By Peter Huessy
A nuclear weapons reduction plan advocated by Hagel evinces a less than serious understanding of both the nature of US deterrence needs, and the geopolitical balance between the United States and Russia.
The Chabad-Lubavitch movement is urging the US court to impose civil fines on Russia for failing to heed a court order mandating that it return to the organization books, manuscripts, and other documents belonging to the founders of the movement and other Russian Jews.
By Barry Rubin
The current voluntary, but not inevitable, decline of the United States places many US allies at risk.
Ukranian politician Igor Miroshnichenko said Mila Kunis, who left the Ukraine at a yong age, was a "zhydovka" and not a "true Ukrainian."
By J. E. Dyer
Missile tests popping up all over Asia should be seen in this light. Everyone’s arming up, starting with Russia
Hungarian Jewry is asking the government of Russia to release between 300 and 400 Torah scrolls, covers, crowns, pointers, and other objects seized by the Nazis during World War II and then appropriated by the Red Army.
In a rare instance of breaking step with the Arab world, Russia’s envoy to the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) caused the organization to defer condemning Israel in a series of votes on Wednesday.
Relations between Russia and Turkey have been strained by the forced landing of a Syrian passenger plane which Turkey said it need to inspect for smuggled military equipment.
An Israeli company has won a 12 million-euro tender with the Belarusian government to build 135 advanced cow milking parlors across the country.
The Russian government has evicted the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), according to the US State Department, accusing the organization of using its money to influence elections.
Russian worries about Israel gas potential may be causing it to lesson support for Iran; More U.S. companies are investing in Israel; Will Congress pass the US-Israel Water Cooperation Act?
The camp, part of an ongoing effort called Project Rimon, is focused on a commitment to instill Jewish identity within the campers and use Israel as the common denominator that unites Jews of Russian origin from diverse locales around the globe.
By Rotem Sella
Prominent Americans like David Petraeus have been saying non-stop that Israel does not have the capability to destroy Iranian Nuclear capacities, and surely not Iran's ambition to go nuclear. But if Israel can indeed delay the project while in the meantime having taken out of the picture one of Iran's most important allies, then things might look very different from the office of Prime Minister Netanyahu.
By J. E. Dyer
Iran’s relative situation has deteriorated. To regain a sense of leadership and invulnerability – as well as to vindicate Shia Islam over the recent Sunni triumphs in the region – Iran needs a big strategic win. She needs a trump card over the emerging Sunni centers of gravity in Cairo and Ankara.
By J. E. Dyer
India has just conducted an unprecedented four-day port visit in Haifa, during which Indian sailors roamed Israel as American sailors have for many years, and joint ceremonies were held with the local population. A naval visit to Israel is a big political signal; India would not be sending it lightly.
Russia's government mafia isn't cutting back, it's redoubling its aggressiveness. With less money coming in, it's relying more and more on wholesale confiscation. Confiscation was how the regime built up its original fortune, but the problem is that it's eating up the business ecosystem and running out of money to confiscate. Every 6th businessman in Russia has been prosecuted in the last decade. Three million have been sentenced in that time.
It appears that the Russians, the Turks and the Saudis will keep Syria at a low boil, making it difficult for either side to fully impose its will on the other, and impossible for a Sunni Islamist regime to emerge. What is remarkable, though, is the success of Russian diplomacy: despite all of the Obama administration's courtship, the Erdogan government has decided to signal its dependence on Moscow in the most visible -and, for Washington- humiliating way possible.
Recent news of a massive natural gas well have turned eyes on Israel’s struggle to adopt an energy policy in the wake of its first-time gas wealth. Trying to measure the value of energy independence against short-term profits, Israel has shown that its unexpected blessing comes with a price.
Miriam Ben-Porat, Israel's first female Supreme Court President died on Thursday at the age 94. She was also Israel's first female State Comptroller. Ben-Porat was born in Russia in 1918, and moved to Israel in 1936. She graduated with a degree in law in 1945. Ben-Porat is survived by a daughter and three grandchildren.
By J. E. Dyer
The Tumultus Post-Americanus is now well underway. There is no initiative on our collective part – we have done nothing but react in the last three years – and possibly even less appreciation of how the world is changing. The forms of international discourse – the processes of the UN, the G-8 and G-20, the IMF – are being adhered to now because they are a convenience, not because they produce anything useful.
“If you put Google, Apple, and Microsoft together, it still doesn’t compare to the miracles of Jewish renaissance I have witnessed in this country,” I said to two reporters from The New York Times and Moscow Times.
By Moshe Herman
Yishai and Malkah talk about a recent trip to Netanya along with a new Jewish prize and Russian President Vladimir Putin's trip to Israel.
Cyprus is said to be so high on Russia's priority list that President Putin himself is currently dealing with the €4bn loan request from Nicosia. The financial risk for the Russians is limited. There is every chance that Cyprus will be able to repay their bilateral loans fairly soon. Nicosia hopes to start exploiting the huge gas reserves off the Cypriotic coast in the coming decade. With Russian help, it might even be able to exploit these gas fields within the next five years.
The transfer of one of Jerusalem’s most prime pieces of real estate to Russia will be finalized when the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) vacates its offices, following the completion of talks between Israel and Russia on Sunday.
By Yoel Meltzer
On his attempt to hijack an airplane in 1970 to bring attention to the struggle of Soviet Jewry: "Sometimes it happens in your life that you simply feel it’s the right thing to do."
Notice that in every culture a cheated husband is a laughing-stock. This attitude to a cuckold shows not only a nasty cruelty towards weakness, but also a reasonable contempt to a voluntary blindness, a reluctance to see what is going on under one’s own nose.
Russian Independence Day celebration at Tel Aviv’s Hilton Hotel were dampered by the arrival of a group of demonstrators protesting Russian military support for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s harsh crackdown on civilians and armed opposition.
The Palestinian Authority will attempt to register the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem as a world heritage site in the country of Palestine when the World Heritage Committee meets in Russia from June 24 to July 6.
By JTA
"We have confronted the Russians about stopping their continued arms shipments to Syria," Clinton said Tuesday. "We are concerned about the latest information we have that there are attack helicopters on the way from Russia to Syria."
Russia undoubtedly has strategic interests when offering financial support to debt-ridden Europe. Many will lose through the eurocrisis, but Russia will not be among them. So far, Brussels has not turned to Moscow for help -- yet. But if the situation deteriorates, that soon might be the case.
By Barry Rubin
Obama's policy shows three characteristics that have wider implications for the president’s strategies: It favors Islamist enemies; it “leads from behind” by giving the initiative to those who wish America no good; and it shows no interest in helping genuinely pro-American moderates who are fighting for their lives.
By J. E. Dyer
The holiday from history is over, although we may be the last ones to see it. Neither Russia nor Iran – nor China, North Korea, or Syria, for that matter – is very interested in signing anything with the West right now. Good deals based on the old assumptions aren’t as tempting when better ones seem to lie just over the horizon.
According to the contract signed in 2007, Russia committed to supplying Iran with at least five S-300 air-defense systems. But Russian President Dmitry Medvedev declared in September 2010 that selling the missile systems to Iran would contravene UN Security Council Resolution 1929.
Despite a UN arms embargo, Iran has imported over £350 million worth of weapons in the last three years, according to an Oxfam report reported on by Britain’s Telegraph newspaper. The report will show that UN arms embargos do little to thwart sanctioned countries, with 10 such nations purchasing £1.4 billion in 2000-2010, according to […]
For weeks before Pesach the people in small towns across Poland, Lithuania and Russia lived only with the Yom Tov in mind. The housewives turned their homes upside down, the matzah bakery became alive, tailors and cobblers prepared to meet the seasonal rush, and the children worked themselves into a pitch of excitement, which they could not have endured had they had to wait for the seder night one day longer than they already did.
By Barry Rubin
To view government as a form of deity or an inevitable friend of the poor and downtrodden is an illusion. Government is not a magic box, but a can of worms. To see it as a player, with its own interests, that should be as distrusted as any bank or corporation is the purest form of common sense, the very triumph of common sense over ideology and dogma that made America great, its people free, and real democracy possible.
By J. E. Dyer
A solution in which the Syrian people are empowered to operate more freely in a true multi-party government, under the aegis of multinational protection against both Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, would be the most desirable, achievable outcome. It is not possible to broker this outcome while ignoring Russia.
Russian diplomat: 'The invasion will happen before year’s end. The Israelis are in effect blackmailing Obama. They’ve put him in this interesting position - either he supports the war or loses the support of the Jewish lobby.'
By J. E. Dyer
The only way to secure a positive outcome in Syria is to use US power, under US strategic direction, to do it. This has never necessarily meant military intervention, but it does necessarily mean acting with purpose and determination, rather than throwing random reconnaissance assets into the fray while handing the political problem over lock, stock, and barrel to the Arab League and the UN.
By Barry Rubin
What is most notable about Russia's Middle East policy is that it tends to side with the extremist forces. These friends include primarily Iran, Syria, Hizbollah, and Hamas.
By Rafi Harkham
The intensified cooperation between Iran and Syria reflects their understanding that Iran's nuclear ambitions and the unrest in Syria are linked: Western nations' arming of the Syrian Opposition would cause a serious rift with Russia and China at a time when their consensus is crucial to constraining Iran's nuclear program.
By J. E. Dyer
Robert Mackey at New York Times’ The Lede has a Friday post entitled “Crisis in Syria Looks Very Different on Satellite Channels Owned by Russia and Iran.” Well, no kidding. It’s nice to see NYT catching up with the rest of the infosphere. But it’s not just in Russian and Iranian media that the crisis […]
Resolution will be similar to earlier Security Council resolution vetoed by Russia and China, but will be submitted to the General Assembly
By Rafi Harkham
Russia and China, constrained by outdated Cold War outlooks, continue to frustrate attempts to end the conflict in Syria.
Proposal comes as Assad's forces intensify their assault on Syrian opposition strongholds.
Western and Arab efforts to pass forceful Security Council resolution hampered by Russia.
Russia resisting resolution that would condemn Bashar al-Assad and demand his resignation.
The Arab League suspended its observer mission Sunday after government violence this weekend resulted in the deaths of approximately 200 civilians.
Russia opposes sanctions and military intervention against Syrian regime.
36 aircraft would be delivered to Syria at a total cost of $550 million.
No coercion is good – religious or secular. Today, Israel suffers more from secular coercion than from religious coercion. Unlike the situation in the past, religious soldiers today are forced into combat with women soldiers.
Russia says it will veto any UN authorization of military force against Assad regime.
A celebration of the 100th birthday of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved the lives of over 20,000 Hungarian Jews in the final days of World War II, also marks the renewal of investigations into the events surrounding his death. In attendance - the Iranian Ambassador to Hungary
Approximately 5,000 people have been killed in Syrian government crackdown.
French foreign ministry spokesman: Russian draft "very far from the reality of the situation in Syria."
NATO ambassador: military action against Iran "direct threat" to Russia.
Russian official: "West's approach radically differs from ours".
Russia hopeful it can bring Iran to the negotiating table.