White House

A view of the Israeli settlement of Shilo in the West Bank, October 6, 2016. The new settlement that angered the United States is being portrayed as a neighborhood of Shilo, but Shilo’s boundaries have been redrawn to include the site that is over 1 kilometer away. (Flash90)

The U.S. isn’t going to do a damn thing to end the occupation

As long as Washington views ending the occupation as an Israeli problem instead of a Palestinian problem, it will never even consider using its leverage to do so. The United States issued an unusually sharp rebuke on Wednesday to news that Israel is building a brand new settlement in the West Bank. The State Department…

By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man October 6, 2016

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Haim Zach/GPO)

Netanyahu won. Here’s how to beat him

By accepting that the two-state solution will just have to wait until Israel is ready to accept it, the White House has effectively conceded to Netanyahu’s strategy: declare support for two states — in theory — while continuing to deny Palestinians their most basic rights and liberties. Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy for defeating the prospect of Palestinian…

By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man November 9, 2015

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at Bar-Ilan University. (Photo Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)

There is no reason to trust Benjamin Netanyahu

Netanyahu can backpedal all he wants, but now it is clear even to his biggest champions that he is no longer interested in the two-state solution. Now it’s up to the White House to take a stand. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s landslide election victory on Tuesday stunned even the biggest pessimists. What looked like a possible…

By Edo Konrad March 19, 2015

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands in front of a portrait of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

Netanyahu is not Ben-Gurion, and 2015 is not 1948

The Israeli prime minister is not using his Congress speech to gain votes in this election, rather, he is using his election campaign to gain favor for the Congress speech and serve his megalomaniac vision of being the savior of Jews worldwide. Netanyahu’s recent campaign video, released Saturday night, has nothing to do with the…

By Mairav Zonszein February 22, 2015

President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Rabbi Bradley Artson, and students from Hand in Hand participate in the Menorah lighting during Hanukkah reception #1 in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Dec. 17, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

How an Israeli and a Palestinian ended up lighting Obama’s menorah

Just weeks after Jerusalem’s Jewish-Arab school was attacked by arsonists, President Obama met with two students to light the Hanukkah menorah. Inbar Shaked Vardi talks about her whirlwind trip to Washington DC, and why she has decided to stay at the school despite the threat of violence. By Inbar Shaked Vardi It all started with…

By +972 Magazine December 27, 2014

U.S. President Barack Obama laughing aboard Air Force One (Pete Souza/White House Photo, cropped)

After ‘chickenshit’ remark, FBI finds traces of ‘truth serum’ in West Wing [satire]

The FBI has found traces of sodium thiopental in several areas in the White House, causing staff to stop holding back their true feelings on Israel. Just 24 hours after a senior administration official called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “chickenshit,” FBI agents found traces of sodium thiopental, also known as the “truth serum,” in…

By Ami Kaufman October 30, 2014

President Obama speaks with Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Israeli settlements, U.S. policy: The gap between values and actions

The only thing odder than Netanyahu’s “un-American” comment is the White House’s response. Although the latest Israeli announcement of settlement expansion in East Jerusalem drew the usual verbal slap on the wrist from the U.S., the media didn’t make much of it – until, that is, when Prime Minister Netanyahu decided to call that criticism…

By Mairav Zonszein October 7, 2014

Some 10,000 demonstrators march on the White House in Washington, D.C., to protest Israel's offensive in Gaza, August 2, 2014. (Activestills.org)

PHOTOS: 10,000 march on White House to protest Gaza offensive

Thousands converge on Washington, D.C. to protest Israel’s offensive on Gaza. Text and photos by: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org Some 10,000 activists converged on the White House in Washington, D.C. this weekend to protest Israel’s offensive on Gaza. Politico reported that the event may have been “the largest pro-Palestinian march to take place in the United…

By Activestills August 3, 2014

Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama in the Oval Office, March 2012 (photo: The White House / Flickr)

Mainstream American media and pro-Israel pols are turning against Netanyahu

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu seems to have miscalculated with his latest attempt to bait President Obama and manipulate the results of the U.S. elections results. On Monday, Netanyahu leveled what the New York Times described as “unusually harsh public comments about Israel’s most important ally,” regarding the Obama administration’s policy on Iran. Speaking in English…

By Lisa Goldman September 13, 2012

Mitt Romney (photo: GPO)

Romney or Obama: Why the Israeli left should care

The Left in Israel should not remain apathetic to the U.S. elections in November and expect American policy on Israel to remain basically unchanged. Romney is much less likely to restrain Israel, more specifically a right-wing government. By Dov Waxman The general sentiment among many of my left-wing Israeli friends about Romney’s visit to Israel…

By +972 Magazine July 30, 2012

President Barack Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and their delegations meet in the Oval Office, May 18, 2009. (Pete Souza/White House)

Driving through the West Bank ‘felt like apartheid’

Three anecdotes from Peter Beinart’s Crisis of Zionism reveal a lot on what can and what can’t be said in Washington today “The Crisis of Zionism,” Peter Beinart’s new book on the Jewish establishment’s transformation into a propaganda and lobbying arm for the occupation and the settlements, has a few fresh examples of Washington’s double…

By Noam Sheizaf April 1, 2012

US Mideast policy: Well on its way to total irrelevance

By following Jerusalem’s lead regarding the Palestinian UN bid, the United State is diminishing its own position in the region, and actually proving that the Palestinians have nothing to hope for in negotiations with Israel A few months ago, there was still speculation in Jerusalem that the White House is behind the new wave of…

By Noam Sheizaf August 10, 2011

A question for Bibi, and one for Obama

Two questions need to be answered following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reported rejection of a White House incentive package offered in exchange for extending the settlement construction freeze for two more months. The first: Where does Netanyahu get the audacity to turn down a package like that, and in exchange for merely freezing construction for…

By Ami Kaufman October 1, 2010