Epstein Secrets

rine over the past six decades, Israelis can't be faulted for scratching their heads and wringing their hands. As designed by its founding father, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first grand strategy was based on the idea that the fledgling Jewish state could most effectively confront hostility from neighboring Ara

be expected if U.S. military action is taken against Assad. Obama would be wise to follow Israel's lead on Syria, and not the advice of McCain and Lieberman. Instead of heeding the advice of these two hawkish senators, the Obama administration should pursue a more realist foreign policy vis-à-vis Syria

entral Tel Aviv, "I am a man of action -- I never hesitate to take action." "I follow, and am very committed to, the tradition of Yitzhak Rabin and David Ben-Gurion [Israel's founding father]," he said, pointing to their portraits on his office wall, "because their approach was to always be open-eyed and wholly

ty and foreign policy thinking in the last 20 years." In a land of dirty politicians, furthermore, Barak is more or less clean. Yet leaders such as Lieberman and Olmert, both of whom have been convicted of criminal charges, are more popular and are seen as viable candidates while Barak, whom one comment

iably described their country as the only democracy in the Middle East. Although Israel as imagined by Theodor Herzl and built by the generation of David Ben-Gurion was never intended to be a replica of the Anglo-American model—its political culture, even now, is closer to that of the European social democracie

acy," Beinart writes; now they number more than three hundred thousand, and include Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's wildly xenophobic Foreign Minister. Lieberman has advocated the execution of Arab members of parliament who dare to meet with leaders of Hamas. His McCarthyite allies call for citizens to swear