From Michele Dunne I am one of more than 140 scholars and experts to sign a letter to President Obama, released today (March 10), asking him to take seriously his inaugural statement that leaders who “cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent” are “on the wrong side of history.” The […]
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From Alan Dowty In the week since Israelis went to the polls, the operative word in the media seems to be “inconclusive,” based on the near-tie between the two largest parties and the prospect of bone-wearying bargaining before a government emerges. Both observations are true, but nevertheless the election did register a sharp and significant […]
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From Mark N. Katz With the fighting over in Gaza (at least for now), many see Hamas emerging as the victor in the same way that Hezbollah did in the war it fought with Israel in the summer of 2006. But did Hamas really win? Is it better off now than before the fighting began? […]
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Posted in Barry Rubin, Hamas, Israel, Palestinians on Jan 3rd, 2009 Comments Off on On the ground in Gaza
From Barry Rubin Israel didn’t want to attack the Gaza Strip from the ground or from the air. Hamas, which had long broken the ceasefire, canceled it altogether. Then it began large-scale attacks on Israel. This is a war of defense. And it is being conducted just 30 miles from Tel Aviv, Israel’s main city.
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Posted in Adam Garfinkle, Announcements, Barry Rubin, Bruce Jentleson, David Schenker, J. Scott Carpenter, Jacqueline Newmyer, Michael Rubin, Robert Satloff, Stephen Peter Rosen, Tamara Cofman Wittes on Aug 3rd, 2008 25 Comments »
From Stephen Peter Rosen Peter Rodman, a member of MESH, passed away on Saturday. I met Peter in 1980 in Santa Monica. I was very junior, he had already worked at the highest levels in government, and was just back from a long trip. But he immediately joined into a serious conversation and worked to […]
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In late April, MESH hosted a discussion of the “Jordanian option.” In today’s New York Times, Thomas Friedman, writing from Ramallah, offers his own version of it (see below, left). MESH member Adam Garfinkle reviews the earlier MESH thread, and adds his own insights. Comments are offered by MESH members Barry Rubin, Walter Reich, David […]
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Posted in Barry Rubin, Syria on May 9th, 2008 Comments Off on The unintentional humor of dictators
From Barry Rubin There was a great item on the Harry’s Place blog by the anonymous Davem who spent a long time in Syria studying Arabic. (If you haven’t read his long “Syria Diary” posted on the site some months ago, you have missed what is probably the best piece of first-hand reportage from that […]
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