In December, a Lebanese military tribunal sentenced Kinda el-Khatib to three years of forced labor, ostensibly because she helped to arrange for an Israeli journalist to interview a dual Lebanese-American citizen living in Oregon. Joseph Braude tells her story:

In recent years, Jerusalem has developed good relations with a group of Central European countries that have proved far more sympathetic than those of the West, and whose governments have sometimes stopped the European Union from issuing anti-Israel statements. But Europe, both East and West, is now in a state of political flux, and this approach may soon be obsolete. Emmanuel Navon proposes a new direction for Jewish state that capitalizes on its economic ties with Western Europe. Take, for instance, post-Angela Merkel Germany: