Israeli Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz recently unveiled a Middle East peace plan predicated on two practical public works projects. He claims they can be “game changers” in terms of Israel’s future relationship with the Palestinians and neighbouring Arab countries. Katz’s proposal, while innovative, suffers from a fatal flaw. Katz wants to build a seaport on […]
Russia, Syria’s chief ally and protector, faced a moment of truth following last week’s military strike and counter-strike in the Middle East. On April 6, the United States fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles into a Syrian air force base in retaliation for a bombing raid launched by Syria on April 4 that killed 87 civilians in […]
Since the fall of the Ottoman Empire a century ago, the Middle East has fallen into a dismal state of chronic instability, lurching from one coup d’état to another, from one war to the next. But since the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003 respectively, the stability of the region has […]
Jean- Marie Le Pen, the founder of the far-right National Front party in France, was known for twisting and distorting historical reality. Some years ago, he airly dismissed the Holocaust as “a detail” in the annals of World War II. This cavalier comment showed Le Pen to be a fool, an antisemite or, perhaps more […]
The Palestinian Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, keeps harping on its intention to end the Palestinians’ protracted dispute with Israel through a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 border and land swaps. Abbas’ assertions are a bold repudiation of the Israeli government’s flimsy claim that the PA is not a negotiating partner. This line […]
The burning question following the United States’ cruise missile strike against the Al Shayrat air force base in Syria on April 6 is whether the Trump administration has fundamentally changed its policy toward the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Less than a week before two U.S. destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea fired 59 […]
Until quite recently, the student union at Ryerson University in Toronto appeared cool, if not hostile, toward Jewish student concerns. Three years ago this month, the union joined the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, an outfit whose goal is to delegitimize Israel. Last November, at its semi-annual general meeting, two anti-Israel organizations, Students […]
One of the strengths of Israel’s special relationship with the United States is its bipartisan character. Democrats, Republicans and third party politicians regard Israel as a valued ally whose values and pro-Western foreign policy are completely in line with theirs, notwithstanding the disputes arising out of Israel’s extremely controversial settlement project in the West Bank. […]
It’s safe to say that Leipzig’s rich musical tradition cannot be matched by any other city in Germany. This is where Johann Sebastian Bach was employed as a choirmaster and composed the St. Matthew’s Passion, where Robert Schumann wrote the Spring Symphony, where Richard Wagner was born and where Felix Mendelssohn lived and worked. Leipzig, […]
Yossi Sucary calls it the “unspoken Holocaust.” Sucary, an Israeli academic and author, is referring to the little-known fact that the Jews of Libya were among the six million victims of the Holocaust. Jews in Israel and the Diaspora generally assume that only European Jews were caught up in the Holocaust, but this assumption is […]