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The Ace in Obama’s Pocket
By Daoud Kuttab
Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian journalist and former professor of journalism at Princeton University, joins our panel of analysts to discuss Israel’s war against Hamas, which entered its 18th day on Monday .
The United States is the most important country that can actually do something about the crisis in the Middle East. America has stood with Israel, defended it even when there was international consensus against it. But Palestinians and Arabs think that Barack Obama will be different. They think he will be an honest broker in the conflict. Former presidential advisers like Dennis Ross and Elliot Abrams were advocates of Israel in the White House rather than defenders of America’s broader interest in the region.
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Why Israelis Remain United
By David Newman
David Newman, a professor of politics at Ben Gurion University in Beersheva, in the south of Israel, and the editor of the international journal, Geopolitics, joins our panel of analysts to discuss Israel’s war against Hamas, which entered its 18th day on Monday .
It is one thing to be a political analyst. It is quite another to be on the front line of the present conflict between Israel and the Hamas in Gaza. The sirens announce the possible arrival of yet another rocket from the Gaza strip.
My university has been shut down for the past 10 days, for fear that a stray rocket may hit a full class of students. University workers, whose children are at home because the schools have been shut down, bring their younger children to the university, where student volunteers have created a daily child care service deep in the protected shelter areas and concrete reinforced basements of the university buildings.
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The Only Solution
By Shibley Telhami
Shibley Telhami, a professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, joins our panel to discuss the implications of the Israel-Hamas war, which entered its 18th day on Monday . Mr. Telhami is the co-author, with Steven A. Cook, of “Addressing the Arab-Israeli Conflict,” a recommendation by the Council on Foreign Relations and Brookings to the Obama administration.
While the pictures of death and destruction in Gaza, as well as the images of rockets hitting Israeli cities, have made the Palestinian-Israeli issue more urgent for the Obama administration, it was already urgent in a bigger sense. Time is running out on the two-state solution.
Barack Obama must not be indifferent to the immense suffering of civilians in the region. Indeed, this is the window through which people in the Middle East and the world are viewing the conflict – and most are stunned by the seeming indifference of the Bush administration. All eyes are now on the president-elect and he will not have a second chance to make a first impression. But just as important, Mr. Obama must recognize that American involvement in preserving the two-state solution is crucial. Read more…
Taking Risks After the Gaza War
By Daniel Gordis
Daniel Gordis, senior vice president of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, joins us in discussing the consequences of Israel’s war against Hamas, as fierce fighting entered its 18th day on Monday. Mr. Gordis’s next book, “Saving Israel: How the Jewish People Can Win a War That May Never End,” will be published in March.
With the battles in Gaza possibly reaching their zenith and talk of a cease-fire apparently more serious, what will Israel have achieved from this war? The eradication of Hamas, an Iranian pawn and a terrorist organization bent on Israel’s destruction, would have been ideal. But was that ever Israel’s goal?
Ehud Olmert, humbled by unfulfilled promises from the 2006 war, has been studiously ambiguous. Some Israeli commentators believe that Hamas rule could be ended. But many Israelis are not so certain. They may also not be willing to pay the price that such a victory would exact.
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