US
Steven Metz discribes the deep divide between the US and Israel on Iran as a contrast between two strategic cultures:
The inability of the United States and Israel to reconcile their positions is not, as some critics contend, the result of Obama’s wavering commitment to Israel’s defense, but of two enduring and deep peculiarities of U.S. strategy: first, its expansiveness, and second, America’s uniquely idealistic strategic culture. These shape not only U.S. cooperation with Israel but also U.S. security partnerships around the world.
David Frum writes a curious Requiem for American exceptionalism:
As Americans have become more uncertain of their nation’s continued hegemony, their leaders and would-be leaders have insisted ever more emphatically upon the doctrine of “American exceptionalism.” As a guide to action, however, the concept is proving of dwindling utility in the 21st century. The American state can still mobilize and deploy resources vastly greater than those of any other state. American policymakers, however, do not face a different geostrategic map from the policymakers of other and adversary countries, and American society does not belong to a different category than do the societies of other developed societies.
Israel
Ari Shavit discusses the crisis of the Israeli left and the “battle for the soul of Israel” in this interesting post-election piece:
In order to win the battle for the soul of Israel, the Israeli center-left must redefine itself much in the way that the American Democratic Party redefined itself under the leadership of Bill Clinton and the British Labor Party did under the leadership of Tony Blair. What is also needed is a new—and pragmatic—peace-idea that addresses the legitimate and justified fears of most Israelis.
Ben Birenbaum and Amir Tibon conduct on autopsy on the Herzog-Livni campaign:
The left wing of the Labor Party continued to view Livni’s centrist party with suspicion. At one point, Herzog and Livni settled on a slogan, “It’s us or him,” apparently not aware that when pollsters asked Israelis whom they preferred for Prime Minister, a plurality went with Netanyahu—if, at certain moments, just barely. (The Prime Minister promptly started using the slogan “It’s us or the left.”)
Middle East
Aaron Zelin and Oula Abdulhamid Alrifai criticize the Obama administration for falling too easily for Assad’s deceitful manipulations:
It is a shame then that Assad is fooling Washington a second time, now arguing he is the lesser of two evils compared to ISIS, an argument that has influenced Secretary of State John Kerry, who is now calling for negotiations. Assad’s regime is just as bad as ISIS. If Washington falls for Assad’s manipulation and deceptions again, what will be the result?
Robert Kaplan analyses an often neglected aspect of Iran’s strength in the Middle East:
Iran benefits from being both a civilization and a sub-state. Its Sunni counterparts are merely states, and often creaky ones at that, at a time in history when states are being undermined by other political forces. Indeed, the state model is failing in the Middle East, and Iran's advantage is that its leaders operate at levels both above and below the traditional state.
Jewish World
James Kirchick criticizes the Atlantic’s James Follows for his problematic attitude on Israel and the Holocaust:
Rather than a bludgeon wrought to beat the world into seeing them as perpetually on the brink of yet another attempted extermination, the Holocaust is today employed to discredit its victims and their descendants as hysterical children perpetually crying wolf. Sobran complained of being “bullied” by Jews, which is another tip-off: In fact, it is the Jews who are being bullied in this discourse. They’re the ones being told that their historical ordeals and suffering are overblown and exploited for low political gain and as an excuse to wage war on innocent Muslims.
Simon Joseph discusses a new book of commentary on ancient Hebrew texts which sheds light on the early relationship between Judaism and Christianity:
The task of the historian is to avoid (re)inscribing orthodoxies where they are historically anachronistic and to recognize the diversity, fluidity, and interactivity of ancient Judaism and Christianity. Fortunately, our knowledge of the ancient past — in particular, the Enochic literature, the Qumran manuscripts, and the earliest Christian writings, authors, and communities — is currently expanding into a far more complex pattern of interrelationships within Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity than previous generations recognized.
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