Sukkot, the Jewish holiday that marks the fall harvest festival and also commemorates 40 years of wandering by ancient Jews in the desert, commences at sundown on Wednesday. Jews throughout the world are building their local Sukkah, a temporary shelter that usually takes the form of a tent. So how are extremist Israeli Jewish settlers […]
Author: Dan Fleshler
Defiant dreamers of Arab-Jewish co-existence
Is it remotely possible to close the gaps between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel? 62% of Palestinian Arabs living in Israel believe that Israeli Jews “are foreigners who do not fit in this region, and they will eventually leave the country,†according to a recently released poll by Haifa University’s Jewish-Arab Center. A similar […]
Two mayors, two communities, two peoples
If you are in New York City on Tuesday evening, June 14th, this event, “Two Mayors, Two Communities, Two Peoples: Building Bridges in the Middle East” is worth checking out. It is at Ansche Chesed, 251 West 100th Street, at 7:30 PM. Nazia Masrawa is the mayor of the Arab Israeli town of Kfar Qara. […]
Obama’s gutsy, principled Middle East speech
Everyone agrees President Obama made a gutsy political call when he ordered the Navy Seals team to take out Osama bin Laden. There would have been a fierce backlash if the mission had failed. But he’s not getting credit for demonstrating even more political courage by calling for an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement based on Israel’s […]
On the Hamas-Fatah pact, which “experts” should we believe?
JJ Goldberg reported, via Israel’s Channel 10, that Prime Minister Netanyahu “has instructed his cabinet ministers to stick to a single message regarding the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation agreement [announced last week and signed today in Cairo]…The message: “there is no possible positive component in the reconciliation agreement.†That’s right: Cabinet ministers are forbidden even to speculate […]
Thank you for putting J Street on trial
Last Wednesday, a Knesset Committee met in order to determine whether J Street had the right to call itself “pro-Israel.” The Knesset Member who called for the hearing, Otneil Schneller, told the Forward that “being pro-Israel can only mean defending the policy and conduct of the elected government, whatever one’s personal opinions.” Therefore, J Street […]
When pro-Israel American Jews say, “This is wrong!”
More than 2,000 American Jews attended the national J Street conference last weekend in DC, determined to do something to change the discourse within the Jewish community and affect American policy. I’ve waited a week to write about this because I wanted to gauge others’ reactions and sort out what I experienced at the conference. […]
Why the Jewish right is terrified by J Street’s conference
J Street, the political arm of the American Jewish pro-Israel, pro-peace movement, will convene its second national conference on Saturday night. There will be an enormous turnout. An organizer told me that about 2100 people are pre-registered (at their last conference, only 850 people were pre-registered but 1500 people showed up). There will be about […]
Chilling video from Tahrir Square…and chilling rationalizations
Check out the video posted below, from Tahrir Square yesterday. They are chanting “To Jerusalem we are heading, martyrs in the millions.” Then check out the responses to the same video from the gang at Mondo Weiss. A coterie of commentators who think of themselves as proponents of human rights and universal values fall over […]
Mubarak and the alternate universe of Israel’s vicious critics
Events in Egypt have reinforced my sense of living in a different universe than the one inhabited by Israel’s most vicious critics (let’s call them IMVCs) in the blogosphere. Oh, we have a few things in common. Like them, I am inspired by the Egyptian crowds demanding the overthrow of a tyrant. Like them, I […]