Tagged Secretary of State John Kerry

(JTA) — What did Secretary of State John Kerry say last week that caused former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren to say that U.S. policy toward Israeli has become “sad, tragic and dangerous?” That led Sen. Ted Cruz to say that Kerry and President Barack Obama are… Read more »

Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer addresses Jewish leaders at the National Press Club in Washington, July 28, 2014. (Ron Sachs)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The dramatic developments in the war between Hamas and Israel have been accompanied by sharp ups and downs in U.S.-Israel relations. On Monday, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, made nice with the U.S. national security adviser, Susan Rice, before an audience of… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Behind the feud between John Kerry and Israel over the secretary of state’s efforts to broker a Gaza cease-fire is a larger tension concerning the role of Turkey and Qatar in Palestinian affairs. Israeli officials rejected the proposal for a cease-fire advanced by Kerry in part… Read more »

Secretary of State John Kerry testifies during aSenate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on April 8, 2014. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Obama administration is sticking with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for now despite a crisis that has threatened to scuttle talks. That’s the message U.S. officials were peddling as a top State Department team was in the region turning over the engine attempting to restart the… Read more »

Washington – In the past week, I had the honor of spending several days with Ami Ayalon, a decorated Israeli war hero and former commander of the Israeli navy and head of the Shin Bet security service from 1995 to 2000. Ayalon was in the United States to address… Read more »

Martin Indyk, the U.S. special envoy for Ben Gurion International Airport on Jan. 5, 2014. (Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv/Flash90)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — As the Obama administration prepares to unveil a framework plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Jewish groups have responded by laying low. In contrast to the noisy Iran sanctions contretemps between the administration and much of the pro-Israel community, the leading centrist Jewish groups… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — When it comes to the deal between Iran and major powers, Israel and the pro-Israel community are retreating from a strategy of confrontation and working instead to influence the contours of a final agreement. In a conference call last week, Howard Kohr, the American Israel Public… Read more »

This month in Geneva, at the first negotiations over its nuclear program since the election of President Hassan Rouhani, Iran took an unprecedented step: It negotiated. For the first time, Tehran presented an actual vision of the endgame for the talks with six world powers, and how to get… Read more »

Imagine this scenario: President Obama delivers an address to the nation, in which he says he would use force if Syria doesn’t strip itself from its chemical arsenal. Later, on the same day, National Security Advisor Susan Rice appears in a public event and dismisses the president’s words, quoting… Read more »

Israelis flocking to a southern Tel Aviv post office to receive free gas masks -- a scene being played out throughout Israel amid fears of an attack by Syria. (Ben Sales)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Daniela Hayoum arrived at a Tel Aviv post office at 7 a.m. and took a number. The line of people waiting for gas masks was long and Hayoum stepped away to run errands. She returned in the afternoon to find hundreds of Israelis crowding under… Read more »

Rosh Hashanah is traditionally a time for rabbis to weigh in about the Jewish and American issues closest to their heart — and many also devote one of their High Holiday sermons to Israel. It’s an opportunity to speak to a sanctuary packed full of people, most of whom… Read more »

L-R: Reps. Ed Royce, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Pete Roskam at a meeting with Dani Dayan, a leader of Israel's settlers movement, in Washington, June 27, 2013. (House Republican Conference)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — It’s almost boilerplate: The American Jewish community asks a foreign leader with whom it has cultivated a close relationship to kindly tell firebrands in the leader’s government to pipe down and fall in with an established policy that happens to be embraced by the U.S. government.… Read more »

Secretary of State John Kerry, right, delivering a Joint Statement with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al-Thani in Washington, April 29, 2013. (U.S. State Department)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — When it comes to the latest Arab peace initiative, two questions are circulating in Washington: Why Qatar? And why now? The three answers: Because Qatar is rich; it is scared; and why not? Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani, the Qatari prime minister and… Read more »

Iran watchers are worried that the reckless gamesmanship of North Korea's Kim Jong-un, shown in an Oct. 9, 2010 photo, will provide a model for the Islamic Republic. (Creative Commons)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — If you have nuclear weapons, all sorts of bad behavior will be tolerated. That’s the lesson some are worried Iran may be learning from North Korea’s increasingly confrontational stance against South Korea and the United States. Pyongyang has stepped up its belligerent rhetoric in recent days,… Read more »