The wildfires that have ravaged Israel of late have consumed approximately 13,000 hectares of forest and brush, an area far larger than the island of Manhattan. This is a catastrophic event from an ecological point of view because Israel is not a country rich in forests, like Canada or the United States. Forests in Middle Eastern […]
Shortly before Ban Ki-moon stepped down as secretary-general of the United Nations recently, he received a remarkably blunt and bitter letter from the UN ambassadors of eleven Arab countries. The envoys — representing the predominantly Sunni Muslim nations of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Yemen, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates […]
By a margin of 58-50, the Knesset on November 16 took the first step to retroactively legalize Jewish settlements and outposts in the West Bank built on privately owned Palestinian lands. The proposed legislation, known as the Regulation Bill, is the brainchild of Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and Education Minister Naftali Bennett, leaders of the […]
The draft resolution adopted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on October 14 is so ahistorical and unjust that its director-general, Irina Bokova, was compelled to disavow it. By a 24-6 margin, with 26 abstentions, the UN agency passed a motion that essentially tries to sever the historical link between Judaism […]
Since the collapse of the short-lived ceasefire in Syria two weeks ago, Syria and its ally, Russia, have been mercilessly and indiscriminately pounding the besieged eastern sector of Aleppo, the last major Syrian city still under the partial control of anti-government rebels. The defenceless 275,000 civilians living there have been subjected to constant aerial attacks, with […]
Israel’s web of settlements in the West Bank, a barrier blocking a much-needed two-state solution, are causing problems for Israel yet again in the international community. Earlier this month, the United States — Israel’s chief ally and benefactor — and the Quartet of Middle East peace mediators condemned the Israeli settlement project. Israel has been […]
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. […]