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America
The Reset Button
All of a sudden we have seen a different type of meeting between Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and Obama. And a major effort on the part of the President, for the first time since his election, to be nice to the Israeli people by giving an interview...
Published: 27/07/2010 read more
How to Support - and Improve - Israel
Julie Szego's column entitled "The Need for a Critical Diaspora" (July 2) placed entirely too much uncritical faith in the arguments of American author and journalist Peter Beinart. She fails to take adequate account of the outcome of the intense an...
Published: 22/07/2010 read more
US Policy and the Peace Process / Talking about Islam and Terrorism
This Update features some new analysis of the likely future of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in the wake of the Obama/Netanyahu summit last week. First up is Washington Institute analyst and former US National Security Council Middle East ex...
Published: 16/07/2010 read more
Obama and Bibi Meet in Washington
As readers are probably aware, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held a much-anticipated meeting at the White House on Tuesday night with US President Barack Obama. This Update looks at the issues discussed and affected by the Summit, and th...
Published: 08/07/2010 read more
Signs of change in US Middle East policy?
Today's Update looks at the contours of American foreign policy in the wake of recent speeches and articles by senior US Middle East experts not especially noted for their pro-Israel views recommending a reappraisal of the global significance of, an...
Author: AIJAC staff Published: 29/04/2010 read more
Is Washington's Iran policy "confused"
Much debate has been sparked by the revelation in the New York Times last weekend that US Defence Secretary Robert Gates had written a secret memo stating that, in the paper's words, the US lacks "an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran...
Author: AIJAC staff Published: 23/04/2010 read more
An Imposed Israeli-Palestinian Solution?
As noted in the last Update, reports from Washington suggest the US Administration is considering the idea of putting forward its own Israeli-Palestinian peace plan which it would then attempt to impose on the parties....
Author: AIJAC staff Published: 13/04/2010 read more
Moving to Iran Containment? /The US and Israeli settlements
Readers may have seen an important article over the weekend from Greg Sheridan of the Australian alleging that the US Administration is moving away from trying to stop a nuclear Iran toward containing Iran once nuclear capabilities are achieved. Thi...
Author: AIJAC staff Published: 08/04/2010 read more
From Reconciliation to Recrimination
The announcement could hardly have been more mistimed. Having first angered Biden it then embarrassed Netanyahu, then threw into a tizzy US-Israeli diplomacy and, while at it, dented what little progress had been made on the peace process....
Author: Amotz Asa-El Published: 26/03/2010 read more
Editorial: Frustration versus Analysis
Although the resolution appears very clear, progressing there is desperately, exasperatingly difficult. Unfortunately, the well-meaning but relatively inexperienced Obama Administration has shown a counter-productive tendency to act out of this frus...
Author: Colin Rubenstein Published: 26/03/2010 read more
America's Mideast woes don't begin and end with Israel
Petraeus conspicuously avoided any hint that the conflict with the Palestinians and recent violent clashes are the result of Israeli policy. He made no mention of Israeli settlements; nor to Israeli building in east Jerusalem....
Author: External author Published: 26/03/2010 read more
A Middle East Without American Influence?
The new catch phrase in the Middle East is strategic realignment. Broadly speaking, this means that the balance of power is shifting from the US-backed regional order to the axis of resistance....
Author: External author Published: 26/03/2010 read more
Washington Wash-up
Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu spent most of the past week in the US capital but, unlike with many previous visits by Israeli PMs, much of the trip remains the subject of conjecture....
Author: AIJAC staff Published: 26/03/2010 read more
The Latest Crisis and the Obama Administration's approach to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking
Today's Update focuses on what the crisis generated by the Obama Administration's statements on Israel's building plans in eastern Jerusalem - culminating in three new demands on Israel ostensibly to prove their peacemaking bona fides - seem to ind...
Author: AIJAC staff Published: 19/03/2010 read more
Escalating post-Biden criticism of Israel from Washington
This Update deals with the apparent escalation in the US criticism of Israel over the announcement of new housing in Jerusalem, which continued even following the departure of US Vice-President Biden from Israel....
Author: AIJAC staff Published: 16/03/2010 read more
Essay: The Great Satan Myth
The Iranian regime has never found itself more vulnerable. And, with this vulnerability, it has never leaned more heavily on its own narrative of history. This narrative, of course, has a central antagonist, a character conjured as the "Great Satan"...
Author: External author Published: 25/01/2010 read more
Obama's Surge / Hezbollah's New Manifesto
We begin today's Update with some analysis of US President Barack Obama's announcement he will send an extra 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. The decision comes after the US commander in Afghanistan, and architect of the successful surge in Iraq, ...
Author: AIJAC staff Published: 04/12/2009 read more
Netanyahu, Obama and Settlements / The Islamist Narrative
Today's Update features some additional follow-up from the Israeli settlement freeze announcement, looking especially at discussions of the relevant motivations of Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu, as well as lessons for the future of US-Israeli relati...
Author: AIJAC staff Published: 03/12/2009 read more
Editorial: No Short Cuts To Peace
It is hard to escape the conclusion that mistakes made by the Obama Administration have contributed to the current Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic impasse....
Author: Colin Rubenstein Published: 24/11/2009 read more
At an impasse?
How is it possible that a US administration that came to office committed to the pursuit of Arab-Israeli peacemaking is today further from even getting the parties to talk with each other than at almost any point since the peace process began at the...
Author: External author Published: 24/11/2009 read more
Creativity and realism required for success in Middle East talks
YESTERDAY in Washington, President Barack Obama formally launched the resumption of direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians after a 19-month hiatus. International expectations for the talks are low because there appear to be a number of fac...
03/09/2010 read more
Hamas, Israeli Security and Peacemaking
Following the Israeli-Palestinian Summit in Washington yesterday (in which the details of discussions were kept discreet), this Update features some comments on Hamas' role as a potential spoiler in the wake of the Hamas terror attack Tuesday, which...
03/09/2010 read more
Today's Israeli-Palestinian Summit in Washington
As readers are doubtless aware, Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu is meeting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas today in Washington in a summit designed to formally re-launch direct Israeli Palestinian peace talks. This Update offers backgrou...
02/09/2010 read more
Editorial: In the Balance
The next prime minister of Australia should be whoever can more convincingly promise a stable coalition able to undertake the responsibilities of government more effectively. Overseas and Australian state government experience demonstrates that s...
27/08/2010 read more
Scribblings: The BBC Pre-empts Flotilla Inquiries
Israelis have been much focused in recent weeks on the testimony of various top officials to the Turkel inquiry - looking into the flotilla clash off Gaza on May 31 that left nine Turkish activists dead. On top of this, the Israeli government has ma...
27/08/2010 read more
AIR New Zealand: A Tzur Thing
When Israel reopened an embassy in Wellington in April this year, it seemed obvious that the new Ambassador, Shemi Tzur, and his staff had a big job in front of them. Almost a decade without on-the-ground representation, as well as some years of tro...
27/08/2010 read more
Fall of the Teflon Terrorist?
On Aug. 9, 2010, members of Indonesia's elite counter-terrorist police force arrested the militant cleric Abu Bakar Bashir as part of their ongoing investigations into a terrorist training camp discovered in February 2010 in Aceh, plots to kill Pres...
27/08/2010 read more
Israel's Endangered Deterrence
There are few journalists specialising in strategic and security affairs more experienced than Ron Ben Yishai. After fighting as a paratrooper in the Six Day War, Ben Yishai turned to journalism full time. Since then he has covered, from the battlef...
27/08/2010 read more
Hamas' Gaza Killing Spree
News stories about bodies found at sea are occasionally published by Gaza newspapers. The number of such bodies isn't huge, yet not all those drowning victims chose to go swimming voluntarily. The Gazans who found their death at sea include mid-leve...
27/08/2010 read more
The State of the Iranian Revolution
Since coming to power in 1979, the Islamic Revolution in Iran has had two main aims. First, it wished to remain in power and if this was the aim of the Islamic Revolution, 31 years later, it has been successful. But revolutions don't come about simp...
27/08/2010 read more
Essay: Decade of Disappointment
It's been a decade since Israeli and Palestinian leaders met as peacemakers only to part at loggerheads. Now, with most of the Camp David summit's protagonists long gone from the scene, that ill-fated conclave's military, diplomatic and political re...
27/08/2010 read more
The Last Word: Ideology Above Humanity
What struck me then, and continues to strike me, was their complete lack of concern, sometimes even contempt, for the human beings they claimed to champion and the hatred for the human beings on the other side of the political divide. There was no r...
27/08/2010 read more