“I used to think I knew Michael Oren. This is no one I know, or wish to know.” This January 24 tweet by Tamara Cofman Wittes, a Middle East scholar from the Brookings Institution and a former Obama administration official, may have summed up what many in Washington feel now about the former Israeli ambassador…
The Trump team has called relocating the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem a “priority.” and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said such a move would be “great.” But experts on the Middle East see a variety of possible scenarios for such a move, and most of them are terrible. The main concern is that moving…
Sam Lewis was my friend, my boss and my teacher through some tough and turbulent times, and taught me more about diplomacy than almost anyone. Sam, who died in his home in Virginia on March 10 at 83, was not just another career diplomat, especially when it came to Israel. After serving eight years as…
Pete Seeger, California, 1950s / Public Domain In the spring of 1998, Pete Seeger headlined a free concert in Central Park celebrating Israel’s 50th birthday, sponsored by the Cantors’ Assembly. The event prompted a critical press release from the Zionist Organization of America, protesting the Cantors’ Assembly’s giving a platform to a harsh critic of…
