Tag Archives: Israel

Less than a month after the normalization agreement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain has also joined the peace train.  I am all for it; peace and normalization are always better than war and animosity.  To be honest, I don’t see that the rest of the world is so …

Rosh Hashanah begins on Friday night, and will be celebrated here from within a lockdown. None the less, we always look to better times.  And so I begin this posting with a heartfelt prayer that this coming year, 5781, will be one that is rich in blessings:  A year of …

Friday evening. It was in the 72nd minute of a game between Israel and Scotland in the Nation’s League. Israel had a throw-in deep in the Scottish half. There was an quick one-two between the Israeli number seven and their number nine. Goal! And the score was 1:1. No this …

The Arab Spring began in December 2010 with a cry for help from a Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire.  The self-immolation quickly spread as widespread protests in other Muslim Arab countries when people sought to overturn backwards authoritarian regimes which were not accountable to its citizens.  The …

Life is not simple for Israel, and we delude ourselves when we imagine it is. Always there is the unexpected, the undertow, the splash in the face. ~~~ Particularly is this the case with political issues. Today I want to look at Israeli sovereignty, a very political issue. All of …

FACT: “I never expected this poison dagger to come from an Arab country,” Saeb Erekat complained after the UAE-Israel agreement was signed. “You are rewarding aggression. … You have destroyed, with this move, any possibility of peace between Palestinians and Israelis” (“Palestinians Say UAE Deal Hinders Quest for Mideast Peace,” …

Making sense of a world that seems more convoluted day by day is impossible.  None-the-less, I’m going to give it my best shot.  Be sure to read to the end for two good news items that will provide a badly needed smile and a bit of uplift. ~~~~~~~~~~ We look first …

Once again, and as has been the case for some time now, there are only two central players in Israel’s political arena – Bibi, the flawed human being and Prime Minister Netanyahu, the statesman. Bibi against whom the discontent of the demonstrators and beyond, manifests itself throughout daily life in …

Various segments of western society have become critical about “cultural appropriation” in which the majority group adopts customs of another group without explicitly acknowledging its origins, as to do so would be both stealing and effectively wiping out the essence of the minority culture. The issue is even more concerning …

After Israel defeated the attacking Jordanian army in June 1967, it allowed the Jordanian Islamic Waqf to have administrative control of the Jewish Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem while Israel controlled the security of the area. In 1980, Israel officially applied sovereignty and reunited the city of …

What I am referring to – amongst the myriad of matters that might go “bust” – are the plans to apply Israeli sovereignty to parts of Judaea & Samaria now (emphasis added): “Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s plan to apply sovereignty over parts of Judaea and Samaria has been frozen …

The Jewish homeland as described in the bible is well known to the entire world. Originally the land promised to the first Hebrew, Abraham, was the land west of the Jordan River. When the twelve tribes of Israel returned to the land of their forefathers after being slaves in Egypt, …

When the United Nations considered dividing Israel into an Arab State and a Jewish State in 1947, it sought to remove the contentious religious sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims into a distinct “corpus separatum” which would be under international control. The area of Greater Jerusalem and Greater Bethlehem …

I wrote last about my broken crystal ball, which makes it impossible for me to predict with reasonable accuracy what is likely to happen regarding application of sovereignty. My crystal ball is functioning no better today. But I’m not going to write here about what might happen, rather what should …

Actually, there are a terrifying number of things broken in this world right now. But what I have in mind at the moment is my crystal ball. Once upon a time I used to be able to predict how political matters were likely to play out here in Israel with …

There are many misconceptions about the Temple Mount, the Kotel and the Al Aqsa mosque. Confusion and even much conflict can be dispelled when the facts are made clear! 1. What is the holiest site on earth for Jews? Did you answer, “the Kotel”? If you did, that’s a mistake …

The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced the appointment of Philippe Lazzarini of Switzerland to be the new head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Upon hearing that the head was going to be from Switzerland and not England which …

Senator Bernie Sanders, Democratic Socialist and candidate for United States president, has been vocally against the Israeli government which he has called “racist,” and against Israel’s “military occupation” of Palestinian land which denies the Palestinians “dignity.” Whether one agrees or disagrees with the notions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu …

Following publication by the United Nations Human Rights Council of a “blacklist” of businesses operating in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) is calling on the Australian Government to maintain its principled stance towards fairness at the UN and condemn the list. The …

Some observations: – There has been a consistent pattern to the “peace process” for 100 years from when the Palestine Arab Executive Committee met in 1921 and declared – “Either us or the Zionists.  There is no room for both” Some form of partition is proposed, the Jewish people go with …