I am putting this brief posting out as a preview of what we may see coming down the road in the next couple of days with regard to the Nachala Movement Project. The plans are in place – and they are extensive. Three temporary yeshuvim (settlements) are to be set …
Read More »From Israel: “Hold Fast and Don’t Let Go!!”
The last couple of weeks have been “kaitana savta” — grandma camp, a very special time for me. When the kids are here, they are my first priority. Now that camp is over, I began to consider what to write about in this posting. And what I found was that …
Read More »Into the fray: When did Palestine become Palestine?
The Palestinian-Arabs’ claim for sovereignty over what they now insist is their long yearned-for homeland arose only after 1967—i.e. when it came under Jewish administration The Arabs didn’t provoke war with Israel in 1967 to achieve Palestinian independence…Arab rulers could have established a Palestinian state in those territories whenever they …
Read More »From Israel: “They Would Spit in Our Faces!!”
If we let them. And so the ultimate question is where Israel stands. When I speak of “them,” I am referring to national and institutional entities that are anti-Zionist. Unfortunately, there are many. ~~~ A major concern for Israel is the readiness of the European Union (EU) to support and …
Read More »From Israel: “Because We Must!!”
First order of concern: We must stay in touch with news of significance, even – or especially – if it is unsettling or worse. There is no way I will ignore the situation in the US; I will continue to deal with it going forward, as I see the need. …
Read More »From Israel: Damn, and Damn Again!!
There is no room for niceties. We must tell it as it is. It has been a while since I have had to write about a terrorist murder, but this fact makes it no easier. Esther Horgan, 52, was a mother of six and a grandmother; her youngest child had …
Read More »From Israel: Mission Impossible!!
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 …
Read More »Israel and the UAE Deal – Opinion piece Aug. 2020.
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 …
Read More »From Israel: A Bust???
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 …
Read More »Was there a Palestinian “national identity” prior to 1964?
On the 5th April, 2020, Yahya Sinwar, terror leader of Hamas in Gaza promised that if one “Palestinian” died in Gaza he would ensure that 6 million Jews would be rendered by his forces unable to breathe. Low-base Arab-media-ready histrionics aside, this article asks if there is or was ever …
Read More »From Israel: “Penetrating the Fog!!”
There is fog on two continents, actually. And unless we penetrate it, we are not able to comprehend what is going on. We begin with what is happening in the US. As an American citizen, born and raised in the US, I suffer with my American friends as reports come …
Read More »From Israel: “A Wrenching Struggle”
Anyone who reads my material regularly knows that I see God’s hand in the inception of the modern State of Israel and in her astounding development. It defies rational explanation. I mention this now because ‒ in spite of all our manifold blessings, and fantastic achievements, and the possibility of …
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 »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 …
Read More »From Israel: Carpe Diem!!!
Seize the day!! Do not let it pass. The poll numbers are shifting in favor of the right wing bloc. It appears that this bloc may require only three additional mandates in order to win the election. The votes for winning are there: but they must be registered at …
Read More »The Trump Deal, Palestinian war-crimes, & UN boycott of Israel.
The background to this post is the “Deal of the Century” peace deal from President Donald Trump, Jared Kushner and several other Administration officials. Their hearts were in the right place, and the initial reaction of most Israelis was that this is practically Mashiachzeit – the days of the Messiah. …
Read More »From Israel: “The Intolerable and a Modicum of Trust!!”
It is such an enormously tangled time. I want to begin by sharing something that is a source of enormous pride. It bolsters us as we face that tangled state of affairs. Last week I wrote about a terror attack – the car ramming of IDF recruits not yet sworn …
Read More »From Israel: It’s True What They Say about the Devil!!
As promised, this is my follow-up posting on the “Deal of the Century.” I think it likely that there will be a follow-up #2, at some point. The situation is highly complex and still in flux. In fact, the further the situation is exposed, the more complex it seems – …
Read More »MYTH: Israeli Settlements are Illegal.
FACT: On November 18, 2019, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo expressed the Trump administration’s position that “the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law.” This was inaccurately described in the media as a reversal of long standing American policy. In …
Read More »Losing the Semantic War on ‘Palestine’.
I have written before about the importance of semantics in the discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and how frustrated many people are about losing various battles over nomenclature, such as references to the disputed territories as “occupied,” and “Judaea and Samaria” as the West Bank. An arguably more important semantic …
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