More in ‘Avigdor Lieberman’

This is the first in a two-part series.
Israel’s left-wing parties, primarily Labor (but also the farther-left Meretz), were dealt a mortal blow by Yasser Arafat’s rejection of the two-state compromises successively offered by Ehud Barak, then Israel’s prime minister, and former U.S. President Bill Clinton, in July and December 2000, and by the Palestinians’ violent ...

• Prime Minister Netanyahu said that, for strategic reasons, Israel would never—even under a peace deal—cede the western border of the Jordan River. Which is of course mostly in the West Bank (that’s why it’s called the West Bank!), and doesn’t border the Green Line. [Haaretz]
• More than in any past year, pro-Israel campus groups ...

To read a timeline of the Dubai killing and its aftermath, click here.
To read last Friday’s update, click here.
To read Monday’s update, click here.
To read yesterday’s update, click here.
The big news today is the Dubai police’s disclosure of 15 additional suspects in the assassination (likely carried out by Mossad) of Hamas weapons man Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, ...

As Purim approaches, a new poll found that the political figure whom the most Jewish Israelis want to dress up as is—drum roll, please—Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman! Over 40 percent of respondents picked the Yisrael Beiteinu leader. This is basically the equivalent of when like literally everyone was Sarah Palin—also a polarizing, somewhat cartoonish right-winger—for ...

• Skirmishes followed Prime Minister Netanyahu’s announcement that he will designate Abraham’s and Rachel’s burial places, which are in Israel-controlled West Bank, as national heritage sites. [NYT]
• U.S. Adm. Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress that no military strike could completely halt Iran’s nuclear weapons program. [Haaretz]
• Foreign Minister ...

• Columnist Bradley Burston has an enraged must-read:
What the far-left from Britain to Berkeley has been been unable to bring off—a sense among Israel’s allies that Israel has become a heartless, morally heedless aggressor state worthy of sanction and shunning—the far-right in Israel’s own government, and in particular, its Foreign Ministry, seems determined to inculcate ...

Let’s do this with a timeline, okay?
•January 19th: Mahmoud Mabhouh, a Hamas military commander living in Syria who played a crucial role in smuggling weapons to the group (including from Iran), arrives in Dubai. Unusually, he has no bodyguards and is not traveling under an alias; reportedly, his bodyguards couldn’t get plane tickets. No, really, ...

Last Friday afternoon, we worried that high tensions between Israel and Syria—most immediately prompted by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s threats to Syrian leader Bashar Assad—could lead to violence. Well, fortunately, they haven’t so far, and hot tempers have appeared to cool over the weekend. Which can allow us now to focus on the broader question ...

You might want to head into this weekend hoping for peace in the Middle East. Not just peace in some not-too-distant future, but peace, like, this weekend. Possible enemy: Syria. The latest round of hostilities has been simmering for several days, but it was upped yesterday when Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced bellicosely, “I think ...

• Did Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tip the U.S. hand? She said “the 1967 borders, with swaps, should be the focus of the negotiations over borders,” maybe revealing plans to use the Green Line as a basis for the final status. [NYT]
• While Europe and even Russia have toughened of late, China indicated that ...