Middle East

Environmentalists say high birth rates, immigration leading Israel to overpopulation

JERUSALEM (Press Release)– Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s (BGU) Prof. Alon Tal presented the most comprehensive report to date on Israel’s environmental movement. It details the movement’s lack of training, involvement of experts and public support, as well as its perilous dependence on foreign donations. The report, “Israel’s Environmental Movement: Trends, Needs and Potential,” was […]

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Middle East

Enemy missiles? (Yawn) U.N. vote on Palestine (Yawn) What about the high price of cottage cheese?

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–Israel aspires to be a normal country, but can’t make it.   Two issues dominant in recent news are the price of cottage cheese, and a prolonged labor dispute between physicians working in the public sector (the vast majority of the country’s medicine) and several governmental agencies about salary, working conditions, and

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East

Jordan at the crossroads

By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C.  — The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) is generally sympathetic to the difficulties faced by Jordan’s King Abdullah II. He is a Hashemite ruling a mostly Palestinian and Bedouin country; an excellent security partner to Israel because Israel ensures that he will not be overthrown by Palestinians who believe

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Middle East, Shoshana Bryen

Touring congressman decries Hamas participation in Palestinian government

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Press Release)- Congressman Steve Chabot (OH-1) is traveling in the Middle East. Congressman Chabot is the Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia and is visiting Israel, Egypt and Jordan.  He released the following statement regarding his meetings with the Israeli and Palestinian Prime Ministers: “I was deeply disturbed

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Middle East

U.S. using Palestine independence vote in U.N. to gain leverage on Israel

By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C — It seems the countries of the United Nations have begun to have second thoughts about trying to “create” a Palestinian state through the General Assembly, or – since the Palestinians declared their state independent in 1998 – accepting “Palestine” as a member of the UN without the imprimatur of the

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Middle East

Israeli ‘agent’ Grapel failed to grapple with Egyptian realities

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM –Last weekend the Egyptian government announced that it had arrested an agent of the Mossad who had been sent to Cairo to provoke demonstrations against the regime.   The culprit is Ilan Grapel, since featured in a number of media reports.   Descriptions by those who knew him are of an

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East

Palestinian vote could set precedent for secessionist movements throughout world

By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. — For more than 60 years, the United Nations has worked mightily to prevent the Arabs from paying the price of their rejection of the independence of Israel in 1948 and to stoke the fires of Palestinian irredentism: denying resettlement to Arabs who fled the Arab war against Israel; five

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Middle East, Shoshana Bryen

Is Palestinian reconciliation unraveling?

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — The lead story in Monday’s Ha’aretz carries the headline, “U.S. pressuring Netanyahu to accept Obama’s peace plan; Israeli source says Americans frustrated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for hampering U.S. efforts to stop Palestinians trying UN route to statehood in September”   It is not clear if this is coming

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East

Wars, U.S. statements on Mideast, examples of not thinking matters through

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Go to war. Then think about it. It’s the story of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Libya.  The New York Times reported: “As NATO airplanes and attack helicopters struck fresh targets in Tripoli and the oil port of Brega on Sunday, senior British and American officials said there was no

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East

Syria demonstrates usefulness of world’s obsession with Palestine

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — When I lit up my computer on Monday morning, the lead story on the New York Times Internet site reported on Palestinian-Syrian efforts to send a mass of demonstrators toward the Israeli border on the Golan Heights. The article described the motives of the Syrian regime to distract attention from

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East