1) Meanwhile in Egypt The New York Times is reporting Egyptians Struggle as Wary Tourists Stay Away: Tourism plummeted in 2011 with the fall of President Hosni Mubarak and the unrest that followed. Some tourists have started to return, but officials say they are mostly beachgoers rather...
1) The counter-intuitive truth David Ignatius, recently peddling conventional wisdom about President Obama's recent Middle East, Obama's Pragmatic Approach, trip listed three accomplishments of that trip. Two of them were: Obama breathed a little life back into an Israeli-Palestinian peace process that had...
1) The Washington Post on Obama's trip Fareed Zakaria uses a guest column in the Washington Post to proclaim Obama appeals to Israel's conscience: He starts with condescension: As a piece of rhetoric, Barack Obama’s speech to college students in Jerusalem was a triumph. He finally convinced Israel...
1)All that glitters Politico published an analysis of President Obama's recent trip to the Middle East by Josh Gerstein, Obama in Israel: 5 takeaways (h/t The Israel Link). While the article isn't awful, it suffers from a lack of substance. The five takeaways are: Bibi and Barack...
1) The apology The Washington Post reported Obama ends Israel visit by brokering end to dispute with Turkey: Prodded by President Obama, Israel and Turkey agreed Friday to end a three-year rift caused by a deadly Israeli commando raid on a Turkish ship bound for Gaza, a...
1) The President talks to the Israeli people Barry Rubin summarizes President Obama's message to the young people of Israel whom he addressed at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem yesterday. First: Obama’s big theme is that — and I’m not being satirical here — peace is...
1) Barack and Bibi The Algemeiner has transcripts of President Obama's and PM Netanayahu's remarks at their joint press conference yesterday. Writing in Tablet, Lee Smith covers the three issues that President Obama and PM Netanyau would be discussing: the Palestinians, Syria and Iran. (via memeorandum) However,...
The New York Times, the American Council for Judaism and Israel Last year a former New York Times reporter, Neil Lewis wrote a defense of the New York Times' coverage of Israel. (.pdf) Lewis writes of Arthur Hays Sulzberger: Whatever complicated personal themes may have floated in...
1) Is there any hope left for Mideast honesty in the New York Times A few people have pointed out that I missed an op-ed by Rashid Khalidi, Is Any Hope Left for Mideast Peace? One paragraph really stuck out. Until 1991 most Palestinians, although under Israeli...
Cheerleading the Intifada The New York Times has done it again. Less then two weeks after publishing an intellectual attack against Israel, it publishes an article glorifying physical attacks on Israel. The front page story of yesterday's New York Times Magazine, Is This Where the Third...
1) Why is this debate a virtue? Yesterday, I wrote about Joseph Levine's outrageous article at the New York Times arguing that Israel is not a legitimate secular democratic state. At the Daily Beast, Ralph Seliger writes: I think it's odd that we should still be arguing the...
The Ranting of Levine Last week the New York Times published an essay by a philosophy professor, James Levine On Questioning the Jewish State. I won't quote from the essay, but here are some of the responses. Elder of Ziyon argues: In fact, if you follow his bizarre...
1) Being a reporter means never having to say you're sorry The New York Times has reported on the UN report that raised doubts about the death of Omar Masharawi. Isabel Kershner wrote U.N. Ties Gaza Baby’s Death to Palestinians: Paul Danahar, the BBC Middle East bureau chief,...
Mendacious Max Beyond Iron Dome Max Fisher, the blogger for the Washington Post who publicized the picture of Jihad Mishrawi has now responded to a new United Nations report that concluded that the rocket that killed Mishrawi's son was likely fired by Hamas. Originally he was...
1) More fallout over the Samira Ibrahim selection Robert Mackey has established himself as an anti-Israel activist. Following last week's revelation that Egyptian activist Samira Ibrahim had been making antisemitic and anti-American comments, Mackey was back in business. He asked, Samuel Tadros, the scholar who had uncovered...
The state of the Secretaries of State One of John Kerry's first acts in office as Secretary of State was a good one. Lee Smith writes in John Kerry Roasts Turkey: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not a man who minces words. He has called...
Those "apartheid" buses A number of British publications recently featured articles about some new Israeli bus lines devoted to transporting Arab residents of Judea and Samaria into Israel. These publications have outrageously called the buses, "apartheid" buses. Lori Lowenthal Marcus lays out some of the background (and...
1) More on AIPAC In addition to explaining how the two organizers put together the AIPAC conference, Tablet has a symposium, Do we still need a pro-Israel lobby? Though there are some good responses, the presence of Rebecca Vilkomerson and Alan Elsner as respondents is disappointing. Vilkomerson is...
Ron Coleman