Shoshana Bryen

By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. — In one of the lesser-reported stories from the Middle East, Palestinians are out in the streets ostensibly to protest the Palestinian Authority’s plan to meet with Israeli Minister Shaul Mofaz. However, Palestinian complaints are primarily focused on the PA’s increasingly authoritarian crackdown on internal Palestinian dissent, specifically on the internet and

By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. — In light of increased sensitivity to intelligence leaks, it seemed innocuous – or even admirable – when the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) asked the Senate to remove a few words from the US-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act: the “sense of the Senate” part of the

By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. — Here are the questions on Syria: what is the American obligation? What is the American interest? What is the American capability? There is no obligation. Where there is a treaty, the United States has an obligation to spend American blood and treasure. The seriousness of the commitment is why

By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. –Amid the Arab upheaval of past 18 months, a question has crept among the speeches, demonstrations, riots, elections, battles and massacres – Is Israel better off, or worse off, for the revolution among its neighbors? Certainly Wael Ghonim of Google, and the positive nature of the short-lived “Arab Spring” raised

By Shoshana Bryen  WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Crisis Group defines itself as an “independent, non-partisan, [sic] source of analysis … on the prevention and resolution of deadly conflict.”  While presidents and secretaries of state have relied upon it for analysis in places as disparate as Sudan, Iraq, Sri Lanka, and Burundi, it proves to be one-sided

By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. — Few things ought to be as urgent as keeping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, yet the West – led from the front by the United States – has fallen into the “peace process” trap that considers talk to be progress and, once a conversation has begun, that there is

By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. — It can’t be said that the U.S. is doing nothing about Syria. The administration created the “Atrocities Prevention Board,” which failed the test at Houla. It is supporting the feckless Kofi Annan, who is adding to a resume that includes the genocide in Rwanda and massacres in Bosnia. It

By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. — Senator Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) has offered an amendment to the FY 2013 funding bill for the State Department that would require the Department to provide two numbers to Congress: 1) the number of Palestinians physically displaced from their homes in what became Israel in 1948, and 2) the

By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. — NATO’s snub of Israel — a “major non-NATO ally” and member of NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue — in its Chicago summit this weekend was simply waved away.  “Israel is neither a participant in ISAF nor in KFOR (Afghanistan and Kosovo missions),” said NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.  Israel didn’t

By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. — Rarely do politics in a democratic country wrap up as neatly as they did for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week.  Having scheduled new parliamentary elections that he was assuredly going to win, today he announced that the coalition was expanded and reconstituted, and will last until September