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Sunday Reads: President Obama’s ‘Muslim world’, How WW1 changed Jewish history

[additional-authors]
June 21, 2015

US

Ahead of the second part of our conversation with Michael Oren, which we will post tomorrow, here is his new Foreign Policy article about President Obama and the Middle East:

Historians will likely look back at Obama’s policy toward Islam with a combination of curiosity and incredulousness. While some may credit the president for his good intentions, others might fault him for being naïve and detached from a complex and increasingly lethal reality. For the Middle East continues to fracture and pose multiple threats to America and its allies. Even if he succeeds in concluding a nuclear deal with Iran, the expansion of the Islamic State and other jihadi movements will underscore the failure of Obama’s outreach to Muslims.

According to Eli Lake and Josh Rogin, the US doesn’t really know too much about Iran’s nuclear capabilities:

The most recent unclassified U.S. intelligence estimate of Iran's nuclear program is from 2007. It said that until 2003, the U.S. intelligence community had high confidence that “Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons.” But that report also acknowledges intelligence gaps and therefore only assesses with “moderate confidence” that the halt in 2003 to some activities “represents a halt to Iran's entire nuclear weapons program.”

Israel

Abe Foxman gives his perspective on the recent statements made by Israel’s culture Minister Miri Regev:

However valid Regev may or may not be on the funding issue, the most disturbing of her comments came following criticism of her decisions by the Zionist Union. She lashed out by saying, too bad, you are the losers, we are the winner, we won 30 seats, you won only 20, therefore the decisions are only mine to make. While it is true that she became minister of culture because her Likud Party formed the government, this line of approach is a grave misunderstanding of democratic society and values, and potentially holds within it future threats to democracy.

Mazal Mualem believes that PM Netanyahu is not doing enough to eradicate Israel's violent 'price tag' phenomenon:

Netanyahu is good with words and declarations, and to minimize the damage to Israel’s image throughout the Christian world, he stressed in his statement that the “outrageous” arson attack was “an attack on us all,” promising to bring those responsible for this “despicable act” to justice.

In examining Netanyahu’s determination to tackle hate crimes since he returned to the premier's seat in 2009, a grim picture emerges. Most of the perpetrators of “price tag” attacks are never caught. Netanyahu condemns, but that’s the extent of his activity.

Middle East

Zachary Keck examines how hard it would be for the US to conquer Iran:

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States found that conquering a country is the easy part. It’s the occupation that proves costly. While occupying Iran would be at least as difficult as the Iraqi and Afghan occupations, even invading Iran would prove enormously challenging. Consequently, while conquering Iran is the most sustainable way to prevent it from building a nuclear weapon, Washington is unlikely to attempt to do so anytime soon.

Matthew Levitt and Ryan Youklis sum up the findings from the State Department’s Annual Terrorism Report:

Due to growing efforts worldwide to counter ISIL, the group's ability to further expand remains uncertain. ISIL appears to also be reaching its geographic and demographic limits in Iraq and Syria and thus is branching out by creating splinter groups in locales such as Libya and Yemen. Although significant territorial expansion outside Iraq and Syria has thus far proven elusive, and although 2014 marked the start of worldwide efforts against ISIL, the elements that prompted the group's rapid rise seem likely to help it remain entrenched in its strongholds for the foreseeable future.

Jewish World

Jay Michaelson writes about the what he sees as a crisis in Jewish leadership:

There are many excellent, extroverted, management-consulted leaders in what I call the Institutional Jewish Community (IJC). In terms of professionalization, we’ve come a long way. But is there any doubt that, particularly outside the Orthodox world, the American Jewish community has lost much of its soul? It feels as though we’ve diluted ourselves artistically, spiritually and intellectually, even as our institutions have poured resources into, well, more institutions.

Moment magazine talks to historian Dan Schwarz about Jews who fought in WW1 and about how that brutal war changed the Jewish people:

The number of Jews who are soldiers for different sides far exceeds any precedent to that point. Approximately a million and a half Jews fought in World War I for their respective countries. On the Allied side, at least 500,000 Jews served in the Russian Army, notwithstanding widespread Russian anti-Semitism and distrust of Jews. After the United States enters the war, U.S. forces get something like 250,000 Jewish soldiers. About 40,000 or so throughout the British Empire fought for Britain. And about 35,000 soldiers for France.

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