The inclusion of an Arab party in Israel’s coalition government already has had a significant material impact on the Israeli Arab community. When Prime Minister Naftali Bennett unveils the budget next month, an unprecedented $10 billion in state funds will be allocated to the generally neglected Arab sector, comprising 21 percent of Israel’s population. The […]
Lamentably, many Jews murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust offered little or no resistance. Yet a relatively significant number joined partisan bands and fought back ferociously. Their fighting spirit impressed even some Nazis. After the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto was finally crushed by SS General Jurgen Stroop, Germany’s propaganda minister, […]
Raging gun battles in the center of Beirut on August 14 claimed the lives of seven people and raised the grim specter that Lebanon may be returning to the era of sectarian violence that climaxed with the outbreak of the civil war from 1975 to 1990. Fighting erupted after two influential Shi’a Muslim militias, Hezbollah […]
The incidence of Jewish settler violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has increased exponentially in the past few years, and is aimed primarily at Palestinians but also at Israeli security forces. There were 363 violent incidents in 2019, 507 in 2020 and 416 in the first half of this year, according to the latest statistics […]
Individuals who adamantly refuse to get vaccinated to protect themselves against the deadly coronavirus are simply beyond the pale. These anti-vaxxers are not only utterly selfish and illogical, but a clear and present threat to the community at large. The unbiased scientific evidence at hand conclusively shows that Covid-19 has more or less become a pandemic […]
In what was widely seen as a “farewell” trip, the outgoing chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, paid a two-day visit to Israel late last week and this week. It was her seventh and last official visit during 16 years in office. Merkel, 67, currently leads a transitional caretaker government. She will remain in office until […]
He was one of Adolf Hitler’s most favorite people. Otto Skorzeny, a Waffen-SS lieutenant colonel sporting a noticeable duelling scar on the left side of his face, compiled a very unusual record. He rescued the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from captivity in 1943. He worked as a spy for the Mossad in the early 1960s […]
The often ironic, self-mocking Jewish joke has been endlessly exploited by two diametrically different forces in modern Germany. Jews have used it as a release mechanism to lighten the heavy burden of rejection and discrimination. Antisemites have resorted to it to belittle and defame Jews. This dichotomy is examined and analyzed by Louis Kaplan — […]
When he was 13 years old, Canadian playwright Jason Sherman received an unusual bar mitzvah gift — a tree planted in his name in Israel by the National Jewish Fund. The JNF, as it is known, is a non-governmental, non-profit charitable organization based in Jerusalem which plants forests and develops land in the Jewish state. Decades […]
Israel and its chief ally, the United States, appear to be on a collision course over Washington’s plan to reopen its consulate in Jerusalem. U.S. Secretary State Antony Blinken announced the decision on May 25 following a meeting with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, in Ramallah. Blinken described it as a measure […]