A recent post on the Facebook page of Im Tirtzu, an Israeli right-wing group, depicts Washington’s new special envoy for the Middle East peace process as a sock puppet operated by the progressive group the New Israel Fund. “We ask the U.S. government to appoint an ‘honest broker.’ Mr. Martin Indyk, the chairman of the…
It’s dangerous to read too much into body language on the television screen. Still, it was hard not to notice the contrast in demeanor between Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat as they addressed the press conference after their first round of peace talks June 30 at the State Department….
After 20 years of stops, starts and a bloody intifada in between, John Kerry believes he can pull out a final status Israeli-Palestinian peace deal in nine months. What clock is the U.S. top diplomat trying to beat? According to his aides, the one ticking down as Syria and Egypt roil into unknowable futures and…
Cell phone to his ear and a pile of papers under his arm, Martin Indyk rushed to the elevator at Washington’s Mayflower Hotel. It has been only three hours since secretary of state John Kerry announced the appointment of Indyk as his special envoy for the Mideast peace process and the veteran negotiator was already…
Here’s today’s press conference at the State Department. Note how firm and detailed Secretary of State John Kerry was in his 11-minute presentation, how poetic Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni’s 4-minute remarks were (starting at 12:15) and how strikingly brief and downbeat Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat was in his one minute and 10 seconds…
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators on Tuesday gave themselves about nine months to try to reach an agreement on ending their conflict of more than six decades in U.S.-brokered peace talks. The two sides held their first peace negotiations in nearly three years in Washington on Monday and Tuesday, a diplomatic victory for Secretary of State…
Two intriguing backgrounders from the Hebrew press about Secretary of State John Kerry and his Israeli-Palestinian peace mission. One, by Yediot Ahronot veteran Washington correspondent Orly Azoulai in the Friday supplement (print, Hebrew only) contrasts Kerry’s intense commitment to the peace effort with President Obama’s utter skepticism. Obama lets Kerry have his way, she writes,…
In certain circles, it is fashionable to dismiss John Kerry, typically by casting him as naïve, Pollyannaish. That is a major mischaracterization. Whether his current apparent success in getting the Israelis and the Palestinians to meet together bears fruit or not, Kerry is an immensely capable man with a distinguished public record that stretches back…
דער ייִדישער מוזיקער אָלעס וואַלינטשיק וויל ווײַזן דער וועלט די טיפֿע צונויפֿפֿלעכטונג פֿון דער ייִדישער און אוקראַיִישער קולטור.
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