Some UK Jewish papers have already opened the ‘annexation front’, criticising Israel for unilateral action it may be about to take. I promised myself I would stay quiet on this until July – when I expected to be forced to stand up against an uproar from some of the small-but-vocal …
Read More »Yearly Archives: 2020
Into the fray: Pipes vs. Pipes in the New York Times.
In the past, Daniel Pipes has been scrupulously strict in being “policy agnostic”, avoiding any action-oriented prescriptions to achieve his prescribed “Israeli Victory”; yet in his NYT piece, he robustly negates specific measures—such as annexation—to achieve precisely that goal. ———- A week ago, as per the Cabinet’s proposal, the Knesset …
Read More »Yes, there was a Nakba, but it was not about Arabs.
May 15 is the day the Arabs mourn the ‘catastrophe’ of Israel’s establishment, but the real Nakba was that of the Jews of Arab lands. My organization, Im Tirtzu, has become famous (some would say infamous) for our calling out the lies, misrepresentations and deliberate distortions attached to marking “Nakba …
Read More »From Israel: Do Not Make Light of the Pain or the Outrage!!
In the pre-dawn hours on Tuesday, a unit from the elite Golani Brigade had gone into the village of Ya’abad in the northwestern Shomron, to secure the arrest of members of a terror cell. The mission had been accomplished and the unit was preparing to leave. Staff Sergeant Amit Ben …
Read More »Silver lining to COVID-19: Young Israelis rediscover agriculture.
The ‘crop commandos.’ many of them just out of the IDF, are working to help farmers get the harvest in, and are beginning to love it. Working the Land. It was the animating ethos that shaped Zionism. It was the romantic vision that entranced and attracted generations of urban and …
Read More »From Israel: “Do Not Hold Your Breath, Folks!”
It appears that we are a “go” for the unity government. For now: I have yet to speak with anyone who believes that the new government will last anything near its full term. —– Last Thursday, the High Court – in a unanimous vote by the expanded panel of 11 …
Read More »Incoming government commands a large footprint: Opinion piece May 2020.
Well, if nothing changes between now and Wednesday, we will finally see an actual Israeli government being sworn in. The main potential crinkle it would appear, is an internal Likud bun fight over the reduced number of cabinet portfolios left to divide, after the achievements of Benny Gantz. Gantz took …
Read More »Into the Fray: Judicial overreach- Are the chickens coming home to roost?
There is a growing sense that the aura of infallibility accorded the Supreme Court, that forms the basis of its almost limitless power, so assiduously (some might say insidiously) cultivated by Chief Justice Aharon Barak, is beginning to dim. In Israel, the negative impact of the judicialization of politics on …
Read More »While Lying About Israel, Democrats Demand Nothing of Palestinians.
Thirty Democratic politicians under the Obama and Clinton administrations sent a letter to the Democratic National Committee on May 4, 2020. The letter began by completely misleading its audience which led directly into slandering Israel and absolving Arabs of any responsibility. The letter stated “Past party platforms have rightly stated …
Read More »From Israel: Can This Mess Be Unscrambled??
The “mess” I am referring to is the electoral situation, and, quite frankly, I do not see the possibility of unscrambling it and making reasonable sense of the situation. This comes as an interim report, setting out the relevant parameters; final resolution is expected by the end of this week. …
Read More »Fighting fire with fire: The Right discovers Lawfare.
Left wing organizations have long viewed judicial activism as their best antidote to electoral failure, but that is about to change. It seems like an axiom of political quantum mechanics that the Left is extremely well financially endowed, while the Right operates on air. Armed with financing from European governments …
Read More »UNRWA Artificially Extends Its Mandate.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) was created in December 1948 as a temporary agency to handle shelter, medical assistance and education for the roughly 700,000 Arabs who left what became Israel. Over seventy years later it continues to artificially extend its mandate. UNRWA’s term …
Read More »INTO THE FRAY: Haaretz – One outrage too far?
The recent diatribe by Haaretz’s Rogel Alpher against Israel Prize laureate, Miriam Peretz, must have crippling commercial repercussion; not only cancellation of reader subscriptions but dramatic reduction in advertisers/advertising revenues For Miriam Peretz, there is one goal in life: Sanctification of death—Rogel Alpher, Haaretz, April 28, 2020, (from the Hebrew). …
Read More »From Israel: A Remarkable People, A Singular Time!!
How strange this time is for us here in Israel. Along with a good deal of the world, we’ve coped with the restrictions required because of coronavirus: the social distancing and isolation, the avoidance of public gatherings. And we have coped quite well. Ah, but now it is quite a …
Read More »Antisemitism in the age of the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.
My father-in-law recently died alone in a hospital room. His body remained in the hospital until it could be removed by a special Coronavirus team. His funeral was a lonely one and my wife was unable to travel to say her goodbyes. It was his failing heart that certainly killed …
Read More »Israel Memorial Day 2020 – Yom Hazikaron 5780.
Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of terror, began last night at sundown with the sound of the siren, as Israel commemorated its fallen with a one minute siren at 8 pm and a surreal ceremony at the Kotel, where – due to the constraints of …
Read More »From Israel: “Incredible Irony”
Today we mark a momentous historical event that is not sufficiently recognized: Following WWI, the victorious Allied powers met to determine the allocation of territory that had been captured from a defeated Ottoman Empire. The first meeting, held in London in February 1920, established, among other matters, that Palestine would …
Read More »Palestinian Lies Never Die; Wikipedia and Google Keep Them Alive.
Occupation is a word that dominates most debate about Israel, but the truth is that pro-Palestinian propagandists are occupying Google and Wikipedia to keep debunked narratives alive. This was recently confirmed when I attended a webinar featuring a physician who worked in Israel’s undercover “Dudevan” unit, which is the basis …
Read More »Antisemitism is at its core a conspiracy theory.
Antisemitism is at its core a conspiracy theory. It is based in the irrational belief that “the Jews”, a numerically tiny and historically marginalised ethnic and religious group, have been conspiring to cause harm to others, undermining and manipulating, for their own nefarious purposes. It is not what Jews do …
Read More »From Israel: Hither and Thither Are We Called!!
The number of issues calling for our attention has been overwhelming and so little offers clarity. Yesterday was Yom Hashoah Ve’HaGevurah – Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and the Heroism. This date was picked because it marks the anniversary of the uprising of the Warsaw ghetto, an historic interval …
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