From Washington, the issue of American leadership – much in the news these days in the wake of President Trump’s recent interactions with counterparts in Europe and the Middle East – has a distinctly abstract air.
Relations between Latin America and Israel are about to get an important boost. For the first time since the founding of the Jewish state in May 1948, its sitting prime minister will visit the region.
It was by no means our first meeting. AJC has been traveling regularly to the Gulf for more than 25 years, and had first come to know this particular official when he held a different portfolio 20 years earlier. We had always discussed the possibility of communicating more directly and openly with Israel, and of exploring areas of potential cooperation.
“This is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. The State Department rightly said this is the largest incarceration of any ethnic minority since the Holocaust,” says Nury Turkel, a leader of the Uyghur community in the United States and a newly appointed member of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Malaysia is 4,700 miles away from the Middle East, yet the leadership of this Muslim-majority country in Asia long ago chose sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Malaysia has recognized the “State of Palestine” and hosts a Palestinian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, but refuses to recognize the State of Israel.