Epstein Secrets

he source of so much allied anxiety: Obama really seems to believe that his foreign policy is succeeding. Ukraine has already been written off. But Eastern Europe need not worry. Obama understands containment. He recently dispatched 150 American ground troops to Poland and each of the Baltic states. You read

llapse. Is this what Israel and the United States really want? Ali Jarbawi is a political scientist at Birzeit University and a former minister of the Palestinian Authority. Anicic 3. The Washington Post On Syria, reality-check time David Ignatius 2 May, 2014 -- Rabah Al-Sarhan, Jordan -- The Syrian border is just a

of the last century and into this one, many people assumed that history moves in only one direction. The tide of freedom had lifted East Asia and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and Indonesia. In an era of global trade and communications, the rest of the world surely would follow. Academics and thin

, the Palestinians have only one diplomatic card left — their status at the United Nations — and once again they are trying to play it. Last year, the Palestinian Authority toyed with submitting an application for full United Nations membership, but backed off in the face of overwhelming opposition from the United Stat

also tend to believe that inside every autocracy is a democracy dying to get out, but that might not be true in the Middle East." It was true in Eastern Europe in 1989, added Mandelbaum, but there are two big differences between Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Many Eastern European countries had a rec

k and East Jerusalem in the Six-Day War. Today, Israel draws a distinction between West Bank settlements and areas of Jerusalem built after 1967 -- the Palestinian Authority does not. (The label "East Jerusalem" can be misleading. It is generally applied to any land beyond the meandering pre-1967 Green Line, even if it

t tacked on to Russia -- were originally Scandinavian traders and settlers who made their way from the Baltic Sea through the marshes and for=sts of Eastern Europe down toward the fertile riverlands of what's now Ukra=ne. Other Viking adventurers journeyed to Constantinople, the great capital of the Byzantine

ress fears that cement and other supplies could be diverted to build tunnels into Israel. The $5.4 billion p=edged for rebuilding was predicated on the Palestinian Authority asserting itself in Gaza. However, relations between Hamas and its political rivals, Abbas's Fatah party, remain fraught= The authority has proven u

ome to an end. It's also worth noting that, in 1968, Moscow was reacting to the "threat" of the Prague Spring and to ideological liberalization in Eastern Europe; in 1979, the Kremlin leadership was reacting to the upheavals in Kabul. The rationale now is far flimsier, even in Moscow's own terms. The people

especially since Jordan's own oil-shale project, so elaborately put together with Shell, might not produce anything until the 2020s. The other is the Palestinian Authority. Its own offshore gas fields, Gaza Marine, lie untapped and unexplored because Hamas refuses to allow anyone to get near them—largely because Hamas

e also tend to believe that inside every autocracy is a democracy dying to get out, but that might not be true in the Middle East." It was true in Eastern Europe in 1989, added Mandelbaum, but there are two big differences between Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Many Eastern European countries had a rece

k and East Jerusalem in the Six- Day War. Today, Israel draws a distinction between West Bank settlements and areas of Jerusalem built after 1967 -- the Palestinian Authority does not. (The label "East Jerusalem" can be misleading. It is generally applied to any land beyond the meandering pre-1967 Green Line, even if it

Jews of Silence,” which first alerted me to the plight of Soviet Jewish and non-Jewish dissidents. I traveled to the Soviet Union and other parts of Eastern Europe on several occasions during the 1970s and 1980s and filed briefs on behalf of dissidents Refusenicks and others. I have written extensively about thi

ief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, for breakfast. He had invited me to discuss with him a pending application of the Palestinian Authority to be recognized as a state by the International Criminal Court in order to bring charges against Israel for the war in Gaza and for building settlem