Cultural obstacles are the real barriers to Israeli-Palestinian peace

“The attacks on civilians, breaking their arms, and beating them, constitute humiliation, disgrace, and injustice,” Nasser Al-Laham, the editor-in-chief of the Palestinian Authority’s Maan News Agency, said about Palestinian rule in the territories. “Prison cells? Torture? Burn marks?” he asked. “What have we adopted from the Arab countries apart from their garbage?… Is this the …

Rep. Omar and anti-Semitic distractions

Imagine that a new member of Congress denounces Muslims as terrorists and suggests they’re more loyal to their faith than to America. Then imagine that a cross-section of politicians, pundits, and Muslim leaders denounce the ugly sentiments but also stress that Islamic-driven terrorism is a legitimate issue of debate; that the Islamic Republic of Iran …

Netanyahu ignores global opinion at Israel’s peril

Few things are more infuriating than to hear Western leaders lecture Israel about how it should behave — whether the issue is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or other matters — while they say little if anything about far more serious matters of regional stability or human rights around the world. After all, it’s Israel — and …

40 years later, Iran needs another revolution

Iran’s threats to America’s global interests are mounting as the Islamic Republic celebrates its 40th anniversary, and these threats mock repeated U.S. efforts over the years to appease a dangerous regime. Tehran is developing longer range and more sophisticated missiles that can reach U.S. and Israeli targets; building weapons factories in Syria in hopes of …

Second Trump-Kim summit risks US credibility

President Trump hopes to use a second summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un in the coming weeks to jumpstart progress on dismantling the North’s nuclear program, but Kim’s recent statements and Pyongyang’s clandestine work on its program raise serious questions about the President’s approach. To be sure, Kim has maintained his freeze on nuclear or …

China’s Uighur abuse augurs poorly for world

“There is danger for every one [of us] in Pakistan now,” a leader of that nation’s Muslim Uighur community told Al Jazeera this week. Apparently not satisfied with persecuting the Muslim Uighur community in its own Xinjiang province by, among other things, throwing an estimated million or more of them in torturous “re-education camps,” Beijing …

Airbnb unfairly sides with Palestinians in West Bank

WASHINGTON – “We are most certainly not the experts when it comes to the historical disputes in this region,” Airbnb stated in announcing that it would no longer list rentals by Israeli citizens in the West Bank. Airbnb’s modesty is commendable, but its ignorance is insidious. Its policy for the West Bank subjects Israel to …