AICE Update: Has US policy always been hostile toward Arabs?

American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise Weekly Update

Myths & Facts

Has US policy always been hostile toward Arabs?

Arabs rarely acknowledge the American role in helping the Arab states achieve independence. President Wilson's stand for self-determination for all nations, and the US entry into World War I, helped cause the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and stimulate the move toward independence in the Arab world.

Arab leaders assert that close alliance with Israel while maintaining good relations with several Arab states is proof the two are not incompatible.

Trump's important message on radical Islam

Donald Trump made an important speech on May 21st at the Arab Islamic Summit that was quickly forgotten in the cacophony of tweets, accusations and other news surrounding the president. It is worth looking at that address more closely, however, because he laid out in the starkest terms yet the truth about what amounts to a world war that few people want to acknowledge. The speech also clearly distinguishes Trump's policies from those of his predecessor by explicitly identifying Islamic extremism as a global threat, acknowledging Jewish, Christian and Muslim victims and singling out the genocidal regime in Iran for its role in destabilizing the region.

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Podcast

The New Sepharad: The Rise and Fall of Jewish Salonica

Jewish history professor Aron Rodrigue of Stanford University was the keynote speaker at an international conference held this week at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, dedicated to the Jewish history of Salonica. In the late 15th century, the then-Ottoman city (today the Greek city of Thessaloniki) welcomed large numbers of Sephardi Jews who had been expelled from Spain, making it very soon the largest Jewish city in Europe. A series of crises and disasters, culminating in the Nazi occupation in the 1940s, led to its ultimate destruction.