White House

Palestinians at the site of an Israeli airstrike on an UNRWA school in Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza Strip, October 14, 2024. (Ali Hassan/Flash90)

‘I don’t care who’s president there. I just want my kids to survive in Gaza’

Decrying Biden’s catastrophic legacy, Gazans harbored little hope for a Harris presidency — but they’re not enthused about Trump’s second term either.

By Mohammed R. Mhawish November 14, 2024

President Joe Biden delivers remarks at a Jewish American Heritage Month reception, May 16, 2023, in the East Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

Who won the battle over the White House antisemitism strategy?

The Biden administration’s antisemitism plan sidestepped the IHRA definition favored by the American-Jewish establishment. They claimed victory anyway.

By Emily Tamkin August 8, 2023

President Joe Biden takes part in a ceremony at Yad Vashem, Israel's largest Holocaust memorial, Jerusalem, July 13, 2022. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Biden’s antisemitism strategy gets a lot right — but has one problem

By failing to push back on problematic definitions of antisemitism, the White House is missing a golden opportunity in the fight against hate.

By Natasha Soffer-Roth May 27, 2023

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, May 25, 2021. (Marc Israel Sellem/GPO)

Washington won’t admit the full danger of Israel’s far right

The White House's intransigence in the face of the new reality reveals how much the U.S. political establishment has washed away any 'red lines' on Israel.

By Amjad Iraqi January 8, 2023

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres signs the Oslo Accords on the White House Lawn. Behind him are U.S. President Bill Clinton, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and other world leaders, Washington DC, September 13, 1994. (Avi Ohayon/GPO)

How the U.S. made Palestine the exception to the rules of peacemaking

Israel has only ever offered Palestinians two things over the past century — submission or devastation — and the Americans have always backed them.

By Amjad Iraqi February 10, 2020

A view of the Israeli settlement of Shilo in the West Bank, October 6, 2016. The new settlement that angered the United States is being portrayed as a neighborhood of Shilo, but Shilo’s boundaries have been redrawn to include the site that is over 1 kilometer away. (Flash90)

The U.S. isn’t going to do a damn thing to end the occupation

As long as Washington views ending the occupation as an Israeli problem instead of a Palestinian problem, it will never even consider using its leverage to do so. The United States issued an unusually sharp rebuke on Wednesday to news that Israel is building a brand new settlement in the West Bank. The State Department…

By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man October 6, 2016

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Haim Zach/GPO)

Netanyahu won. Here’s how to beat him

By accepting that the two-state solution will just have to wait until Israel is ready to accept it, the White House has effectively conceded to Netanyahu’s strategy: declare support for two states — in theory — while continuing to deny Palestinians their most basic rights and liberties. Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy for defeating the prospect of Palestinian…

By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man November 9, 2015

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at Bar-Ilan University. (Photo Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)

There is no reason to trust Benjamin Netanyahu

Netanyahu can backpedal all he wants, but now it is clear even to his biggest champions that he is no longer interested in the two-state solution. Now it’s up to the White House to take a stand. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s landslide election victory on Tuesday stunned even the biggest pessimists. What looked like a possible…

By Edo Konrad March 19, 2015

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands in front of a portrait of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

Netanyahu is not Ben-Gurion, and 2015 is not 1948

The Israeli prime minister is not using his Congress speech to gain votes in this election, rather, he is using his election campaign to gain favor for the Congress speech and serve his megalomaniac vision of being the savior of Jews worldwide. Netanyahu’s recent campaign video, released Saturday night, has nothing to do with the…

By Mairav Zonszein February 22, 2015

President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Rabbi Bradley Artson, and students from Hand in Hand participate in the Menorah lighting during Hanukkah reception #1 in the Grand Foyer of the White House, Dec. 17, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

How an Israeli and a Palestinian ended up lighting Obama’s menorah

Just weeks after Jerusalem’s Jewish-Arab school was attacked by arsonists, President Obama met with two students to light the Hanukkah menorah. Inbar Shaked Vardi talks about her whirlwind trip to Washington DC, and why she has decided to stay at the school despite the threat of violence. By Inbar Shaked Vardi It all started with…

By +972 Magazine December 27, 2014

U.S. President Barack Obama laughing aboard Air Force One (Pete Souza/White House Photo, cropped)

After ‘chickenshit’ remark, FBI finds traces of ‘truth serum’ in West Wing [satire]

The FBI has found traces of sodium thiopental in several areas in the White House, causing staff to stop holding back their true feelings on Israel. Just 24 hours after a senior administration official called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “chickenshit,” FBI agents found traces of sodium thiopental, also known as the “truth serum,” in…

By Ami Kaufman October 30, 2014

President Obama speaks with Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Israeli settlements, U.S. policy: The gap between values and actions

The only thing odder than Netanyahu’s “un-American” comment is the White House’s response. Although the latest Israeli announcement of settlement expansion in East Jerusalem drew the usual verbal slap on the wrist from the U.S., the media didn’t make much of it – until, that is, when Prime Minister Netanyahu decided to call that criticism…

By Mairav Zonszein October 7, 2014

Some 10,000 demonstrators march on the White House in Washington, D.C., to protest Israel's offensive in Gaza, August 2, 2014. (Activestills.org)

PHOTOS: 10,000 march on White House to protest Gaza offensive

Thousands converge on Washington, D.C. to protest Israel’s offensive on Gaza. Text and photos by: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org Some 10,000 activists converged on the White House in Washington, D.C. this weekend to protest Israel’s offensive on Gaza. Politico reported that the event may have been “the largest pro-Palestinian march to take place in the United…

By Activestills August 3, 2014