Settling Jerusalem
The issue of settlements in East Jerusalem has exposed a potential rift between Israel and the United States. Should Washington rush to close that gap, or embrace it as the best chance for creating a lasting peace? Two views, by Rashid Khalidi and Bret Stephens.
Related
Israel is pushing the Obama administration to tackle Iran's nuclear program before the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Washington shouldn't listen.
Given the summer's immersion in day-to-day death and destruction in Lebanon, we need to begin putting the Israeli-Palestinian War of 1982 in larger perspective. For better or worse, it will mark a turning point in the history of Israel, in the course of Arab-Israeli relations, in U.S.-Israeli relations, in the political character and orientation of important Middle Eastern states, and in the U.S. position in that critical area.
American peacekeeping turned into American bloodletting in 1983. More than any event since the war and oil embargo almost exactly ten years earlier, the October 23 suicide bombing of Marine headquarters in Beirut brought the Middle East conflict home directly to vast numbers of Americans stunned by the carnage that eventually claimed 241 lives--more casualties than in any other single incident since the 1968 Tet offensive in Vietnam.

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