The world media is full of coverage of Wednesday’s announcement by President Donald Trump that the US recognises Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. We’re hearing from governments throughout the world about their disquiet at the prospect of a conquered city becoming a national capital, in violation of international law and two generations of diplomatic precedent. Strong…
It seems that matters are coming to a head in the Middle East. For many states, the coming period will likely prove to be the moment in which they determine their futures — as well as that for the region as a whole. The immediate peg for “crunch time” is Russia’s fast-track proposal of a conference…
As Israeli legislators returned to parliament this week, ending the long summer recess, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government announced a packed agenda of reforms designed to push Israel further to the right. Legislative proposals include weakening the supreme court’s powers of judicial review, cracking down on left-wing civil-society organisations, expanding Jerusalem’s boundaries to include more Jewish settlements…
Israel has approved the construction of 176 homes in east Jerusalem, paving the way for what will be the largest settlement inside a Palestinian neighbourhood of the city. The development will almost triple the size of the Nof Zion settlement, where there are currently 91 homes, in the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Jabal Mukaber, south of…
In the final presidential debate of 2016, Hillary Clinton famously called Donald Trump the “puppet” of Russian President Vladimir Putin. But what’s increasingly clear is that Trump has a more typical puppet master for a U.S. politician – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Since Sept. 18, when the two men met in New York around…
President Trump’s bellicose speech to the United Nations General Assembly last month sparked a crisis for the behind-the-scenes diplomacy that was then reaching out to North Korea and Iran, with Trump’s comments jeopardizing not only the talks but the credibility of the intermediaries, according to a source familiar with those efforts. Trump essentially pulled the…
