Washington Watch Articles From 2025
False Accusations Trying to Stop Mamdani
In the days before the election for mayor of New York City, a group of rabbis issued a “A Call to Action” attacking public figures like Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani whom they say “refuse to condemn violent slogans, deny Israel’s legitimacy, and accuse the Jewish state of genocide.”
You Have Your America, I Have My America
A century ago, Gibran Khalil Gibran wrote a love poem to Lebanon, "You have your Lebanon, I have my Lebanon."
Palestinians Go to Congress
Last week, the Arab American Institute, Churches for Middle East Peace, and the American Friends Service Committee brought a group of Palestinian Americans with family in Gaza to meet with members of Congress and media.
Poor Syria
Poor Syria! That’s an inauspicious start, but it’s honest, as the country is facing myriad problems, internal and external, none of which can easily be resolved.
Trump’s Plan: Now the Hard Work Begins
If US President Donald Trump really wants to earn a Nobel Peace Prize, he’s going to need to do better than his 20-point “Comprehensive Plan to End Gaza’s Conflict.” While in his characteristic style of exaggeration, Mr. Trump called the release of his plan “one of the greatest days in human history,” poring over Arab, Israeli, and US press reveals that most analysts are not inclined to see it that way.
Don’t Abuse Religion When Praising or Criticizing Charlie Kirk
On September 10th, conservative Republican political activist Charlie Kirk was murdered while speaking at a rally on a college campus in Utah. The reactions to his death were immediate and sustained, reflecting the deep divisions that plague American society today.
Democrats Need a Unifying Theme to Inspire Voters
For too many years now Democrats have focused on winning elections by appealing to what they have termed their “base” (young voters, Black, Latino, and Asian voters, and educated women). At the same time, they have largely abandoned white working class voters to Republicans—one reason why Democrats have lost too many recent federal and local elections across the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states.
Message to Candidates: Stopping Military Aid to Israel Is a Winning Issue
What to do or say about Israel’s war on Gaza has establishment Democratic consultants and the elected officials for whom they work in a tizzy.
US Government Needed Reform with a Scalpel; Trump Used a Sledgehammer
Nothing good will come of the chaos that has already been created by the Trump administration. In just a few months, it’s taken a wrecking-ball to institutions, agencies, and programs.
Ignore the Critics: The Debate on Palestinian Rights Advanced at the DNC
While some supporters of Palestinian rights saw the developments at last week’s meeting of the Democratic National Committee as a defeat, it was, in fact, a victory. Here is what happened at the meeting and why I feel that progress was made.
Democratic Party Leaders Need to Recognize Reality on Palestine
Even though the bottom has fallen out of Democrats’ support for Israel, some in the party still can’t bring themselves to recognize this reality.
Nations Must Take Direct Action to End Israel’s Assault on Palestinians
We’ve reached a sort of tipping point in the way political leaders in the West are reacting to Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians in Gaza. It’s maddening for two reasons: that it took this long to get an official response from Western capitals; and that, once the magnitude of the tragedy became clear, the responses have been so decidedly ineffectual.
US Leaders and Media Must Move Beyond the Israeli-Imposed Narrative
Our understanding of an historical event’s meaning is a function of two factors. The first is what we choose to identify as the starting point leading up to the event. The second is the lens through which we view it.
American Politics Are in Trouble
American political parties are in disarray. Instead of being the engines that organize and drive our politics, their roles have been supplanted by partisan social media influencers, non-profit political groups, super PACs, and the billionaires who fund them and consultant groups they hire.
The Need For a Vision to Inspire Arabs of the Mashreq
Any way you look at it, the northern rim of the Arab World is a mess. US politicians, echoing Israel’s position, speak glibly (and dishonestly) of a transformed or new regional order. In reality, the situation has worsened. Israel has accelerated its genocidal war on Gaza, land-grabbing ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and occupations and deadly bombings of Lebanon and Syria.
Trump and Netanyahu: Masters of Duplicity
Meetings between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are more akin to a master class in posturing and duplicity than in diplomacy. Last week’s meetings were no exception.
Israel’s Impact on Palestinians Must Be Addressed
Last week, the UN was scheduled to convene a special session promoting a two-state solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict. Israel’s attack on Iran and the deadly exchanges that followed resulted in a postponement.
Why Mamdani Won
It was 2006 and Tim Kaine had recently won the Virginia gubernatorial election. I was at a meeting at Democratic Party headquarters with a group of party officials. One opined, “I believe that one of the lessons we should learn from Tim Kaine’s victory was that we need to talk more about our religion. Kaine did and he won. We should do it too.”
New York City’s Fascinating Mayoral Race
This week, all eyes will be on the fascinating race for mayor of New York City. One reason it’s so interesting is because New York plays such an outsized role in American life.
What Democrats Must Do
A few months after the Democrats’ bitter defeat in the 2024 elections, the party convened an Executive Committee meeting. Instead of taking a long hard look at the reasons for their poor performance, the meeting devolved into an orgy of self-congratulations.