
Ron Kampeas is the former Washington bureau chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Ron Kampeas is the former Washington bureau chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
(JTA) — Less than a month after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signaled a readiness to mend ties with Israel after years of antipathy, a delegation of American Jewish leaders has embarked on a trip to embrace Turkey’s longtime rival Greece. Members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations are in the…
(JTA) — Just months after the conclusion of a nuclear deal with Iran that the Obama administration hoped would help defuse a volatile region, the Middle East seems ready to spiral out of control. Protests have erupted across the region this week in the wake of Saudi Arabia’s execution of a leading Shia cleric. In…
(JTA) — Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has made seemingly contradictory statements about the seriousness of reported U.S. spying on Israel. Democrats have been eager to point out the apparent discrepancy. In the aftermath of the Wall Street Journal revelation last month that the National Security Agency eavesdropped on Israeli officials, including Prime…
There’s a lot of social media buzz about the nearly 2-hour documentary, “Netanyahu at War,” which chronicles Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s career and then veers into his relationship with President Barack Obama. Allow me a mixed-generation metaphor — boomers and millennials — for my takeaway: The PBS documentary casts the Obama-Netanyahu relationship as a…
(JTA) — At first blush, it appears like a bombshell: The United States listened in on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s phone calls. But on closer examination, the revelations reported Dec. 29 by The Wall Street Journal might not be so far reaching. Spying on allies is both routine and legal in the United States,…
(JTA) — The issue of torture in Israel has received unusual attention in recent weeks because of the identity of the alleged victims. Human rights groups say nothing is new in the allegations that Jewish youths, arrested in connection with an arson attack over the summer that killed a Palestinian toddler and his parents in the…
(JTA) — Ted Cruz wants to make sure you understand: “Republican” and “neoconservative” are no longer synonymous. The Texas senator, inching up to second place behind front-runner Donald Trump in the polls just weeks before the Iowa caucuses, has launched a broadside against the “crazy” movement that not so long ago was inextricable from establishment…
(JTA) — Miriam Adelson and her husband, Sheldon, reportedly are at odds over which Republican presidential candidate deserves backing. But this isn’t a typical marital spat — it’s about which candidate most deserves to be showered with their money. Miriam Adelson, an Israeli-born physician, favors Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, while casino magnate Sheldon Adelson likes…