There is no doubt that Peter Beinart's widely acclaimed, powerfully argued, and eloquently written article in the May 12 issue of the New York Review, "The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment," is a major contribution to the growing effort within the American Jewish community to help save Israel from...

For over forty years Leslie Gelb has been at the very epicenter of the American foreign policy establishment: he has been a high official in both the Defense and State Departments; a diplomatic and national security correspondent, foreign policy columnist and Op-ed page editor of the New York Times; and...

The middle of the June 1 lead New York Times story on the Israeli attack against the flotilla attempting to deliver aid to Gaza, in defiance of the Israeli blockade or economic siege, includes a brief paragraph stating that the blockade was imposed as a response to the "takeover [of...

During the first twenty years or so of the nuclear age, a number of major books and articles were published on the theory of nuclear deterrence. One of the most important was Thomas Schelling's 1960 book, The Strategy of Conflict. Schelling pointed out that in some circumstances pretending to be...

Writing in the April 29th New York Review about the fraudulent reporting issue that led to the firing of the junior New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, Russell Baker describes the uproar at the newspaper over what it regarded as an unthinkable journalistic scandal, a violation of what Baker calls...

In case you missed it, on March 31 the New York Times published a very important oped, "What Makes Chechen Women So Dangerous?" by Robert A. Pape of the University of Chicago -- one of America's leading experts on terrorism -- and two of his students. After noting the fierce...

Yesterday Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told AIPAC's annual conference that American support of Israel was "rock solid, unwavering, enduring, and forever." What can explain this astonishing statement? Three possibilities suggest themselves:

First, Clinton is acting like a fool. She doesn't understand that she has just signaled the Israeli government...

The prospects for a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have never been worse, primarily because of the rightward shift of the Israeli government and public opinion and, secondarily, because of the end of any expectations that the United States would help "save Israel from itself."

Is there any hope...

I suppose one should no longer be surprised at the misleading and biased reporting of news on Israel that characterizes the New York Times in general, and Ethan Bronner, the newspaper's chief correspondent in Israel, in particular. Here is yet another example. Yesterday, during the visit of vice-president Joe Biden...

The New York Times' Week in Review recently contained a long oped column by Efraim Karsh, a British academic well-known for his rightwing opinions about the Middle East in general and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular. Most of the column focuses on historical and contemporary divisions in the Muslim world,...

Richard Silverstein is one of the best bloggers on Israeli affairs. He was recently interviewed about the Goldstone report on the Seattle television program, Moral Politics. The interview, now posted Silverstein's blog, Tikun Olam, is rather long but well worth watching -- his defense of the Goldstone Report...

The New York Times has now confirmed recent internet rumors that the son of Ethan Bronner, for the past two years its chief correspondent in Israel, has enlisted in the Israeli army. As the website Electronic Intifada pointed out, the internal policies of the Times state that journalists...

In November 2009 the Goldstone Commission issued its report on human rights violations during Israel's attack on Gaza earlier that year. The Commission concluded that both Israel and Hamas had committed "war crimes" during the fighting, and it recommended that each side conduct an honest internal investigation into the matter,...

This a coauthored post by William L. Hauser and Jerome Slater. It is a somewhat revised excerpt of our article, "The Call-Up: Conscription Again," in the January-February 2010 issue of World Affairs Journal. William L. Hauser is a retired Army colonel and Vietnam combat veteran who has published...

Early in the Obama administration there seemed to be a number of indications that Obama would change traditional U.S. policies of unconditional support of Israel and would put real pressure on that country to reach a peace settlement with the Palestinians. Since this promising beginning, however, Obama has been in...

Having heard widely conflicting advice on what should be done about Afghanistan, Obama has tried to split the difference. On the one hand, he has committed the U.S. to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, and reports indicate that NATO countries may contribute an additional 5000-8000 soldiers -- if that...