When world leaders converge on New York this month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will again be present. The occasion is the opening of the United Nations General Assembly session. This time, though, Ahmadinejad comes with enhanced diplomatic credentials. He is no longer just head of Iran; he also chairs… Read more »
Tagged United Nations
Netanyahu pledges decisive response as rockets slam southern Israel
JERUSALEM (JTA) – As southern Israel was barraged by rockets for a fourth straight day, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was hitting back “strongly and decisively,” and its Iron Dome anti-missile defense system was intercepting many of the rockets coming from the Gaza Strip. “The IDF is continuing… Read more »
Pro-Israel voices joining bid to get Iranian dissident group off U.S. terror list
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Famed attorney Alan Dershowitz, former Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel — three prominent Jewish activists who have joined with other prominent people in a bid to remove a group with a blood-soaked history from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.… Read more »
News Analyses: Alexander Levin’s got a name (and cash), but does he have a plan?
NEW YORK (JTA) — Ukrainian Jewish leader and real estate mogul Alexander L. Levin came to New York last month to launch the latest international Jewish organization with a grandiose name. Called the World Forum for Russian Jewry, this one aims to harness the power of Russian-speaking Jews the… Read more »
On Arab anti-Semitism, from indifference to complicity
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The link between hatred of Jews and of the only Jewish state often requires little conjecture. This is particularly so in the Arab world, where cultivated popular anti-Semitism has been ignored abroad as an impetus of regional conflict. For evidence that anti-Israel sentiment in the Middle… Read more »
When the Jews went to North Korea
WASHINGTON (JTA) – When a delegation from the American Council for World Jewry went to North Korea, its agenda was typical of visits by Jewish organizations to developing nations: promote outreach to Israel, offer to broker assistance and training, gently raise problematic defense relations with Israel’s enemies. Pyongyang’s… Read more »
Former ambasssador: U.S. should give multilateral diplomacy a chance
My first assignment when I entered the U.S. Foreign Service in 1976 was as a “rotational officer” in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs. I served for six months backstopping our delegation to the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council, then another six months… Read more »
As U.N. push fizzles, Abbas faces unclear path ahead
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ statehood push at the United Nations may be fizzling, but his supporters insist that he can find a way out of the impasse. “Abu Mazen is a powerful leader and is very persuasive,” said Ahmad Tibi, an Arab member of Israel’s Knesset,… Read more »
Despite UNESCO victory, Palestinian statehood push running aground
WASHINGTON (JTA) — They may have scored a victory at UNESCO, but the Palestinians are running into new obstacles on their push for statehood recognition at the United Nations. The effort to pursue the issue at the U.N. Security Council has encountered a stumbling block in Bosnia, where the… Read more »
Guest opinion: The U.N. vote – Putting myself in the shoes of a Palestinian grandmother
It’s so confusing … You’ve heard the arguments. All the spin, the ads, the furious blogs and heated discussions about a possible U.N. vote to acclaim an “Independent, Unified Palestinian State.” What lofty language. Independent. Unified. Words and concepts dear to our hearts. But would such a state, merely… Read more »
Next move is up to the Palestinians
WASHINGTON (JTA) — After the mutual accusations of ethnic cleansing and the sarcastic posturing, the ball is back in the Palestinians’ court. The upshot of last week’s Lollapalooza of speechmaking at the United Nations is that the Obama administration has succeeded in persuading the international community to back the… Read more »
Obama’s U.N. speech — another “get real” moment
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Was it a speech to help launch his campaign for re-election, or an address to bury hopes for immediate Palestinian statehood recognition? Both assessments marked the immediate reaction to President Obama’s speech Wednesday at the United Nations General Assembly, and there was ammunition for both arguments.… Read more »
Op-Ed: It’s time to stand up to Erdogan
WASHINGTON (JTA) — When Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses the United Nations this week, he likely will repeat his demand that the world body “raise the Palestinian flag” without acknowledging that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas refuses to negotiate with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders… Read more »
This week: At and around the United Nations
NEW YORK (JTA) — With the Palestinians set to submit their bid for statehood as the U.N. General Assembly convenes this week and leaders from around the world descending on New York, there’s going to be a lot going on. Here’s a rundown of what to expect in the… Read more »
JFSA, WIC urge signing of anti-unilateral U.N. petition
The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the Weintraub Israel Center are encouraging area residents to sign a “Petition Against a Unilaterally Declared Palestinian State” created by the Israel Action Network, a joint project of the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. The… Read more »
Op-Ed: A Palestinian state should be the result of negotiations
To establish its independence, Israel had to win a war against the combined might of the Arab nations in 1948. The Arab failure to destroy the nascent Jewish state became known, in Orwellian Arab vernacular, as “Nakba,” a catastrophe. For the next 20 years, neither Jordan nor any of… Read more »
Op-Ed: Israel should support the Palestinian statehood push
Israelis and Jews around the world are awaiting the Palestinians’ push at the United Nations for statehood with trepidation. The official response of the government of Israel and American Jewish groups has been to do everything possible to prevent any action at the U.N. and to line up votes… Read more »
No end in sight for downward spiral in Turkish-Israeli ties
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The bad diplomatic news for Israel just kept getting worse. First Turkey announced that it was slashing the level of its diplomatic ties with Israel to the second secretary level, giving the senior Israeli embassy staff 48 hours to leave the country. Turkey also said it… Read more »
Israel needs West Bank for security
As a recent high school graduate who will be traveling to Israel for a nine-month program of study, I feel the need to respond to the letter written by Mr. Julius Gordon, “West Bank, Warsaw ghetto alike.” Ever since 1967 and Israel’s acquisition of the West Bank, there has… Read more »
Israel launching drive to void Goldstone Report
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would launch an international campaign to cancel the Goldstone Report after its author, ex-South African Judge Richard Goldstone, wrote in an Op-Ed in the Washington Post that Israel did not intentionally target civilians as a policy during the Gaza War,… Read more »