Last Friday, Yaron broadcasted live from CPAC, the largest annual conference for conservatives in America. In addition to giving his take on all the happenings at the conference, Yaron interviewed the following guests: Ambassador John R. Bolton; Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform; Adam Mossoff of the Center for Protection of Intellectual Property; Peter Schwartz, author of the forthcoming In Defense of Selfishness; Larry Spiwak, president of the Phoenix Center and an expert on net neutrality.
Last summer, you might remember the street protests, the op-eds, the academic denunciations, the UN statements all rebuking Israel’s retaliation against Hamas-controlled Gaza. Rewind a couple of years to an earlier Israel-Hamas war, and the international reaction was similarly vociferous. Going back many years, the pattern holds firm. But if you go back far enough, the picture is radically different.
In this panel on PJTV, ARI’s executive director Yaron Brook joins Tammy Bruce, Andrew Klavan and Bill Whittle to discuss the current state and future of the Middle East, with a special focus on America’s relationship to Israel. Topics include the Gaza war of 2014; the United Nations; the moral weakness of the West; the role of moral ideas in foreign policy.
Hernando de Soto’s essay, “The Capitalist Cure for Terrorism,” is worth reading chiefly because of the data it surfaces on the scale of systemic political-economic corruption in the Arab world. One illustrative example is the 26-year-old Tunisian street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, who immolated himself, after the umpteenth shakedown by government inspectors.
Steve Simpson interviews Elan Journo on some of the lessons we can draw from what we have witnessed in the Middle East, during the thirteen years since 9/11. How should we judge the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Who is the enemy? How should we think of ISIS?
Three years ago, ARI hosted a symposium in Washington D.C. to explore American foreign policy in the Middle East in the decade after September 11. What have we learned since then? How should we evaluate America's policy in that volatile region? What lies ahead for U.S. relations with Israel and with a likely soon-to-be nuclear Iran? The 2011 event featured three panel discussions, with noted commentators and scholars presenting a range of viewpoints.
By one reckoning, the cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel might seem like an even stalemate. But in fact it’s lopsided in Hamas’s favor. Leaving aside the Israeli concession of easing the import of aid and materials for reconstruction, the fact that Hamas continues to exist as an organization ruling Gaza is an undeserved win.
What kind of foreign policy should Republican presidential hopefuls advocate? Angelo Codevilla’s shrewd answer: something other than the prevailing establishment view, practiced during the 20th century. While I differ from some points in his analysis, the thrust of his article illustrates some important weaknesses of Republican administrations.
In the past Arab regimes would pounce to vilify Israel’s efforts at defending itself from Palestinian aggression, but curiously, many have been quiet amid the Gaza war. One explanation, sketched in this New York Times piece is that the Arab states view the Islamists of Hamas (whose patron is Iran) as a major problem, a higher priority than their (unwarranted) enmity toward Israel. If so, that implies these regimes understand the Islamist threat better than many in the West.
