It’s quite clear that a military solution to the ferocious civil war in Syria — which has claimed the lives of some 400,000 combatants and civilians since 2011– is unattainable. The war has reached a bloody impasse. Nevertheless, the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and Shiite militias from Iraq […]
Polls suggest that a considerable proportion of Israeli Jews regard Barack Obama as antagonistic to Israel. Last winter, a survey released by Panels Politics in Tel Aviv ranked him as the “worst” U.S. president in 30 years by 63 percent of Jewish Israelis. Do they live in a parallel universe? As the facts suggest, Obama […]
If it were left to some Israeli generals, Israel and the Palestinians would be closer to bridging their differences and reaching a two-state solution, says American journalist J.J. Goldberg, the former editor-in-chief of the Forward, a major Jewish newspaper and website in the United States. Suggesting they’re far more pragmatic and realistic than Israeli Prime […]
Skepticism is the order of the day following an agreement between the United States and Russia to reduce the scale of violence in Syria’s five-year-old civil war and to coordinate American and Russian air attacks on Islamic State and other jihadist groups in Syria. The complex accord, brokered in Geneva on September 9 by U.S. […]
Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s rarely at a loss for words, has come up with a new cynical twist on Israel’s nearly 50-year occupation of the West Bank. In a video message posted on his Facebook page on September 9, the Israeli prime minister rashly equated the removal of Jewish settlers from the West Bank with the spectre […]
In the summer of 1979, I stood on a rocky, wind-swept cliff in Samaria several hundred metres above sea level. Beneath, in a narrow valley, lay the historic Palestinian town of Nablus. Behind me were an assortment of caravans, all of which were inhabited by the Jewish settlers of Elon Moreh, a brand new outpost […]
Israel is a flourishing democracy, a nation usually governed by the rule of law. I add the caveat “usually” because perfection is not a quality that can be ascribed to any country, including Israel, in this very imperfect world. Case in point: Sixty eight years ago, as the first Arab-Israeli war raged, the Palestinian residents […]
I was disappointed, though not really surprised, by the news that the 19th century villa of Yechezkel Sasson, in central Baghdad, was recently demolished. Sasson, who was usually known as Sir Sassoon Eskell, was the scion of a distinguished Iraqi Jewish family and one of the founders of modern Iraq. Along with T.E. Lawrence, Gertrude […]
Allegations by Israel that the manager of a Christian aid organization in the Gaza Strip funnelled millions of dollars to the military wing of Hamas are extremely serious. This flagrant misuse of charitable funds raises hard and uncomfortable questions whether World Vision — an international Christian aid group with headquarters in the United States and […]
The Green Party of Canada set a disturbing precedent at its biennial convention in Ottawa on August 7 when it voted to adopt the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) platform. Seven months after the Canadian parliament strongly condemned the BDS movement, the Greens became the first political party in Canada to embrace it. It’s a somber […]