“This, We Must Win!!” We must secure our rights to our Land – our rights not only to possess the Land, but to live in it peacefully. Nothing else can be tolerated. We have not waited for 2,000 years to come home, prayed for 2,000 years to be here, only …
Read More »From Israel: Fighting the Libel of “Settler Violence”!!
Baruch Dayan HaEmet. I begin by noting with sadness the passing of Esther Pollard, here in Jerusalem. She stood by her husband Jonathan through many incredibly tough years. A year ago they were finally permitted by the US government to make aliyah. A couple of weeks ago, Esther contracted Covid; …
Read More »From Israel: “Not As It Should Be At Home, Either!!”
Rosh Hashana begins next Monday evening, and it seems unlikely that I will write again before then. And so, I now wish all a Shana Tova: May it be a sweet year of many blessings!! ~~~ Prior to his meeting with Biden, Prime Minister Bennett gave an interview …
Read More »From Israel: “Creaming the Antisemites!!
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. …
Read More »From Israel: “Infuriating and Deplorable!!”
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. …
Read More »Mandate for Palestine.
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 …
Read More »From Israel: “You Won’t See Me Dancing!!”
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 …
Read More »Into the fray: Why the “Right” insists on bringing knives to gunfights.
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 …
Read More »From Israel: Undercurrents and Complications!!
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 …
Read More »From Israel: Tumult and Tangle!!
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 …
Read More »‘Palestinian’ Maps of 1995, 1997 and 2005.
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 …
Read More »Annexation: When facing a great decision, it is always easier to say ‘no’.
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, …
Read More »The real question is what annexation will mean? : Opinion piece May 2020.
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 …
Read More »From Israel: Uti Possidetis Juris!!
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 …
Read More »Into the fray: Alternative Jordans?
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 …
Read More »Into the Fray: Let the Palestinian Authority collapse.
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 …
Read More »Into the fray: Restoring Jewish Sovereignty.
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 …
Read More »Into the fray:The imperative for incentivized Arab migration & the emerging inevitability of the Humanitarian Paradigm.
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 …
Read More »Into the fray: Commanders for Israel’s (In)security: Taking the name of security in vain.
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 …
Read More »Into the Fray: Haaretz vs. IISS-The anatomy of “Fake News”
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 …
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