Latest Articles

The International Community Must Focus on Palestinian Unity to Kick-Start Peace

September 20, 2016  •  Newsweek

A Palestinian court in Ramallah earlier this month suspended the local elections that were scheduled to be held in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip on October 8. This marks eleven years since the last elections held in both territories. As long as the West continues to ignore this political stagnation, the future prospects for a viable Palestinian state will only become more remote.

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The Fragile State of the Palestinian Authority

September 8, 2016  •  Wall Street Journal Europe

A Palestinian court on Thursday postponed municipal elections scheduled for Oct. 8 because Palestine's two largest political factions, Fatah and Hamas, couldn't agree on terms. The stalemate has been in place since 2006, the last time Palestinians voted, and even led to an internecine war the following year. The Palestinians, split between two separate governments ruling the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, have never recovered.

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Team Obama's Appalling Smugness on Syrian Refugees

August 31, 2016  •  New York Post

State Department spokesman John Kirby sang the praises of President Obama's Syria policy on Monday. And boy, was he tone deaf.

Kirby tweeted out proudly: "Today we reached [Obama's] goal of welcoming 10k of the most vulnerable refugees fleeing the Syria Conflict . . ." He also lauded this purported milestone in a statement that appears on the State Department Web site.

Never mind that this accounts for less than 1 percent of all 4.8 million externally displaced Syrian refugees since the conflict began. The real issue here is that the White House Syria policy has been an unmitigated dumpster fire.

The death toll in Syria has exceeded 400,000 and it's still climbing. Internally displaced Syrians total 6.6 million.

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Bogus foreign-policy debates: How we're helping our enemies fool us

August 4, 2016  •  New York Post

World news has become complicated lately.

Or has it? Consider these headlines:

Abu Mohammed al-Julani, the leader of the Syrian al Qaeda affiliate group known as Jabhat al-Nusra, announced last week that his organization will henceforth be known as Jabhat Fath Al-Sham, and it will splinter from the al Qaeda constellation of terrorist organizations.

Don't be fooled. This isn't an acrimonious divorce; it's a gentlemen's agreement about how to put the best possible face on jihadist violence in Syria's chaotic civil war.

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The Fight Against ISIS Will Suffer Because of Turkey's Coup

July 19, 2016  •  New York Times

The failed coup in Turkey will set back global efforts to combat the Islamic State.

For one, trust between Ankara and Washington is at an all-time low. A Turkish minister charged on TV that the United States was behind the attempted coup. The State Department fired back, stating that, "claims about any role by the United States in the failed coup attempt are utterly false and harmful to our bilateral relations."

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Books by Jonathan Schanzer