In what can only be described as a petty act of petulance, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently recalled Israel’s ambassador in Paraguay and closed the Israeli embassy in Asuncion. He made these rash decisions after Paraguay, in a dramatic reversal, moved its embassy in Jerusalem back to Tel Aviv. “Israel views with the utmost gravity the […]
U.S. President Donald Trump’s much-vaunted Middle East peace plan, the “ultimate deal” to resolve Israel’s protracted conflict with the Palestinians, was supposed to be unveiled this summer. Keenly aware of this timeline, Trump’s representatives in charge of the peace process, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, began distributing a draft of the proposal. They may have […]
James Grover McDonald, the first U.S. ambassador to Israel, kept a diary from the moment he arrived in the Jewish state in 1948 until the day he finished his duties in 1951. An academic and a journalist, he was personally chosen for the post by President Harry Truman after Washington’s recognition of Israel. At first, […]
The International Judo Federation issued an important announcement on September 3, one that bodes well for Israeli athletes. The federation disclosed that Israelis will be able to compete on equal terms at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam in the United Arab Emirates on October 25-27. This is doubtless a step in the right direction. At last […]
Margaret Mitchell, the unknown novelist who achieved celebrity with her first and only book, Gone With the Wind, is the subject of a fascinating documentary due to be broadcast by the PBS network on September 11 and 18 (check local listings). Margaret Mitchell: American Rebel, an American Masters production, charts her ascent from obscurity to fame in a […]
The strategic relationship between the “mosque” and the “market” is explored by Aisha Ahmad in her bracingly original book, Jihad & Co.: Black Markets and Islamist Power, published by Oxford University Press. Ahmad, an assistant professor in the department of political science at the University of Toronto, focuses her attention on unstable and ungovernable parts […]
The United States has altered its view of the Palestinian refugee problem, which goes to the core of Israel’s protracted, often bloody conflict with the Palestinians. The shift marks a significant break with U.S. policy and may yet affect ordinary Palestinians and the willingness of the Palestinian Authority to engage in peace talks with Israel. […]
Stocked on the shelves of souvenir shops throughout Poland are wooden or plastic figurines of ultra-Orthodox Jews. Some, evoking the long lost shtetl, exude a certain nostalgic charm. Still others, portraying stereotypical Jews clasping a coin in one hand and clutching a bag of coins in another hand, pander to deeply-entrenched notions of money-grubbing Polish […]
Toronto Island Park is so near, yet so far from the hustle and bustle of Canada’s largest city. An archipelago of small, partially wooded islands connected by footbridges, the park is a few kilometres from the downtown core and one of the finest recreational areas in Ontario. Once you’re in the thick of it, […]
Thirty one years ago, on a bright sunny afternoon in Tel Aviv during the first week of December and only days before the first Palestinian uprising broke out, I found myself in the presence of one of Israel’s most iconoclastic and idealistic figures, Uri Avnery. Avnery, who died on August 20 at the age of […]