Jonathan Jakubowicz’s Soul Of A Nation leaves viewers with a depressing impression of contemporary Israel. Now available on digital platforms, his somber, thought-provoking documentary can be seen as a wakeup call of the dangers of polarization in this deeply divided nation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s divisive plan in 2023 to reform the judiciary by weakening […]
The United States is normalizing its frayed relationship with Syria, a key Arab state struggling to rebuild itself after a ruinous 12-year civil war. It is bound to be an incremental process, judging by Syrian President Ahmed al-Shara’s visit to Washington on November 10. A former jihadist who seized power after overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad […]
The Alternative for Germany, the second largest political party in the Bundestag, is growing stronger, according to a sober and disturbing PBS documentary broadcast last week. In The Rise of Germany’s New Right, correspondent Evan Williams takes a hard look at this ultra right-wing populist party twelve years after its founding and suggests it is […]
Throwing around barbs falsely accusing Israel of committing genocide during its two-year war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip is an exercise in insensitivity and ignorance. Politicians, in particular, should be careful to reject this vile slander, which has been largely disseminated by Israel’s enemies. If they act recklessly, it may cost them votes in […]
James Vanderbilt revisits the 1946 Nuremberg war crimes trial mainly through the perspective of two men on opposite sides of the aisle: Hermann Goring, who was Adolf Hitler’s second-in-command, and Douglas Kelley, the American army psychiatrist who was assigned to evaluate his personality and ascertain whether he was mentally fit to stand trial. Vanderbilt’s movie, […]
You never know what lies around the corner. Zohran Mamdani was an obscure New York assemblyman six months ago. Today, he is famous, his name splashed across newspaper headlines. Mamdani is now poised to become New York City’s first Muslim mayor, having won a watershed election on November 4. He roared to victory by trouncing […]
Some dates in history are seared into the consciousness of a nation and remain indelible. Thirty years have elapsed since Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination on November 4, 1995, but many Israelis remember it as if it had happened yesterday. I heard the awful news on the radio on that grey autumn day in Toronto. When I […]
Gilad Kariv, the chairman of the Knesset’s Immigration and Absorption Committee, minced no words. “This is not a wave of emigration,” he said last week. “It’s a tsunami of Israelis choosing to leave the country.” He was referring to the jolting news that roughly 125,000 Israeli citizens emigrated between 2022 and mid-2024, the largest ever […]
Donald Trump has been cracking down on Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu of late, triggering sarcastic jokes in Israel that he is “Bibi-sitting” him. What this means, in practice, is that the United States, Israel’s chief ally and benefactor, has been exerting pressure on Israel to do its bidding on a wide range of issues ranging from […]
Turkey, a key Middle East state, seeks to play a significant role in postwar Gaza. Turkey’s aspirations are understandable. Its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was instrumental in coaxing Hamas to accept the U.S.-brokered ceasefire, which seems to have ended the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, but which is still very fragile. And Erdogan attended […]