Congress’ vote to override President Barack Obama’s veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) was both embarrassing and irresponsible.The bill, known as JASTA, amends the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, allowing US citizens to sue foreign governments and ent

Elliott Abrams, a former Reagan and Bush administration official and a former colleague on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), wrote the article “The United States bars Christian, not Muslim, refugees from Syria”, provocative, as its title suggests, but

I am stymied. I have been writing this column each and every week for almost 24 years now. Since it appears in papers across the Arab world, I have attempted to explain American politics and policy to Arab readers.Most weeks, the columns practically write themselves.

Late last year, as the primaries were just heating up, pundits and commentators were busy trying to make sense of the Donald Trump phenomenon.His stump speeches were more akin to the stream of consciousness rantings of an out-of-control id than what was expected from a serious pr

During the past year, I had the pleasure of receiving visits from Ayman Odeh, Ahmad Tibi and, most recently, Basel Ghattas — as they passed through Washington. All are Palestinian citizens of Israel.

One week ago, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Stanley Vernon Majors murdered his next-door neighbour, 37-year-old Khalid Jabara.He shot Khalid dead on the front porch of the Jabara home.It was a horrific crime that could have been prevented.Reflecting on the developments leading up to this m

This presidential election is exposing deep fault lines in our society and the failure of some of the basic institutions of our democracy.If we do not change direction, we are on our way to “hell in a handbasket”.I begin with the difficult situation in which Republicans now find

The quadrennial process of party platform writing is more of a political exercise than a policy deliberation. When party leaders sit down to debate what will or will not go into their platform, their eyes are less focused on what will constitute sound policy.

After back-to-back Republican and Democratic conventions, the stage is set for a 100-day mad dash to the November presidential contest. There were telling differences between the two events.To begin with, the conventions revealed the state of play within each party.Both Repu