During a White House meeting with Israeli officials in 2009, Samantha Power, like any other proud mother, pulled out a photo of her infant son. In speaking to the admiring crowd, she added a surprising detail: Her son, she said, is a descendant, from his father’s side, of the Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo…
A spillover of violence from Syria’s civil war into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights is jeopardizing a decades old ceasefire between Israel and Syria, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a report to the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in a 1967 war. Syrian troops are not allowed in…
The United Nations human rights investigator for the Palestinian territories said on Tuesday he would not resign and accused critics of calling him anti-Semitic to divert attention from his scrutiny of Israeli policies. Richard Falk said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had “joined in the attacks”. UN Watch, an activist group that Falk labels as a…
A United Nations human rights investigator accused Israel on Monday of imposing collective punishment on 1.75 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and said that the enclave’s viability was at stake. Both Israel and its close ally the United States boycotted the debate at the Human Rights Council where Richard Falk presented his latest…
Samantha Power, President Obama’s nominee for United Nations envoy, cares deeply about Israel’s security needs, the Israeli ambassador to Washington said. “Samantha Power and I have worked closely over the last four years on issues vital to Israel’s security,” Michael Oren told The New York Times on Friday. “She thoroughly understands those issues and cares…
Israel has asked to resume its ties with the United Nations Human Rights Council a year after severing ties with the body, an Israeli paper reported. “I have been instructed to write to you and, in response to your latest letter of 14 May 2013, re-affirm my intention to continue our close and fruitful dialogue,”…
Even in a political culture as poisonous as ours is of late, there’s still something deeply disturbing about the perverse dishonesty of the right-wing attacks on Samantha Power, President Obama’s nominee for ambassador to the United Nations. There are so many layers of bad faith at work here that it’s hard to know where to…
Some Republicans may view the choice of Samantha Power for ambassador to the United Nations a chance to replay the divisive Chuck Hagel nomination process, in which they tried to drive a wedge between the White House and pro-Israel advocates. It may not be that simple this time round, as Power has successfully defused some…
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