On Monday in New Hampshire, Marco Rubio virtually accused President Obama of treason. “It’s now abundantly clear,” the Florida senator declared, that “Barack Obama has deliberately weakened America.” The president, Rubio continued, wants to “humble” the United States because he believes “our power has done more harm than good.” Essentially, Obama hates America and is working to bring it down. Why is Rubio accusing Obama ...
Benjamin Netanyahu is worried that the Palestinian Authority may collapse. According to Barak Ravid, he’s twice convened Israel’s security cabinet to discuss the prospect since late December. It reminds me of a quote from the 2003 film Cold Mountain: “They made the weather and then they stand in the rain and say “Shit, it’s raining.’” …
Once upon a time, Republican leaders said the United States should push the Middle East toward democracy because Arab dictators were breeding Arab terrorists. Not anymore. In the party George W. Bush once ran, his fight-terrorism-with-democratization thesis has been largely orphaned. The new buzzword is “stability.” Donald Trump publicly bemoans the fall of Saddam Hussein and Muammar al-Qaddafi. Ted Cruz attacks the Obama administration for ...
Two and a half years ago, when Secretary of State John Kerry launched his bid to midwife a Palestinian state, he warned that, “If we do not succeed now, we may not get another chance.” Subsequent events have proven him right. The era of the American-led peace process, which began almost a quarter-century ago when George H. W. Bush and James Baker dragged Israelis and ...
Republican primary voters hate illegal immigration and love Israel. So Donald Trump has combined these two passions into one. “If you think walls don’t work,” he says again and again on the campaign trail, “all you have to do is ask Israel.” …
The strange, sad tale of Donald Trump and Jeb Bush continues. After first trying to ignore the billionaire bigot, and then getting humiliated by him, Jeb is now making his willingness to stand up to Trump the centerpiece of his campaign. He’s just released an ad entitled “The Only One,” in which he slams Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Chris Christie (a sure sign that ...
Over roughly the past 18 months, the following events have transfixed the nation. In July 2014, Eric Garner, an African American man reportedly selling loose cigarettes illegally, was choked to death by a New York City policeman. That August, a white police officer, Darren Wilson, shot and killed an African American teenager, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri. For close to two weeks, protesters battled police ...
On foreign policy, the leading Republican presidential contenders fall into basically two camps: hawkish optimists and hawkish pessimists. The hawkish optimists are Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush. They’re willing to spend money, sell arms and even send troops in an attempt to transform America’s enemies into pro-Western democracies. The hawkish pessimists are Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. They’re skeptical of getting entangled in the internal ...
Every time I go to Israel I experience the same sensation: wonder. Although I’ve been going since I was a child, there comes a moment on every trip when I ask myself: Did I just board a plane in New York and disembark in a Jewish state? For hundreds of generations, Jews were a stateless people. By what bizarre stroke of luck am I among ...
Many prominent conservatives have, to their credit, responded to Donald Trump’s call to ban Muslims from entering the United States with horror. “It is un-Republican. It is unconstitutional. And it is un-American,” declared the head of the New Hampshire Republican Party. The head of the South Carolina GOP said it “send[s] a shiver down my spine.” Even Dick Cheney said it “goes against everything we ...