On the opening night of the first-ever AJC Global Forum in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the largest-ever gathering of an American Jewish advocacy organization in Jerusalem.
For the first time, American Jews and Israelis have a chance to develop a relationship between Jewish grown-ups. We need to recognize each other’s achievements, and understand, if not indulge, each other’s failures (which are often a consequence of geographic circumstance).
AJC strongly condemned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s speech before the UN Security Council, in which he called for an ‘international conference” by the middle of this year to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Even for a nation quite used to dramatic news, what happened within the span of four days – from Shabbat morning to Tuesday evening – came as a shock to Israelis.
The recent thaw in Israeli-Saudi relations must be understood in the context of the lengthy Saudi Arabia-Iran cold war, and, more generally, the larger conflict between Sunnis and Shi’ites.