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May 22, 2013

John Thorne: They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman

John Rosemond: 'Disciplinary math' adds up to parental successl

Warren Richey: Are prayers before public meetings OK? Supreme Court to decide
Rick Montgomery: Use of ADHD drugs as study aid raises concern on campuses

Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 convincing reasons you should keep carbs in your diet

Eoin O'Carroll: Scientists examine nothing, find something

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: This soup is made from one of the great pleasures of spring: A wonderful pairing of rosy color and earthy tang

May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting

May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel


Jewish World Review May 22, 2009 28 Iyar 5769

A courtship for Bibi and Obama

By Suzanne Fields


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Diplomacy is like courtship, with its rituals to keep passions in check. Both diplomacy and courtship pose tests to see whether a meeting of the minds can turn into a tentative relationship of the hearts and into a proper engagement leading to a union convenient to both sides. Diplomacy is courtship conducted in public and carries a lot of baggage because nations, like families, have diverging vested interests, sending contradictory and conflicting messages.


President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel had their "first date" this week at the White House. It wasn't exactly a blind date — they knew a lot about each other. But their meeting required the delicacy, sensitivity and care of a first night out alone.


The occasion turned out to be more Victorian than modern: Both were on their best behavior. "This was no one summit stand," as JTA, a Jewish news service, described it. Both men were looking for tangible commitments, and Bibi, who enjoys the boyish informality of his nickname, in particular knew how important it was for him to make a good first impression. In fact, he regarded it as a matter of life and death.


Nuclear weapons could enable Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, to fulfill his oft-stated evil wish to "wipe Israel off the map." Bibi's fanciful pitching of woo, calling Obama — somewhat prematurely — "a great leader of the world," was an understandable extravagance of courtship. The president, as the woo-ee, was gracious in return, referring to the "extraordinary relationship, the special relationship between the United States and Israel," recognizing the Jewish state's distinctive attribute as "the only true democracy in the Middle East." This turn of extravagance was particularly apt, because it is fact as well as flattery.


The two men sounded at times as if they were writing a prenuptial agreement, with the president conceding a time limit on talks to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions and the prime minister agreeing that the Palestinians and Israelis could "live side by side in dignity, in security and in peace," but only when "there's recognition of Israel's legitimacy, its permanent legitimacy." This could make for a long engagement.


But no matter how the leading actors play out their roles on Middle East policy, the deadly poison of anti-Semitism pervades the atmosphere of the region. When the Nazi extermination camps and the extent of Hitler's atrocities were exposed at the end of World War II, a wave of sympathy for Jews enabled the revival of a Jewish state where survivors of the Holocaust could re-establish themselves.


But the success of the Jewish state gave way to the envy and malice of Israel's neighbors, and ancient canards emerged again, first from the Arab street and then from intellectual and academic circles of the left in the West. The new anti-Semitism has especially prospered in European countries with large Muslim populations. Traditional anti-Semitism has been appropriated to fit new conditions. The tex


tbooks in several Middle Eastern nations repeat the anti-Semitic stereotypes and lies of the textbooks in Nazi Germany. Children's fairy tales have been rewritten to demonize Jews as the villains.


Intellectuals in debates both here and abroad, notoriously in the United Nations, couch their attacks in careful rhetoric, characterizing Israel as "racist" and "colonialist," but at root these are the same old slurs of "the money-grubbing Jews who want to run everything." Such stereotyping was once dismissed as harmless rhetoric, but no longer. Calls for boycotts and sanctions against Israel have become a gathering force to delegitimize Israel, writes Michael B. Oren, the new Israeli ambassador to the United States, in Commentary magazine. This is a force, he writes, "that could destroy Israel economically and deny it the ability to defend itself against the existential threats powered by terrorism and Iran."


In 1949, a year after Israel became a state and defended itself in armed struggle, Ralph Bunche, the U.N. special mediator on Palestine and a onetime UCLA basketball star, and among the first blacks to earn a Ph.D. at Harvard, called together Arab and Israeli delegates to dine with him on the Greek island of Rhodes. He invited them to examine the beautiful china plates on the table. "If you reach an agreement," he said, "each one of you will get one to take home. But if you don't, I'll break them over your heads."


Bunche forged an armistice, won the Nobel Peace Prize and established America's reputation as the broker — a marriage broker, perhaps — for agreements in the Middle East. A lot of dishes have been broken since then. So no matter how smooth the first date, it's much too early for Barack and Bibi to shop for wedding china.

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