Category Archive for 'Uncategorized'

An Opportunity?

Sunday, September 24th, 2006

The Arab Peace Initiative, the Palestinian National Unity government, Europe’s readiness to intervene – Don’t they all add up to something? The war in Lebanon – whether victory or defeat – has created a number of considerable opportunities in the region, opportunities to which, it appears, Israel is not tending to pay much attention. Favorable […]

A House Divided: Two Zionisms

Thursday, August 31st, 2006

Outside Israel it is generally assumed that there is a consensus about what Zionism is. On this view the religious settlers are only an extreme version of the same Zionism, since settlers have added a religious ingredient to it. The assumption is, however, fundamentally misguided. Mainstream Zionism and the settlers’ religious Zionism are mutually exclusive, […]

Patriots to the Orange Limit

Wednesday, August 30th, 2006

We heard plenty of ‘I-told-you-so’s from the settlers during this war, and since. We heard a lot about settler patriotism as opposed to the Tel Avivian atrophy. It’s true that the settlers taught their sons and daughters the importance of personal dedication and sacrifice, and the results of this education clearly show. This is laudable. […]

Avigdor Liberman’s Jingoism

Tuesday, August 29th, 2006

One of the sad results of the atmosphere created by the war, is that right wing Member of Knesset, Avigdor Liberman, head of the Yisrael Beytenu party has picked up in the polls. Unlike the traditional hawkish right, Liberaman does not oppose a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Rather, on his own […]

General Lapidot: The Occupation is Draining Israel’s Resources

Sunday, August 27th, 2006

Retired General Amos Lapidot, former commander of Israel’s Air Force, asked on Ynet (Hebrew, no translation yet) what the root is of Israel’s current trouble. “My answer,” he wrote, “is that the heart of the problem is the occupation and the settlement in the territories. The problem of the territories has been draining Israel’s energy […]

Saturday, August 26th, 2006

Here’s one news source that would never disapoint you. The Onion. Best sataire around. Try this for starters: War-Torn Middle East Seeks Solace In Religion.

View From the Ground

Friday, August 25th, 2006

One of the most turbulent public debates in Israel right now is about the lack of military preparedness. The IDF assumed future battlefields would be high-tech affairs, where the principle burden would fall on the Air Force. The conception was proven wrong. Reserve infantry soldiers knew it before the rest of us did, before we […]

#1 War Slogan in Israel

Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006

If there was one hilarious slogan throughout this whole sad debacle in Lebanon this was it: SHARON, WAKE UP. OLMERT’S IN A COMA. I have no idea who deserves copyrights for it. It circulated around.

The Opportunity We’ll All Regret Missing – Europe and the Middle East

Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006

The war in Lebanon, like all wars, did not only close doors. It also opened possibilities. This time, had there been enough will on behalf of the international community, it would have been able to untie the knot of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and consolidate the front against terrorism. Unfortunately without Europe all this would not […]

Missiles Aimed at Preventing an End to the Occupation

Monday, August 21st, 2006

Many were outraged by Ehud Olmert’s declaration, in the middle of the war, that this war was about his convergence plan. It may not have been pragmatic to say so, but it was nevertheless true. Had Israel won, had it been able to subdue the threat of missiles, we would have been on the way […]