US
James Jeffrey tries to explain why America actually can stop ISIS:
Defeating ISIS-as-state is not dependent upon solving Syria as a social, historical, cultural, religious, and governance project, let alone doing the same with Iraq. ISIS feeds on the conflicts in both countries and makes the situation in both worse. But it is possible to defeat ISIS as a “state” and as a military-economic “power”—that is, deal with the truly threatening part— without having to solve the Syrian and Iraqi crises or eliminate ISIS as a set of terrorist cells or source of ideological inspiration. Of course, even if ISIS is destroyed as a state, we would still have the Syrian Civil War and Iraqi disunity, but we have all that now, along with ISIS, which presents its own challenges to the region and the West.
James Shapiro and Richard Sokolsky believe that America has been enabling the “bad behaviour” of its allies for too long:
The truth is that our allies behave the way they do because we let them. We provide billions of dollars in military and other aid to countries in order to protect and advance US interests, yet we fail to use this leverage to induce the recipients of this aid to behave in a way that actually advances US interests.
That's because the US has become so focused on maintaining its relationships with its allies above all else that it's forgotten what the relationships were for in the first place: securing US interests.
Israel
Sever Plocker suggests that Israel should revisit the “Jordan option” for settling with the Palestinians, who have proved they cannot create their own state:
For its welfare and for its future existence, Israel must put the Jordan option on the table. Israel must announce its willingness to withdraw from 98% of the land it conquered in the Six Day War and return it to the Jordanians. While it's true that the Arab League decided to expropriate control of the West Bank from Jordan to the PLO in the 1980s, in the 30 years that have passed, the PLO has done almost nothing to further the cause of an independent Palestinian state and economy. Therefore, this option must be seen as voided, and as an option which doesn’t take into account the will of the Palestinian people.
Mazal Mualem discusses the tough times that are plaguing Labour leader Isaac Herzog:
The attacks against him and the commotion within his party over the police probe only served to expose in one fell swoop the depth of the crisis Herzog and Labor are facing. They revealed heated internal battles and outed those seeking to replace Herzog, including Yachimovich, Knesset member Erel Margalit and Knesset member Amir Peretz, who preceded Yachimovich as party chairman. In recent weeks Labor has been portrayed as an opposition party unable to mount a challenge to the regime with a chairman who cannot rise above Netanyahu and the Likud.
Middle East
Robin Wright takes a look at how the Sykes-Picot agreement still haunts the Middle East:
In the Middle East, few men are pilloried these days as much as Sir Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot… The Sykes-Picot Agreement launched a nine-year process—and other deals, declarations, and treaties—that created the modern Middle East states out of the Ottoman carcass. The new borders ultimately bore little resemblance to the original Sykes-Picot map, but their map is still viewed as the root cause of much that has happened ever since.
Mustafa Akyol explains why Erdogan is closer to Putin than to Sharia law:
The more likely future for Turkey is not a Sharia-imposing Islamic state, but a more conservative state re-designed in the image of the AKP. Keep in mind that the latter-day ideology of the party is not simply “Islamism” after all, but “Erdoganism,” in which Islamism is indeed an important theme, but not the only theme. This would not put Turkey on the path to becoming another Iran or Saudi Arabia, as Turkey’s secularists fear, but it could lead in the direction of another Russia, where a similar ideology, “Putinism,” rules.
Jewish World
Follwing the Ken Livingston scandal, Jonathan Freedland asks the British left to treat the Jews like they treat other minorities:
On the left, black people are usually allowed to define what’s racism; women can define sexism; Muslims are trusted to define Islamophobia. But when Jews call out something as antisemitic, leftist non-Jews feel curiously entitled to tell Jews they’re wrong, that they are exaggerating or lying or using it as a decoy tactic – and to then treat them to a long lecture on what anti-Jewish racism really is.
The left would call it misogynist “mansplaining” if a man talked that way to a woman. They’d be mortified if they were caught doing that to LGBT people or Muslims. But to Jews, they feel no such restraint.
David Horovitz takes on the same disturbing scandal:
That, dismally, is the face of today’s British Labour leadership, of Her Majesty’s Opposition, of the would-be next government of the United Kingdom: a leadership stained by anti-Semitism, reluctant to so much as suspend offenders, and critical of those within its ranks who confront them.
