An Israeli-owned company sells an oil tanker to Iran Lenin reportedly said of capitalists that they “will sell us the rope with which to hang them.” Israel seems to have encountered a contemporary version of this trope with the announcement by the U.S. State Department that it is placing sanctions on a large Israeli company,
A second, much larger flotilla will attempt to break the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza in the third week of June. This expansion of last year’s effort, again led by IHH, the Turkish Islamist group, revives questions that need examination before events play out. Despite its withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, Israel lives in a state
A familiar sinking feeling accompanies the news of a unity agreement between the Palestinian Authority’s Fatah leadership and the Islamist Hamas government of Gaza. Some informed observers suggest to AJC that this should not be taken too seriously. It is, they claim, mainly window dressing designed to facilitate the Palestinian attempt to bypass negotiations with
Cyprus feels much like home to an Israeli: rocky hills; familiar food; same sea; and a similar existential sense of living on the edge of a volcano. Many Israelis have been to Cyprus for vacations or for business, and, because their own country lacks civil marriage, Cyprus provides a convenient foreign registrar. And more Cypriots
While worldwide attention focused on the conflict in Libya, ongoing strife in the Arab world, and the disasters striking Japan, important events took place in Israel that may reshape some of the political architecture of the Eastern Mediterranean. Demetris Christofias, President of the Republic of Cyprus, brought his Foreign and Trade ministers and some sixty
Words fail, following the stabbing murders at the settlement of Itamar. The victims were Ruth and Rabbi Udi Fogel and three of their children, Yoav (eleven), Elad (three) and Hadas (four months). What was the terrorist thinking as he slit the throat of a baby? What were the feelings of the 12-year-old daughter who arrived
Just a few months ago General Jim Jones, the former U.S. National Security Advisor, told the Herzliah Conference that if God has allocated just one crisis for President Obama to resolve during his term in office, it should be the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is, indeed, a conflict that must be resolved – for the future
Over the last two months Israel has experienced a subtle reshaping of the top of the governmental pyramid, the offices of the prime minister, defense minister, and foreign minister. In a situation where threats to the state’s continued existence have overwhelmed most other political questions for generations, these three posts have constituted the centers of
Many say that the peace process is at a standstill. This is mistaken, since nothing stands still in the politics of the Middle East. A more accurate formulation is that the peace process is in retreat. Among the Palestinians, the Abbas-Fayyad government continues to work on building infrastructure for statehood, but its leaders look across
Not many outside the country are taking notice of Israel’s economic commotion. While the world watches fascinated as history is made in Egypt, the Israeli economy is experiencing a moment of indecision that tells us much about the country’s social and political tensions. In January, the government raised the price of gasoline to a historic high
Israel has been watching spellbound as events unfold in Egypt. Overall, for the friends of Egypt in Israel, the exciting possibility that we observe the birth pangs of a more democratic order wrestles with the frightening prospect that Egypt may shift from a pillar of anti-Islamism to something less dependable. As I write, the situation in
Ehud Barak’s surprise exit from the Labor Party along with four senior colleagues had all the hallmarks of one of his famous military operations. Barak the general was always considered a tactical genius; reservations that were expressed about his military achievements lay mostly in the strategic realm. His break with Labor was a most elegant
The eighth president of Israel, Moshe Katzav, is now a convicted rapist, after a three-judge panel of the Tel Aviv District Court issued a unanimous decision to that effect. A man honored upon his election just a decade ago as a boy from the slums who made it to the top, he is now reviled
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced he will not run again for president. Of course, with the apparent cancellation of Palestinian Authority elections in January it’s clear that no one will run against him either. And so we are left with two Palestinian governments, in Ramallah and Gaza, both illegal under Palestinian law and running
Largely obscured by the Carmel forest fire, two related developments last week call to mind the sad old epigram: in the Middle East, an optimist thinks things could be worse, while a pessimist knows they will be. The United States announced it will no longer push for a further Israeli 90-day building freeze. At about the
It apparently began when a mischievous fourteen-year-old playing hooky from school ran off to an isolated spot near his town on the Carmel mountainside in order to smoke a nargilah (water pipe). Tragically, he seems to have been careless in disposing of the hot coal from the pipe. One’s heart goes out to him: this Tom Sawyeresque
The U.S. proposal for a ninety-day building freeze in the territories is a riddle. Prime Minister Netanyahu and Secretary of State Clinton evidently hammered out an American proposal Netanyahu believes he can get through his cabinet, one that would have Israel freeze settlement construction for ninety days in a one-off deal that includes American incentives.
Like the cliché from an old Western film where the hero squints at the horizon and says “it’s too quiet,” General Amos Yadlin, the outgoing chief of Israel’s Military Intelligence, issued a warning in his recent briefing to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. He said, “The recent security calm is unprecedented but there
The fifteenth annual rally commemorating the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, will evidently be the last. The Rabin Institute announced that in light of falling attendance the annual assembly will be discontinued. Instead, his death will be commemorated by a state ceremony at his gravesite on Mt. Herzl in
Last week Jerusalem and Ramallah vividly displayed their respective dysfunctions. The Knesset passed a law requiring a referendum on withdrawal from Jerusalem or the Golan Heights, areas that have been legally incorporated into Israel. Not to be outdone, the Fatah party’s Revolutionary Council (described as its highest “legislative” body) issued yet another provocative declaration rejecting
Watching Iranian President Ahmadinejad gallivant through hapless Lebanon called to mind the biting Hebrew saying, dating back to the first-century Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yohai, that “the work of the righteous is done for them by others.” The implication that Jews should not worry about practical matters but focus instead on fulfilling God’s desires prehaps originated as
When arsonists attacked a mosque at Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem, they left behind singed copies of the Koran and burned prayer rugs alongside graffiti messages that announced “revenge,” “a mosque must be burned,” and “price tag.” “Price tag” is a term used by radical settlers who say they are determined to exact a price
According to Jewish tradition, the Almighty weighs our deeds and judges us in the ten days between Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. This period is called “Days of Awe,” a metaphor that also accurately evokes the current state of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.We find ourselves poised between the opening
A new and insidious myth in now emerging in some of the coverage of the re-launch of direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians: that Israelis are indifferent to peace. Probably the most widely-circulated version of the tale was “Why Israel Doesn’t Care About Peace,” the cover story by Karl Vick in Time magazine on September
To hear some tell it, the resumption of direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians means the dawn of hope in the Middle East. Others, including much of the Israeli media, discount any chance of success. The truth appears to lie somewhere in the middle.Why the talks might fail: A peace accord will entail
Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent trip to Greece, reciprocating the visit of Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou to Israel last month, should have caused some rethinking in Ankara. Even if we take at face value the Israeli and Greek assertions that the meetings were not directed against Turkey, closer strategic cooperation between Israel and Greece will necessarily
We appear to be on the cusp of direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Years ago, a moment like this would have seemed pregnant with hope and excitement. Today, responses to the news coverage vary between gray and blasé. At this moment it may be worthwhile to recall something of the spirit of
Over the last two weeks a parliamentary drama has been playing out in Israel. MK David Rotem tried to push a law through the Knesset reshaping the way Israel handles conversion to Judaism. Israel Beitenu, his secular, right-wing party, draws support largely from immigrants from the FSU, and, naturally, seeks to further their interests. Among
Even as last week’s Netanyahu-Obama meeting drew international attention, the top story in Israel was the newfound fighting spirit of the family of Gilad Shalit, the soldier who has been held in captivity by Hamas since his kidnapping in 2006. The family led a two-week march across Israel—extensively reported by the media—that ended in front
This week Israel plays a game. Sixty-eight municipalities are joining military and civilian agencies for a massive exercise, a “war game” designed to train the Israeli home front to respond effectively to an attack by hundreds of missiles landing across the country. Israel recently held a conventional military exercise in the North, but this Home
