Last week, Syria was hit by an airstrike, just a few miles from Damascus. Israel has all but taken responsibility (credit?) for the strike. This level of aggression between the two neighboring nations is rare. The two have continued their battles in rhetoric and by proxy since the birth of the Jewish state, but Israel […]
There are misconceptions that the rise of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, which is now the second biggest party in the Knesset, will somehow result in a renewed liberal conviction in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Onlookers should be cautious. It is a good thing that a strong center party is now in the mix, but […]
So the election in Israel is over. But the process has just begun. There were some definite surprises in Tuesday’s election. It was widely known that the Likud-Beitanyu merger would take less seats combined than the two parties held separately going into the election. The 18th (and outgoing Knesset) had Likud with 27 seats and […]
The upcoming Israeli election, scheduled for the 22nd, has Jews, observers, and government officials all over the world nervous. Polls suggest that the ultra-right wing is projected to be given a significant boost, in particular the new radical Habayit Hayehui party and its young charismatic leader Naftali Bennett. But Rabbi Dov Lipman, the top activist […]
Anyone trying to justify that Likud sincerely wants two states for two peoples, Israel for the Jews and Palestine for the Palestinians, is lying through their teeth. Several senior Likud ministers who attended the Jerusalem conference “Application of Israeli Sovereignty of Judea and Samaria” on Tuesday night openly called for the annexation of the West […]
Bill Kristol. Caroline Glick. Barry Rubin. Dennis Prager. Jennifer Rubin. Among many others. While not being names of terrorists dedicated solely to the destruction of Israel, these individuals could cause major damage to the Jewish state despite their every effort to protect that special relationship between the United States and its closest ally in the […]
The below is a paraphrased response to a friend who expressed his frustration with what he felt was the undue attention paid to “details” during the latest confrontation between Israel and Hamas. In his view, the media placed too much emphasis on the precise nature of the damage Israel inflicted upon Gaza, instead of focusing […]
Someone once told me that they had recently been in Israel and that it had been a “crazy” time there. I told them that one of the first times I went, Ariel Sharon announced the disengagement from Gaza. The next time I went, Israel completed said disengagement. The time after that, Sharon fell into a […]
With the uneasy ceasefire in Gaza holding (for now), there is opportunity to reflect on the controversial and closely scrutinized Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) social media campaign which accompanied Operation Pillar of Defense. The IDF has used Twitter prolifically in the days since November 14th, when an Israeli airstrike killed senior Hamas military wing commander […]
Operation Pillar of Defense appears to be over, thanks to a ceasefire brokered by Egypt. There have been flareups in the few days since the ceasefire was agreed upon, but for now it seems to be holding. There were significantly less Israeli and Palestinian casualties from this conflict then there were in the last full […]
There has been much talk this election season of Israel in general, and Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu in particular, being injected into the American political system. It has recently come to light that this is actually a relationship that works in both directions. Fifty-eight percent of all money raised over the last two […]
British filmmaker Peter Kosminsky’s newest project is entitled The Promise. It tells the story of Erin, a young British girl straight out of high school who chooses to spend part of her gap year in Israel. Shortly before leaving, she finds the diary of her grandfather, Len, a man whom she barely knows. While […]
News reports are awash with an alleged “open feud” between U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu over an Iran strike. Even though the United States repeated said that no options are off the table to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, the media–and even Israeli officials–are casting the Obama administration […]
The following was taken from Jspace.com. The article was written by Jspace Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Rob Lattin, who also blogs about Israeli and Middle Eastern foreign policy for Foreign Policy Blogs. On Thursday, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman re-emphasized his belief that the Palestinian Authority should hold general elections, and continued his criticism of Mahmoud […]
This week, the big story regarding Republican lawmakers and their inappropriate outfits in Israel has centered around a group of approximately thirty members of a GOP House delegation, their staff and their families drinking and taking a swim in the Sea of Galilee. The incident took place almost exactly a year ago, but has just […]