It is rare for a United States ambassador to challenge his superior, the secretary of state. And it is even rarer for the ambassador to succeed. But that is exactly what David Friedman, the top U.S. diplomat to Israel, did recently. Taking advantage of his close ties to President Trump, Friedman took issue with the…
Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club is going through a rough patch. In past years it hosted more than 40 charity events each season. This year there are so far only 6 events booked. In part, due to President Trump’s comments following the Charlottesville protests that led several groups, including American Friends of Magen David Adom, to…
A number of readers have responded on line and in emails to my column, “How Bush and Bibi Made a Mess of the Middle East,” with pointed comments that deserve a reply. Several readers suggested that I invented my account of Ariel Sharon’s conversation with George W. Bush in the White House on February 7,…
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is planning a massive new wave of construction in the West Bank, according to a report Sunday night on Israel’s Channel 2 News. It’s part of a deal to calm his restive allies in the settler-backed Jewish Home party. The Channel 2 report has since been confirmed independently by Haaretz,…
One day after a New York Jewish fundraising event bought in $500,000 towards President Obama’s reelection effort, the Obama campaign has released a new video touting the president’s support for Israel, and citing praise for the president from Israeli leaders. Titled “America and Israel: An Unbreakable Bond,” the seven-minute web video intersperses Obama’s December 2011…
A decade ago, during the height of the second intifada, Roz Rothstein, a family therapist and child of Holocaust survivors, watched the news coming from Israel from her home in Los Angeles with growing frustration. Feeling that Israel was not getting the backing it deserved in the United States, she and her husband, Jeremy, set…
Israel’s deputy foreign minister and Twitter warrior, Danny Ayalon, recently released a video over YouTube that is doing quite well — posted on July 11, it now has nearly 180,000 hits. In it, Ayalon tries to explain why he thinks the West Bank should not be referred to as “occupied” and that settlements are not…
The media in Israel expects the country’s controversial Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, to be indicted by the end of the week on charges including fraud, breach of trust, money-laundering and obstruction of justice. But there’s a more immediate accusation facing Lieberman – transgression of telephone etiquette. Yesterday, the radio station Reshet Bet was interviewing him,…
