Netanyahu’s Capitol Hill Debacle The Israeli leader and House speaker are risking a rupture in U.S.-Israel relations.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/william-a-galston-netanyahus-capitol-hill-debacle-1424218804
Netanyahu’s Forceful but Misguided Address His logic should lead him to urge an Iranian regime change, but he knows that won’t sell in the U.S.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/william-a-galston-netanyahus-forceful-but-misguided-address-1425427204
As children we are taught that two wrongs don’t make a right. And when we grow up, we learn that this maxim harbors a deep, sad truth—nowhere more so than in the Middle East.
The Obama administration’s decision to abstain on U.N. Security Council resolution 2334, which condemns Israel for its settlements on the West Bank and east Jerusalem, was a mistake. Understandable, perhaps, but still a mistake. It has given false hope to Israel’s adversaries while uniting Israelis across the political spectrum against an institution they see as one-sided and hypocritical.
The resolution makes no discernible contribution to the cause of peace in the Middle East. Most Israelis regard it as the final act of an expiring administration, not a long-term change in U.S. policy.
The recent resolution is most accurately understood as a continuation of past Security Council and U.S. policy in the region. As my Brookings colleague Natan Sachs points out, by abstaining in 1987, the Reagan administration allowed the passage of the Security Council’s Resolution 605, which included “Jerusalem” in the “Palestinian and Arab Territories, occupied by Israel since 1967.”
When it comes to the Middle East, it is Donald Trump who represents a breach with the past, not Barack Obama. blah,blah, blah….
