humiliating terms from the Greeks in return for a few billion more…

The Center for American Progress (CAP), one of the largest and most influential liberal think tanks in Washington, recently extended an invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He spoke there yesterday, and the New York Times write-up notes that Netanyahu "project[ed] a benevolent…

Last week, the Obama White House moved to ensure Hezbollah’s ability to point 100,000 missiles at Israel. That’s not how they would describe it, of course. But it was the Obama administration—as U.S. officials are quietly letting on—and not Russia that invited Iran to participate in talks in Vienna…

Daniel Polisar, writing for Mosaic:

The recent spike in suicidal terror attacks in Israel by mostly teenage Palestinian Arabs was allegedly sparked by the fire bombing of an Arab house near Jerusalem, and the death of an Arab infant and his parents. Because that horrific arson followed several non-lethal attacks by Jewish fanatics…

The remarks of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem about the role of the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in the Holocaust have engendered a massive, and mostly critical response. It is important to define in more precise terms the role of the Mufti…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Commentary's Noah Rothman on Donald Trump's candidacy and how he is upending the 2016 race, Jeb Bush's failure to defend, and the latest news on the attacks on Israel.

It's been two weeks since a majority of Congress sought to register its disapproval of the Iran deal but fell short of the votes necessary to break a filibuster or override a presidential veto, and most politicians and commentators have moved on.

The Palestinian press has been saying for weeks that Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas would “drop a bombshell” when he spoke to the United National General Assembly today. In the event, the bomb did not go off.

According to the New York Times, rocks now throw themselves. Or at least that’s what The Scrapbook was forced to conclude upon reading the paper’s curious headline: “Jewish Man Dies as Rocks Pelt His Car in West Bank.” The Times eventually “corrected” this headline, but only after it appeared in…

Antisemitism has never been an easy subject for America’s foreign-policy establishment. Read through State Department telegrams and Central Intelligence Agency operational and intelligence cables on the Middle East and you will seldom find it discussed, even though Jew-hatred—not just…

Even now with the Russians on the verge of combat operations in Syria, the White House still says it believes that they’re there to fight ISIS. John Kerry says that his Russian counterpart told him that the Russians are “only interested in fighting” the Islamic State. Other administration officials…

En route to Friday’s state dinner in his honor, Chinese President Xi Jinping stopped off in Seattle to meet with the heads of America’s great technology firms, from which China denies regularly stealing $300 billion annually in intellectual property, according to the Wall Street Journal. His goal:…

Secretary Kerry passed up the opportunity this week to recognize one of the most important holidays on the Jewish calendar, Rosh Hashanah. In recent weeks, however, Kerry took time to recognize the Independence/National Days of Guatemala, Papua New Guinea, and Andorra, among others. He also issued…

Barack Obama is personally hurt when people call him an anti-Semite, the president said in an interview with the Jewish newspaper the Forward. Obama says "there not a smidgen of evidence for" the accusation.

A week ago, I suggested that—contrary to conventional wisdom and perhaps even to first-blush common sense—the GOP field might benefit from one or more new candidates. One of the well-qualified dark horses I mentioned was third-term Rep. Mike Pompeo from Wichita, Kansas.

President Obama claims, as Bill Kristol noted in his editorial in the latest issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, that no country in the world has expressed opposition to his deal with Iran, with the exception of Israel. But that's not accurate. Canada, the United States' biggest trading partner—and,…

In May, President Barack Obama donned a yarmulke and spoke in a Washington, D.C., synagogue. He reminded his audience that Jeffrey Goldberg, a member of the congregation, once called him the “first Jewish president.” He claimed to be flattered by the characterization. And perhaps he was—most Jews,…

This week President Obama sealed his legacy as the most divisive president in modern times, who will leave behind both worsened race relations and a set of arguments about Iran that will surely feed anti-Semitism. 

Cleveland

According to Iranian-based media, Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif appeared on a panel today at Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations where he spoke about the nuclear agreement he negotiated with the P5+1 last month in Vienna. Zarif explained that the so-called snap-back sanctions…

Across the Middle East, there is concern about the nuclear deal with Iran. By releasing frozen assets and removing economic sanctions, the deal seems to facilitate renewed aggression. Won’t that encourage more violence from Iranian terror proxies, like Hezbollah and Hamas? The international…

Israeli media is reporting that an IAF strike on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights border killed several pro-Assad fighters today. One of them is believed to be Samir Kuntar. Many are hoping that it is.

Secretary of State John Kerry said on Capitol Hill today that Iran "may" kill Americans or Israelis. Watch here:

Secretary of State John Kerry's warning that Israel will be "blamed" if Congress opposes the Iran agreement conjures up troubling memories of other instances in which Israel or Jews were warned they might be blamed for international conflicts.