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Uri Avnery

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Uri Avnery is a longtime Israeli peace activist. Since 1948 has advocated the setting up of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. In 1974, Uri Avnery was the first Israeli to establish contact with PLO leadership. In 1982 he was the first Israeli ever to meet Yassir Arafat, after crossing the lines in besieged Beirut. He served three terms in the Israeli Parliament (Knesset), and is the founder of Gush Shalom (Peace Bloc). Visit his Website.

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(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 20, 2012
"Stupid and Mean and Brutal" The everyday brutality that governs the occupied territories was caught on video this week. officer raises his rifle, holding it horizontally, one hand on the butt and one on the barrel, and then he drives the squared-off end of the magazine hard into a young man's face. The sheer brutality of this completely unprovoked act makes one flinch.
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, June 20, 2010
A Flash of Lightning For two generations, our foreign policy used the Holocaust as its main instrument. The bad conscience of the world determined its attitude towards Israel. The (justified) guilt feelings -" either for atrocities committed or for looking the other way -" caused Europe and America to treat Israel differently than any other nation -" from nuclear armaments to the settlements.
From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 29, 2013
Israeli Idiocracy the blockade was imposed by the Israeli navy for the sole purpose of preventing arms reaching the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip. If this had been a serious concern, the Mavi Marmara could have been stopped on the high seas, searched for arms and released. This was not even considered. From then on, it became solely a matter of prestige. Of childish political or personal ego. In short, of idiocy.
Benjamin Netanyahu, From ImagesAttr
(15 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, February 27, 2015
Spitting In The Face of Obama Netyanyahu's speech to the US Congress means almost literally spitting in the face of President Obama. I don't think there was ever anything like it. The prime minister of a small vassal country, dependent on the US for practically everything, comes to the capital of the US to openly challenge its President, in effect branding him a cheat and a liar. His host is the opposition party.
(21 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, June 7, 2009
The Tone and the Music; Reaction to Obama's Cairo Speech Avnery, the Israeli peacenik despised and reviled by Israeli rightwingers, who is usually highly critical of Israeli and US policy, offers some surprising observations.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, September 29, 2012
The Grand Default A group of two or three are deciding the fate of the nation. Netanyahu and Ehud Barak alone make all the decisions, "keeping their cards close to their chest." Attack Iran or not? Politicians and generals are kept in the dark. Bibi and Ehud know best. No need for any other input.
United Kingdom, From ImagesAttr
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 19, 2014
Scotland on the Euphrates; The Approaching Demise of the Nation State Two countries competed this week for first place in news programs all over the world: Scotland and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. There could not be a greater difference than between these two countries. However, there is one common denominator of both crises: they mark the approaching demise of the nation-state.
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Bibi and the Yo-Yos There is a good chance that Obama will pretend that the spittle on his cheek is rainwater. His promise to prevent a UN General Assembly recognition of the State of Palestine deprived him of his main leverage over Netanyahu.
(20 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, June 28, 2009
Between Tel Aviv and Tehran In many revolutions, the decisive moment arrives when the crowds in the street confront the soldiers and policemen, and the question arises: will they open fire on their own people? When the soldiers refuse, the revolution wins. When they shoot, that is the end of the matter. When Boris Yeltsin climbed on the tank, the solders refused to shoot and he won. The Berlin wall fell because one East-German police officer refused
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 22, 2010
Hallelujah, The World Is Against Us! 81-year old Noam Chomsky arrived at the Allenby Bridge over the Jordan River on his way from Amman to Birzeit University near Ramallah. The Israeli authorities knew in advance of his coming. A young official asked him questions, contacted his superiors and returned to ask more questions, contacted his superiors again, then stamped his passport: "Entry Denied."
ADOLF HITLER, From FlickrPhotos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 27, 2018
Adolf and Amin BINYAMIN NETANYAHU is a perfect diplomat, a clever politician, a talented leader of the army. Lately, another jewel has been added to his crown: he is also a gifted story-teller. He has provided an answer to a question that has perplexed historians for a long time: When and how did Adolf Hitler decide to exterminate the Jews?
From ImagesAttr
(14 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, August 25, 2012
The Fountainhead SINCE AYN RAND was an atheist and abhorred anything that was not purely rational, while the Tea Party is strictly religious (never mind what religion), Ryan is now compelled to distance himself from his mentoress, who was also a militant advocate of abortion. Actually, I don't believe in either the intellectual prowess or the political honesty of the man. He looks to me slightly phoney.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 23, 2011
Abu Mazen's Gamble The Palestinians, of course, should have a state of their own. Sure, sure. But they must not be pushy. They must not embarrass the US. They must not come to the UN. They must sit with the Israelis, like reasonable people, and work it out with them. The reasonable sheep must sit down with the reasonable wolf and decide what to have for dinner. Foreigners should not interfere.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 8, 2012
The War of Lies THIRTY YEARS ago this week, the Israeli army crossed into Lebanon and started the most stupid war in Israel's history. It lasted for 18 years. About 1,500 Israeli soldiers and untold numbers of Lebanese and Palestinians were killed. From beginning to end (if it has ended yet) it was a war of deceit and deception, falsehoods and fabrications.
Golda Meir, From GoogleImages
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 5, 2018
That Woman In Drucker's film, Golda pictures herself as a helpless old woman, surrounded by the young and dynamic generals. The truth was quite different. Golda was the dominant and domineering personality at the deliberations; the generals were like children in her presence.
Terrorism, From FlickrPhotos
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, November 29, 2015
The Reign of Absurdiocy Bolstered by the mass media, which thrive on such events, local terrorist acts turn themselves nowadays into worldwide threats. The modern media, by their very nature, are the terrorist's best friend. Terror could not flourish without them.
Israel pride, From YouTubeVideos
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, May 20, 2016
I Was There No one in their right mind would even remotely compare Netanyahu to the Fuehrer, but there are political parties here which do emit a strong fascist smell. The political riffraff peopling the present Netanyahu government could easily have found their place in the first Nazi government.
Flag of Israel Visit sites.fastspring.com/true3dflags/instant/isrealflaganimationasseenonyoutubesdstandarddefinition to purchase a higher quality version of this ..., From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 5, 2015
The Real Naqba Like a Greek tragedy, the Naqba was conditioned by the character of all the participants, victimizer and victim. Any solution of the "problem" must start with an unequivocal apology by Israel for its part in the Naqba. The practical solution must include at least a symbolic return of an agreed number of refugees to Israeli territory.
Bibi Netanyahu, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, May 1, 2015
A Boy Called Bibi -- Netanyahu on the Couch Who is this Netanyahu? Contrary to popular opinion, he is a man of very strong beliefs -- the beliefs of his far-right father. The entire world is out to kill us at all times, we need a powerful state to defend ourselves, all of the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan has been given us by God (whether he exists or not). Everything else is lies, subterfuges, tactics.
Israel and Palestine, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 27, 2015
The Israeli Salvation Front THE 2015 election was a giant step towards the self-destruction of Israel. The decisive majority has voted for an apartheid state between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, in which democracy will slowly disappear. The decision is not yet final. Israeli democracy has lost a battle. It has not yet lost the war. The country is in existential danger. Not from the outside, but from the inside.
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 3, 2011
RACHEL Avnery; a Memorium A touching, poignant obituary for Rachel Avnery, Urin Avnery's wife for 58 years. IN EARLY 1993, when Yitzhak Rabin deported 215 Islamic activists across the Lebanese border, protest tents were erected opposite his office. We camped out for 45 wintry days. Rachel, the only woman who was there the whole time, In these tents, we founded Gush Shalom. For her, the injustice done to the Palestinians was intolerable.
Is Vladimir Putin paranoid?, From ImagesAttr
(12 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 7, 2014
God Bless Putin A cold-blooded, calculating operator, of a kind now rare in the world, Putin uses the strong cards he has, but is very careful not to take too many risks. He is managing the crisis astutely, using Russia's obvious advantages. Europe needs his oil and gas, he needs Europe's capital and trade. Russia has a leading role in Syria and Iran. The US suddenly looks like a bystander.
Avi Gabbay Chairperson of the Labor Party & Former Minister of Environmental Protection, From YouTubeVideos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, November 24, 2017
A Terrible Thought Avi Gabbay is not a charismatic leader, not a person to arouse the masses. Indeed, his face is easily forgotten. But he took with him from the business world a sound, logical way of thinking. In politics, logic is a rare commodity. It can be obstructive. The question now is: where does logic take him?
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, February 17, 2018
Pity the Almond Tree Mandelblit is in an impossible position. The prime minister has been officially accused by the police on two counts of bribery. Now Mandelblit must decide whether to put him on trial. But Binyamin Netanyahu has been his benefactor for a long time, pushing his career to the top. Do you bite the hand that has fed you? Or do you shirk your duty? An awful choice.
From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 3, 2015
Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Bomb? Persian civilization is one of the oldest in the world. It has created a great religion and influenced many others, including Judaism. Iranians are fiercely proud of that civilization. To imagine that the present leaders of Iran would even contemplate risking the very existence of Persia out of hatred of Israel is both ridiculous and megalomaniac.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 19, 2018
The Day of Shame If President Donald Trump had declared West Jerusalem the capital of Israel and moved his embassy there, almost nobody would have got excited. By omitting the word "West," Trump ignited a fire. Perhaps without realizing what he was doing, and probably not giving a damn. If and when peace does come, no one will care about some stupid act of a half-forgotten US president.
Nuke Iran! says Major Republican Donor, Sheldon Adelson, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, February 14, 2015
The Casino Republic It was Adelson who prepared the witches' brew that is now endangering Israel's lifeline to Washington. His stooge, Dermer, induced the Republicans in Congress--all of them dependent on Adelson's largesse or hoping to be so--to invite Netanyahu to give an anti-Obama speech before both Houses. He has threatened to invest unlimited sums of money to prevent the reelection of any politician who is absent from Netanyahu's speech.
From ImagesAttr
(11 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, August 31, 2013
Poor Obama Love and politics create strange bedfellows. At the moment, a very strange assortment of powers are interested in the survival of the Assad regime: the US, Russia, Iran, Hizbullah and Israel. Yet Obama is being pushed to attack him. Poor Obama.
Congress gives Netanyahu continuous standing ovations., From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 6, 2015
The Speech The Speech, like all speeches by Netanyahu, contained much about the suffering of the Jews throughout the ages, and the intentions of the evil Iranians, the New Nazis, to annihilate us. But this will not happen, because this time we have Binyamin Netanyahu to protect us. And the US Republicans, of course.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, May 10, 2015
A Day- and Night-mare Right after the election Netanyahu decreed that the next government would be a narrow coalition of orthodox and rightist parties, which would be able at long last to do the things he really wants to do: put an end to this two-state nonsense, castrate the Supreme Court, muzzle the media and much more.
World War II, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 30, 2015
The Map on the Wall It is always good to have a strong army. Just in case. But history shows that it is neither strong armies nor an abundance of weapons that guarantees peace. It is the goodwill of all sides, based on self-interest. And the wisdom of politicians -- a rare ingredient, indeed.
Knesset, From FlickrPhotos
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, May 21, 2017
Parliamentary Riffraff WHEN I first entered the Knesset, I was shocked by the low standard of its debates. Speeches were full of cliche's, platitudes and party slogans, the intellectual content was almost nil. That was 52 years ago. Today, looking back, that Knesset looks like an Olympus, compared to the present composition of that non-august body
Israel and Palestine, From YouTubeVideos
(11 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, December 31, 2017
The Man Who Jumped Instead of quarreling endlessly about who was right and who was wrong, how wonderful we are and how abhorrent the others are, we should think about the future. What do we want? What kind of a state do we want to live in? How do we end the occupation, and what will come after?
Sheldon Adelson, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 24, 2015
Sheldon's Stooges Affronting the US president, his administration and his party, Netanyahu is gambling with our future. Which brings us to the emperor of the gambling world, the king of Las Vegas, the prince of Macao: Sheldon Adelson. Adelson does not hide his support for Netanyahu the man, the family and the party.
Alexis Tsipras And Angela Merkel, From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 11, 2015
To be Greek The Greek crisis arises from the fact that the Euro is not based on such a federation. The Greek economic breakdown would have been stopped by the European central bank long before it had reached the present point. Money would have flowed from Brussels to Athens without anybody even noticing.
From whotv.com/2016/07/27/donald-trump-encourages-russia-to-hack-hillary-clinton/: Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton, From Images
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, July 28, 2016
The Orange Man Both candidates claim to be unwavering supporters of "Israel." But what does that mean? Do they support all sections of Israeli society? Certainly not. They support one certain part of Israel: the ultra-right-wing government of Binyamin Netanyahu, which is supported by the American Jewish billionaires who contribute to their coffers.
(23 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 26, 2018
The Luck of the Gambler The world saw and remained silent. The international reaction to the massacre in Gaza was even less than the usual hypocritical minimum prescribed for such occasions. The only serious reaction came from the Turkish ruler and was buried under a heap of derision in Israel.
THE SECOND LEBANON WAR - July 2006, From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 16, 2015
The War of Fools We know already that World War I, with its millions of victims, was ignited by political idiots and conducted by military incompetents. Is humanity condemned to suffer this forever? Is this all that we Israelis can look forward to, another few wars conducted by the same kind of politicians and generals?
Peace activist Uri Avnery, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 17, 2015
Avnery v. the State of Israel The fight between the Supreme Court and the Likud's far-right is nearing a climax. The Likud has just won a decisive election victory. Its leaders are not hiding their intention to finally implement their sinister designs on the independence of the Court.
Uri Avnery - an Israeli writer, journalist and peace activist., From YouTubeVideos
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, February 10, 2018
What the Hell? Although representing only about a fifth of Israel's population, the Orthodox of various shades now constitute a powerful force in Israeli politics. From being a moderate force for peace they have turned to a radical nationalism, often a religious fascism. Their influence on daily life is becoming more and more pervasive.
From flickr.com: George Soros, From Images
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 22, 2017
Soros' Sorrows The "Reform" and "Conservative" Jewish institutions in the US do not care about the occupation, about the brutal repression of the Palestinians, about the daily killings. They support the Israeli government through thick and thin. But they care very much about the Wall and about conversions. Like Ivanka Trump, non-Jews often convert in order to marry Jews, so this is an important business.
Benjamin Netanyahu, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 14, 2015
For whom to Vote? Binyamin Netanyahu is fighting for his political life. A few months ago, when he decided to dismiss the Knesset and call early elections, he certainly did not dream of such a predicament. And here we are, a few days before election day, with Likud almost desperate. Why? How? It seems that people are just fed up with Netanyahu. They seem to be saying: Enough is enough.
Netanyahu, From ImagesAttr
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, November 1, 2014
Chicken*hit Netanyahu is no fool. Chickenshit or not, he is considered smart and intelligent. So what is he doing? There is method in his madness. He knows that Israel controls the US Congress. In any confrontation between Congress and the White House over Israel, the President is bound to lose. So there is nothing to be afraid of.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 7, 2011
"Rejoice Not ..." Bin Laden's villa was bound to attract the attention of neighbors and other people. They would have been curious about this mysterious stranger in their midst. Actually, he should have been discovered long ago. He was unarmed and did not put up a fight. The decision to kill him on the spot and dump his body in the sea was evidently taken long before.
(12 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, August 21, 2010
When You Say No, Or -- Poisonous Mushrooms In the mouths of our new mini-McCarthys, it has become a simple denunciation. A post-Zionist is a traitor, an Arab-lover, a lackey of the enemy, an agent of the sinister world-wide conspiracy to destroy the Jewish State.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 5, 2010
Kill a Turk and Rest It is clear that we, the Jews, are the victims. Always. That applies to Jewish soldiers, too. True, we storm a foreign ship at sea, but turn at once into victims who have no choice but to defend ourselves against violent and incited anti-Semites.
Israel Flag, From ImagesAttr
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 20, 2015
The Messiah Hasn't Come The fact that the words "peace" and "Palestine" were not mentioned at all in the campaign did not help the Left. Honesty is the first requisite for convincing people. In short, if the Left wants to win next time - which may come much sooner than expected - it must start to reform itself and overcome the reasons for its failure. It can be done. The time to begin is right now.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 2, 2011
The Jewish Ayatollahs The entire religious community, with all its diverse factions, now belongs to the rightist, ultra-nationalist camp (except for pitiful little outposts like Reform and Conservative Jewry, who are the majority among American Jews). Transforming Israel into a Halakha state means castrating the democratic system and turning Israel into a second Iran governed by Jewish ayatollahs.
Flag of Israel Visit sites.fastspring.com/true3dflags/instant/isrealflaganimationasseenonyoutubesdstandarddefinition to purchase a higher quality version of this ..., From ImagesAttr
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, May 22, 2015
Who Will Save Israel? Israel is famously "the Only Democracy in the Middle East." That is practically its second official name. It is debatable how a state that dominates another people, depriving it of all human rights, not to mention citizenship, can be called a democracy. But Jewish Israelis have been used to this for 48 years, and just ignore this fact.
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 24, 2009
On the Wrong Side Between Israel and the US, a gap has opened this week, a narrow gap, but it may widen into an abyss. Israeli leaders are now boasting about their part in the Gaza War, in which unbridled military force was unleashed intentionally against a civilian population, men, women and children, with the declared aim of "creating deterrence." In the era that began last Tuesday, such expressions can only arouse shudders.
Horrors of War, From YouTubeVideos
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, November 19, 2017
A History of Idiocy In the land that used to be called Palestine there live two peoples of different origin, culture, history, religion, language, standard of living and much more. They are now of more or less equal size. Between these two peoples, a conflict has now been going on for more than a century.
Is Israel at Risk of Civil War?, From GoogleImages
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, September 3, 2016
Israeli Civil War? The division between "left" and "right" in Israel almost solely concerns peace and the occupation. If one wants an end of the occupation and peace with the Palestinians, one is a "leftist." If one wants the annexation of the occupied territories and the enlargement of the settlements, one is a "rightist."
From ImagesAttr
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 26, 2015
War Crimes? Us??? Once you start a war, "stuff happens," as the man said. There may be more war crimes or less, but there will be a lot. The convenient way out is to proclaim that all UN officials are by nature anti-Semites and Israel-haters, so that answering their questions is counter-productive. We are moral. We are right. By nature. We can't help it. Those who accuse us must be anti-Semites. Simple logic.
Benjamin Netanyahu, From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 10, 2015
National Unity A cynic may remark here that the Labor Party was not much of an opposition anyway. It supported last year's superfluous Gaza War with all its atrocities. Its ally, Tzipi Livni, has dragged the Palestinian negotiations on and on without coming an inch nearer to peace. Labor's opposition to the rightist economic policies was feeble.
Trial Continues For Sergeant Elor Azaria, IDF Soldier Who Killed Wounded Palestinian Assailant, From GoogleImages
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 5, 2016
The Shot Heard All Over the Country The crew of an Israeli ambulance was treating the wounded soldier, ignoring the seriously wounded Arab who was lying on the ground. Several Israeli soldiers were standing around, also ignoring the Palestinian. About 10 minutes later Sergeant Elor Azaria, a medic, appeared on the scene, approached the wounded Palestinian and shot him point-blank in the head, killing him.
From flickr.com: Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu, From Images
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, August 13, 2017
"Anyone But Bibi" Binyamin Netanyahu is facing the greatest crisis in his long career. The police are about to conclude their investigations. The Attorney General is under huge pressure to issue official indictments. The large demonstrations near the Attorney General's home are growing from week to week. The end seems certain: State of Israel v. Binyamin Netanyahu will go to court.
Netanyahu's One Finger Answer To The Two-State Solution, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, June 21, 2015
Isratin or Palestrael? I have a great respect for the adherents of the One-State Solution. Their motives are admirable. Their vision lofty. But it is disconnected from reality. I WOULD like to make one point quite clear: for me, the Two-State Solution is not a recipe for separation and divorce, but on the contrary, a kind of wedding.
Benjamin Netanyahu, From YouTubeVideos
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 1, 2017
On Zionist Anti-Semitism Israelis secretly despise American Jews for preferring the "fleshpots of Egypt" to living like upright people in the Jewish State, but demand their unconditional political support. Most American Jewish organizations do provide this. They wield huge power in Washington DC, where AIPAC, the Zionist lobby, is considered the second most powerful political organization after the National Rifle Association.
Benjamin Netanyahu, From ImagesAttr
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 6, 2014
The Plebiscite Netanyahu is quarreling with the US administration, severely damaging a relationship that is the lifeline of Israel in all matters, while Europe is slowly but surely approaching sanctions against Israel. Inequality in Israel keeps on widening; prices in Israel are higher than in Europe, housing almost unaffordable. With this government we are galloping towards a racist apartheid state, heading towards disaster.
From youtube.com: Israel and Palestine -- history of the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians..., From Images
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 2, 2018
Strong as Death The Gaza Strip could have turned into a blooming island. Optimists spoke about a "Second Singapore." They spoke about a Gaza harbor, with due inspection of incoming goods either in Gaza or in a neutral port abroad. A Gaza airport, with appropriate security inspection, was built and used and then destroyed by Israel.
UN Proposal To Make Israel Agree To Peace With Palestinians; Will US Stop It?, From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 20, 2014
Splendid Isolation Barack Obama, like so many others, is fed up with Binyamin Netanyahu. Our prime minister has burned one bridge too many. He has humiliated the US president time and again. He has let loose the hounds of AIPAC against him. And he has done the worst he can do to a politician: he has openly supported his opponents in the last two election campaigns.
Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, with the dog Kaya., From YouTubeVideos
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, August 27, 2017
Kaya, the royal Dog The latest episode concerns the by-law that orders dog owners to pick up the excrement of their animals in public places. Netanyahu's son, Ya'ir, was walking the royal dog, the now famous Kaya, without picking up her excrement in the street. When a lady stopped him and demanded that he follow the law, he made a lewd gesture -- which the lady duly photographed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu managed to ruffle a few feathers while Out of Step with French Leaders at Paris Rally, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 17, 2015
Waving in the first Row This must look like a huge achievement. It is an invitation for individuals and tiny groups to do the same again, everywhere. Terrorism means striking fear. The three in Paris certainly succeeded in doing that. They terrorized the French population. And if three youngsters without any qualifications can do that, imagine what 30 could do, or 300!
From flickr.com/photos/7681361@N04/7400430846/: Benjamin Netanyahu -- where is my government?, From Images
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, April 25, 2015
Cats in a Sack In Israel we combine the worst of all systems. All ministers are party hacks. They bring with them their stooges, who man (or woman) the chief positions in the ministries. IF YOU fill a sack with cats, you will be accused of cruelty to animals. But what is that compared to filling 18 ministries with politicians?
Benjamin Netanyahu, From YouTubeVideos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, May 31, 2016
What Happened to Netanyahu? What has happened to Netanyahu? Until now he has acted sanely and pragmatically. True, he has taken the path where devastation awaits at its end, our end. True, almost every step he has taken harmed Israeli democracy, the Supreme Court and now the IDF too. But it was possible to explain all these steps as means to survive in power. But no longer.
From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 8, 2013
Butterflies in Damascus Shiites from all over the Muslim world stream into Syria to help Bashar al-Assad's dictatorship to survive, while Sunnis from many countries hasten there to support the rebels. The implications of this go well beyond the bloody Syrian struggle. It is a historic revolution, region-wide and perhaps world-wide.
Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), From YouTubeVideos
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, January 21, 2018
May Your Home Be Destroyed Trump is something special. He has appointed an ardent Jewish right-wing Zionist as ambassador to Israel. He has appointed his Jewish son-in-law and some other Zionists as mediators between Israel and the Palestinians. And in the end he has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and announced that he is going to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv there.
Yasser Arafat. , From ImagesAttr
(10 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, November 15, 2013
The Assassination For Israelis, Arafat was the embodiment of the Palestinian people, an object of abysmal hatred. He was hated more than any other human being after Adolf Hitler and Adolf Eichmann. The generations-old conflict with the Palestinian people was personified by this man.
Vice-president Mike Pence, From FlickrPhotos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 27, 2018
The Jumping Parliament US Vice president Pence is a good-looking and well-dressed fool. Wherever he stopped, he made speeches that should have made even ardent Zionists blush. He lauded Israel in terms of childish adulation, heaping shameless flattery upon fake history.
Iran and Israel, From YouTubeVideos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, November 4, 2017
Who's Afraid of the Iranian Bomb? SINCE THE nuclear bomb was invented, no nuclear-armed country has ever been attacked. Attacking a nuclear-armed country simply means suicide. Even the mighty USA (the "Big Satan") does not dare to attack little North Korea, whose endeavor to obtain a nuclear strike force is far from irrational.
Execution Chamber, From FlickrPhotos
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 4, 2017
Wistful Eyes From the moment a death sentence is passed, the entire world, not to mention the entire country, gets involved. From Timbuktu to Tokyo, from Paris to Pretoria, millions of people, who have no interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, get aroused. The fate of the condemned man starts to dominate their lives.
Arab-Israeli War, From GoogleImages
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, February 12, 2017
That's How It Happened Though the territory allotted to the Jewish state was small, the Jewish population realized the immense importance of statehood. It was just three years after the end of the Holocaust. The entire Arab world opposed the resolution. As they saw it, why should the Arab population of Palestine pay the price for the Holocaust committed by Europeans?
(19 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, May 11, 2009
Does Iran Resemble Nazi Germany? Like a traveling salesman offering a counterfeit product, Peres is now peddling the merchandise called Binyamin Netanyahu. He presents to the world a Netanyahu we have never known: a peacemaker, the epitome of truthfulness, a man with no other ambition than to go down in history as the founder of the State of Palestine.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 5, 2011
"How Goodly Are Thy Tents" This has now become the center of Israeli life. The Rothschild tent city has assumed a life of its own -- a cross between Tahrir Square and Woodstock, with a touch of Hyde Park corner thrown in for good measure. The mood is indescribably upbeat, masses of people come to visit and return home full of enthusiasm and hope. Everybody can feel that something momentous is happening.
Israel power, From GoogleImages
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 8, 2016
Hatred Unlimited In the Semitic world, the European idea of separation between state and church never really took root. In both Islam and Judaism, religion and State are inseparable. In Israel, power is now wielded by a government dominated by the extreme ideology of the religious right-wing, while the "secular" left-wing has long been in full retreat.
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 13, 2010
A Matter of Timing As the saying goes: when you spit in the face of a weakling, he pretends that it is raining. Does this apply to the president of the most powerful country in the world? Biden and Obama did not give much cause for hope. They wiped the spit off their faces and smiled politely.
St. Bernard and the Crusades, From YouTubeVideos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, September 3, 2017
Crusaders and Zionists Zionists talk endlessly about peace. No week passes without Binyamin Netanyahu releasing some touching declaration about his craving for peace. But it is absolutely clear that he does not dream of giving up one inch of land west of the Jordan. Just a few days ago he again publicly confirmed that he will not "uproot" one single Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Under international law each of these settlements is illegal.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 17, 2011
"With Friends Like These" It would certainly be ironic if the members of the "invented" Palestinian nation were expected to ask for recognition from the members of the "invented" Jewish/Israeli nation, at the demand of a member of the "invented" American nation, a person who, by the way, is of mixed German, English, Scottish and Irish stock.
Uri Avnery - Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin -- the odd couple, From YouTubeVideos
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, November 11, 2017
Two Meetings Arafat was a warm person. An emotional person. His embraces and kisses were ceremonial, but they also expressed real sentiment. I brought many Israelis to meetings with him, and they all recounted that after 10 minutes in his company they felt as if they had known him for years. Rabin was the exact opposite.
From youtube.com: Benjamin Netanyahu, From Images
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, March 4, 2018
Because there is Nothing Ask one of his admirers what Bibi has actually achieved in his 12 years as prime minister, and he will be at a loss to answer. David Ben-Gurion founded the state, Menachem Begin made peace with Egypt, Yitzhak Rabin made the Oslo agreement. But Bibi?
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 30, 2016
Abu-Mazen's Balance Sheet The separate Gaza Strip is an Israeli invention. In the Oslo agreement, Israel undertook to open four "safe passages" between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Under the influence of the army, Rabin violated this obligation right from the beginning. As a result, the West Bank was totally cut off from the Strip -- and the present situation is a direct result of that.
ISRAEL: JERUSALEM: PROTESTS, From YouTubeVideos
(12 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 23, 2017
Cry, Beloved Country An oppressive regime, especially a foreign one, always thinks that executing "terrorists" will frighten others away from joining the rebels. This idea stems from the arrogance of the rulers, who think of their subjects as inferior human beings. The real result is always the opposite: the executed rebel becomes a national hero, for every rebel executed, dozens of others join the fight.
Donald Trump- Caricature, From FlickrPhotos
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, June 18, 2017
The New Wave -- Unique As a character, Trump is indeed unique. It is extremely difficult to imagine any other Western country electing somebody like that as its supreme leader. But beyond his particular personality, is Trump unique? Trump is a Rightist. A very rightist Rightist. Between him and the right wall there is nothing, except, perhaps, his Vice. (Vice in both meanings of the word.)
U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman welcomed by Netanyahu, From YouTubeVideos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 24, 2018
Son of a Dog The President of the US totally ignores the rights of the Palestinian people and their aspirations. According to him, the Palestinians must accept what is offered to them, as a dog must accept what his master throws to him and wag his tail. What exactly? Trump's masterful Peace Plan is still wrapped in secrecy. But it is enough to know who is in charge of it: his Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
London in the rearview mirror #Brexit, From FlickrPhotos
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 1, 2016
What the Hell...! The question is if this world order will be democratic, or not. It is up to humanity to ensure it is. The same is true for the European Union now. Those who dislike its set-up must fight for change -- for its true democratization, for effective social welfare and human rights. That's what the British voters should have voted for. Instead of which they voted for "Stop the world, we want to get off!"
Uneasy Coexistence For Israelis and Palestinians, From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, September 6, 2014
God Wills It! ISIS wants to destroy all states, especially the Muslim states carved out by Western imperialists from Islamic land. With horrible savagery, elevated to a religious symbol, it sets out on its way to conquer the Muslim world, and then the globe. It may take only a few years to become a huge force, threatening all the states of this region.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, October 25, 2010
Is Israel on the Verge of a Fascist Takeover? In almost every country there are demagogues who build their careers on incitement against the weak and helpless, who advocate the expulsion of "foreigners" and the persecution of minorities. In the past they were easy to dismiss, as was Hitler at the beginning of his career. Now they must be taken seriously. ...Israel's very existence is threatened by fascism. It can lead our state to destruction.
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, September 10, 2017
A Confession Today is the last day of the 93rd year of my life. Ridiculous. Am I moderately satisfied with my life until now? Yes. I am. If by a miracle I could be returned to, say, 14, and travel all this long way again, would I like that? No, I would not. Enough is enough. IN THESE 93 years, the world has changed completely.
Let my people go!, From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 3, 2015
The Rock of our Existence The founding father, Theodor Herzl, did not think about Palestine when he invented what became known as Zionism. He hated Palestine and its climate. Especially he hated Jerusalem, which to him was a foul and dirty town. In his founding book, Der Judenstaat ("the Jewish State"), the relevant chapter is less than a page long and entitled "Palestine or Argentina." The Arab population is not mentioned at all.
Trump campaign backs Netanyahu on Palestinian 'ethnic cleansing ..., From GoogleImages
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 30, 2016
Anti-Semitic Zionists The resolution has almost no practical meaning. It has no teeth. Netanyahu could use the old oriental adage: "The dogs bark and the caravan moves on." But Netanyahu's immediate reaction was very different. He acted like a wounded animal: running berserk, thrashing around, biting everyone in reach.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, September 17, 2016
It Can Happen Here... This land -- call it Palestine or Eretz Israel -- is very small. Living in it in two mutually antagonistic states would be a nightmare. Therefore, some kind of free association, call it confederation or federation, is a sheer necessity. Setting it up and keeping it up needs a spirit of reconciliation. I believe that it can happen here.
Activists on both sides of the conflict held demonstrations, From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 29, 2014
The War for Nothing The war deteriorated into an orgy of killing and destroying, with both sides "dancing on the blood," blessing every bomb and missile, completely oblivious to the suffering caused to the human beings on the other side. And still without any realizable aim.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 1, 2011
Napoleon's Dictum In Hebrew we say: He who starts doing a good deed must finish it. Qaddafi must be removed, the Libyan people must be given a decent chance to take their fate into their own hands. So, too, the Syrian people, the Yemenites, the Bahrainis and all the others. I don't know where it will lead them -- each of them in their own country. I can only wish them well -- and hope.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 30, 2017
The Bizarre Case of Bashar Seymour Hersh, a world-renowned investigative reporter, the man who exposed the American massacres in Vietnam and the American torture chambers in Iraq. He investigated the incident in depth and found that there is absolutely no evidence and almost no possibility that Bashar used nerve gas in Khan Sheikhoun. I don't know who did it. Perhaps Bashar, after all. I only know that there is absolutely no evidence for that.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, October 1, 2011
Mutiny on the Titanic There is the moral question: can you really chant "the People Demand Social Justice" and ignore the daily oppression of four million Palestinians in the occupied territories? When you abandon your principles on the way to power, what are you likely to do with that power?
Free Palestine banner, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, October 17, 2014
Decent Respect World public opinion is important. More than that, it is vital. The British Parliament's resolution may be non-binding, but it expresses public opinion, which will sooner or later decide government action on arms sales, Security Council resolutions, European Union decisions and what not. As Thomas Jefferson said: "If the people lead, then eventually the leaders will follow."
Activists aboard the Marianne before it shipped off, Gaza bound., From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 4, 2015
The Second Battle of Trafalgar In a daring move, the navy of the State of Israel intercepted the enemy, consisting of the trawler Marianne and the 18 people aboard. Israel naval commandos captured the ship and towed it to the harbor of Ashdod. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu lauded the courage of the victors in glowing terms, expressing the gratitude and admiration of the nation for their gallant deed.
Trump taps campaign adviser David Friedman as US ambassador to Israel, From YouTubeVideos
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 24, 2016
Don't Send Him! David Friedman does not identify with all Israelis. He seems to think that most of us are blind, imbeciles, defeatists. or worse -- traitors. This would set a world record: most Israelis, it appears, are traitors. I would cry out to Donald Trump: "If you don't help us achieve peace, at least don't send us this sworn peace-wrecker."
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, November 10, 2012
Goodbye to a War Netanyahu made no secret of supporting Romney to the hilt. US Jews were told that voting for the Republican candidate was voting for Israel. So did they? They did not. I don't yet have the detailed statistics, but from results in Florida and other states it seems that the great majority of Jews supported the Democratic candidate, as they have always done.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, November 16, 2012
Another Superfluous War HOW DID it start? Stupid question. Conflagrations along the Gaza Strip don't start. They are just a continuous chain of events, each claimed to be in "retaliation" for the previous one. Action is followed by reaction, which is followed by retaliation, which is followed by ...
The Mandela Project, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 28, 2013
Mandela: The Movie The movie shows how Nelson Mandela, completely alone, threw himself against the rising wave. At the decisive moment, when everything hung in the balance, when history held its breath, he addressed the masses on TV, telling them bluntly: "If I am your leader, you will follow my course! Otherwise, look for another leader!" Incredibly, the people followed him.
peace?, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, November 9, 2014
Is ISIS Coming? If ISIS is now our main enemy, yesteryear's enemies become potential allies. Even the abominable Bashar al-Assad. Definitely Iran, Hizbollah and Hamas. Israel must reconsider its attitude to all of them. A great Israeli statesman would recognize the historic challenge and the historic opportunity -- and seize it. Unfortunately, there is no great Israeli statesman in sight.
From ImagesAttr
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 28, 2012
Talking Zionism Since the foundation of the State of Israel, the term Zionism has been elevated to the status of a state ideology, if not state religion. Everything the state does is justified by the use of this word. Some would say that Zionism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Israeli army kills Palestinian young man in Kafr Kanna, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, November 15, 2014
Wine, Blood and Gasoline The entire country is now aflame. East Jerusalem is already a war zone, with daily demonstrations, riots and bloodshed. In Israel proper, since the Kafr Kanna killing, Arab citizens are also mounting daily strikes and demonstrations. In the West Bank, there were some demonstrations and a fatal stabbing, after which an Arab was shot and killed.
Nabi Saleh footage, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 4, 2015
The Face of a Boy The Israel that presents itself to the world now is a state of occupiers, of oppressors, of brutal colonizers, of soldiers armed to the teeth who arrest people in the middle of the night and persecute them during the day. The terrified face of young Muhammad Tamimi may well haunt us for a long time to come.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 31, 2012
The New Mandela For some time now, the world has lost much of its interest in Palestine. Everything looks quiet. Netanyahu has succeeded in deflecting world attention from Palestine to Iran. But in this country, nothing is ever static. While it seems that nothing is happening, settlements are growing incessantly, and so is the deep resentment of the Palestinians who see this happening before their eyes.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 13, 2012
Two Faces SHAMIR, the dead honest fanatic, has many followers. Olmert, the living corrupt pragmatist, has very few. Netanyahu, their current successor, has the vices of both and the virtues of neither.
Israeli PM Netanyahu encouraged Trump to pull out of Iran nuclear deal, From YouTubeVideos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, May 11, 2018
Who is the vassal? If you are very cynical, you might well say that both Trump and Bibi are up to their respective necks in criminal investigations. With a bit of luck, both might end up in prison. What better way to divert the attention of their subjects than a little war? It is a precept that has been tried out since the beginning of the world, and it almost never fails.
Benjamin Netanyahu, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 12, 2014
Can the Duke become King? HERZOG WON his first success of the current campaign by forming a common list with Tzipi Livni. It is now up to him to keep up the momentum and make alliances with -- possibly -- Lapid, Kahlon and Meretz. If successful in the elections, he must stretch out his hands to the Orthodox and the Arabs.
Azaria: .I shot the terrorist., From GoogleImages
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, February 25, 2017
Israel -- The Great Rift For more than 40 years now, the army has not fought a real war against a real military. It has deteriorated into a colonial police force, the instrument of a system of oppression of another people. In the performance of this role, many acts of brutality are committed every day. We must get rid of the occupation, by all available means, the quicker the better. Every true friend of Israel around the world must help.
Flag of Israel for all., From ImagesAttr
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, January 30, 2015
Zionists All Religious Zionists want a state based on and dominated by the Jewish religion. National-religious Zionists believe that God has sent the Jews into "exile" because of their sins, and wanted to compel God by their deeds to send the Messiah now. Atheist Zionists declare the Jews are a nation, not a religion, and want nothing to do with the Jewish faith.
Crisis in Zionism, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, September 21, 2015
"Don't Talk Zionism!" Let Binyamin Netanyahu call Yitzhak Herzog, the leader of the opposition, an "anti-Zionist," and he will object more strongly than if he had been called a mere traitor. Anti-Zionist is awful. Unforgivable. Yet if any one of these were asked what Zionism really is, he would stop dead in his tracks. Zionism -- why, everybody knows what Zionism it. What a question! Zionism is er...er...er.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, October 5, 2012
Of Bombs and Comics Netanyahu had the brilliant idea of attacking Iran just before the US elections, hoping that the hands of American politicians would be tied. Who would dare to restrain Israel at such a time? Who would refuse help to Israel when the Iranians counter-attacked? But like so many of Netanyahu's brilliant ideas, this one, too, flopped. Obama has told Netanyahu in no uncertain terms: No attack on Iran before the elections. Or else..
What The Media Isn't Telling You About Israel's Attack On Gaza, From ImagesAttr
(13 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 11, 2014
The Atrocity THE ATROCIOUS way Muhammad was murdered was not mentioned at first. Most Israeli newspapers mentioned the fact in a few words on an inner page. Most TV newscasts did not mention the fact at all.errible as the deed itself is, to my mind the public reaction is even worse. Because there isn't any.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, February 28, 2011
A Crazy Prophet Much has been said about the part played by the social networks, like Facebook and Twitter, in the revolutions that are now turning the Arab world upside down. But for sheer influence, Aljazeera trumps them all. During the last decade, it has changed the Arab world beyond recognition. In the last few weeks, it has wrought miracles.
ISIS has flattened yet another document of human history., From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 11, 2015
The Real Menace Bashar al-Assad has kept Syria together, protected its many minorities and kept the Israeli border quiet. Compared to IS, he is an ally. Our own Bibi is as innocent of any understanding as a new-born child. He is shrewd, shallow and ignorant. His Iranian obsession blinds him to the new realities. Fascinated by the wolf in front of him, Bibi is oblivious to the frightful tiger creeping up behind him.
Palestinian Resistance, From YouTubeVideos
(10 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 15, 2017
Children of Stones The simple fact is that there is no choice between a Two State and a One State solution, because One State is no solution at all, but a pipe-dream. Or a nightmare. So is there no choice? Of course there is. There always is. The choice is between the Two State solution and No Solution. Eternal war.
Netanyahu's Likud Party Victorious, From YouTubeVideos
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, October 7, 2017
Separation is Beautiful The Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, is busy with enacting a new law, called the Nation Law, which is intended to make clear that the Jewishness of the Jewish State takes precedence over democracy and human rights. Israel has no constitution, but until now it was assumed that Israel was equally "Jewish" and "democratic." The new law is about to abolish that notion.
Uri Avnery - Israeli writer, journalist and peace activist., From YouTubeVideos
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 9, 2018
The Great Conspiracy Most Ashkenazis (Jews of European descent) who had been born in the country, or immigrated years before, thought that they had done their part and suffered enough, and that now it was up to the new Oriental immigrants to do theirs. Cultural differences were huge, but nobody paid much attention to them.
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 9, 2016
Merkel and Netanyahu: Compare and Contrast Angela Merkel is still in power, and she seems determined to follow her stars and her policy. I envy her people. I do not believe that anyone in the world envies Israel for Binyamin Netanyahu. If I could imagine a politician who is the exact opposite of Angela Merkel, it would be Binyamin Netanyahu. Merkel is a moral heroine, Netanyahu is a moral coward.
SHALOM The sky the watchtower of the Lord., From ImagesAttr
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 26, 2014
Ah, If I Were 25 TWO WEEKS ago, on my 91st birthday, I asked myself: if I were 25 and straining for action, how would I go about trying to create a new Left? We need a new appellation, one acceptable and lovable by all sectors of current Israeli society. We need, as Martin Luther King so eloquently put it, a dream. A vision. Not just an election program.
Israeli leader's son Yair Netanyahu apologizes for drunken strip club audio, From YouTubeVideos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, January 14, 2018
Bibi's Son or: Three Men in a Car Binyamin Netanyahu is unable to make peace, even if he wanted to. Making peace demands strength of character, like taking the risk of being overthrown. Such audacity does not even enter Netanyahu's mind. His obsession with clinging to power makes him sell out our national interests to interest groups, not just to billionaires but also to the corrupt religious establishment and many others.
Ehud Barak on What Americans Don't Understand, From YouTubeVideos
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 9, 2017
From Barak to Trump The latest decisions of Trump concerning Jerusalem are -- to put it mildly -- idiotic. Arabs are furious, Israelis don't really care, America's Arab stooges, princes and all, are deeply worried. If disturbances erupt, they may well be swept away.
Are Israeli Settlements the Barrier to Peace?, From YouTubeVideos
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, October 13, 2017
The Terrible Problem Any future peace treaty between the state of Israel and the State of Palestine will have to include a paragraph saying that Israel affirms in principle the Right of Return of the Palestinian refugees and their descendents. The six million Palestinian refugees constitute six million individual situations. There are many categories of refugees. No single solution can apply to all.
The Nation-State Law and the Jewish Problem., From YouTubeVideos
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 3, 2018
Who the Hell Are We? The new law, which at a first glance looks like a copy of the declaration. It contains two important omissions: the declaration spoke of a "Jewish and Democratic" state, and promised full equality between all its citizens, without regard to religion, ethnicity or sex. All this has disappeared. No democracy. No equality. A state of the Jews, for the Jews, by the Jews.
Hamas and Israel share same policy -- eternal war with civilians in crossfire., From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, August 2, 2014
Meeting in a Tunnel Hamas is a patriotic group, fighting with incredible courage against immense odds. They are not a foreign force oblivious to the suffering of the population, they are the sons of this very population, members of the families that are now being killed en masse, who grew up in the houses that are now being destroyed.
Al-Ibrahim Mosque, From FlickrPhotos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 14, 2017
Abe, Izzy & Bibi The Bible makes the Arabs, too, rightful heirs of the Cave of Machpelah, side by side with the Jews and the Christians. I DO not believe that Binyamin Netanyahu ever read this verse. He knows only what every Israeli pupil knows. The strict Orthodox line.
A new anti-Semitism?, From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, February 20, 2015
Anti-What? With frequent economic slumps and a widening gap between the local poor and the multinational super-rich, the need for scapegoats is rising. But I do not believe that these marginal groups, even if some of them are not so marginal anymore, constitute a real anti-Semitic surge.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 2, 2016
The Arabs Did It Binyamin Netanyahu appeared on screen. Clad in a fashionable battle-dress, surrounded by his minions, he declared that it was all the work of Arab terrorists. It was an "Intifada of Fire." All this was nonsense. The brave fire-fighters and policemen had already done their job. Netanyahu's intervention was superfluous, indeed harmful.
two-state solution, From GoogleImages
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, January 13, 2017
Confessions of a Megalomaniac There is no one around who believes in anything but the Two-State Solution. Even Netanyahu pretends to believe in it, if only the Palestinians would become Jews or emigrate to Greenland. the Two-State Solution is neither good nor bad. It is the only solution there is.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 22, 2011
The Charge of the New York Times or - Baksheesh for the Doorkeeper The NYT is, perhaps, the most "pro-Israel" paper in the whole world, including Israel itself. Anti-Semites call it the Jew York Times. But this week, the NYT published a blistering editorial criticizing Israel. Perhaps -- just perhaps! -- even the New York Times could be starting to report on the reality of our country.
From ImagesAttr
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 20, 2013
Stolen Wars The US was to attack the regime of Bashar al-Assad. A medical operation: short, clean, surgical. When Congress hesitated, the hounds of hell were let loose. AIPAC sent its parliamentary rottweilers to Capitol Hill to tear to pieces any senator or congressman who objected. In Israel it was said that Binyamin Netanyahu unleashed them on the express request of Barack Obama.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 2, 2011
Dogs of War The fact remains that the settlements are by far the main obstacle to peace and the welfare state. Not just because of their cost, not just because of the pogroms their inhabitants carry out from time to time, not just because of the way they dominate the political system. But because of their very existence.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, April 9, 2011
The Gold and the Stone Goldstone, the Man of Stone, has become Goldstone, the Man of Gold. A man of conscience! A man to be admired!It was, of course, Binyamin Netanyahu who had the final word. Goldstone's recantation, he summarized, has confirmed once again that the IDF is the Most Moral Army in the World.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, November 13, 2011
"YOU are Fed Up?" In spite of the general assumption of mendacity, it is not good for a leader to be branded as a habitual liar. When leaders meet personally, in private and face to face, they are supposed to tell each other the truth, even if not necessarily the whole truth. Some personal trust is of great advantage. If a leader loses it, he loses a precious asset.
Uri Avnery, From YouTubeVideos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 9, 2017
Whoso Confesseth and Forsaketh Back when the glory of our generals reached the skies, there were among them some who supported openly or secretly the idea of establishing a Palestinian state side by side with Israel.
David Ben Gurion, From YouTubeVideos
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 20, 2018
The Great Day Zionism from the beginning wanted to dispossess the Arabs from their land in order to create there a new Jewish nation. This was never admitted, but was clear from the beginning. All Ben-Gurion's successors, up to the present occupant of the office, followed this line. Even on its 70th birthday, Israel recognizes no official borders.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 28, 2017
President Kong THIS is the harvest of the first week in office: more packs of lies, or "alternative facts," by the day. What about the substantive issues? Abortion rights. Protection of the environment. Medical insurance. Taxes on the super-rich. All going down the Potomac. The main theme--almost the only theme--of President Donald Trump is I -- I -- I... with a lot of chest thumping. Look out for the movie -- King Kong II.
From flickr.com: Bibi loves his enemies, From FlickrPhotos
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 17, 2018
The Fake Enemy Real friends of Israel should advise Netanyahu to make peace as long as Mahmoud Abbas is still around. He is deeply committed to peace. But Netanyahu doesn't care. Peace is the last thing he has on his troubled mind. He is far more committed to the eternal conflict with both the Arabs and the Iranians. After all, what would life be like without enemies?
Donald Trump, From FlickrPhotos
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 4, 2016
The Last Trump According to the Oxford dictionary, a trump is not only a card of the suit which ranks above others, but also a deafening sound. "The Last Trump" is the trumpet blast that will wake the dead on Judgment Day. Let's hope American voters wake up before that.
Three Israeli Symbols, From FlickrPhotos
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 19, 2016
Olympic Jews? With the creation of the State of Israel, there seemed to be a natural solution: There was the Jewish Diaspora and there was the State of Israel. Jews in Israel became Israelis and were proud of it. When asked abroad what they are, they would naturally answer "I am an Israeli," never "I am a Jew." I strongly suspect that a young Israeli emigrant in Berlin today would still give the same answer.
Benjamin Netanyahu, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, August 23, 2015
The Magician's Apprentice Actually, the play is over. An agreement signed by the entire world cannot be made to disappear with a puff from Bibi. It will be there, even if the US Congress does vote against it and overrides the presidential veto. The world is tired of Netanyahu's whims.
Shimon Peres, From WikimediaPhotos
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, October 7, 2016
The Triumph of Sisyphus There was the paradox: the hundreds of eulogists, including the dozens who came from abroad, spoke in order to praise the Man of Peace, but the entire event was a propaganda triumph for the Netanyahu government, the government of occupation. All of them ignored the real elephant standing in the middle of the room: the occupation.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, June 19, 2011
Deny! Deny! Herzl himself did not dream of a state that belongs to all the Jews in the world. his vision was that all real Jews would go to the Judenstaat (whether in Argentina or Palestine, he had not yet decided). They -- and only they -- would thenceforth remain "Jews." All the others would become assimilated in their host nations and cease altogether to be Jews.
Siege of Gaza: A Humanitarian Disaster, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 7, 2015
Divide et Impera The Palestinian people, torn apart and rent by mutual hatreds, are far removed from an effectual struggle for freedom and independence. But this is a temporary situation. In the end, this situation will explode. The Palestine population, growing day by day (or night by night) will come together again and restart the struggle for liberation. Like every other people on earth, they will fight for their freedom.
Mass Media Brainwashing, Mind Control, From YouTubeVideos
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Are YOU Brainwashed? Leaders are busy destroying the courts, stuffing the parliaments with useful idiots and -- especially -- turning the media into brainwashing instruments. In our country, too. How is this done? It's quite simple, really: one has to suppress all other voices. One has to make sure that the citizen hears only one voice. One that repeats a few messages over and over, endlessly. This way the lie becomes truth.
Israel and Palestine: Can a Two State Solution Work?, From YouTubeVideos
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 29, 2017
A Tale of Two Stories NOT a day of quiet in this country, a state without borders and without a constitution, where every story has two totally different sides, where nice and quiet people suddenly become raging martyrs. There will be no quiet until there is peace, with each of the two peoples living in their own state, a situation where real friendship has a chance of blooming.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 24, 2012
The Ghetto Within From day to day, Israel becomes more Jewish and less Israeli. As has been said, it is easier to get the Jews out of the ghetto than to get the ghetto out of the Jews. Especially in a permanent war. So in the end we come to the same conclusion as in all other matters: Peace is the Answer.
Ayelet shaked, head of the 'Israel Sheli' movement, From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 20, 2013
Angel Face Ayelet Shaked may be the beauty queen of the present Knesset. But she is the instigator of some of the most outrageous right-wing initiatives in this Knesset. She is also the chairwoman of Naftali Bennett's Jewish Home faction, the nationalist-religious party of the settlers, the most radical rightist party of the current government coalition.
Benjamin Netanyahu United Nations speech., From ImagesAttr
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, October 4, 2014
Two Speeches Why does Netanyahu repeat misrepresentations (to use a mild word) from the UN rostrum? Because he was not speaking to the diplomats. He was speaking to the most primitive voters in Israel, who are proud to have such a fluent English-speaking representative to address the world. And anyway, who cares what the Goyim think?
Terrorists, From FlickrPhotos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, March 20, 2016
My Terrorist, Your Terrorist Terrorists do not achieve their goals owing to the magnitude of their deeds but rather by their psychological effect. The killing of a hundred may be forgotten the next day, the killing of one may be remembered for centuries. Modern terrorists -- real terrorists -- lay bombs in markets, shoot at random civilians, run over people. Hezbollah does none of these.
Bibi Netanyahu Blames Holocaust on Palestinians, From YouTubeVideos
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, October 30, 2015
Adolf, Amin and Bibi Until now, many strange actions and utterances by Binyamin Netanyahu have been seen as the manipulations of a clever politician, a talented demagogue who knows the soul of his constituents and supplies them with ample lies. Not anymore. A troubling suspicion is getting around: that our prime minister has serious mental problems. Is he losing his marbles?
Protest demonstration against the killings of peaceful unarmed Gazans by Israel, From FlickrPhotos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, April 15, 2018
Eyeless in Gaza I, Uri Avnery, soldier number 44410 of the Israel army, hereby dissociate myself from the army sharpshooters who murder unarmed demonstrators along the Gaza Strip, and from their commanders, who give them the orders, up to the commander in chief. We don't belong to the same army, or to the same state. We hardly belong to the same human race.
Donald Trump's speech at the AIPAC Conference March 21, 2016, From YouTubeVideos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 25, 2016
If there were such a thing as political terrorism, AIPAC would take the crown Anyone running for office needs heaps of money. Looking for money is now the main job of an American politician. In today's America, almost every politician can be bought. Literally. So can entire party organizations. The sums are not even very impressive. AIPAC has pushed this corruption to a climax. If there were such a thing as political terrorism, AIPAC would take the crown.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, September 16, 2017
Despair of Despair I respect BDS and all their activists who are sincerely striving to liberate the Palestinians and make peace between them and us. The effort being made now in the US to enact a law forbidding their activity looks to me both ridiculous and anti-democratic.
Bibi Shows Cartoon of Mass Destruction to UN (and just who is launching those rockets, anyway?), From FlickrPhotos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, October 28, 2017
Pickled Cucumbers According to Netanyahu, all those were conspiring to bring him down in an anti-democratic plot, a putsch by police investigators and criminal prosecutors. The frequent leaks from these investigations, which have been widely published in the media, were -- according to Netanyahu -- all part of the plot.
Palestine Israel history, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 27, 2014
My Glorious Brothers children learn nothing at all about the history of the Arabs, Islam and the Koran. Islam, for them is a primitive, murderous religion, bent on killing Jews. The great political change we need must be accompanied by a profound change of our historical outlook. The heroes of antiquity are perhaps due for another revision of their status.
Shimon Peres, From FlickrPhotos
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 23, 2016
The Saga of Sisyphus After Rabin's death, Peres became temporary Prime Minister. If he had called immediate elections, he would have won by a landslide. But Peres did not want to ride on the dead man's coattails. He waited for a few months, during which he conducted an ill-advised war in Lebanon. In the end he lost the elections to Binyamin Netanyahu.
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, August 20, 2017
The Egg of Columbus I tried to set up a group of young Jews, Muslims and Druze to propagate the setting up of a Palestinian state next to the new State of Israel. This initiative led nowhere. In 1954, when some Palestinians in the West Bank revolted against their Jordanian masters, I published a call for the Israeli government to support the creation of a Palestinian state. It was ignored.
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, March 20, 2011
A Dirty Word Centuries ago, it was accepted that every nation is responsible for the capture and trial of pirates, irrespective of where and against whom their crimes were committed. This principle should be applied now to crimes committed by regimes against their citizens. Muammar Qaddafi should be caught and put on trial.
Netanyahu Rejects Iran Nuke Deal Before Reading It, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 17, 2015
The Treaty Almost all political parties fell in line with Netanyahu's policy, competing with each other in their demonstrations of abject loyalty. Everybody rushed to support the Prime Minister at this crucial hour. One of Netanyahu's arguments is that the Iranians can and will cheat the naive Americans and build the bomb. He is sure that this is possible. Well, he should know. We did it, didn't we?
Major Republican Donor, Sheldon Adelson, From ImagesAttr
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, April 5, 2014
The Monster on the Hill If Adelson succeeds in installing his favorite in the White House, the US will become totally subservient to the extreme right-wing in Israel. He might as well put Netanyahu in the Oval Office. THERE IS no way to roll back the corruption of the political process in the US -- or here -- without completely changing the electoral system. As long as huge sums are needed to get elected, corruption will reign supreme.
Panorama of Jerusalem, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, November 21, 2014
The Unholy City In its long and checkered history, Jerusalem has been occupied by dozens of conquerors. The latest occupier is Israel, which conquered and annexed Jerusalem in 1967. Walking the streets of Jerusalem, the city which is "joined together," has become a risky adventure. Many stay at home.The Unholy City is more divided than ever before.
From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 3, 2012
The Greatest Show on Earth The Olympic Games are a good example for global democracy. All the nations are represented, all have equal rights, and, most important -- all abide by the same rules. In principle, each champion has the same chance of winning a gold medal as anyone else; belonging to this or that big or small nation does not matter.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, November 25, 2006
An Evening in Jounieh The one way Israel can win a war in Lebanon. DURING THE first Lebanon war, I visited Jounieh, a town some 20 km north of Beirut. At the time, it served as a port for the Christian forces. It was an exciting evening. In spite of the war raging in nearby Beirut, Jounieh was full of life. The Christian elite spent the day in the sun-drenched marina, the women lounging in bikinis, the men slugging whisky...
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, June 27, 2017
The Four-Letter Word When each of the two peoples understands that the other side is not a bloodthirsty monster, but acts from natural motives, it will discover many positive points in the culture of the other side. Personal contacts will be established, perhaps even friendships.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 17, 2012
Binyamin Netanyahu: Mad or Crazy? Ehud Barak has announced that no more than a measly 500 Israelis will be killed by enemy missiles. I do not aspire to the honor of being one of them, though I live quite near the Ministry of Defense. But the military confrontation between Israel and Iran is only a part of the picture, and not the most important one. Far more important is the impact on the world economy, already steeped in a profound crisis.
From flickr.com/photos/22007612@N05/24949307320/: Donald Trump, From Images
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, November 13, 2016
Oh My God -- Trump! WE DO not really know who Trump is, and what he will do during the next four years. We know only the Trump of the elections: a nasty person, a megalomaniac, a liar, an ignoramus. Some would add: a proto-fascist. Trumpism is the outcry of the great masses of Americans who are economically dislocated, spiritually disoriented, generally miserable, full of hate, distrust and despair.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 25, 2010
"The Darkness to Expel!" The situation here is now moving in the opposite direction: the country is embracing the racist demon. After millennia as the victims of racism, it seems as if Jews here are happy to be able to do unto others what has been done to them. It is impossible to ignore the central role played by rabbis in this filthy mess. They ride the wave and assert that this is the spirit of Judaism. They quote the holy texts at length.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, December 19, 2010
Ship of Fools 2 The sky is the limit for our achievements. In several rounds we have thrown Barack Obama on the boards. The frantic scurrying around of Hillary Clinton and George Mitchel is simply pathetic. The settlement construction, which has not really stopped for a moment, is gathering even more momentum. The Israeli government rules Washington DC more firmly than ever.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, December 11, 2011
The Fearmongers Faced with such petrifying danger, nobody asks the relevant question: why would any Iranian leader attack a country that has plenty of nuclear bombs of its own and the ability to devastate all of Iran in a "second strike"? Let's overcome our fear of fear itself. And, while we are at it, let's kick the fearmongers out.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 11, 2011
A Brown-haired Young Man Instead of countering the protesters with effective non-lethal means, Israeli soldiers kill people. This will, of course, intensify the protests, mobilize masses of refugees and put the "refugee problem" squarely on the table, in the center of the table, before negotiations have even started.
President-elect Donald Trump -- Caricature, From WikimediaPhotos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, November 18, 2016
The President Elect We are in for four years of uncertainty. Faced with a problem he knows nothing about, he will act according to his mood of the moment. He will take advice from nobody, and nobody will know in advance what will be his decision. Trump is no Hitler. He is no Mussolini. Nor even a Franco. He is a Trump. And that may be bad enough. May be. So do up your safety belt and hold on tight for the roller-coaster ride.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, October 18, 2013
The Descenders Jewish Israelis are already a minority in the country ruled by Israel, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan. The majority of subjects deprived of all rights is growing by the year. Oppression will necessarily grow. The image of Israel throughout the world will get worse. Pride in Israel will fade. Young Jewish Americans are no longer proud of Israel. Some of them are ashamed.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, April 8, 2010
"Hold Me Back!" Whatever the rantings of Ahmadinejad, the real rulers of the country, the clerics, conduct a cautious and sober policy, and have never attacked another country. They have many important interests, and Israel is not among them. The idea that they would sacrifice their own glorious homeland in order to destroy Israel is ludicrous.
Secretary of State John Kerry says it's premature to write off Mideast peace talks, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, April 12, 2014
In One Word: Poof! There is no equality between occupier and occupied, oppressor and oppressed. A jailer and a prisoner cannot negotiate on equal terms. When one side has total command of the other, controls his every move, settles on his land, controls his money flow, arrests people at will, blocks his access to the UN and the International courts, equality is out of the question.
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 12, 2011
Dichter's Law It is impossible to describe the sheer energy emanating from this crowd, consisting mostly of 20-30-year-olds. History, like a gigantic eagle, could be felt beating its wings above. It was a jubilant mass, conscious of its immense power.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, October 9, 2010
Bibi; His Father's Boy Netanyahu will never agree to be responsible for the establishment of the State of Palestine, will never conduct serious peace negotiations -- unless under extreme duress. That is all there is to it, everything else is hollow talk.
Elor Azaria -- Killing a wounded enemy is moral?, From YouTubeVideos
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 17, 2017
The Most Moral Army Armies are immoral by their very nature. Armies are there to make war, and war is basically immoral. One might wonder how war has survived all these millennia. Humanity has made enormous progress in all fields of endeavor, yet war has endured. It seems that it is too deeply entrenched in human nature and human society.
Bezalel Smotrich, From YouTubeVideos
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 22, 2017
Thank you, Smotrich A Zionist poet once wrote that we will not become a normal nation until we have Jewish criminals and Jewish whores. Thank God we now have plenty of both. And now, with Bezalel Smotrich, we also have at least one bona fide Jewish fascist
Avi Gabbay, From WikimediaPhotos
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, October 23, 2017
A New Start Avi Gabbay has no visible qualities of political leadership. No charisma at all. No special energy. No enthusiasm himself and no ability to inspire enthusiasm in others. We need new leaders, young, charismatic and resolute, with clear-cut aims, who can energize the peace camp. WHAT WE NEED is a new start.
Bibi Shows Cartoon of Mass Destruction to UN, From GoogleImages
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, July 15, 2018
"Not Enough!" Binyamin Netanyahu, King of Israel and would-be Emperor of the Jewish people, has signed a joint statement with the Polish government that clears, in effect, the Polish people from all responsibility for the Holocaust. It condemns anti-Semitism and anti-Polishism in the same breath.
Israel-Palestine, From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 8, 2014
Metro Gaza Israel's current paranoia concerns Hamas. The assumption is that Hamas is an evil jihadist terrorist organization, bent on the annihilation of Israel. As one journalist put it this week: "a gang of psychopaths." The entire policy of Israel is based on this assumption. So was the war. This demonic picture has no connection with the real world.
From youtube.com: Benjamin Netanyahu, From Images
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, February 25, 2018
Go in Peace! If I want to remove Netanyahu from the government, and as soon as possible, it is not because of any personal feelings. I just believe that he is a disaster for Israel. Many dream of a completely new party, a union of all liberal, progressive, peace-loving elements, with a new, young leadership, which would completely change the landscape. But there is no sign of it yet.
Benjamin Netanyahu, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 25, 2015
The Ministry of Fear Netanyahu has a good voice and a real talent for television, but that is all. He is shallow, he has no world vision and no real vision for Israel, his historical knowledge is negligible. But he has one real talent: fear-mongering. In this he has no equal. There is hardly any major speech by Netanyahu, in Israel or abroad, without at least one mention of the Holocaust.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, December 9, 2012
Cold Revenge If I were Binyamin Netanyahu, I would not worry about Abbas, Ahmadinejad, Obama, Morsi and the combined opposition in the Knesset. All I would worry about would be Lieberman, somewhere behind my back. I would worry very, very much. Every minute, every second.
From commons.wikimedia.org: Israel Palestine one-state binational flag, From Images
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 3, 2017
The Cannons of Napoleon All intelligent Israelis realize by now that we are facing a fateful choice: either two states, or an apartheid state, or a single Arab-majority state. Most Israelis want none of these. Anyone who wants to lead Israel must come up with a Solution. So this is Herzog's Solution. It is designed solely for Jewish-Israeli eyes. Arabs need not apply.
Jews Symbol Star Judaism, From GoogleImages
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 22, 2018
Two Souls The Arab populations of Palestine and the "Middle East" realized too late that their very existence was in danger. When they started to resist, Zionism built up modern military forces. Very soon, they became by far the most efficient military machine in the region, and the only local nuclear power.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, November 18, 2011
Weimar Revisited -- It Can Happen HERE ISRAELI DEMOCRACY is under siege. No one can ignore this anymore. It is the main topic in the Knesset, which is leading the attack, and the media, who are among the victims.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 26, 2011
Who is annexing Whom? But the law is not only anti-democratic and discriminatory, it is also blatantly annexationist. By a simple semantic trick, in less than a sentence, the lawmakers do what successive Israeli governments did not dare to do: they annex the Palestinian occupied territories to Israel.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 22, 2012
Our Muslim Brothers If we want Israel to exist and flourish in a region that will for a long time be governed by democratically elected Islamist parties, we would do well to welcome them now as brothers, congratulate them on their victories and work for peace and conciliation with elected Islamists in Egypt and the other Arab states, including Palestine.
Ahed al-Tamimi, From GoogleImages
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, April 7, 2018
A Song is Born THE MOMENT I saw the scene of Ahed al-Tamimi boxing the face of an Israeli army captain, I knew that something important had happened. The Palestinian people now have a national heroine. The Palestinian youth now has a model to emulate. The Palestinian Jeanne d'Arc, the national symbol.
Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin was an Israeli politician, statesman and general., From YouTubeVideos
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 16, 2018
The Siamese Twins I met Rabin for the first time at the swimming pool. I was chatting with Ezer Weizmann, the commander of the Air Force, who had angered Ben-Gurion with his highly offensive jokes. Rabin appeared, clad like us in a bathing suit. He ignored me and turned straight to Ezer: "Don't you have enough troubles already without speaking in public with Uri Avnery?"
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, September 23, 2012
A Message from Romnyahu The possibility that these two peoples could live peacefully side-by-side in two states, each with its own flag and its own elected government (and its own soccer team), does exist. I hope that this is not too complicated for Mitt Romney to understand. But this may become irrelevant if -- as I fervently hope -- he is not elected.
Terrorism victims, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 14, 2015
Jewish Terrorists The Kahanists and the other fascist groups in today's Israel are far more dangerous than most people believe. This is not a handful of wild weeds as we are led to believe. This is a national cancer that can spread quickly in our national body. Jews and Arabs must receive the same treatment.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, January 20, 2017
Being There Trump will be the entertainer-president. The question is: do we really want the most powerful man in the world to be an entertainer? Or an overblown egomaniac? Or a totally self-absorbed narcissist? A man who knows nothing and believes that he can solve everything? This is a dangerous world. From today on, it will be a lot more dangerous.
Levi Eshkol served as the third Prime Minister of Israel from 1963 until his death from a heart attack in 1969., From YouTubeVideos
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 27, 2018
The Real Victor Drucker portrays Eshkol as a nice and bumbling politician, a weak person who happened to be in office when the most fateful war broke out with results that have shaped our destiny to this very day. Little Israel became a regional power, with large occupied territories north, east and west. Israel's present situation was shaped almost by accident.
Shas isn't yet a lost cause. That's the conclusion the party's supporters came to after Sunday night's memorial in Jerusalem, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, January 12, 2015
Half of Shas SHAS IS the party of oriental orthodox Jewish Israelis. It is debatable whether it is foremost orthodox or foremost oriental. I believe that the oriental part of its outlook is far more important. Orientals are now about half the Jewish population of Israel. The rift between them and the Jews of European origin, which was expected to disappear over time, is growing.
From ImagesAttr
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, January 26, 2014
Nothing New Under the Sun ISRAEL IS re-Judaizing itself at a rapid pace. The Jewish religion is making a huge comeback. Very soon, religious children of various communities will be the majority in Israeli Jewish schools. As the French say: "The more things change, the more they stay the same."
Prince William's historic visit to Israel, From YouTubeVideos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, July 1, 2018
Princely Visits WHILE THE British prince was touring the country, Jared Kushner, the Jewish son-in-law of President Trump, was also touring the country. He was accompanied by Jason Greenblatt, another Jewish emissary from Trump. This holy pair, who make no secret of their utter contempt for the Palestinians, is supposed to make peace.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, August 13, 2016
The Future belongs to the Optimists The two-state solution is not ideal, but real. It means that each of the two peoples can live in a state it calls its own, under its own flag, with its own elections, parliament and government, police and education system, its own Olympic team.
Ehud Barak, From GoogleImages
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 25, 2016
The Second Coming? Former Chief of Staff, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak in a new format. Aggressive. Outspoken. Damning Binyamin Netanyahu in no uncertain terms. Repeating almost word for word my warning that Netanyahu has lost his senses. Saying that Netanyahu "has gone off the rails," and that there are now "signs of fascism" in Israel.
From gma.yahoo.com/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-running-neck-neck-poll-121333990--abc-news-topstories.html: Donald Trump, From Images
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, November 4, 2016
The Lesser of Two Evils The winner will be the PLE -- the Party of Lesser Evil. Or, in this case, the Candidate of Lesser Evil. People will not vote FOR somebody, but AGAINST somebody. Against the greater evil. This is a world-wide phenomenon. In almost all democratic countries, the Lesser Evil wins.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, November 26, 2011
A Day in November -- A Day to Remember THE 1947 partition plan was an exceptionally intelligent document. Its details are obsolete now, but its basic idea is as relevant today as it was 64 years ago. On the 64th anniversary of this historic event, we must go back to its basic principle: Israel and Palestine, Two States for Two Peoples.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, September 17, 2011
Sad and Happy Three days ago, Binyamin Netanyahu told Cathy Ashton, the pathetic "foreign secretary" of the European Union, that he would agree to anything short of Palestinian statehood. That may sound strange, in view of the "historic" speech he made less than two years ago, in which he expressed his support for the Two-State Solution. (Perhaps he was thinking of the State of Israel and the State of the Settlers.)
French anti-Semitism, From GoogleImages
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 16, 2016
Welcome! Bienvenue! What is happening now is the continuation of that Algerian conflict on French soil. The hatred that once ruled the streets of Algiers and Oran is being fought out in the streets of Paris and Marseilles. Tragic? Indeed. Sad? Certainly. Anti-Semitism -- not at all. It has nothing to do with this old European scourge.
Ariel Sharon photographed in 2005 shortly before his stroke., From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 18, 2014
The Imperator Ariel Sharon believed that destiny had chosen him to lead Israel. He did not think so -- he knew. For him, his personal career and the fate of Israel were one and the same. Therefore, anyone who tried to block him was a traitor to Israel. He despised everyone around him -- from Begin down to the last politician and general.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, August 20, 2011
The Return of the Generals The youngsters in the tents joked that "Bibi" could not change his opinions, because he has none. But that is a mistake -- he does indeed have very definite opinions on both the national and the social levels: "the whole of Eretz Israel" on the one, and Reagan-Thatcher economic orthodoxy on the other.
Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, October 2, 2015
Nasser and I Instead of the Arab world led by a charismatic leader, who gave the Arab masses everywhere a sense of dignity and renewal, we are now facing an enemy which glorifies public beheading and wants to bring back the seventh century. I blame Israeli and American political blindness and sheer stupidity for this dangerous development. I hope we still have enough time for it to be reversed.
Henry Kissinger, From WikimediaPhotos
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, October 15, 2016
The Kissinger Story Golda Meir promised Kissinger that any talks about peace must be held under American auspices. The Yom Kippur war cost many thousands of lives, Israeli, Egyptian and Syrian. Kissinger achieved his goal. The Soviets lost the Arab world to the United States. Until Vladimir Putin came along.
Working for peace in Palestine-Israel, From GoogleImages
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 11, 2017
Perhaps the Messiah will Come Donald Trump, the comedian-in-chief of the US, some time ago gave his answer to the question about the solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Two-states, one-state, whatever the two sides agree on, he answered. He could just as well have answered: "Two-states, one-state, three-states, four-states, take your pick!" And, if you live in la-la-land, there is no limit to the number of states. Ten states is as good as one.
From ImagesAttr
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, November 30, 2012
The Strong and the Sweet What has happened is that the foundation of the State of Palestine has now been officially acknowledged as the aim of the world community. The "Two-State solution" is now the only solution on the table. The "One-State solution," if it ever lived, is as dead as the dodo.
Flag of Israel - Subliminal Zionist Message, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, November 30, 2014
The Son of my Eyes Benayoun's poetic masterpiece of sheer, undiluted hatred reflects the mood of a large part of Israeli Jews at this point in time. The latest events in Jerusalem have created a climate in which racist hatred can raise its ugly head without shame. THE CENTER of racism is the government itself. It is completely dominated by the most extreme Right -- indeed, there is nothing to the right of it.
From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, November 30, 2013
The Debacle THE GREATEST danger to Israel is not the putative Iranian nuclear bomb. The greatest danger is the stupidity of our leaders. A great many of the world's leaders are plain stupid, and always have been. But lately, Binyamin Netanyahu and almost the entire Israeli political establishment have achieved a new record in foolishness. Sitting on a very high branch, they are diligently sawing through it.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 16, 2012
Manhunt Our treatment of the African refugees and migrants has nothing to do with the old conflict with the Arabs. It cannot be justified with arguments that concern the war and national security. This is Racism, pure and simple.
Ehud Barak, From YouTubeVideos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 6, 2018
A Very Intelligent Person There is no doubt that Barak stands out. He is far better qualified than any other Israeli politician. If a new young leader does not emerge from nowhere, Barak is the only person who could take Netanyahu on. But one feels in the air a palpable hesitation. He has no following. People admire him, but do not love him. He does not inspire trust, as Rabin did.
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, August 27, 2011
To The Shores of Tripoli I have this irrational abhorrence of bloody dictators, of genocidal mass-murderers, of leaders who wage war on their own people. And at my advanced age, it is difficult for me to change.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, October 8, 2011
The More Enemies, The More Honor There is no national debate, only a vague desire to keep everything. Rightist Zionists want to hold onto all of historical Palestine, leftist Zionists want to hold on to as much of it as possible. That's as far as the thinking goes.
State of Israel, From YouTubeVideos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, May 13, 2016
A Document with a Mission The writers of the declaration had obviously read the American Declaration of Independence before drafting their own. They copied the general outline. It is not written in the edifying style of an historical document, but as a document with a mission: to convince the nations of the world to recognize our state.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, February 18, 2017
How did it Start? Every serious debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict raises the question: "When did it start?" Each side has its own date, proving that the other side started it.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 15, 2011
The Crown and the Coals The present crisis started with the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, the Sunni Prime Minister, whose place was filled by his son, Saad al-Din Rafiq al-Hariri. An international investigation was set in motion. To forestall the report, Hezbollah and its allies this week brought down the coalition government.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 30, 2011
Shukran, Israel IF ISLAMIST movements come to power all over the region, they should express their debt of gratitude to their bête noire, Israel. Without the active or passive help of successive Israeli governments, they may not have been able to realize their dreams.
Thousands mourn slain wife, baby of Hamas's military chief Mohammed Deif., From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, August 23, 2014
Son of Death Netanyahu needs to end the war. He also needs a clear image of victory. But how to achieve this? The Egyptian dictator tries to help. So does Barack Obama, though he is furious with Netanyahu and hates his guts. But as of now, the man who has the final decision is the Son of Death, Mohammed Deif, if he is alive and kicking. If he is alive, the assassination of his wife and baby may not have made him gentler and more peaceable.
Immigrants Arriving at Israel's Haifa Port, From FlickrPhotos
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 22, 2016
The Great Rift Almost no one paid attention to the huge change in the demographic composition of the Jewish people caused by the Holocaust. Before, Oriental Jews were a small minority among the Jews. After, they were a larger part by far. This was bound to change their consciousness. THE TRAGEDY of present-day Israel is not that there are so many divisions, but that they all converge in one large rift.
Ilegal Settlement, From FlickrPhotos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, January 6, 2017
Yes, We Can More people in Israel and around the world have been saying that the "Two-State Solution" is dead. Finito. Kaput. The settlers have finally killed it. Peace is finished. There is nothing we can do about it. We can only sit in our comfortable armchair in front of the TV set, sigh deeply, sip our drink and say to ourselves: "The settlements are irreversible!"
From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, January 18, 2013
Who To Vote For? A non-vote is a vote for Binyamin Netanyahu and his allies, pure and simple. As it looks now, more than half the members of the 19th Knesset will belong to the extreme right and beyond, at least a dozen of them honest to goodness fascists. Not to vote means to strengthen them even more.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, November 10, 2013
The Judaization of Israel The Israeli government now demands, as a condition for making peace, that the Palestinians officially recognize this formula -- "Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish People." If they refuse, it means that they are resolved to annihilate us, like Hitler, and therefore we won't make peace with them.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, July 22, 2018
The March of Folly The real policy is to make life in Gaza so miserable, that the Gazans themselves will rise and throw the Hamas authorities out. With this in mind, the water supply is reduced to two hours a day, electricity the same. Employment hovers around 50%, wages beneath the minimum. It is a picture of total misery.
Israeli blockade of Gaza, From WikimediaPhotos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, February 3, 2017
Respect the Green Line! Binyamin Netanyahu -- some now call him Trumpyahu -- is all for enlarging the settlements. This week, under pressure from our Supreme Court, he staged the removal of one tiny little settlement, Amona, with a lot of heartbreak and tears, but immediately promised to put up many thousands of new "housing units" in the occupied territories.
I voted, From FlickrPhotos
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 10, 2016
The Call of the Nation A DARK wave is submerging democracies all over the Western world. The far-far-right is making gains almost everywhere and threatens to get voted into power. Moderate Presidents and Prime Ministers resign or get kicked out. With the notable exception of Germany and Austria, which seem to have learned their lesson, fascism and populism are gaining ground all around.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, July 22, 2013
A Gift from Europe The European decision says that no Israeli institution or corporation which has any direct or indirect connection with Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem or the Golan Heights will receive any contract, grant, prize or suchlike from the EU or any member state. To assure compliance, every contract between Israelis and the EU will contain a paragraph stating that the settlements are not part of Israel.
From ImagesAttr
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, August 12, 2012
Bloody Spring Great Power politics do influence what's happening in Syria, as they do everything else in the world. But the character and actions of Bashar, following those of his father, leave nothing to doubt. He is a monster butchering his people, and must be removed as quickly as possible, preferably under UN leadership.
Israeli Arabs: Is Israel an Apartheid state?, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, October 25, 2014
Muhammad, Where Are You? "Israeli Arabs" are an integral part of the Palestinian people. Almost every Israeli Arab citizen has relatives in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip or both, as well as in the refugee camps. When actual fighting is going on, as in the recent Gaza war, their hearts are with the other side, the "enemy." At this moment, several young Israeli Arab citizens are fighting with ISIS, after crossing into Syria through Turkey.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 2, 2013
Two-State Solution -- Civil War? Any government interested in making peace will have to grapple with the settlers. The hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews now living in the new neighborhoods there do not think of themselves as settlers at all, they have forgotten all about the Green Line. Indeed, they are quite surprised when reminded of it. They could not dream of ever acquiring anything similar in Israel proper.
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, April 17, 2011
The Settler State If it is true that the US Congress is controlled by the Israel lobby, then this lobby is controlled by the Israeli government, which is controlled by the settlers. (Like the joke about the dictator who said: The world is afraid of our country, the country is afraid of me, I am afraid of my wife, my wife is afraid of a mouse. So who rules the world?)
From twitter.com/ask_netanyahu: Benjamin Netanyahu, From Images
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 16, 2016
Remember Naboth All this is now "government land," on which Israelis can settle freely according to Israeli law. No need to add that all this is totally illegal under international law, which categorically forbids the "occupying power" from moving its citizens into the occupied territory.
Netanyahu BDS Quote, From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, June 15, 2015
BDS, the New Enemy True, until now Israel has suffered no real damage. BDS is more about gestures than about real economic weapons. But who is counting? The legions of anti-Semites are on the march. Who will save us? Bibi the Great, of course! The fatherland is in danger. National unity is the order of the day. "Opposition Leader" Yitzhak Herzog is rushing forward to support Netanyahu, as are almost all other parties.
Israel Arab binational, From WikimediaPhotos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 9, 2016
Fear of Assimilation What is happening is the retreat of the new Israeli nation which we created in the 30s, 40s and 50s of the last century, into a new edition of the Jewish ghetto -- an armed ghetto, a nuclear ghetto, but a ghetto nonetheless. In such a society, "assimilation" is indeed seen as a mortal danger. There is still time to turn the wheel around and save the state we built. But for how long?
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, October 20, 2012
The Man with the Uzi I didn't quite understand the bitter quarrel about the Benghazi incident. Perhaps you need an American mind to grasp it. My primitive Israeli head just doesn't get it. The idea that any country can protect its hundreds of embassies and consulates around the world against all possible types of attack is childish. Especially if you cut their security budget.
Obama's Strong Words For Netanyahu's Palestine Comments, From YouTubeVideos
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 11, 2016
Just a Trick Slowly, very slowly, Israel's international horizon is darkening. Small things are happening every day all around the world. A resolution here, a boycott there, a condemnation, a demonstration. The Israel that was universally admired disappeared long ago.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 25, 2017
The National Riddle Control of all the media is the dream of every democratic ruler. (Dictators don't dream about it, they have it.) Netanyahu already has absolute control over Israel's largest daily newspaper -- a paper distributed for free. This is a gift from one of his most ardent admirers -- the US Casino Mogul Sheldon Adelson.
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 23, 2011
The Duke of Nablus THE NAME of Munib al-Masri has recently come up as a possible candidate for Prime Minister of a Palestinian national unity government. Not being a member of either Fatah or Hamas, he is acceptable to both. Al-Masri himself denies any such ambition. He says that he is too old (77), and that a younger generation of Palestinians should take over.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Federation? Why Not? The more trust between the parties develops, the easier it will be to deepen the partnership and to widen the powers of the joint institutions. Perhaps, at this stage, conditions may be ripe for the founding of a wider association of the entire region, on the lines of the European Union.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 25, 2011
Sacred Mantras The Palestinians must be condemned for their impertinent effort to resort to "unilateral" action. Binyamin Netanyahu says so. Barack Obama says so. Hillary Clinton says so. Angela Merkel says so. It has become a mantra. One more mantra. It might have been thought that the Israeli-Palestinian arena is so full of mantras, that there is no room for more. But there always is.
Israeli Airstrikes in Syria kills a top Iranian General and 5 other Iranian troops with 6 Hezbollah Militants on the Syrian Israeli Border., From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, January 23, 2015
Galant's Gallant Act The killing of the Iranian general was perhaps unintended. Seems that Israeli intelligence did not know that he, and five other Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers, were in the convoy. An Israeli army officer admitted this in a roundabout way. A second officer denied the statement of the first. He did not apologize, of course. One cannot apologize when one does not officially admit to being the perpetrator.
Netanyahu explains the challenge of Palestinian peace talk preconditions., From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 3, 2014
A Shameful Chapter The American peace initiative has ground to a halt. It was doomed to failure before it even started. There was not the slightest chance of its bearing fruit. It ended, not by Abbas joining international bodies, not by Palestinian reconciliation, but by the refusal of Netanyahu to fulfill a solemn and unequivocal undertaking: to release certain Palestinian prisoners on a certain date.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 28, 2013
Kerry and Chutzpah At the moment, poor Kerry is trying to put something together that would satisfy the wolf while keeping the lamb alive. Give Abbas American assurances without Israeli assurances, for example. IN ALL this bickering, one basic fact is ignored. It's that elephant again. The elephant in the room, whose existence Netanyahu denies and which Kerry is trying to ignore. The occupation.
Ukraine Crisis: Russia Launches Missiles, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 22, 2014
A Hundred Years Later he main point is that the people of the Crimea were not consulted. There was no referendum. The majority of the population is Russian, and undoubtedly wishes now to return to Russia. It expressed this wish in a referendum that, on the whole, seems to be quite authentic. So the annexation may be justified.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 13, 2013
A Good War You prepare a war meticulously. You have a perfect plan. Future generals will study it in their academies. But once you make the first move, everything goes awry. Because the other side has a mind of its own and does not behave the way you expect. This is why the only good war is a war avoided.
Funeral of Shimon Peres, From WikimediaPhotos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, October 23, 2016
The Funeral Ruckus As long as David Ben-Gurion was in power, assisted by Shimon Peres, our protests came to naught. Only when both were kicked out by their own party was the military government abolished. The Shin Bet (secret internal security service), by the way, advocated abolition -- arguing that it did more harm than good, that the service could do its job better without it.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, October 3, 2009
A Story of Betrayal Gilad Shalit is a prisoner of war. The denial started at the first moment. The Israeli government refused to call the capture by its proper name and insisted that it was an “abduction” or even “kidnapping.”
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, February 12, 2011
Tsunami in Egypt Mubarak's pathetic speech on Thursday was the straw that broke the back of the Egyptian camel. It showed that he had lost contact with reality or, worse, was mentally deranged. But even an unbalanced dictator would not have made such an atrocious speech had he not believed that America was still on his side.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 3, 2011
The King's Speech At some time, when international conditions are opportune -- some huge international disaster that rivets attention to some other part of the world, a big war, or such -- the government will drive out the non-Jewish population. Where to? Geography dictates the answer: to Jordan. Or, rather, to the future State of Palestine in what was once Jordan.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, January 10, 2014
Bibi & Libie Kerry and his Zionist advisors already identify with the Israeli demand for recognition as a Jewish State or, worse, the State of the Jewish People (who were not even consulted). The Palestinian side is unable to accept this. If the negotiations come to naught on this point, Netanyahu will have achieved his real aim: to abort the negotiations in a way that will enable him to blame the Palestinians.
Israeli-Palestinian violence, From YouTubeVideos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, October 24, 2015
Weep, Beloved Country The barbaric treatment of wounded Palestinian assailants by an excited mob can somehow be understood -- not excused, not condoned, but at least understood. We have a conflict that has already lasted more than 130 years, on both sides several generations have been brought up in mutual hatred.
E Pluribus Unum - From Many, One, From FlickrPhotos
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 26, 2015
Imagined Nations A people and a nation are two different concepts. A nation state is a territorial entity belonging to its citizens. It cannot belong to the members of a world-wide community, who belong to different nations, serve in different armies, shed their blood for different causes.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, July 10, 2011
Instilled Memory Binyamin Netanyahu has affirmed our unshakable determination to defend our country: We shall not let anyone break the blockade to smuggle rockets to the terrorists in Gaza, who will then launch them to kill our innocent children. This is a kind of record even for Netanyahu -- not a single word is true.
Member of Knesset Miri Regev, From YouTubeVideos
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, October 28, 2016
The Israeli Trumpess Here come Donald Trump who tries to rip apart the delicate ties that bind American society together. He incites men against women, whites against blacks and hispanics, the rich against the destitute. He sows mutual hatred everywhere. Perhaps the American people will get rid of this plague and send Trump back where he came from. Perhaps Trump will disappear like a bad dream, as did McCarthy and his spiritual forefathers.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 2, 2013
The Third Intifada? The more people on both sides talk about the Third Intifada, the less it is likely to happen. As the Germans used to say, Revolutions foretold are not going to happen. But if there is no end to the occupation in sight, the Third Intifada will break out one day, quite suddenly, when nobody has been talking about it, when everybody on both sides was thinking about other things.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 7, 2012
Poisoning Arafat The rumors distributed by the Israeli propaganda machine that Arafat had AIDS were blatant lies. They were a continuation of the rumors spread by the same machine that he was gay -- all part of the relentless demonization of the Palestinian leader, which went on daily for decades. When there is no obvious cause of death, there must be a less obvious one.
From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, April 13, 2013
"Around Us the Storm is Raging" The only real dangers facing Israel come from within. Mad policies, the continued occupation, the permanent war, the encroachment of fundamentalist religion--these are the real causes for worry. Israel is strong, and because it is strong it can take risks, make peace with the Palestinian people and the entire Arab and Muslim world.
From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, November 2, 2013
90 Years from Now THIS is my optimistic vision: Israel, the nation-state of the Israeli people, closely aligned with the nation-state of the Palestinian people, will be a member of a regional Union that will include the Arab states and hopefully Turkey and Iran, as a proud member of the United States of the World. A democratic, liberal and secular state where your descendants will be proud to proclaim: "I am an Israeli!"
Ehud Olmert, From GoogleImages
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, January 1, 2016
A Bribery Case After a very long judicial battle, the final decision was made this week by the Supreme Court: Olmert was found guilty of one of the many bribery cases he was suspected of, and sent to prison. I never liked the man very much, neither politically nor personally. Yet I must confess that at this moment, I feel neither joy nor satisfaction. I rather pity him.
Yair Netanyahu, From GoogleImages
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, November 26, 2016
The Call of the Mu'ezzin The problem could be solved by mutual discussion and understanding. In all Arab towns and villages, people want to hear the call to prayer, even if many of them do not get up to go to the mosque. In neighborhoods with a non-Muslim population, the loudspeakers could be silenced by agreement, or their volume lowered. But prior to submitting the bill, there were no consultations at all.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, November 4, 2011
"Hold Me Back!" Iran is about to produce a nuclear bomb. We cannot allow this. So we shall bomb them to smithereens. Binyamin Netanyahu says so in every one of his countless speeches, including his opening speech at the winter session of the Knesset. Let's be serious for a moment. ISRAEL WILL not attack Iran. Period.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, February 19, 2011
The Genie is out of the Bottle The Arab Awakening is not a matter of months or a few years. It may well be a prolonged struggle, with many failures and defeats, but the genie will not return to the bottle. The images of the 18 days in Tahrir Square will be kept alive in the hearts of an entire new generation from Marakksh to Mosul, and any new dictatorship that emerges here or there will not be able to erase them.
Flag of Federal Republic of Israel-Palestine, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, March 30, 2014
Changing the Flag From the first day of the state, I have advocated the adoption of a new, inclusive flag. Like today's New Zealanders I felt that with all due respect to our origin, history and cultural background, we Israelis live in a different reality. A large number of our co-citizens are not Jewish, and the symbols of our state should reflect this.
Israeli Military Used Hannibal Procedure in Gaza War, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 12, 2014
Hannibal ad Portas The latest round of negotiations directed by John Kerry broke down because Netanyahu refused to free a number of prisoners he had already undertaken to release. Somewhere on the way, the Hannibal Procedure was instituted. THIS ORDER is based on the conviction that prisoner exchanges must be prevented by all means -- quite literally.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 17, 2014
Dear Salman Uri Avnery: When I was wounded in the 1948 war, I decided that it would be my life's mission to work for peace between our two peoples. Peace is made between consenting parties. There is absolutely no chance that the vast majority of Israelis would freely agree to the return of all the refugees and their descendents, who amount to six or seven million people -- the same number as Israel's Jewish citizens.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, November 3, 2012
Das System What did the Nazis mean when they spoke about "Das System"? Everything and nothing. Whatever their audience hated at any particular moment. The economy, which condemned millions to unemployment and destitution. The republic, which was responsible for economic policy. Democracy, which founded the republic.
Middle East political upheaval, From YouTubeVideos
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 28, 2016
The Center Doesn't Hold The world public has been watching with growing amazement the incredible ascent of Donald Trump. From day to day, the drama, which started as a comedy, becomes more frightening. What, for god's sake, has happened to this great nation? How can millions and millions flock to the banner of a loud-mouthed, vulgar, ignorant candidate, whose main -- and perhaps only -- asset is his distance from all political parties?
Arab Turmoil, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 5, 2014
The Watch on the Jordan The Kurds, a real nation, were cut up into four parts, each of which was allotted to a different country. In Palestine, a Zionist "national home" was planned in the middle of a hostile Arab population. The country beyond the Jordan was cut off to provide a principality for another Emir from Mecca. This is the world in which we grew up, and which is crumbling now.
Bibi Netanyahu, From TwitterPhotos
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 11, 2015
King Bibi The real danger of Netanyahu's reign is his total lack of an answer to Israel's main problem, its existential question: the 130-year war with the Palestinians, and by extension with the entire Arab and perhaps Muslim world. Bound by his father's ideology, he is unable even to contemplate giving up an inch of our holy fatherland.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 5, 2011
Wrong Side It was been leaked that Netanyahu is going to give a historic speech -- another one -- very soon. Not in the Knesset, whose importance is approaching nil, but in the really important forum: AIPAC, the Jewish lobby in Washington. There he will unfold his Peace Plan, whose details have also been leaked. A wonderful plan, with only one minor defect: it has nothing to do with peace.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, October 29, 2006
Who is Afraid of the Iranian Bomb? The nuclear genie is out of the bottle, and is spreading throughout the world.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, August 28, 2010
Red and Green Channel 10, one of Israel's three TV channels, aired a report this week that surely frightened a lot of viewers. Its title was "Who is Organizing the World-wide Hatred of Israel Movement?," and its subject: the dozens of groups in various countries which are conducting a vigorous propaganda campaign for the Palestinians and against Israel.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, September 29, 2013
The Real Bomb Rouhani is the very opposite of his predecessor. An Iranian who recognizes and condemns the Holocaust! An Iranian man who offers sweetness and light! An Iranian who wishes peace and friendship on all nations -- even hinting that Israel could be included, if only we give up the occupied Palestinian territories!
(9 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, February 10, 2012
Storm over Hebron Shortly after the occupation of the West Bank in the Six-day War, a group of fanatical messianic Jews infiltrated Hebron by stealth and founded the first Jewish settlement. This grew into a veritable nest of extremism, including some out-and-out fascists.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, October 27, 2012
Drought in Texas The concept of a presidential debate on foreign affairs is, of course, nonsensical. World affairs are far too complicated, the nuances far too subtle, to be dealt with in this rough way. It would be like performing a kidney operation with an ax. One could get the impression that the world is an American golf course, in which the US can knock the people around like balls.
Israel Army, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 13, 2014
A Coup? Nonsense! The Israeli education system is a factory for Zionist indoctrination, from kindergarten on. These 15 years, crowned by the three army years, produce a vast majority of narrow-minded, nationalist, ethnic-centered men and women. From there the professional military officer starts his career, however far it may go, taking his ideological baggage with him.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, April 28, 2013
The Russians Came The immigrants from the former Soviet Union--bundled together as "the Russians" in common parlance--have not mingled. They are a separate community, living in a self-made ghetto. They continue to speak Russian. They read Russian newspapers, all rabidly nationalist and racist. They vote for their own party, led by the Moldavian-born Evet (now Avigdor) Lieberman. They have practically no contact with other Israelis.
Israeli soldiers and Palestinian children, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 10, 2014
A National Hero For the first time in the history of Israel, and perhaps of the world, the internet is providing the basis for a rebellion of the soldiers against the army. This Israeli army is no worse than any other. It is a mirror of its society, composed of the humane and the sadists, the sane and the mentally disturbed, rightists and leftists, Ashkenazi and Oriental.
Israel Flag, From FlickrPhotos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 23, 2016
Extreme, Extremer, Extremest In Israel proper, the government belongs to the extreme Right, with some elements that would be called "fascist" anywhere else. The Center and Left are impotent. The only real political fight is between the radical Right and the even more radical extreme Right.
Benjamin Netanyahu, From YouTubeVideos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 3, 2016
The Day of the Rhinos Elor Azariya, the soldier who shot and killed a severely wounded Palestinian lying on the ground, is now standing trial in a military court for manslaughter. The army high command has been obdurate in face of rightist opposition. And lo and behold, who pushed his considerable bulk into the overcrowded courtroom? Avigdor Lieberman. He came to express his support for the soldier.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 27, 2012
Confession of an Optimist Pessimism leads nowhere. Pessimism relieves you of any urge to do something. If things are going to get worse anyhow, why bother? Pessimism is a comfortable attitude. It even allows you to be contemptuous of the optimists, who still struggle for a better world. Optimism is for simpletons.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 6, 2013
(Un)holy River HERE comes John Kerry again, for the umpteenth time (but who is counting?) to make peace between us and the Palestinians. It is a highly laudable effort. Unfortunately, it is based on a false premise. To wit: that the Israeli government wants peace based on the two-state solution.
From flickr.com/photos/40936370@N00/6915863535/: Benyamin Netanyahu, From Images
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, February 8, 2015
Over Bottled The idea that our Prime Minister may be drunk when fateful decisions have to be taken at once--ordering a military action, for example--is not very appealing. About the Netanyahus one could say now, in a more literal sense, that they are over-bottled. Those of us who feared that Netanyahu might provoke a war on the eve of the election, might say: better bottles than battles.
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, January 28, 2011
The Aljazeera Scandal THE ALJAZEERA disclosures are inopportune. Such delicate negotiations are better conducted in secret. The idea that "the people should be part of the negotiations" is naïve. The people should certainly be consulted, but not before a draft agreement lies on the table and they can decide whether they like the whole bundle or not.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 14, 2012
The Shining Torch I fervently hope that a different kind of new political force will emerge -- a center-left party with a clear and inclusive message: social reform, narrowing the gap between rich and poor, the two-state solution, peace with the Palestinians and the end of the occupation. The next few months will tell whether the Shining Torch will continue to shine -- and on what exactly.
From flickr.com/photos/47422005@N04/4672043824/: Benjamin Netanyahu, Argh!, From Images
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, November 7, 2015
The Cats of Ariel This week Netanyahu told the Israeli people: "We will forever eat the sword!" There will never be peace. It is not that Netanyahu loves war. He only knows that in order to achieve peace, we have to give back the occupied territories. Neither he nor the people surrounding him are ready to do so.
Ilana Dayan, Anchor of investigative news magazine UVDA, Channel 2, From YouTubeVideos
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, January 17, 2016
The Widening Gap A question concerns the disclosure that extreme right-wing organizations, financed by foreign (Jewish-American) donors, are conducting widespread secret espionage activities against Israeli activists. Israeli politics is becoming uglier by the day. The gap between left and right is turning into a gulf of hatred. bvcx
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 13, 2012
Gunter the Terrible Grass has done the unthinkable: he has openly criticized the State of Israel! And he's a German!!! The reaction was automatic. He was at once branded as an anti-Semite. Not just a run-of-the-mill anti-Semite, but as a crypto-Nazi, who could easily have served as a henchman of Adolf Eichmann!
Israel-Palestine Peace Talks Restarting Israeli and Palestinian peace talks are restarting --On the Bonus Show: World video game champs win 1.4 million dollars, Bottle lights, The science behind ..., From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 4, 2014
Neutral -- in whose favor? TO BE more than a mere fragile armistice, peace needs reconciliation. Reconciliation is impossible if either side is totally oblivious to the narrative of the other, their history, beliefs, perceptions, myths. John Kerry does not need 160 or 1,600 experts, neutral or otherwise. He needs one good psychologist. Or maybe two.
Anti-Semitism, From FlickrPhotos
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, May 9, 2016
Those Funny Anti-Semites One can be anti-Israeli. Why not? One can condemn the policy of successive Israeli governments. One can be anti-Zionist. Though one has to make clear what sort of Zionism one dislikes. But all that has nothing to do with real, honest-to-God, anti-Semitism.
From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Taking Apartheid Apart In our case, a large majority on each side wants to live in a state of their own. The idea of a unified country, in which Hebrew-speaking Jewish Israelis and Arabic-speaking Palestinians will live side-by-side as equals, serving in the same army and paying the same taxes does not appeal to them at all.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 5, 2013
A Human Spring Jewish fundamentalism is setting up settlements in the Occupied West Bank and threatening Israeli democracy. All over the Arab world and many other Muslim countries, Islamic fundamentalism raises its head, causing havoc. In the US, evangelical fundamentalism has created the Tea Party and is dragging the Republican Party to the extreme right, much against its own interest.
.Execution. claims as video shows shooting of wounded Palestinian, From YouTubeVideos
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, April 9, 2016
The Case of Soldier A THE MAIN point of this incident, which nobody dares to spell out, is that for the first time in the history of Israel we are witnessing a full-fledged mutiny. There is no other way to define it. A group of soldiers, supported by a major part of the political scene, has mutinied against their commanders. This is a major menace to the structure of the state, a challenge to what remains of our democracy.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 11, 2013
The Donkey of the Messiah The occupation has already created a de facto One State -- an evil state of oppression and brutality, in which half the population (or slightly less than half) deprives the other half of almost all rights -- human rights, economic rights and political rights. The Jewish settlements proliferate, and every day brings new stories of woe.
Ron Pundak., From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, April 19, 2014
An Oslo Criminal For more than 20 years now the Israel right-wing has relentlessly repeated the lie that the Oslo agreement was not only an act of treason, but also a total failure. Oslo is dead, we are told. It actually died at birth. And by extension, this will be the lot of every peace agreement in the future. A large part of the Israeli public has come to believe this.
Avigdor Feldman, From WikimediaPhotos
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 18, 2015
A Lonely Lawyer Killing prisoners, letting the wounded perish, destroying civilian property, collective punishments and such help no side. Such acts are not just immoral and ugly. They are also counterproductive. Atrocities create hatred, which creates more shahids. Dead prisoners cannot be interrogated and provide no information, which may be essential for forming new strategies and tactics. Cruelty is just another form of stupidity.
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, January 6, 2012
The Stolen War If Israel attacks alone,it will make no difference. Iran will consider it an American action, and close the strait. That's why the Obama administration put its foot down, and hand-delivered to Netanyahu and Ehud Barak an unequivocal order to abstain from any military action. That's where we are now. No war in Iran.
Pope Francis visits Jerusalem and Muslim leaders on the Temple Mount., From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, June 1, 2014
Patagonian Dreams Instead of entering the land through Israel, like everybody else, he borrowed a helicopter from King Abdallah II and flew directly from Amman to Bethlehem. This was a kind of recognition of Palestinian statehood. On his way back from Bethlehem to the helicopter, the Pope suddenly asked to stop, went up to the occupation Wall and laid his hands on its ugly concrete.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 1, 2011
Interim Forever! Netanyahu, of course, has no peace plan. His declared position is that the Palestinians must return to direct negotiations without prior conditions, but only after they officially recognize Israel as "the state of the Jewish people" (or, in another version, as a "Jewish and democratic state.") It is clear that the Palestinians cannot be expected to agree to any such prior condition.
Benjamin Netanyahu, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 7, 2014
Good for the Jews? I believe that Rabin really wanted peace. But he never quite accepted the idea which is the essential basis for peace: a Palestinian state next to Israel. If he had been able to continue along his path, he probably would have arrived there, but he was felled before he could.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 16, 2013
A new Guinness Record THE DAY the new settlement projects were announced, Netanyahu fired off to John Kerry a furious protest against the ongoing Palestinian "incitement" against Israel. This missive could interest the adjudicators of the Guinness record for Chutzpah.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, September 15, 2012
Protest in Ramallah Donor nations can give some money to the Palestinian Authority to keep it alive, but they cannot change the situation. Neither would the abolition of the Paris Protocol, as demanded by the demonstrators, change much. As long as the occupation is in place, any progress -- if there is any -- is conditional and temporary. The conflict here is a clash between an irresistible force and an immovable object.
Israel PM Netanyahu criticized for .excessive. spending, From YouTubeVideos
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 17, 2016
Petty Corruption I consider Binyamin Netanyahu as the grave-digger of our state, the man who sets the course towards catastrophe, the man who obstructs any chance for peace. Just this week Netanyahu proudly told his party colleagues that he will "never" agree to conduct negotiations based on the Arab 2002 peace initiative.
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, February 4, 2011
Villa in the Jungle? When Egypt moves, the Arab world follows. Whatever transpires in the immediate future in Egypt -- democracy or an army dictatorship -- it is only a matter of (a short) time before the dictators fall all over the Arab world, and the masses will shape a new reality, without the generals.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, May 27, 2012
A Bird's Eye View The Only Democracy in the Middle East may well be the only democracy in the world that forbids its citizens to remember a historical event. Forgetting is a national duty. Trouble is, it's hard to forget the history of the "Palestinian issue," because it dominates our life. 65 years after the foundation of Israel, half the news in our media concern this one issue, directly or indirectly.
Nelson Mandela, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 13, 2013
Self-Boycott In Israel, only one voice was openly raised against Mandela. Shlomo Avineri, a respected professor and former Director General of the Foreign Office, criticized him for having a "blind spot" -- for taking the Palestinian side against Israel. He also mentioned that another moral authority, Mahatma Gandhi, had the same "blind spot."
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 14, 2013
Triumph and Tragedy The vast majority of today's Israelis, anyone less than 60 years old, cannot even imagine an Israel without the occupied territories. On the 46th anniversary of that great drama, we can only wish that it had never happened, that it was all a bad dream.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 14, 2011
Rubber Man At that time Peres realized that peace, as an abstract idea, was good for him. He became the prophet of "the New Middle East," endlessly talking about it, doing nothing for it. When Yasser Arafat initiated what became the Oslo Agreement, Peres embraced it enthusiastically and claimed sole authorship.
What Does Israel Want When It Comes to Iran?, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 28, 2015
The Molten Three Netanyahu has practically staked his whole political career on the Iran bomb. He has declared many times that the very existence of Israel is involved. How could he allow the private considerations -- moral or otherwise -- of two ministers he probably does not respect very much to endanger the very existence of the nation?
Israeli Attack on Gaza, From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 26, 2014
Once And For All! Why don't the two sides come together without foreign interference and agree on tit for tat? They can't because they don't speak to each other. They can kill each other, but they cannot speak with each other. God forbid. THIS IS NOT a war on terror. The war itself is an act of terror. Neither side has a strategy other than terrorizing the civilian population of the other side.
Courage My Love, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Three Women Courageous actions committed by dedicated individuals are never useless. They stand as an example. They encourage others. They testify for the human conscience. They plant a seed. Just as the sea consists of many drops, historic changes are built up from many, many individual acts.
Flag of Israel Visit sites.fastspring.com/true3dflags/instant/isrealflaganimationasseenonyoutubesdstandarddefinition to purchase a higher quality version of this ..., From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 15, 2014
A Counter-Coalition In self-defense, the opposition parties have done something that is also unprecedented in Israel: they have declared a boycott of the Knesset plenum. Not a single opposition member attended the plenum during the debate on these bills and the vote on them. They set up an "alternative plenum," where they held a lively debate.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 16, 2011
It Can Happen Here! A small group of minor parliamentarians is terrorizing the Knesset majority and can pass any law at all. The power of the settlers is immense, and moderate right-wing members are rightly afraid that, if they are not radical enough, they will not be re-elected by the Likud Central Council, which selects the candidates for the party list.
President Reuven Rivlin, From YouTubeVideos
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, April 16, 2016
Squaring the Circle Neither side will be content with an "entity." Jewish Israelis will not give up the statehood of Israel, nor will the Palestinians be content with anything less than a "state." President Rivlin can play an important role in all of this. The President can show to normal, decent people on both sides: yes, the circle can be squared!
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, November 23, 2013
The Battle of the Titans As a sideshow, Kerry is going on with an effort to impose on Netanyahu a peace he does not want. Kerry has allotted nine months to the endeavor, but the chances of a baby emerging at the end of it are practically nil. During the first three months, the sides have not progressed a single step. So who will win? Obama or Netanyahu? Chomsky or Walt/Mearsheimer? As commentators say, Time Will Tell. In the meantime, place your bets.
From flickr.com/photos/51876490@N04/4774350130/: Mahmoud Abbas, From Images
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, October 9, 2015
Leader without Glory One of the main differences between Jewish Israelis and Arabs is their attitude towards time. Israelis are by nature impatient, Arabs are patient to a fault. Arabs admire the camel, an animal of infinite patience. The Arabs have a very long history, while the Israelis have almost none. In the long run, this is a battle of wills and endurance. As has been said, a battle between an unstoppable force and an unyielding mass.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 12, 2011
The Dwarfs After peace, with the free and sovereign State of Palestine becoming a full member of the UN, a reformed regional structure, including Israel, perhaps Turkey and, even Iran, will move into the realm of reality. It will not happen as long as our political and intellectual life is dominated by Netanyahu, Lieberman, Barak, Eli Yishai, Tzipi Livni, Shimon Peres and their ilk. The stage must be cleared of this whole crop of dwarfs.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, May 20, 2012
The New Protest Israel is heading towards an iceberg, bigger than those in the path of the Titanic. It is not hidden. All its parts are clearly visible from afar. Yet we are sailing straight towards it, full steam ahead. If we don't change course, the State of Israel will destroy itself.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 28, 2012
Hurrah for Egypt! A revolution reflects the character of its people. I always had a special liking for the Egyptian people, because they are -- by and large -- devoid of aggressiveness and violence. They are a singularly patient and humorous lot. You can see this in thousands of years of recorded history and you can see it in daily life in the street.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 12, 2013
The Grand Dilemma It's no longer a clear choice between black and white, but between different shades of grey, or, if that is possible, different shades of black. A civil war is raging. The misery of the population is indescribable. The number of dead terrifying. What will happen, if the government forces lose the battle and the rebels win?
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 29, 2011
One Word Netanyahu and his band of peace saboteurs want to prevent Palestinian unity at all costs. They do not want peace, because peace would prevent Israel from achieving the Zionist goals, as they conceive them: a Jewish state in all of historical Palestine, from the sea to the Jordan River (at least). The conflict is going to last for a long, long time to come, and the more divided the enemy, the better.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, February 20, 2013
"Equal Burden" -- A Disaster For The IDF Recruiting the Haredim would fill the ranks of the army with tens of thousands of soldiers who hate the army and all it stands for. These soldiers would invariably obey the orders of the Rabbis, and refuse to obey their commanding officers when these contradict the Rabbis' orders.
Settlement ravages hillside, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, October 16, 2015
The Settlers' Prussia The settlers are taking over the state. The process is already well advanced. The new police chief is a kippah-wearing former settler. So is the chief of the Secret Service. More and more of the army and police officers are settlers. In the government and in the Knesset, the settlers wield a huge influence.
BDS Protest, From FlickrPhotos
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 12, 2016
The Great BDS Debate There are some BDS adherents who utter statements with an unmistakable anti-Semitic smell. For an honest-to-goodness anti-Semite of the old school, BDS is nowadays a safe pulpit from which they can preach their odious gospel, under the guise of anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 8, 2013
"Ich bin ein Bil'iner!" In the course of the struggle, one of Emad's cameras after another was broken. He is now wielding camera No. 6. THIS IS a story of heroism, the heroic struggle of simple villagers for their lands and their country. Long after Limor Livnat will be forgotten, people will remember the Battle of Bil'in. President Barack Obama would be well advised to see this film before his forthcoming visit to Israel and Palestine.
The Middle East Problem, From YouTubeVideos
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 29, 2016
"Us" and "Them" This is not a dream or a forlorn hope. It is a simple political fact. Nothing good will come about in the country but on the basis of Jewish-Arab partnership. This partnership made the Oslo agreement possible. Without the Arab votes in the Knesset it would not have passed. Such a partnership is necessary for any step towards peace.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Hi, Joe! If a serious inquiry committee investigates the financing of the extreme right, it will discover that much of it comes straight from the pocket of the American taxpayer. That is one of the great scandals: the US government is financing many of the settlements. Mr. Binyamin Netanyahu, sir, have you no sense of decency left?
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 1, 2012
The Orthodox THE ORTHODOX (called in Hebrew "Haredim", the "fearful", those who fear God) are not part of the Israeli state. They don't want to be.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 5, 2013
Weird Elections What are we voting for? For higher taxes, surely. But taxes on whom? Will the rich pay more, or will the fabled "middle class" pay more? What will be cut--aid to the disabled, the sick, the old, the unemployed? What about the immense military budget? The settlements? It is obvious why no party wants to go into details--any serious proposal would cause it to lose votes. But we, the people--why do we let them get away with it?
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 22, 2013
When the Gods Laugh AT LONG last, the way was clear. Peres assumed the leadership of the party and ran for elections. The Labor Party was bound to win, as it always had before. But the Gods only laughed. After 44 years of continuous Labor Party dominance, in the Yishuv and the state, Peres managed to achieve the unthinkable: he lost.
Israel bombing Gaza., From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 18, 2014
Who is Winning? WHAT WILL be the end of it? There will be no end, just round after round, unless a political solution is adopted. This would mean: stop the rockets and the bombs, end the Israeli blockade, allow the people of Gaza to live a normal life, further Palestinian unity under a real unity government, conduct serious peace negotiations, MAKE PEACE.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 25, 2009
Mr. Obama: Yes, You Can! A historic responsibility rests on the shoulders of Barack Obama: not to fold, not to give in, not to "compromise". To insist on the total freeze of the settlements, as a first and necessary step towards peace. For his sake, and for ours too.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, February 28, 2014
Their Mothers, Their Fathers People who carelessly play with ultra-nationalist, fascist, racist, or other anti-democratic ideas don't realize that they are playing with fire. They cannot even imagine what it means to live in a country that tramples on human rights, that despises democracy, that oppresses another people, that demonizes minorities. The film shows what it is like: hell.
At the Supreme Court Feb 16, 2014, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, February 23, 2014
Captain Boycott Rides Again Will the court dare to strike out a law of the Knesset? That would demand real courage. I would not be surprised if the majority decide to leave the law as it is, but strike out the words concerning the settlements. Otherwise, it will be another step towards turning Israel into a state of the settlers, by the settlers and for the settlers.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, October 12, 2013
Ovadia's Choice Rabbi Ovadia was a towering figure in Israeli politics. Almost half of all Jewish Israeli citizens are of oriental origin. Until his appearance, this was an underprivileged class, remote from the centers of power, often humiliated, quite disunited. All attempts to turn them into a political force failed miserably. And then the rabbi came. He founded a powerful party that often served as the arbiter of Israeli politics.
Benjamin Netanyahu, From TwitterPhotos
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, February 27, 2016
Holy Water The Minister of Education wears, of course, a kippah. Six members of the prestigious Council for Higher Education have resigned because of the government's effort to stuff that august body with nationalist and religious agitators. I shall not be surprised if one evening I turn on the TV and -- lo and behold -- there is Binyamin Netanyahu's head adorned with a nice, neat kippah.
The Arab-Israeli Conflict -- a
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 25, 2014
Words, Words, Words Words convey ideas. Words implant concepts in the minds of their hearers and speakers. Once they are firmly established, everything else follows. In Israeli politics, the word "peace" has become poison. "Political settlement" is the vogue term. It is meant to say the same. But of course, it doesn't.
bibi, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, May 4, 2012
A Putsch Against War The current Chief of Staff and the Mossad and Shin Bet chiefs let it be known that they share the views of the two on Iran. Almost all their predecessors, including all the recent military Chiefs of Staff, told the media that they agree, too. Suddenly there was a united front of experienced security leaders against a war with Iran.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, February 9, 2014
Another Pipe Dream The settlers are religious and nationalist fanatics. The very purpose of their leaving comfortable homes in Israel and going to the desolate stony hills of "Judea and Samaria" was idealistic. It was to claim this area for Israel, fulfill their interpretation of God's commandment and make a Palestinian state forever impossible.
Remarks by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a special Knesset session commemorating the 14 years since the murder of MK Rehavam Ze'evi., From YouTubeVideos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 22, 2016
The Other Gandhi REHAVAM ZE'EVI was a child of his time. Even his nickname was typical: at a high school celebration he had appeared wrapped in a bedspread, which made him look like the adored Indian leader. The nickname stuck. Ze'evi, a man of violence par excellence, was, of course, the very opposite of Gandhi.
From flickr.com/photos/60532802@N07/5546445133/: God Despairs, From Images
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, February 21, 2016
When God Despairs Netanyahu was brought up in the US. He most surely has been taught there that democracy does not mean only the rule of the majority. Adolf Hitler was probably supported by the majority. Democracy means that the majority respects the rights of minorities. Including the right of free speech.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 31, 2012
Master of Mischief The most important sector of our foreign affairs concerns the relationship with the United States. Indeed, this is so important that Binyamin Netanyahu keeps it entirely to himself. Our ambassador in Washington reports to him personally, after being handpicked by Sheldon Adelson, the casino billionaire.
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, September 25, 2006
Pope Benedict XVI in the service of George W. Bush Muhammad's sword; There have been times when Emperors and Popes have been at peace, or have been antagonists. Now is a time when a wonderful harmony exists between George Bush, II and Pope Benedict XVI. Last week's speech by the Pope, which aroused a worldwide storm, went well with Bush's crusade against "Islamofascism", in the context of the "clash of civilizations". Here's a bit of history to pu the Pope's words in context.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 30, 2012
Daphni Rides Again A public opinion poll this week shows 69% of Jewish Israelis (Arabs were not asked) support the renewed protest, and 23% said violent protests may become necessary. Hours after publication, Netanyahu announced that the planned tax raise for the poor and the middle class had been dropped. This is blatantly against Netanyahu's basic convictions and shows how afraid of the protest he is.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 26, 2013
The Turkey Under the Table It seems that Kerry has the gift of inspiring such trust. Let's hope he does not squander it. So, with or without a turkey to keep the wolf from devouring the lamb, and in spite of all the past disappointments, let's hope that this time real negotiations get going and lead towards peace. The alternative is too dismal to contemplate.
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, January 23, 2011
The World is no Golem That is the writing on the wall. The present Israeli government is leading us towards disaster. But this week this government was shored-up even more, when Ehud Barak, the pocket Napoleon, finally abandoned all pretense of belonging to the social-democratic left and set up a clearly rightist party, something like Likud II, that will be a loyal partner of Netanyahu and Lieberman.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 21, 2012
The Blockbusters "ISRAEL HAS no foreign policy, only a domestic policy," Henry Kissinger once remarked. This has probably been more or less true of every country since the advent of democracy. Yet in Israel, this seems even truer. (Ironically, it could almost be said that the US has no foreign policy, only an Israeli domestic policy.)
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 5, 2013
In Their Shoes Diplomats can string together hollow phrases to conjure up the illusion of progress. That is one of their main talents. But after a historic conflict lasting some 130 years, no progress towards peace between the two peoples can be real, if there is no equal respect for their national history, rights, feelings and aspirations.
Middle-East Peace Talks FAIL, From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 24, 2014
In Their Own Juice When one says that "both" did not behave as expected, that "both" did not make the "necessary hard decisions" that "both" should stew in their own juice, one consciously or unconsciously assumes that they are equal. Nothing is further from the truth. Israel is immeasurably stronger than Palestine in every material respect. One resembles a sleek American skyscraper, the other a dilapidated wooden shack.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, August 29, 2011
To The Shores of Tripoli Though the Bible tells us 'Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth' (Proverbs 24:17), I could not help myself. I was happy.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 3, 2012
The Laughing Beast Here we are today, facing a tin-pot dictator in a little country, who is slaughtering his own people, and still unable to stop it. THIS GOES far beyond the terrible events in Syria. The helplessness of the world community, euphemistically called "the family of nations," to do anything in such a situation cries out to high heaven.
From commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Haneen_Zouabi,19_Feb._2012.jpg: Haneen Zouabi, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, February 12, 2016
A Lady With A Smile what is the job of an Arab MK? To upset the Jews? Or to narrow the gap and convince Israelis that Israeli-Palestinian peace is both possible and worthwhile. I am afraid that Zuabi's smile does not help with the second aim. IF ANYTHING, this affair has reinforced the arguments for the Two State. Let each of the two states have a parliament of its own, where they can commit all the stupidities they want.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Filling the Black Hole We have no presidential debates. No Israeli prime minister would be so foolish as to agree to them. In the US debates, when a challenger faces the incumbent, he gets a big prize right at the beginning. Until that moment, he is a mere politician, far away from the White House. Suddenly he is raised to the status of a potential president, who looks and sounds presidential. Netanyahu would never agree to that.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 18, 2013
Women of the Wall Under state doctrine, Israel is the Nation-state of the Jewish people. Under Zionist doctrine, the Jewish people and the Jewish religion are one and the same. Israelis are a nation, and the State of Israel belongs to this nation. Every citizen, male or female, should be able to pray to whoever he or she wants, in any public place, including the Western Wall.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, April 23, 2011
Tahrir Square, Tel Aviv A movement that appears out of nowhere, a movement that carries the future in its womb, cannot speak the language of yesterday. It must bring with it a new language -- a new terminology, new slogans. Such a language is not born in a public relations agency. Those who copy the language of their predecessors are condemned to continue on the path of their predecessors.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, October 28, 2008
King of the Planet THE PRESIDENT of the United States is the king of this planet. I live on this planet. Therefore, the election of the President concerns me, too.
Kidnapped Israeli boys, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 27, 2014
An Armed Ghetto The best way to prevent hostage-taking is to release prisoners voluntarily. Even the Security Service cannot seriously maintain that all the many thousands of political prisoners now in our prisons constitute a mortal danger to our existence. An even better way forward is to end the occupation by making peace.
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 22, 2008
TWO AMERICAS; Israeli lefty peacenik Uri Avnery on Obama I spent some years struggling against Golda Meir, the worst Prime Minister Israel ever had. Almost all recent female leaders of countries have started wars: Margaret Thatcher started the Falklands War, Golda Meir bears the responsibility for the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, Indira Gandhi made war on Pakistan, the current presidents of the Philippines and Sri Lanka are conducting internal wars.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Peace and Watermelons An American Imposed Peace has haunted Israel for decades. In advance of the coming visit of Obama to Israel next month, it is raising its weary head once more. At the beginning of his second term, Obama will shed the hesitations, fears and incompetence that marked his first. AIPAC will not be able to terrorize him anymore. A new, strong and resolute Obama will emerge and knock all the heads together.
President Shimon Peres, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, June 22, 2014
Sisyphus Redeemed IF THERE is a God, he surely has a sense of humor. The career of Shimon Peres, who is about to finish his term as President of Israel, is clear evidence. Here is a life-long politician, who has never won an election. Here is the world-renowned Man of Peace, who has started several wars and never done anything for peace.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, October 4, 2013
Killjoy Was Here Does Netanyahu see himself as the reincarnation of Winston Churchill, standing proud and undaunted against a continent engulfed by the Nazis? And where does that leave Barack Obama? WE KNOW where Netanyahu and his followers constantly remind us. Obama is the modern Neville Chamberlain. Chamberlain the Appeaser. The man who flourished a piece of paper in the fall of 1938 and proclaimed "Peace in Our Time."
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 1, 2013
The False Torch Taxes on the rich will remain minimal. Multinationals and other big companies will pay almost no taxes at all. Services for the poor will be cut. But the brunt of the burden will be borne by the middle class indirectly -- value-added and other taxes will raise Israel's already very high cost-of-living even higher.
SeaScapes, From YouTubeVideos
SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, December 8, 2015
Seashore Thoughts The dream of a unified, homogeneous new Hebrew nation is long dead. Israel is now a very heterogeneous country, rather like a federation of separate "sectors," who don't like each other very much: Ashkenazis, Orientals, National-religious, Orthodox, "Russians" and Arabs, with many subdivisions. The one bond that unites most of these sectors is the army, in which all of them (except the orthodox and the Arabs) serve together.
From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 25, 2013
The State of Whom? As long as the world consists of nation-states, we shall have our own. And by the same logic, the Palestinian people will have one, too. Our state cannot be a nation-state of a non-existent nation. Israel must and will be the nation-state of the Israeli nation, belonging to all Israeli citizens living in Israel, Arabs and other non-Jews included. And to nobody else.
(9 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 16, 2007
Crocodile Tears for Gaza In the eyes of Hamas, the attack on the Fatah strongholds in the Gaza Strip is a preventive war. How could the American and Israeli generals miscalculate so badly? They are able to think only in strictly military terms: so-and-so many soldiers, so-and-so many machine guns. But in interior struggles in particular, quantitative calculations are secondary. The morale of the fighters and public sentiment are far more important.
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, October 16, 2011
The Second Herzl It is far more than a matter of politics, to substitute one party for another. It is even far more than making peace with the Palestinian people, ending the occupation, evacuating the settlements. It is to effect a basic change of the national consciousness, the consciousness of every Israeli man and woman. Can it be done? I think so. I certainly hope so.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, August 11, 2013
A Federation -- Why Not? The occupation is a bleeding wound, and it has to be healed in the framework of peace before everything else. There can be no meaningful talk about federation between oppressor and oppressed. Federation presumes partners of equal status, if not of equal strength. egotiations between the State of Israel and the State of Palestine concerning a federation must be free of pressure, conducted in good faith between equals.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, August 2, 2006
The Knife in the Back THE DAY after this new mideast war will be the Day of the Long Knives. Everybody will blame everybody else. The politicians will blame each other. The generals will blame each other. The politicians will blame the generals. And, most of all, the generals will blame the politicians.
Pied Piper Benjamin Netanyahu, From FlickrPhotos
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 30, 2016
The Pied Piper of Zion Binyamin Netanyahu is our pied piper. Enchanted by his melodies, the people of Israel are marching behind him towards the river. The Israeli Peace Camp is in despair. No savior is in sight. Many just sit in front of their TV sets and wring their hands. Who is right: those who believe that only the fight inside Israel can save us, or those who put their trust entirely in outside pressure?
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 15, 2013
To the Victor, the Spoils ONE of Lapid's main election promises was to put an end to the Old Politics, held responsible for all the ills and ugliness of our political life until now. Instead, he said, there will be the New Politics, an age of shining honesty and transparency, embodied by selfless and patriotic leaders, such as the members of his new party. Not for nothing did he call his party There Is A Future.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, September 4, 2006
When Napoleon Won at Waterloo Napoleon won the battle of Waterloo. The German Wehrmacht won World War II. The United States won in Vietnam, and the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Zealots won against the Romans, and Ehud Olmert won the Second Lebanon War. You didn't know that?
Zionism, From FlickrPhotos
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, April 3, 2016
Under the Lime Trees Tiny Israel is considered a military giant, a technological power, a stable democracy (at least for its Jewish citizens). Enemies like the BDS movement are mere irritations. So what's bad? The masses of the Arab peoples everywhere are far too emotionally involved with the plight of the Palestinians to tolerate official connections between their rulers and Israel.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, January 24, 2013
A Move to the Center The dire predictions of the pessimists were scattered to the winds. Israel has not gone crazy. It has not moved to the right. The fascists have not taken over the Knesset. Binyamin Netanyahu has not been strengthened. Far from it. Israel has moved to the center. The great loser of the election is Binyamin Netanyahu.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 29, 2012
A Person Called Nobody Bennett accuses Netanyahu of supporting the Two-State Solution (which nobody in Israel and the world believes) and Netanyahu attacks Bennett for announcing that he, as a soldier -- a major in the reserves -- would disobey an order to "remove a Jew from his home" The "home" in question being, of course, a settlement on Palestinian land.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, October 22, 2011
Everybody's Son How to thwart the efforts to capture more soldiers? There is only one alternative: to open a credible way to have them released by agreement. Such as by peace, if you can excuse the expression.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, October 17, 2007
The Clash of Civilizations; Mother of All Pretexts When I hear mention of the "Clash of Civilizations" I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. To laugh, because it is such a silly notion. To cry, because it is liable to cause untold disasters. To cry even more, because our leaders are exploiting this slogan as a pretext for sabotaging any possibility of an Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation. It is just one more in a long line of pretexts.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, February 8, 2013
Knesset Conundrums -- Can Two Walk Together? If Obama is serious this time, it could be different. An American or international blueprint for the realization of the two-state solution, with a strict timetable. Perhaps an international conference, for starters. A UN resolution without an American veto. If this happens, the new Knesset with all the fresh, young faces will be called upon to hold a real debate and take fateful decisions.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, February 18, 2012
Thou Shalt Not Kill (Thyself) The people of Israel -- the Israeli nation -- have the will to survive. But in order to survive, they must wake up from their apathetic stupor and change course -- turning towards peace based on the two-state solution, separating the state from religion and building a new social order.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 4, 2013
No, We Can't! Kerry will elicit some more words from the Arabs. Some more promises from Netanyahu. There may even be a festive opening of a new round of negotiations, a great victory for President Obama and Kerry. But nothing will change. Negotiations will just drag on. And on. And on. For the same reason that there has been no movement in the past, there will be no movement in the future.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 14, 2012
The Sea and the River In its long recorded history, going back many thousands of years, this country -- whether Canaan, Palestine or Eretz Israel -- has seen many waves of invaders who came to settle here. There is no escape from the simple truth that there will be two states between the river and the sea -- as well as between the sea and the river. Unless we want the whole country -- sea to river, river to sea -- to become one vast graveyard.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, August 13, 2006
What the hell has happened to the Israeli army? Defeat can be a great blessing for an army. Even a strong army cannot defeat a guerilla organization, because the guerilla is a political phenomenon. Our conflict - in the North, the Center and the South - is a political conflict, and can only be resolved by political means.
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, September 5, 2010
On the Way to Washington: Damage Control Can one rely on Obama? They say that after the elections in November he will be free of Jewish pressure. But then he will already start to think about the presidential election in two years' time. Only if he is reelected -" and I am not at all sure that this will happen -" will he be able to act without fear of AIPAC.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, May 13, 2012
Operetta in 5 Acts American party politicians may sound irresponsible, but when vital US security interests are at stake, their talk is not reflected in action. Even at the height of an election campaign, America will not allow Israel to push it into a world-wide disaster. Netanyahu sounds more like a man resigned to this reality. No war in sight. During the whole operetta, Iran was hardly mentioned. No smoking gun in the first act.
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 9, 2011
Daphne and Itzik Israel is becoming more and more isolated. Just before stepping down, the US Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, warned that Netanyahu is "endangering Israel." The Palestinian application to the UN for recognition of the State of Palestine may lead to a severe crisis; the conflict with Turkey is becoming more dangerous by the day; in Egypt and other awakening Arab countries, anti-Israeli sentiments are reaching new heights.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 23, 2013
The Speech that was Not Delivered This text was written on Wednesday, a day before President Obama made his historic speech in Jerusalem. It appears that my text came much closer to his actual speech than I had dared to hope. Some passages are almost identical. Readers may want to compare the texts, to see what he left out.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, April 21, 2007
The Bed of Sodom Relations between the [Israeli] settlers and the Palestinians are in many ways reminiscent of apartheid; and even in Israel proper, the Arab citizens are far from real equality.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 10, 2012
A Jewish Soul Arabs quite rightly feel rejected and respond with alienation from the state. Their leaders, vying for votes, become more extreme, while the Israeli right-wing parties become more anti-Arab. In a paradoxical way, Israeli Arabs are becoming more Israeli even as they become more anti-Israeli. A ticking time bomb which will explode unless a real effort is made to allow an honest Arab citizen to feel like a real Israeli citizen.
Ban Ki-moon, From WikimediaPhotos
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, February 7, 2016
Optimism of the Will Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the UN, the highest international official, a kind of World Prime Minister, has dared to criticize the Israeli government, as well as the Palestinian Authority, for sabotaging the peace process, and thereby making Israeli-Palestinian peace almost impossible. He emphasized that there is a world-wide consensus about the "Two-state Solution" being the only possible one.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, September 7, 2013
Oslo Revisited Reality since Oslo has not changed. The considerations which led Arafat by the end of 1973 to conclude that he must negotiate with Israel, and which led Rabin in 1993 to talk with the Palestinians, have not changed. There are two nations in this country, and they must choose: to live together or to die together. I hope they choose life.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, October 16, 2006
The Great Experiment How can a population that is starving, that lacks the basics for its primitive hospitals and is bombarded by attacks on land, from sea and from the air, hold out?
Musician Pete Seeger sings Amazing Grace during a concert celebrating his 90th birthday in New York May 3, 2009., From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, January 31, 2014
Return, Return oh Shulamit Two days before Pete passed away, we buried Shulamit Aloni. Shula, as we called her, was one of the few leaders of the Israeli Left who made a lasting imprint on Israeli society. She was a teacher and lawyer, famous for defending citizen's rights in the press and on radio. Even the Right acknowledges her contribution to Israel.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 29, 2010
A Day in November AIPAC is blackmailing Obama and, until now, it has been successful. It will go on doing so after November. Obama should face up to the idea and decide: this is it -- no more. Will he have the courage to do so? I don't know. I hope.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, January 11, 2013
Welcome, Chuck The appointment of Hagel may come as a relief to Netanyahu. After years of depicting the Iranian nuclear bomb as the end of the world, or at least of Israel, the bomb is mysteriously absent from Netanyahu's election campaign. Hagel's appointment may allow Netanyahu to climb down from this tree altogether.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 19, 2013
In Praise of Emotion To give an impetus to a real peace movement, you have to imbue it with the spirit of empathy for the other side. You must have a feeling for their humanity, their culture, their narrative, their aspirations, their fears, their hopes. And that applies, of course, to both sides. Fraternization between Palestinians and Israelis is a must. No peace movement can succeed without it.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, August 19, 2006
The 155th Victim WITH A few words, a Lebanese army officer destroyed, the day before yesterday, the illusion that Israel had achieved anything in this war.
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, January 27, 2011
Gush on Disclosures Release of the Palestine Papers revealed many side issues, but the one -- the only -- critical issue is who actually has a partner for peace.
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, September 28, 2006
A Leadership Vacuum and the Threat of Fascism Calls in Israel for a more US-style government, with a President with a four year term, who cannot be voted out by Parlaiment are based on a feeling of defeat, a climate of distrust and are really a disguised call for an all-powerful leader. Vigilance is necessary to prevent fascism.
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, February 24, 2012
Adnan's Victory When he was arrested last December, Khaled Adnan demanded to be put on trial or released. When neither happened, he declared a hunger strike. A hunger strike is the ultimate form of non-violence. Ghandhi used it frequently, relying on its moral impact. Khaled Adnan's achievement is exactly that: a shining victory for non-violence.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, October 5, 2006
Peace with Syria - Lunch in Damascus Once while, traveling in a taxi, I had an argument with the driver--a profession associated in Israel with extreme right-wing views. I tried in vain to convince him of the desirability of peace with the Arabs. In our country, which has never seen a single day of peace in the last hundred years, peace can seem like something out of science fiction.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, February 7, 2013
Woe to the Victor LAPID WON 19 seats. His is the second largest faction in the 120-seat Knesset, after Likud-Beitenu, which has 31 seats. The composition of the House is such that it is almost impossible for Binyamin Netanyahu to form a coalition without him. He can impose on the Prime Minister almost any policy. That's where his troubles start.
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, October 28, 2011
A View From the Villa THE OBAMA administration was clever enough to jump on the bandwagon of the Arab revolutions, though at the very last moment. We Israelis did not have this sense. Our Islamophobia has caused us to miss a golden opportunity for a new image among the young Arab revolutionaries.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, February 17, 2013
The Zuabis The growing bitterness of the Arab citizens is driving the Arab members to more and more extreme positions and strident utterances, while the Jewish right-wing politicians become more and more extreme in their anti-Arab racism. Thus the gulf between the two camps in the Knesset is getting wider, not narrower. Hanin, however, is widely hated on her own account. She has a knack of getting under the skin of Jewish Israelis.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 13, 2007
Murder in Broad Daylight; Manara Square, Ramallah As always, the place was teeming with people. Manara Square is the heart of Ramallah, full of life, both walking and driving. When people realized what was going on, they started to throw stones at the soldiers. These responded by shooting wildly in all directions. Four bystanders were killed, more than 30 wounded.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, August 26, 2006
America's Rottweiler IN HIS latest speech, which infuriated so many people, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad uttered a sentence that deserves attention: "Every new Arab generation hates Israel more than the previous one." Of all that has been said about the Second Lebanon War, these are perhaps the most important words.
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, July 22, 2007
A Trap for Fools; Cowboy Philosophy in the Middle East George Bush, who grew up on the American Western, Good Guy-Bad Guy myth, sticks to it even now, when he is the leader of the world's only superpower. In this western - or, rather, middle eastern - The good Guys are the "moderates", who are the allies of the US in the Middle East - Israel, Mahmoud Abbas and the pro-American Arab regimes. The bad ones are Hamas, Hizbullah, Iran, Syria and al-Qaeda.
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, August 1, 2006
A Nice Little War Gets Out of Hand It is the old story about the losing gambler: he cannot stop. He continues to play, in order to win his losses back. He continues to lose and continues to gamble, until he has lost everything: his ranch, his wife, his shirt. The same thing happens in the biggest gamble of all: war. The leaders that start a war and get stuck in the mud are compelled to fight their way ever deeper into the mud.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, September 16, 2006
Help! Peacemongers! GUESS WHOSE words these are: "Starting this war was a scandal...It was possible to solve the problem of the missiles in South Lebanon by diplomatic means...The offensive of the last two days of the war, in which 33 soldiers were killed after the cease-fire resolution had already been accepted, was a spin of the Prime Minister...The Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense and the Chief-of-Staff must resign..."
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, July 2, 2007
The Dirty Word Never Said: Occupation THERE NEVER was a darker Middle East summit meeting. The darkest there can be.
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 16, 2012
All Quiet on the Southern Front Netanyahu prides himself on his huge success in America, indeed in the entire world: The Palestinian issue has been completely wiped off the map. And here he sets in motion another round of fighting that reminds people everywhere that the Palestinian issue is alive and kicking, and that it may explode at any moment. Does that make sense even from the point of view of a Netanyahu or a Barak?
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, August 9, 2006
Who? Me? This war is being fought on the backs of the weak, who cannot afford to "evacuate themselves" from the rockets' area. The rich and well-to-do have got out long ago - in Israel as well as in Lebanon. The poor, the old, the sick and the handicapped remain in the shelters. They are the main sufferers.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, August 15, 2006
For Middle East, Try Something Else

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