Publications

For the moment, let's set aside the friction in U.S.-Israeli relations over Iran's nuclear program, which serves neither Washington nor Jerusalem.

Jaap Polak walks gingerly these days, leaning on a cane or holding the rail as he climbs the stairs to his second-floor room at The Sparhawk, a comfortable waterfront resort in the southern Maine town of Ogunquit. That's where, for more than half a century, he and his wife, Ina Soep, have spent a few weeks in August -- and that's where I first got to know this couple and learned their remarkable story.

Freedom and democracy don't come easily to a land that's known precious little of it over time. Often, a nation overthrows an authoritarian government and replaces it with a democratically elected one, only to see the new government subvert the rule of law and impose a new authoritarianism.

Recent developments in Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere have convinced skeptics that U.S. human rights promotion in the Middle East causes more harm than good by inciting instability — positioning the Muslim Brotherhood and other anti-Western forces to win elections or otherwise seize power.

Across the Middle East, hopes for Arab-Israeli peace face obstacles that, of late, are rising on multiple fronts.

Fatah and Hamas are working toward a coalition government, which will further empower a terrorist group that's sworn to Israel's destruction and isolate Palestinian moderates; a candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood is assuming the presidency in Egypt while the emerging government is threatening to upend the longstanding Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty; and an Iranian regime that increasingly threatens Israel's destruction continues to make progress toward nuclear weaponry.