US
Jeremy Shapiro sees a number of problems with the State Department’s dissent on Syria:
As Vice President Biden has noted, the dissent cable replays a thousand debates within the Obama administration since 2011 on whether and how to deploy U.S. force in Syria. There was never a shortage of consideration of such options, never a lack of recommendations or of fairly detailed plans for no-fly zones, targeted strikes, or other military options. I personally spent several wasted months of my life annoying the Department of Defense and the National Security Council staff with half-baked ideas for cleverly calibrated uses of force. In the end, these and similar ideas were rejected by President Obama, not because he didn’t hear them, but because they made little sense.
Brookings’ Elizabeth McElvein writes about a new survey that shows that Americans are rapidly becoming more concerned with terrorism:
The poll found, no issue is more critical to Americans this election cycle than terrorism, with nearly seven in ten (66 percent) reporting that terrorism is a critical issue to them personally. And yet, Americans are sharply divided on questions of terrorism as it pertains to their personal safety. Six in ten (62 percent) Republicans report that they are at least somewhat worried about being personally affected by terrorism, while just 44 percent of Democrats say the same.
Israel
Etgar Keret writes about the “Anti-Israel” labelling he has recently been subjected to:
As far as I am concerned there is no difference between “pro-Israel” and “pro-women-with-big-breasts.” Both positions are equally reductive and chauvinistic. I find it perplexing that precisely on the issues I hold dearest and most essential, many people insist on reducing my views to such superficiality. I love my wife, but I’m not “pro-wife,” especially when she’s unjustly berating me. I have a fraught relationship with my new neighbor, whose dogs leave their waste right outside our apartment building, but it would be wrong to say that I’m “anti” her, or her cute dogs.
Nathan Lopes Cardozo believes extreme measures should be taken at the Kotel:
We must free the Western Wall of all denominations and abolish all synagogue services at the site, including bar and bat mitzva celebrations. We must remove all Torah scrolls, tefillin and tallitot and restore the Wall to its former state: a place where all are welcome and where not even the most lenient halacha can be violated; a place where there are no mehitzot (partitions) and other sources of ideological or physical conflict; a place used solely for individual prayer and meditation, just as our ancestors treated it throughout our long history.
Middle East
Shlomi Eldar examines whether PA President Mahmoud Abbas is hindering the rebuilding of Gaza as part of his fight against Hamas:
Ever since the reconstruction project began, sources in Gaza and Israel, as well as representatives of the donor nations, have claimed that the PA under President Mahmoud Abbas has been inserting sticks between the spokes of the wheels of reconstruction. In March 2015, representatives of the five largest states in the European Union — Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy and Spain — protested that the PA is not doing enough to advance reconstruction projects in Gaza. EU representatives even sent stern messages to senior PA officials about their behavior, but nothing has changed on the ground. It is now believed that the PA under Abbas has no interest in the rebuilding of Gaza, because that would help the Hamas regime, even if only indirectly.
Both the leaders of Hamas and the residents of Gaza are convinced that upon the advice of his closest advisers, Abbas has made a strategic decision to prevent the rebuilding of Gaza, based on the assumption that a dire economy would eventually lead to the collapse of the Hamas regime.
Mosaic’s June essay and responses are dedicated to Bernard Lewis and his legacy (response by Amir Taheri):
Bernard Lewis decided to study the Middle East in the 1930s, when almost no scholar was interested in the region. While events in the far distant past have provided the context, his magisterial work has contributed invaluably to the understanding of a turbulent region that has been at the center of academic and political interest for the past six decades. That work is even more urgently relevant today as he rounds his first centenary of life.
Jewish World
Sara Hurwitz writes about how the ordination of female rabbis is becoming common in the orthodox world:
Women receiving semikha is now a ritual, and is indeed a certainty. If the litmus test to success is whether women are being hired in clergy positions, then we have succeeded. If the litmus test is attracting and identifying high level students to learn and lead, then we have succeeded. If the litmus test is the number of people students and interns have inspired and helped community members, across the globe, then we have succeeded.
Daniella Cheslow writes about Tunisia’s last remaining Jews, many of whom want to move to Israel:
Cracked tombstones litter the cemetery behind Djerba’s Great Synagogue, but it was not vandals who broke them.
Hundreds of Jewish families have moved away from this Tunisian island community in the past five decades, digging up their relatives’ remains to take with them and leaving only the slabs of marble behind.
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