DR AZRIEL BERMANT

Published in Ha'aretz, May 23, 2017
The recent horrific attack by 'evil losers', in Trump's words, won't swing the UK election. But will the U.S. president's hazardous position provide them a different win?

The horrific bombing at the Manchester Arena is the most serious terrorist attack Britain... MORE

Theresa May raised more than a few eyebrows recently when she attacked US Secretary of State John Kerry for focusing on settlements and underplaying the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his controversial address on December 28, following the UN Security Council resolution. 
Understandably, the US State Department reacted with incredulity to Mrs May’s criticisms: Britain itself has been consistent in its condemnations of Israel’s settlement expansion.
Not only did Britain vote for UN Security Council resolution 2334; it also played a key role in crafting the resolution and ensuring that it passed.
Mr Kerry strongly condemned terrorism and incitement against Israel and said that settlements were not “the whole or even the primary cause of the conflict” which only adds to the incomprehension in Washington. MORE

LONDON — Even the so-called special relationship is subject to limits, it seems.

With a Republican administration under Donald J. Trump only weeks away, Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain scolded Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday night for his speech criticizing Israel — a public jab that would have been highly unlikely any other time during the Obama administration.

In a statement that echoed Mr. Trump’s fierce criticism of the Obama administration, Mrs. May chided Mr. Kerry for, among other things, describing the Israeli government as the “most right-wing in Israeli history, with an agenda driven by the most extreme elements.” READ MORE

By Azriel Bermant, Published in The Guardian on Friday 30 December 2016

What was Theresa May thinking in attacking the US secretary of state John Kerry’s address on the need for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Her spokesman said on Thursday: “We do not ... believe that the way to negotiate peace is by focusing on only one issue, in this case the construction of settlements, when clearly the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is so deeply complex.”
This is extraordinary. Why would May attack Kerry for suggesting that settlements were the main obstacle to peace? Did she read his speech? In it, he stated that “settlements are not the whole or even the primary cause of this conflict” and strongly condemned terrorism and incitement against Israel. More extraordinary still, why would the British prime minister criticise Kerry when her own government played a leading role in the passing of UN security council resolution 2334 which condemned Israel over its settlement expansion? Kerry ordered the United States to abstain while May’s government voted in favour... READ MORE

By Azriel Bermant and Igor Sutyagin, Published in The National Interest, December 5, 2016

On 18 November, Vladimir Putin issued a warning that Russia considered missile defense and Prompt Global Strike as threats to its security, and would work hard to neutralise them. Viktor Ozerov, Chairman of the Federation Council’s Defense and Security Committee, went further in an interview with the RIA Novosti Russian news agency on Nov. 21, warning of Russian efforts to improve its offensive capabilities to deal with NATO’s missile defense installations.  Ozerov specifically mentioned air-to-surface missiles capable of penetrating US air defenses in Europe.  In the meantime, the Russian military has placed Bastion missile launchers in Kaliningrad, the exclave bordering NATO members Poland and Lithuania. This could threaten the prospective NATO missile defense site in Poland.
​
Remarkably, with all the controversy surrounding Trump’s remarks on NATO and the Baltic States during the presidential election campaign, barely a word was heard about the missile defense system. This is surprising for a number of reasons... READ MORE

By Azriel Bermant,  Published in The JC,  December 1, 2016

In 1981, the British band Heaven 17 released a single called Fascist Groove Thang. The song, a fierce attack on Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, described the US President-elect as a "fascist god in motion" , bewailing "evil men with racist views spreading all across the land" and "Democrats out of power across that great wide ocean." Sounds familiar? The BBC banned it from the airwaves citing legal concerns. Thirty five years on, with Donald Trump as President-elect, the world is crying out for Reagan. After his election victory, Trump remarked that he was looking forward to having the same relationship with Theresa May, Britain's Prime Minister, that Reagan had once enjoyed with Thatcher. A Trump visit to Britain may take place next summer.

There are some interesting- if eerie - similarities between the situation in 1979/1980 when Thatcher and Reagan came to power and the state of the world today.  READ MORE

By Azriel Bermant
Published in Cambridge Core on November 8 2016

With just a few hours to go before the announcement of the new US president, one of the many remarkable aspects of the campaign is how the Democrat nominee, Hillary Clinton, is the candidate standing up for conservative principles rather than her Republican opponent, Donald Trump. The Republican nominee has actively opposed free trade, questioned the value of NATO and expressed unflinching admiration for Vladimir Putin. David Frum, George W. Bush’s former speechwriter, has highlighted this absurdity in the Atlantic, making a courageous and powerful case for Clinton. 
​READ MORE

By Azriel Bermant
Published in The National Interest on October 12, 2016

As the Obama era draws to a close, how will history judge the administration’s Middle East policy? The bloodletting in Syria, the growing sectarian tensions in the region and the continued stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict suggest that the verdict will not be too kind. Yet history also warns us of the dangers of drawing rash conclusions.
After all, twenty-eight years have passed since Ronald Reagan departed the White House. He is still hailed by many Americans as the leader who ended the Cold War, yet remarkably few have drawn attention to his dismal record in the Middle East. Poignantly, the recent passing of Israel’s elder statesman, Shimon Peres, presents an opportunity to revisit an episode which casts the Reagan administration in a new light.  READ MORE

Published in The Telegraph UK, 28 September 2016

Shimon Peres, Israel’s elder statesman, who died early on Wednesday at the age of 93, served his country with distinction for almost seventy years.
​
Peres was a flawed visionary and beset by contradictions: he was determined to achieve peace with Israel’s Arab neighbours, but couldn’t shake off the hawkish instincts he had developed as the protégé of Israel’s veteran statesman, David Ben Gurion. He was bold and far-sighted in seeking an agreement with Jordan’s King Hussein in 1987, but his caution undermined it. Peres was greatly distrusted both by his colleagues within the Labour party, his rivals in the Likud and the wider Israeli public. In his memoirs, Yitzhak Rabin described Peres as “the indefatigable subverter.”   READ MORE

By Azriel Bermant

Published in Haaretz on July 29, 2016 

This week, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Malki, representing President Mahmoud Abbas, addressed the Arab League Summit in Mauritania and asked them to join in preparing to sue the British government. The cause: The 100-year-old letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild regarding the British cabinet’s support for the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."

Malki explained: "Almost a century has passed since 1917… We are working to open up an international criminal case for the crime which they committed against our nation – from the days of the British Mandate all the way to the massacre which was carried out against us from 1948 onwards.” Later on in the week, the demand was scaled down to the request for a formal U.K. apology to the Palestinians.

read more: