US
Julie Pace writes about President Obama’s wish to avoid lame duck status:
Obama now stares down 11 months before his successor is chosen in an election shaping up to be a referendum on his leadership at home and abroad. He stirs deep anger among many Republicans, a constant reminder of his failure to make good on campaign promises to heal Washington's divisiveness. But he remains popular among Democrats and foresees a role campaigning for his party's nominee in the general election.
Andrew C. McCarthy takes on the belief that US actions and statements help terrorist recruitment:
Yet, understand, that is what Washington would have you believe. Whether it is Barack Obama sputtering on about how Guantanamo Bay drives jihadist recruitment, or Hillary Clinton obsessing over videos (the real one by Nakoula that she pretended caused terrorism in Libya, and the pretend ones about Donald Trump that she claims have Muslims lined up from Raqqa to Ramadi to join ISIS), you are to believe violent jihad is not something that Muslims do but that Americans incite.
Israel
Donniel Hartman discusses the dilemmas facing Israel supporters when it comes to organizations such as Breaking the Silence:
We are strong enough to tolerate even our deplorable critics. Our gravest danger stems from the increasingly nationalist sentiment which fears criticism more than its abuse. When Israel is more concerned with the shortcoming of its critics than by the decay of the political stalemate, many around the world begin to question our character, and BDS thrive.
Eitan Haber doesn’t understand why the government of Israel doesn’t take harsher measures against the rabbis of the extreme right:
A country which has sent a president, ministers and Knesset members to prison, and is about to send a former prime minister there too, has never dared – and these are the right words to use – to act against rabbis like Yitzhak Ginsburg and the likes of him, who instigate masses and are bringing all of us closer to the edge of abyss.
Middle East
Israeli Brig. Gen. Muni Katz and Nadav Pollack take a look at the military education Hezbollah has been receiving from Russia:
Recent history has also shown that whatever Hezbollah learns, its partners in crime will soon follow suit. Numerous terrorist organizations have studied and implemented the group's military tactics — in some cases, Hezbollah even sent trainers to help certain proxies upgrade their capabilities. For example, Hezbollah-trained Shiite militias demonstrated such tactics against American soldiers in Iraq prior to the U.S. withdrawal… High-ranking Hezbollah veterans also reportedly trained Houthi forces in Yemen, who are now showing significant capabilities in their fight against the Arab coalition. And in Gaza, terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have long implemented Hezbollah strategies in the political and the military realms.
Semih Idiz writes about the possibility of an Ankara-Jerusalem rapprochement:
If rapprochement with Israel can be achieved, it might have broader significance for Turkey’s general foreign policy orientation. It could signal that Ankara’s populist approach, predicated on Erdogan’s hard-line, Islam-based moralistic and ideological stance, might be replaced with a more realistic reading of international relations.
Jewish World
Ruth Wisse offers a fascinating look at the history of the relations between Poles and Jews:
There is no way of simplifying or ironing out the relation of Jews to Poland, Poland to Jews, each to their common history. It is a fact that Poland offered Jews some of the best conditions they ever experienced in exile. Even if one discounts the saying, “Poland was heaven for the nobles, hell for the peasants, and paradise for the Jews,” it is plain that the last-named did enjoy unusual opportunities in the country—until they didn’t. A Failed Brotherhood is how the scholars Magdalena Opalski and Israel Bartal titled their book on Poles’ and Jews’ perceptions of each other, leaving open the question of which of the two words deserves greater emphasis.
J.J. Goldberg talks about the racial profiling of Jews in the US:
CIA director George Tenet, deposed in a Ciralsky lawsuit in 2010, admitted there were instances of outright anti-Semitism in agency conduct. But the essential impulse in these cases isn’t mere bigotry. The government knows there’s a religious minority whose tenets might lead an individual, if rarely, to criminality. They’re reluctant to impugn an entire community. But they have no clue how many people might be at risk or how to identify them. So they stumble through.
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