US
Carol Morello writes about Kerry's visit to Riyadh, emphasizing Saudi concerns about Iran:
Kerry’s one-day visit to Riyadh underscores that Israel is not the only country in the Middle East leery of how a deal with Iran may upend the balance of power.
“We see Iran involved in Syria and Lebanon and Yemen and Iraq and God knows where,” the Saudi foreign minister said. “This . . . must stop if Iran is to be part of the solution of the region and not part of the problem.”
Senior State Department officials said Kerry sought to allay their concerns that Iran could build nuclear weapons at the end of a deal with a 10-year or longer time frame.
Despite disagreeing with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's objection to specifics of the deal with Iran, The Economist points out that Netanyahu highlights the dangers of an upcoming nuclear age:
The most urgent need is to revitalise nuclear diplomacy. One priority is to defend the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which slows the spread of weapons by reassuring countries that their neighbours are not developing nukes. It was essential that Iran stayed in the treaty (unlike North Korea, which left). The danger is that, like Iran, signatories will see enrichment and reprocessing as preparation for a bomb of their own—leading their neighbours to enrich in turn. That calls for a collective effort to discourage enrichment and reprocessing, and for America to shore up its allies’ confidence.
Israel
Itay Blumenthal quotes former Mossad Chief as he criticizes Prime Minister Netanyahu in front of tens of thousands at anti Netanyahu rally:
Dagan said he fears “there is a lack of vision, a lack of direction and determination, and a dearth of exemplary leadership. I fear hesitation and stagnation. I fear – above all – a crisis at the helm. The crisis we are experiencing today is the worst that I can remember since the creation of the state.”
Haviv Rettig Gur explains the critical Role President Rivlin will play in determining the next Israeli prime minister:
There are three stages to an Israeli election: election for parliament, presidential selection of the prime minister, and coalition negotiations to form a government with a parliamentary majority.
The people of Israel only have a say in the first part. The third part is likely to be fairly easy, no matter who is selected for premier. Parties such as Shas, UTJ, Kulanu and Yesh Atid are eager to be in the government, no matter who stands at its head.
And so it is the second stage, the presidential selection of a prime minister, that is the great unknown of the race.
Middle East
Michael Goldfarb describes ISIS's attempt to erase Iraq history through destroying ancient artifacts:
The history of a people is everything. In war, aggressors can butcher individuals in a thousand grotesque ways but it is time consuming. Destroy the symbols of a people’s history and you can more easily conquer a whole society… Nimrud is a big site, so it will take a while to totally destroy it. That is a small mercy and so is this thought: Isis is a morbid symptom. It is neither Islamic, nor is it a state. The destruction of a nation’s history is a tactic to pacify its people. But too many Iraqis are like Ahmad and Ghailani. They know their history, they breathe it, they embody it. Their knowledge, their identity will not be erased by these murderers.
Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger discuss ISIS recruitment of foreign fighters:
ISIS has eschewed the al-Qaeda model of attracting fighters first and radicalizing them later. With its heady media mix of graphic violence and utopian idylls, ISIS sought recruits and supporters who were further down the path toward ideological radicalization or more inclined by personal disposition toward violence.
ISIS has crafted a novel formula for mixing brutal violence with the illusion of stability and dignity, and it has moved the bar for recruits. Its combination of successful ground strategy, aggressive messaging, and an appeal to strength over weakness has proven uniquely powerful and energized at least tens of thousands of ardent supporters.
Jewish World:
Pinchas Goldschmidt presents the dilemmas Russian Jews face as reflected in the life of recently murdered opposition leader Boris Nemtsov:
The life and trials of Boris Nemtsov represent to some extent the challenges of modern-day Russian Jewry: The contradicting centrifugal powers pulling between Red Square and the Israeli Embassy on Bolshaya Ordinka are dividing hundreds of thousands of Russians of Jewish descent, further weakening and diminishing a historic community. Some of the more prominent Jews think they may fare better under the shadow of the cathedral, while others grow more affiliated with synagogues and Jewish organizations such as the Russian Jewish Congress, expressing their Judaism openly.
Amanda Borschel-Dan explains that orthodox feminism believes in evolutionary vs. revolution
For these Orthodox women on the seam — those who feel friction between Jewish tradition and a modern egalitarian sensibility — as well as for many Liberal women rabbis in far-flung parts of the Jewish Diaspora, the key to change is evolution, not American-style revolution. They are working within their readings of tradition to keep themselves within the community, while charting slow and steady progress.
