Media

American Jews Americans for Peace Now Israel Israeli settlements Palestinians

How extremist Israeli settlers celebrate the harvest festival

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 […]

American foreign policy Barack Obama Benjamin Netanyahu Israel Israeli occupation

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 […]

Arab-Israeli conflict Fatah Hamas Israel Mahmoud Abbas

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 […]

Ameinu American Jews Americans for Peace Now Israel Israeli settlements J Street

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 […]

American Jews Israel Israeli occupation Israeli settlements J Street Palestinians Zionism

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. […]

AIPAC American Jews Arab-Israeli conflict Dan Fleshler Front Page Israel J Street Noah Pollak Palestinians

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 […]

anti-Zionism Egypt Far left Israel MondoWeiss Tahrir Square

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 […]

Arab-Israeli conflict Begin Egypt Israel Mubarak Palestinians Sadat

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 […]