Journal of International Studies

President Obama   finds himself in a weakened state.   His health care la w   is sapping his political strength and generating intense anxiety among his Democratic troops in Congress. His performance rating is at an all-time low. His trust with the American people is deteriorating badly, as reflected in a recent   Quinnipiac University poll . His political capital is ebbing. And into this dire political situation comes a new challenge that will test the president’s resolve and mettle in a big way. If he wants to save his high-stakes effort to foster a negotiated agreement with Iran over its nuclear program, he must take on, directly, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israel lobby in the United States. If he doesn’t, Congress will kill his effort; the opportunity to find a peaceful solution will be lost; and  chances for war with Iran will rise ominously . Indeed, administration officials have warned that the current congressional push for...

The much-anticipated breakthrough in the negotiations aimed at preventing Iran from building nuclear weapons has yet to materialize. But Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who believes that a wily Iran is outwitting its gullible interlocutors, isn’t breathing any easier; instead, he’s breathing fire. The statements from those involved in the talks (Iran and the P5+1) indicating that the obstacles to an interim accord are being overcome have incensed Netanyahu. And he has made his displeasure known— publicly and without pulling punches —even though the first-step agreement with Iran couldn’t be reached in the end. As the upbeat reports streamed in last week, Netanyahu declared that a compromise with Iran would be a betrayal of Israel as well as a strategic blunder that would eventually bring grief to other states as well. He continues to insist that Israel will neither be bound by any deal, short of one that ensures denuclearization, that the P5+1 reaches with Iran nor ru...

An Address by Israeli Minister of Economy Naftali Bennett

I spent last week at the United Nations, meeting with ambassadors of countries in the Middle East and presenting my final report to the Third Committee of the General Assembly as my term as Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine comes to an end. My report emphasized issues relating to corporate responsibility of those companies and banks that are engaged in business relationships with the settlements. Such an emphasis seemed to strike a responsive note with many delegations as a tangible way of expressing displeasure with Israel’s continuing defiance of its international law obligations, especially in relation to the unlawful settlements being provocatively expanded in the West Bank and East Jerusalem at the very moment that the resumption of direct negotiations between the Palestine Authority and the Government of Israel is being heralded as a promising development. Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territori...

Throughout the years, Lebanon’s demographics have experienced periodic influx. But particularly in the last two years, the demographic shift has been overwhelming due to the flood of Syrian refugees in desperate need for shelter. The situation is highly charged, if not perilous, considering Lebanon’s unmanageable sectarian balances, let alone the direct involvement of Lebanese parties in the brutal Syrian war. If not treated with utter sensitivity and political wisdom, Lebanon’s vastly changing demographics will not bode well in a country of exceedingly fractious sectarian politics. The numbers speak for themselves. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 790,000 Syrian refugees have crossed into Lebanon since the beginning of the conflict. The number is constantly increasing, as an estimated 75,000 make the difficult journey from Syria to Lebanon every month. Those refugees also include tens of thousands of Palestinians that have borne the brunt of the war in ...

WASHINGTON - As hopeful, albeit vague, statements about talks in Geneva between Iran and the great powers continued to issue from the Swiss city, foes of detente between Washington and Tehran maintained their own high tempo of work. The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and its supporters in the powerful Israel lobby, which exerts its greatest influence through the United States Congress, appear to be working overtime to persuade the administration of President Barack Obama not to ease economic sanctions on Iran until their maximalist demands are met.  On the eve of the two-day talks between the Islamic Republic and the P5+1 (United States, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany), a bipartisan group of ten key US senators published a letter they sent to President Barack Obama urging Washington's delegation to stake out positions in Geneva - specifically, that Iran end all uranium enrichment on its own soil - which most Iran specialists belie...

The Syrian conflict has displaced in excess of 6.5 million people over the past two years, and tragically ended the lives of more than 100,000 others. As fighting continues, the international community seems numb to reports of chemical attacks, bomb explosions, and other horrific events that unfold almost daily. However, amidst headlines that highlight the hatred underscoring tragedy in the Middle East, there are examples of humanity. While Israel makes political headlines for tumultuous relationships with its neighbors and its internal strife, the country’s medical community assists many Syrians affected by the ongoing conflict in their country. Syria and Israel are enemies. During the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel captured the Golan Heights, which was Syrian territory. Israel currently   maintains control of the Golan Heights, and it is through this region that wounded Syrians enter Israel for medical treatment. Source: BBC News Many find themselves waking up in the W...

Palestinian refugees leaving Galilee, 1948 (Fred Csasznik) Background If the  politics of deflection  exhibit the  outward  reach of Israel’s grand strategy of territorial expansionism and regional hegemony, the  politics of fragmentation  serves Israel’s  inward  moves designed to weaken Palestinian resistance, induce despair, and de facto surrender. In fundamental respects deflection is an unwitting enabler of fragmentation, but it is also its twin or complement. The British were particularly adept in facilitating their colonial project all over the world by a variety of divide and rule tactics, which almost everywhere haunted anti-colonial movements, frequently producing lethal forms of post-colonial partition as in India, Cyprus, Ireland, Malaya, and of course, Palestine, and deadly ethnic strife elsewhere as in Nigeria, Kenya, Myanmar, Rwanda. Each of these national partitions and post-colonial traumas has produced severe ten...