InDepth

President Obama will finally follow up his June 4, 2009 visit to Cairo with one to Israel. Though he was just a stone’s throw from Israel at the time, he chose not to go the Jewish state and it is not too hard to figure out why.

The Obama administration, from Mr. Obama on down, has made every effort to assure that the agenda for the president’s Israel trip and discussions with Prime Minister Netanyahu would center around burnishing the U.S.-Israel relationship and the issues of Iran and Syria.

“Therefore we are obligated to give thanks…to the One Who performed all these miracles for our forefathers and for us. He took us out from slavery to freedom…and from servitude to redemption.” – Haggadah shel Pesach

In the free market, money made you king. But under socialism, money just buys you access and leverage.

Why help put into power and then favor people who hate you, lie about you, and want to destroy you? What is the pay-off?

To understand Obama's visit to Israel, the next four years, and European Union diplomacy, keep this strange and contorted logic in mind

We cannot and must not allow responsibility for our security to be in the hands of anyone else but ourselves. Not at any time.

Western powers enjoy overwhelming battlefield superiority but face great difficulty when trying to shape other countries.

At least Russia and China are probably as mystified as we are about where Obama is going with his missile defense policy.

If the world does not wake up in time to see the danger, Syria will be only the first domino to fall.

The problem of this government is more likely to be one of personalities, marginal issues that get blown up in importance, and jockeying for financial benefits for different constituencies.

The argument that democracy had made the Muslim world dysfunctional was always chancy.

Both Hamas and Fatah are playing the game of pretending to end violence.

In August 2010, Obama ordered a secret report on unrest in the Arab world.

The greatest tragedy made manifest in Steubenville is the attitude of teenage men toward girls.

The defamation of the Jewish people must be called out and stopped at all times, not only when it is convenient and politically correct to do so.

The biggest losers, without a doubt, are the Haredi parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism.

Schools across the country are banning not the gun, but the idea of the gun.

Erdoğan can be seen as the anti-Atatürk, the leader who seeks to undo substantial parts of his predecessor's legacy, especially Atatürk's rejection of Shari'a, or Islamic law.

As Obama visits the region, he would do well to take the following facts into consideration.

Hamas wants Palestinians civilians, especially babies, to be killed precisely so that they can display the kind of photographs that were shown around the world.

Despite the current policy's serious problems and visibly dangerous outcomes there is no major debate it.

Publishing house Palgrave Macmillan apologized for appearing to endorse "the Palestinian struggle."

It is unthinkable that Israelis should look at Jonathan through American eyes.

Ambassador Rice touted the notion of a spontaneous mob action for several days after the event despite the evidence to the contrary. On what basis did Ms. Rice promote the false storyline?

Before Chavez came to power there were 30,000 Jews in Venezuela. The community has now dwindled to fewer than 9,000.

In cases where the Nazi regime judged that protest could spark attention from the broader German public, the decision was made for tactical reasons to appease rather than quell with brute force.

As a teenager growing up in Russia in the late 1800s, Trumpeldor was attracted to Zionism as well as the pacifism and communalism of the philosopher Leo Tolstoy.

On January 16, 2003, the private Project Daniel Group first advised then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons.

For days and weeks before Pesach, we meticulously clean our homes, making sure that not a crumb of bread might, God forbid, be found when we begin the festival of matzahs.