US
Max Boot laments Obama’s Syria policy, which he views as a huge stain on his presidency (video):
The Obama administration doesn't want to do anything serious in Syria and so, therefore, it's doing unserious things to make it appear as if it's doing something when it's actually not doing anything. I mean, this is just staggering. I mean you can't make this up. The fact that they convened these peace talks and two days later they're suspended. I mean, this is not a huge surprise. Everybody knew that the predicates were not in place to have successful peace negotiations at this time, and yet they went ahead and did it, convened them anyway. What is the point? This is just really demonstrating to me the utter bankruptcy and failure of the Obama policy in Syria, which is going to leave a terrible stain on the way that history views his presidency.
Henry Kissinger argues in favour of more dialogue between the US and Putin's Russia:
I am here to argue for the possibility of a dialogue that seeks to merge our futures rather than elaborate our conflicts. This requires respect by both sides of the vital values and interest of the other. These goals cannot be completed in what remains of the current administration. But neither should their pursuits be postponed for American domestic politics. It will only come with a willingness in both Washington and Moscow, in the White House and the Kremlin, to move beyond the grievances and sense of victimization to confront the larger challenges that face both of our countries in the years ahead.
Israel
According to Yoaz Hendel, secular Israelis need to know more about Judaism, unless they want the country’s religious life monopolized by interest groups:
Those who don’t know enough about Jewish history, who have never read a page of the Gemara or studied the Halakha, can’t seriously argue about prayers at the Western Wall, the Sabbath, or Jewish sects. At the end of the day, they’ll always have to bow their heads to those who claim a monopoly on Judaism.
Mazal Mualem writes about Israel’s growing skepticism about any prospect of peace:
Together with Liberman, who served as foreign minister in two Netanyahu governments, Netanyahu also played a significant role in making Abbas irrelevant. For years, Liberman treated Abbas like someone whose time had long since passed, and who had “lost touch with reality.” He did this week after week, throughout his time in office. For his part, Netanyahu allowed Liberman to excoriate Abbas, even when the negotiations were supposedly underway. Is it any wonder that Israelis do not believe Abbas?
Middle East
Nicholas Burns and James Jeffrey argue for a US-led no-fly zone in Syria:
We admire Obama and his many foreign policy successes. The president is right that the United States needs to be cautious about intervening in the Middle East. But he has been far too reactive and unwilling to assert U.S. leadership in Syria over the past five years. We believe the risks of inaction are greater than the risks of a strong U.S. initiative to protect civilians. If we fail to act, the war in Syria will almost certainly grow worse.
George Freidman explains why the recent tension between Russia and Turkey makes a lot of sense:
Both countries have profound vulnerabilities and are therefore hyper-sensitive to the moves of the other. The random events that led to this form a logical pattern from a broader standpoint. These two countries have had many historical encounters, and they measure each new encounter against the old. Distrust is the normal and reasonable condition between these two countries, and we have now merely moved back to a more traditional pattern.
Jewish World
Robert Kaplan examines the curious case of Romania’s participation in the murdering of Jews during WW2:
The story of the Holocaust in Romania — an important, if relatively obscure, chapter in the overall story — is different. It is one in which not utopian ideology, but realism, militarism, irredentism, authoritarianism, and national self-interest — forces all very familiar to us today, and all in this case taken to an extreme — resulted in hundreds of thousands of murders.
Ido Hevroni offers an interesting reading of the David and Goliath story for Mosaic Magazine:
In this story, God is a constant, unseen presence, and faith in Him is a matter not so much of revelation and miraculous intervention than of proper conduct in circumstances where there is no manifest proof of God’s will. Armed with that view, David succeeds. When thinking about world conditions today, and in particular about the real sources of Israel’s strength as a nation, careful readers of the David and Goliath story might do well to bear in mind its central message: things are not always as they are seen, or as others wish us to see them.
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