The double standards of the peace process encourage Arab violence towards Israel. While Israel is regularly expected to concede more than it has committed to, the Palestinians are continually excused from honoring any of their own promises.  more

Recently, commentators have been wondering what Israel could do to improve its image abroad. Israel though should be careful not to allow criticism from the West to constrain their military policies.  more

Negotiations with Iran should not be dismissed out of hand. However, in the end, it is hard to see what the Iranians will accept in exchange for giving up their nuclear program or what the West can offer that Iran might actually want.  more

In Europe, we have a paradox: The more people view immigration as a major issue, the less they feel free to talk about it.  more

On Nov. 4, an Italian court convicted 23 CIA operatives in the kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect. As courts intrude into national security matters, Western security services will likely resort to more discreet – but not necessarily more legal – counter-terrorism methods.  more

To French conservatives, the problems Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck pose to the image of the Republican party are all too familiar. In the 1980s, the French Socialists tried to link conservatives with the politics of the far-right National Front party.  more

Obama’s absence from the commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall shows that part of the left still does not understand the significance of this event, even 20 years later.  more

An ambush in Afghanistan which claimed the lives of 10 French troops may have resulted from Italian troops formerly responsible for the sector failing to notify their French replacements that they had been paying bribes to the Taliban. If the coalition forces plan to succeed in Afghanistan, they must settle on a unified strategy soon.  more

A rumor has been spreading since yesterday that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead or in a coma. By cutting off most means of communication during the post-election troubles, the Iranian authorities have made such rumors possible.  more

A funny thing could happen in the years to come if Siv Jensen’s Progress party, which has been critical of Obama’s Nobel award, finally gets a majority in the Norwegian parliament. If that party gets to appoint the Norwegian Nobel Prize committee, W or Bibi stand a chance.  more

This is how the legend goes: On July 14, 1789, the people of Paris stormed the Bastille prison. From then on, the event was celebrated as a symbol of the transition from the arbitrary regime of the absolute monarchy to the republican rule of law. Such a version of the event is of course no longer seriously believed by anyone in France.  more

Michael Jackson may be dead from a biological point of view, but commercially, he just got reborn.   more

Looking back at the demonstrations in Iran, it is not surprising that the regime is still there. As cheering as it was to see hundreds of thousands of Iranian show their contempt for both Ahmadinejad and Khamenei, and thus confirm their utter lack of legitimacy, the “green revolution” lacked several elements to be successful.  more

Netanyahu’s premiership has been difficult from day one, and it will probably become even more so as he prepares to deliver a speech on Sunday articulating Israel’s response to President Obama’s sudden demand that Israel formally endorse a two-state solution and freeze the settlements’ natural growth. Netanyahu’s task will be extremely difficult.   more

When the French parliament passed the headscarf ban in 2004, France was unsurprisingly criticized in the Muslim world. Five years later, President Obama, always looking for things to apologize about, particularly when they are supposed to have been done by other people, shared his point of view on the subject:
[I]t is important for Western countries   more

From a Jerusalem Post article on Abbas expecting Obama to eventually pressure Netanyahu out of office:

Abbas intends to remain passive, he told the paper. “I will wait for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements… Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people   more

According to the Jerusalem Post, a new poll shows mixed results regarding French attitudes towards Israel. While the French are broadly more supportive of the Palestinians than they are of Israel, most of them refuse to take sides. More strikingly, the broadly negative French attitude towards Israel comes with a deeper hostility towards Iran, Hamas   more

Today is Neighbor’s Day in France. If I don’t get home late — I usually try not to — I won’t be able to cross the courtyard and reach my apartment for a quiet evening with my family. That’s because there will be a neighbors’ party taking place, and I know that I will be   more

I have just watched a TV report on the French mainstream channel TF1 which was indirectly dealing with the Guantanamo issue. Briefly, the report compared Guantanamo, a summum of horror and shame, to some Saudi “secret reeducation camp” where ex al-Qaeda operatives are gently re-civilized through drawings and with the helping hand of an imam   more

Nicolas Sarkozy’s erratic G-20 antics – threatening walkouts, then changing his mind and welcoming President Obama effusively – have led many to wonder: What on earth does the French president think he’s doing?
Or, is he just behaving… stereotypically French?
The latter, I’m afraid.  For all his campaigning about “change”, Sarkozy is still a relatively classical French   more