Did you listen to President Obama’s speech yesterday? The President put it bluntly: the arguments against the Iran Deal do not stand up to scrutiny. But, as President Obama astutely observed, “if you repeat these arguments long enough, they can get some traction.” That’s why President Obama concluded his speech by asking Americans to contact…
On July 23, the New York Times published an op-ed by Shmuel Rosner, political editor at The Jewish Journal and a senior fellow at The Jewish People Policy Institute, which made the following claim: There are American organizations (such as J Street) that support goals that barely any Israeli agrees with, that nevertheless flaunt the pro-Israel label. No explanation…
A recent CNN poll found that four out of five Democratic voters oppose the Israeli Prime Minister’s planned March 3 tirade to Congress against diplomacy. Thursday morning, twenty-three House Democrats did something about it. They sent a lettercalling on House Speaker John Boehner to postpone Netanyahu’s scheduled March 3 address until after the Israeli elections two weeks later…
People have noticed the silence of former Secretary of State and widely presumed 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry. Where does she stand? How long can she dodge? And how long can former President Bill Clinton dodge? It’s not like the…
In mid-November, the Christian Science Monitor reports, a loya jirga in Afghanistan – a national meeting of tribal leaders and other notable Afghans – will vote on whether to meet the Obama administration’s terms for keeping U.S. troops in the country beyond the end of 2014. If you care about democracy in Afghanistan, you should…
In international diplomacy, gestures matter. This is particularly true for efforts to promote real diplomacy between the United States and Iran. For three decades, the United States has mostly pursued an "Iran cooties" policy. We can’t meet with Iranian leaders, because someone might interpret that to mean that we think that the Iranian government is…
On Sunday, Republican Sen. Bob Corker and Rep. Eliot Engel – a Democrat who voted for the Iraq war – told Fox News that President Obama should strike Syria first and get Congressional approval afterwards. That’s not how the U.S. Constitution says it should go. That’s not how the War Powers Resolution (which, despite the name "resolution," is binding U.S. law) says it…
On August 21, U.S. citizen Bradley Manning – now known as Chelsea Manning -was sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking classified information to the public about the killing of civilians in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; drone strikes in Yemen; torture in Guantanamo, Iraq, and Egypt; the coup in Honduras; corruption in Tunisia, the…
The Senate and the Roman People have declared that the U.S. government is spending too much money. We have to live within our means. Difficult choices lie ahead. We can’t do everything anyone might like us to do. Everything is on the table. Therefore, instead of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq past December, we should…
According to the New York Times, a quarter of the passengers on the U.S. Boat to Gaza are Jewish. What does it mean that the U.S. Boat to Gaza is a quarter Jewish? According to the noted American Jewish commentator Adam Sandler, a quarter Jewish is "not too shabby!" Maybe the U.S. Boat to Gaza…