At a public event on Monday, the Vermont senator and presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, while insisting that he is “not anti-Israel,” declared that the Jewish state “is now run by a right-wing—dare I say—racist government.” Ariel Bolstein comments:

In a little remarked-upon statement in May, James Jeffrey, the State Department’s envoy for Syria policy, said that his goal was to turn the war-torn country into “a quagmire for the Russians.” By using economic leverage, this policy has achieved modest success, writes Jonathan Spyer: