In an unprecedented request, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked President Isaac Herzog for a pardon. If granted, it would absolve him of criminal charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust in three separate but related cases. Netanyahu claims that a positive response from Herzog would have a beneficial effect on healing divisions in […]
The Palestinian Authority hopes to supplant Hamas as the governing power in the Gaza Strip and play a central role in the second phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan. This may be a bridge too far as matters stand today. The Israeli government opposes the participation of the PA in the future […]
The conservative movement in the United States, which is exemplified by President Donald Trump’s administration these days, is being buffeted by a growing debate over the U.S.’ alliance with Israel and accusations that some of its supporters are unfriendly toward the American Jewish community. The rift on the right between pro and anti-Israel conservatives exploded […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Parisa Liljestrand, the minister of culture in Sweden, put it succinctly. “This is an absolute catastrophe for Swedish society,” she said, not mincing her words. She was referring to the recent decision by the Jewish International Film Festival in Malmo, Sweden’s third-largest city, to cancel its event due to its inability to secure a venue. […]
Two years ago today, I was awakened by my wife with the startling news that Israel was at war. Hamas had attacked southern Israel in an unprecedented rampage of murder, rape and pillage that caught Israel unprepared in an intelligence failure of epic proportions. The invasion launched by 3,800 Hamas terrorists led to the deaths […]