It was a short-lived, shaky marriage of convenience both sides disliked yet endured until they could no longer stomach it. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s expedient partnership with Benny Gantz collapsed on December 22 after seven months of mutual distrust and constant backstabbing and infighting. With the collapse of their national unity government, Israel was propelled […]
Measured against centuries of recorded human history, the concept of human rights is quite new, having emerged only after World War II as a response to the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust. Within two years of these unprecedented atrocities, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention, which were […]
The American historian Robert Gellately asks and answers an important question in his magisterial work, Hitler’s True Believers: How Ordinary People Became Nazis (Oxford University Press): What impelled tens of millions of Germans to accept or accommodate themselves to a doctrine laced with racial hatred and laden with murderous implications? The reasons are clear. Germany’s […]
Saudi Arabia’s reluctance to normalize relations with Israel is hardly surprising. Anti-Israel and antisemitic tropes and stereotypes are so deeply embedded in Saudi society that it is hard for the government to justify a rapprochement with the Jewish state. Certainly, the festering Palestinian problem, plus the absence of a a two-state solution, also inhibit the […]
Shortly before outgoing President Donald Trump tweeted that the United States had brokered a normalization of relations agreement between Israel and Morocco, the Moroccan Education Ministry issued a precedent-shattering announcement that was a fully in keeping with the spirit of Morocco’s historic rapprochement with Israel. The director of the ministry’s academic programs department, Fouad Chafiqi, […]
Have you ever heard of Karl Landsteiner? Paul Ehrlich? Or Rosalind Franklin? If these names don’t ring a bell, you can read all about them in British writer Norman Lebrecht’s informative book, Genius & Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947 (Scribner). Landsteiner, one of the first immunologists, made modern surgery possible by developing a […]
Israel cannot achieve genuine security unless the Palestinians can acquire statehood, says Ami Ayalon, the former director of the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret service. Drawing a direct connection between these imperatives, he said, “We have to create hope for the Palestinians so that Israel can attain security.” He made these comments in a webinar on […]
Israel is on a diplomatic roll in the Arab world. In an unprecedented sequence of events since August, four Arab countries have agreed to normalize relations with Israel. On December 10, Morocco became the fourth Arab state after the United Arab Emirates (August 13), Bahrain (September 11) and Sudan (October 23) to break the Arab boycott of […]
Twinkling Christmas trees and flickering Hanukkah candles are the illuminating bookends of the Hallmark Channel’s newest seasonal movie, Love, Lights, Hanukkah! Filmed in Vancouver, but set in Cleveland, Mark Jean’s feel-good movie celebrates not only the miracle of Hanukkah, the Maccabees’ victory over the Syrians, but the miracle of a mother connecting with a long […]
Russia’s ambassador to Israel, Anatoly Viktorov, made some very strange comments the other day that cast doubt on his grasp of current affairs in the Middle East. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, he accused Israel of aggressive behavior toward Hezbollah, claimed that the cross-border tunnels the Israeli army discovered last year in southern […]