The Abraham Accords represent a shameful deal for trade and military alliances between an apartheid state, Israel, and some of the most brutal autocracies in the world, like the UAE and Bahrain. The notion that these are “peace agreements” is false on its face, and even more a deception in the intent behind the agreements, which is largely focused on facilitating war. It was always going to be a challenge…
Haaretz columnist Zvi Bar’el published an article in the wake of the Israeli election with a simple and quite familiar headline: “Zionism is Racism.” Far from mere clickbait, Bar’el defends the thesis that Zionism is now racism. His implication that it was not so before is there and clear to anyone paying attention, but it is not given much attention in the piece. Bar’el is a liberal but is certainly…
One of my New Year’s resolutions will be to get back to maintaining a regular schedule on the Cutting Through newsletter. Due to some other commitments, that won’t happen to start the year, but I hope it will at some point in 2023. But I am closing out 2022 with a new edition of Cutting Through. In this one I write about taking responsibility when your country elects reprehensible leadership,…
Ever since it became clear that Benjamin Netanyahu was likely to return as Israel’s prime minister and that he would be bringing in a government that, even for Israel, was radically right wing, Joe Biden and Antony Blinken have consistently been saying that they will react to the government’s actions, not its members, and that they would be dealing with Netanyahu, not Bezalel Smotrich or Itamar Ben Gvir. This is…
Today, December 19, 2022, ReThinking Foreign Policy joined over 50 civil society organizations in sending a letter to President Biden urging him to publicly release his new policy on the use of lethal force outside recognized armed conflict. Biden’s Presidential Policy Memorandum is vague about this policy, and it seems to imply legitimization of extrajudicial killings. As the letter states, “Many of us were among the more than 110 civil…