Tag Archives: Judaea & Samaria

So what do you know?  When the news about Ben & Jerry’s decision to boycott Judaea & Samaria and eastern Jerusalem first broke, I thought at most I would devote a couple of lines to it in my next posting because there are so many more urgent topics to address. …

Here we are, at the end of Pesach, with the final day coming on Shabbat here in Israel, and also on Sunday, outside. This is a time for learning the lessons of our people, for rejoicing in all that we have become since the Almighty brought us out of Egypt. …

Mandate for Palestine Sovereignty over the Land of Israel London – July 24, 1924   The Mandate for Palestine, a historical League of Nations document, laid down the Jewish legal right to settle anywhere western Palestine, a 10,000- square-miles area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.  The Mandate’s …

I had thought I would not write again until after Rosh Hashanah, but feel compelled to put out this posting on the new agreements Israel has signed with the UAE and Bahrain. The signing on the White House lawn on Tuesday, September 15, generated an enthusiastic – even highly emotional …

Although it has ostensibly been in power for much of the post Oslowian era, it is clear that the “Right” has not internalized the exigencies of political warfare.  To bring a knife to a gunfight: To enter into a confrontation…without being adequately equipped or prepared.—Phrases.com One of the most perplexing …

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 …

So much, so much to deal with! Prime Minister Netanyahu had indicated on July 1 – the first date on which he would have been able to bring decisions about application of sovereignty in Judaea & Samaria to the Cabinet – that there would likely be news next week. But …

Palestinian Arabs often share a series of maps which show that “their land and country” are in a perpetual state of shrinking when the opposite is the truth. Local Palestinian Arabs never had self-rule until 1995. The Ottomans ruled the region from 1517 to 1917 and then the British until …

The difficulty of moving forward in the Jordan Valley and Area C One of the major ways our personal lives mirrors the sweep of history is in the realm of decision making. Both individuals and nations face decisions on a daily basis. Most are mundane and inconsequential. There are however, …

We stand just weeks after celebrating that the Balfour Declaration of 1917 moved from a statement of British intent, to the legal process of affirmation of the Jewish Homeland at the San Remo Conference in April 1920 – and its then formal ratification by the League of Nations. This is …

  I do not doubt that many of you are wondering about the title of this posting, which may seem more than a bit enigmatic. Uti possidetis juris is a term that refers to a doctrine in customary international law.  And in a moment my reference to it will become …

The feasibility of Trump’s “Deal of the Century” will be dramatically impacted by the nature of the regime east of the Jordan River and its prospective stability. With the media in a furor over the election deadlock and the legal woes of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, some of the other …

Despite possible short term difficulties, Israel should seize on the impending collapse of the Palestinian Authority as an opportunity to extricate itself from the deadly cul-de-sac, into which the Oslo process has lured it The Oslo Agreements, which spawned the Palestinian Authority, were born in sin. Today that is beyond …

Intensive investment must be made in civil society frameworks that can not only draw the idea of extended Israeli sovereignty into the main-stream discourse as a legitimate political objective, but as one that can dominate that discourse.   In a significant departure from his usual ambivalent and non-committal policy formulation regarding …

Once inconceivable, the dismantling of UNRWA; the naturalization of stateless Palestinian residents in Arab countries; and the emigration of Palestinians from Judaea-Samaria & Gaza are slowly emerging as realistic outcomes  Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth – Sherlock Holmes, in “The …

There is no greater irony than the spectacle of scores of ex-senior security officials, who spent their adult life defending Israel, now promoting a political initiative that will make it indefensible.   I used these very excerpts in an article I wrote some thirty months ago, entitled “Imbecility squared”, addressing …

Had Haaretz wanted to give a fair portrayal of my policy proposal, instead of alluding to “Transfer, the headline would have read “Evacuation-compensation for Arabs: An answer to Israel’s geographic and demographic imperatives?”.  Martin Sherman, the founder and CEO of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies, is probably the most …

Only by resisting territorial concessions on the Golan, Israel prevented deployment of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards on the fringes of the Galilee; only by resisting territorial concessions in the “West Bank” can Israel prevent them from deploying on the fringes of Greater Tel Aviv.  Israel has a strategic interest in …

By rigorous process of elimination, we are left with the Humanitarian Paradigm, as the only possible policy prescription able to adequately address the imperatives needed to preserve Israel as the nation state of Jews. O, who can hold a fire in his hand; By thinking on the frosty Caucasus? Or …

Only one policy paradigm can sustain Israel as the nation-state of the Jews and prevent it becoming untenable either geographically or demographically—or both.  …when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth, – Sherlock Holmes in “The Sign of the Four” Hobson’s Choice: a situation in which it seems that …