Israel prime minister recently appealed for the release of Jonathan Pollard from an American jail. Just a week later, Israel sent Jonathan Pollak to jail. Although they share a first name and almost all of a last name, the two men could not be more different.
Jonathan Pollard is an American who was paid to spy for Israel. He got a life sentence in 1987 because of the damage he'd done to national security. Israeli governments first claimed he was a rogue operator, then embraced and naturalized him, and then began clamoring for his release.
In the Media
This year may bring a close to American mediation of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. Expectations, usually low, have collapsed in the face of an unwilling, and increasingly self-impeding, U.S. peace broker. Indeed, freezing settlement expansion, as opposed to removing them altogether as mandated by international law, was long regarded as the lowest hanging fruit in peace negotiations. President Obama himself emphasized that the Jewish colonies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories hindered peace efforts and securing Palestinian statehood.
Read More2011 will mark the 63rd year of the Palestinian refugee crisis. Driven out of their homes during the course of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Palestinian refugees fled to neighboring Arab countries and territories where they expected to remain for only a short period until the end of military conflict and the restoration of calm that would facilitate their collective return.
Read MoreThe Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) in Palestine, has expressed its concern following reports that Israeli companies have been contracted to take part in the construction of Rawabi, an already controversial Qatari-financed Palestinian real estate development in the occupied West Bank.
The Gaza massacre, which Israel launched two years ago today, did not end on 18 January 2009, but continues. It was not only a massacre of human bodies, but of the truth and of justice. Only our actions can help bring it to an end.
Some members of the United States House of Representatives may not know too much about international affairs, but they certainly know what they don’t like: a Palestinian state that is not fully supported and endorsed by Israel in direct negotiations.
Read MoreThis week marks the second anniversary of the horror inflicted on the people of the Gaza Strip. Nothing has changed! Gaza has returned to its pre-invasion state of siege, confronted with the usual international indifference. Two years after the Israeli assault that lasted 22 long days and dark nights, during which its brave people were left alone to face one of the strongest armies in the world, Gaza no longer makes the news.
Read MoreThree aspects of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Saban Center speech on Friday have escaped general notice. First, though she spoke boldly of asking "tough questions and expecting substantive answers" on the core issues of the conflict, the process will not culminate in a "just, lasting and comprehensive peace" as Clinton claimed, but rather a framework agreement. What is a framework agreement?
Read MoreIsrael's deputy minister of foreign affairs, Danny Ayalon, paints a picture of an innocent Israel yearning for peace, virtually begging the intransigent Palestinians to come negotiate so there can be a "two-states-for-two-peoples solution" ("Who's stopping the peace process?" Dec. 14). But it's one that bears no resemblance to the realities Palestinians experience and much of the world sees every day.
Last week marked a low point in the Obama administration's attempts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Following the administration's announcement that it was ending efforts to secure a 90-day extension of Israel's limited moratorium on settlement building in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton introduced "Plan B" for resolving the conflict.
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