The newest Pew poll of American opinion about the Middle East shows support for Israel steady, with exceptions.

Here is the bottom line:

For decades, the public has sympathized with Israel over the Palestinians and that remains the case today. Overall, 50% say they sympathize more with Israel, compared with just 10% who say they sympathize more with the Palestinians; almost a quarter (23%) do not offer an opinion while 13% volunteer that they sympathize with neither side, and 4% say both. Attitudes on this question have been stable over the past six years, after showing more volatility in the middle of the last decade. Read more »

The UN General Assembly is closing out 2012 in a blaze of glory. The UNGA adopted nine resolutions against Israel in one day, December 18. They are usefully summarized by Tom Gross in his web site, and I copy his list of them at the bottom of this blog  post. More information about this important UN work for world peace can be found at the UN’s own web site. Read more »

Palestinians have joked for years that West Bankers living under Fatah oppose Fatah, while those living in Gaza under Hamas rule oppose Hamas. Familiarity breeds contempt, it seems, or at least suppresses support.

The most recent polling lends further credence to this view. A poll by Arab World Research and Development in Ramallah sampled 1,200 Palestinians from both Gaza and the West Bank, in the aftermath of the recent Gaza conflict and the UN General Assembly vote according “non-member state” status to “Palestine.” As the story in The Times of Israel summed up results, Read more »

Frequently I have found that when I mention the odious Hamas “Charter” as the best insight into the group’s current goals, the response is that the Charter is nearly 25 years old and doesn’t mean much nowadays. Read more »

For understandable reasons governments in Europe and the Middle East have been focused on political developments in Egypt this week. For less defensible reasons, many governments have also been focused on Israel’s announcement that it plans to build more housing in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Read more »

Dozens of governments, starting with our own, have denounced the Israeli announcement–made soon after the UN General Assembly vote last week–about more housing construction in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

In particular, the Netanyahu government has been criticized for building housing in the area known as E-1. E-1 is the space between Jerusalem and the city of Ma’ale Adumim, with its population of 40,000. The Israeli security argument is simple: it is impossible to have Ma’ale Adumim connected to Jerusalem only by one road because that road can all too easily be blocked and communication between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim (and beyond to the Jordan valley and border) cut off. This argument has persuaded all Israeli prime ministers who have faced the question, starting with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. It can be argued in reply that they insisted on the right and intention to build eventually, but did not build–but the same is true today of the Netanyahu government. What the prime minister announced last week was permission to do zoning and planning, not permission to build one apartment. 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 »