
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) — In 2006, Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) used a North African pejorative, “macaca,” to describe a person of color, which led folks to wonder what the Southern-accented son of a legendary football coach knew from North African pejoratives, which led to the discovery that Allen’s mother was born Jewish in Tunisia, which led Allen…
(JTA) — Pro-Israel groups suspended their high-profile lobbying effort for a strike on Syria now that the United States and Russia have struck a deal to strip the Assad regime of its chemical weapons. A spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which organized a Capitol Hill blitz last week aimed at persuading Congress…
After 20 years of stops, starts and a bloody intifada in between, John Kerry believes he can pull out a final status Israeli-Palestinian peace deal in nine months. What clock is the U.S. top diplomat trying to beat? According to his aides, the one ticking down as Syria and Egypt roil into unknowable futures and…
(JTA) — The guy with the socks up. The guy with the pants down. The guy with the headlocks. The guy who tweets and deletes. What is it with these male politicos? And why are they all Jewish? The cloistered community that is Washington’s Jewish elite collectively choked a little Saturday morning as it progressed…
(JTA) — “I was with him when…” was the theme of Ron Dermer’s speech to the 2009 American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference. Dermer used the phrase five times in the first five minutes of the speech — the “him” being Benjamin Netanyahu. “I can shed a little insight into the mind of the Israeli…
The two vice-presidential candidates led the way Wednesday as the Obama and McCain campaigns worked to draw clear battle lines on Iran and Israel. In a highly anticipated speech at the Republican National Convention, Alaska Gov. and vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin mocked U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for saying more than a year ago…
Washington — U.S. authorities arrested an American for spying for Israel. The Justice Department disclosed Tuesday that Ben-Ami Kadish, a mechanical engineer at a U.S. Army facility in Dover, N.J., was arrested on charges of relaying secrets to Israel from 1979 to 1985, including nuclear secrets. Kadish speaks Hebrew and has an Israeli brother, according…
In a bid to quell growing unease about his relationship with a black preacher known for strident rhetoric, Barack Obama described the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s views on America — including its relationship with Israel — as fundamentally “distorted.” Obama addressed the issue during a hastily scheduled speech in Philadelphia, days after the media began airing…