Nabil Sha’ath has been a top Palestinian official for decades, serving as foreign minister, ambassador to the UN, planning minister, and in many other posts. He has been in the Fatah Party Central Committee and the Palestine Legislative Council. He accompanied Yasser Arafat to the United Nations as early as 1974. He was for years a key negotiator with Israel, and was a central figure in the PLO’s delegation at the Madrid Conference. My own experience with him was in 2003, when he was part of a Palestinian delegation to Washington. There he was one of several Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders who met with President Bush. Afterwards, Sha’ath told the press the following: Read more »

The honor roll of countries that voted with the United States and Israel against the PLO’s foolish initiative in the UN General Assembly  is small. In addition to the Pacific island nations that always vote with the United States, there are only Canada, Panama, and the Czech Republic. Good for them for resisting the temptation to abstain, which is what was done by forty-one countries. Some were predictable, while others were disappointments: Australia, Germany, and Colombia, for example. Read more »

Tomorrow the UN General Assembly is scheduled to vote on “non-member state” status for “Palestine.” That vote will lift the status of the PLO, which is now an observer, but will do nothing for Palestinians.

I’ve discussed this issue in detail in a previous post, and argued that Israeli and American reactions should not be excessive. This is a foolish move by the PLO leadership but not necessarily a very consequential one. It all depends on what follows: does the PLO, now called “Palestine” at the UN General Assembly, engage in “lawfare” against Israel? Does it rush to the International Criminal Court [ICC] to seek indictments of every Israeli general? Read more »

The success of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system is one of the great stories to emerge from the Gaza conflict, but its importance may still have been underestimated.

First, even enthusiasts for Iron Dome tend to exaggerate its variable costs. It is often said that Hamas can make rockets and mortars very cheaply, while each interceptor rocket fired by Iron Dome costs as much as $50,000. But a recent column in the Jerusalem Post (found here) points out that such figures include the system’s development costs to date. Procurement of future interceptors will cost far less and economies of scale will soon be reflected; per unit cost may fall to $5,000 or far less. Meanwhile the estimated cost to Iran and Hamas of the Fajr rockets they fired at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv often does not include the cost of smuggling them from Iran to Sudan to Egypt to Gaza, including all the expenses and bribes along the way. Read more »

The current conflict between Hamas (and other terrorist groups) and Israel has brought out the worst  in Amnesty International. Amnesty has taken a position that can only be called anti-Israel, treating the terrorists and Israel with an “evenhandedness” that bespeaks deep biases. Read more »

The visit of Egypt’s prime minister to Gaza last week, and a return visit promised for Tuesday, raises the question why President Morsi has not himself gone. Why send the little-known PM when a personal visit would presumably gain Morsi much more acclaim back home? Read more »

Alan Gross is a former USAID contractor who has been in a Cuban jail since December 3, 2009.  The most recent reports are that he has lost 105 pounds while in prison, and may well be suffering from untreated cancer.

Vilma Rodriguez Castro is the granddaughter of Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother and the man now running the communist dictatorship. Read more »

There is a conflict now between Israel and Hamas because Hamas insisted on starting one. After relatively few rocket and mortar strikes into Israel in 2010 and 2011, Hamas increased the numbers strikingly this year, and finally fired more than 100 into Israel this past weekend. This was a deliberate effort by Hamas to elicit an Israeli response, for it was obvious that as the numbers grew any Israeli government would have to protect its population. One must assume that if Israel had not responded to the hundred rockets last weekend, Hamas would have upped the ante even more until it got what it wanted. Read more »

Once upon a time, the United Nations had a Human Rights Commission. The United States left it because it spent most of its time condemning Israel, and elected some of the worst human rights abusers in the world to membership. In 2005, for example, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Cuba were members, making the organization a farce. Read more »

On November 1, Iranian warplanes attacked a US drone over international waters in the Persian Gulf. CNN had the story, which has been confirmed. In a separate CNN story, a Pentagon spokesman said this: Read more »