Benjamin Netanyahu is laboring under a grand delusion. Having failed to form yet another right-wing government, he cannot come to grips with the “sacrilegious” notion that a rival, namely Naftali Bennett of the far right-wing Yamina Party, may soon replace him. Netanyahu is so delusional and so self-centred that he cannot imagine Bennett, or anyone […]
Benjamin Netanyahu’s unprecedented 15-year reign as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister is ending. On June 2, Netanyahu’s adversaries informed President Reuven Rivlin they had agreed to form a new coalition to supplant his right-wing government. The two leading figures in the so-called “change bloc” are Yair Lapid, 57, the leader of the centrist Yesh Atid Party, […]
The Human Rights Council, a United Nations body that has proven to be notoriously anti-Israel over the years, plans to appoint a commission of inquiry to investigate Israel’s conduct in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. Its mandate is to determine whether Israel committed war crimes during the recent Gaza war and whether […]
Judging by their overblown reaction to the latest cross-border Gaza war, which ended with a truce on May 21, the leaders of Iran may as well be living in an alternate universe. As far as they’re concerned, Hamas won a spectacular victory and Israel was humbled by a crushing defeat after 11 days of fighting, […]
Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi’a militia which perceives Israel as its prime enemy, was uncharacteristically mute as the Israeli armed forces and Hamas fought an eleven-day border war in and around the Gaza Strip from May 10 to May 21. Its usually outspoken leader, Hassan Nasrallah, remained deafeningly silent, even after one of its members was […]
During the latest cross-border war pitting Israel against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were in constant communication, taking to each other on the phone at least six times during the course of the eleven-day conflict. Biden was taken completely surprised by the outbreak of hostilities. […]
As might have been expected, Israel and Hamas each declared victory after an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire ended the fourth cross-border Gaza war in 13 years. In fact, neither side won, failing to inflict the kind of decisive knockout blows that might have altered its outcome significantly. Hamas, though battered, remains unbowed and defiant. Israel, the strongest military […]
Until Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan opened his big mouth recently, his Islamist government seemed headed toward some sort of a rapprochement with Israel after years of acrimony. But with the outbreak of the fourth Gaza border war on May 10, Turkey’s attempts to mend its frayed bilateral ties with Israel have crashed and burned. From […]
The explosive Palestinian problem should be addressed by the international community so that the Palestinians achieve statehood and Israel attains security and legitimacy from its Arab neighbors, says Yair Hirschfeld, one of the architects of the Oslo peace process. Only a gradual approach to this complex issue will work, he told a Canadian Friends of […]
Trevor Noah, the host of the popular television program, The Daily Show, got himself into hot water the other day by implicitly advising Israel to lie down and play dead in reacting to naked aggression by Hamas. In the past seven days, Hamas has fired more than 3,000 rockets at Israel, twice as many as […]