More in ‘Saudi Arabia’

Foreign policy expert Walter Russell Mead has joined Thomas Friedman and others in congratulating the Obama administration for condemning Israel over the announcement it was building 1600 apartment units in East Jerusalem.
“The Obama administration had no choice but to respond strongly,” Mead writes. “Otherwise the administration would have looked weak and irresolute and the ...

• Despite everything, Israel expects the proximity talks will in fact launch, and soon. [JPost]
• The IDF indicted two soldiers in military court for allegedly getting a Palestinian boy to open a suspected booby-trapped package during last year’s Gaza conflict. [LAT]
• To head off buzzed-about rioting, Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered a 48-hour full closure ...

• Vice President Joe Biden gave his big speech in Israel, after tweaking it in response to the East Jerusalem construction announcement. The speech was mostly warm, with Biden explaining, “Only a friend can deliver the hardest truth.” [JPost]
• Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledged to stick to the proximity talks, even after the construction announcement. ...

Postmodernists long ago disabused us of the idea that texts have stable, fixed meanings. French literary critics like Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes introduced a vision of the text as a tricky, shape-shifting improvisation; their American disciples like Stanley Fish proposed that these texts only acquire meaning through the efforts of interpretive communities. The relevance ...

• Saying he’s “almost certain” the Mossad was behind the assassination of Hamas weapons man Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the Dubai police chief is seeking arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and Mossad chief Meir Dagan. More on this story later in the day. [Reuters/Laura Rozen]
• The top U.N. official for humanitarian relief condemned the Gaza blockade, ...

Today in Tablet Magazine, Mideast columnist Lee Smith reports from Beirut on the vertigo the traditional regional Sunni Arab powers—primarily Egypt and Saudi Arabia—are feeling now that momentum has shifted toward non-Arab states Iran, Turkey, and Israel. Book critic Adam Kirsch considers a new history of the shtetl, and specifically its demise during (when else?) ...

Today in Tablet Magazine, coverage of Rabbi Leib Tropper continues with Allison Hoffman’s look at other prominent rabbis’ notable reaction—or, really, notable lack of reaction—to the scandals surrounding the conversion guru. In his inaugural column, Lee Smith reports a widespread sense that the Obama administration has been tone-deaf in its dealings with Saudi Arabia. Adam ...

The Saudi Embassy is covered in snow, and U.S. Foreign Service officers on their lunch breaks in Foggy Bottom skid by and giggle. Washington is notoriously incapable of digging itself out from under, and almost a year into the Obama administration, it seems the Saudis are having the same problem. For years, the Saudis have ...

• Despite fears, most West Bank observers believe that an intifada-style uprising is highly unlikely in the near future. They point to a weak Palestinian leadership, tight Israeli control, and a burgeoning economy. [LAT]
• Obama administration officials have disclosed to Israel that the Bush administration sold advanced air and naval weapons systems to Egypt, Saudia ...

• A controversial bill to require Knesset members to swear loyalty to “the State of Israel as a Jewish, Zionist, democratic state” came up for debate today. The legislation is supported by Avigdor Lieberman’s right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party. [JPost]
• Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak reportedly insisted to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that East Jerusalem be ...