My selection of the best essays of the past year on Israel, the Mideast, Obama and Iran, the conflict with the Palestinians, Jewish life, and anti-Semitism.

The use of Yitzhak Rabin’s name to support a galloping-forward two-state-solution peace process – is left-wing historical revisionism. Netanyahu should stick to his policy principles, and not be wedged off-course in search of ersatz, temporary relief from Obama’s pressures.

John Kerry carries a badly broken American moral compass. There is no need for him to fly here with admonitions for Israel or rewards for Palestinian extremism.

Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran is meant to redirect the entire vector of American Middle East policy: To retreat from Pax Americana and allow Iran to take its place as a major regional power. That’s why Netanyahu won’t scale back his opposition. Obama’s retreat must be stopped, and the Iran deal must be made politically toxic.

The moralizing American president is going to muscle Israel back to the “true” moral values of Judaism and Zionism on which he is so expert. And if not, at least he will have driven a wedge between American Jews and Israel.

Netanyahu is completely within the consensual tradition of all Israeli leaders in insisting on a performance-based peace process, where Palestinian statehood is a contingent, not definite, result.

Here is my suggestion for the speech that Netanyahu is to give in Washington on March 3 – on fortitude, fate and a binary moment of clarity. “Is America is ready to legitimize a seismic shift in the global balance of power through an irresolute and debilitating bargain with the Ayatollahs of Iran? I pray not.”

Netanyahu believes with every bone in his body that the contours of Obama’s emerging deal with Iran are dangerous for the world and existentially disastrous for Israel. He should be applauded for the initiative to speak forthrightly on the Iranian threat in Congress next month. It’s called leadership.

Obama is purposefully engineering the denouement of the special relationship between America and Israel; just as he is doggedly overseeing the decline of America on the world stage.

Obama is fixated on a phony issue, settlements, and on the consequences for Israel of its impending isolation. Ostensibly, this worries him. But not really. Obama is feigning dismay at the possible isolation of Israel, while paving the way towards that isolation.