By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–The time is ripe for speculation. It is always time to speculate about political this or that, but now it is especially ripe, in both of my countries. Moreover, events we can speculate about in one give us additional reason to speculate about the other. Most pressing as stimuli is the super […]
Will Hurricane Sandy hurt Obama’s election chances? Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, USA
Editor’s Note: The following column is in rebuttal to SDJW’s “reluctant endorsement” of Mitt Romney By Norman Greene SAN DIEGO — In the half century that I have been voting, I have always concentrated on the candidate, rather than the party. I have tried to discern his intellect, his passion, his commitment to issues and
Israel has done well with Obama as U.S. president Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, USA
By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO — Bobby Greene doesn’t like to take credit. She typically defers to her husband Norman Greene, who is the current president of the Louis Rose Society for the Preservation of Jewish History. Sometimes, she even tries to say my biography of Louis Rose was responsible . But we
The lady deserves the credit Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, International, Science, Medicine, & EducationBy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Richard Falk is again in the headlines. The professor emeritus of political science, after a long career at Princeton, now the Special Rapporteur to the UN Human Rights Council on Occupied Palestinian Territories, has called for a boycott of companies that do business with Israeli settlements in the West Bank
Falk’s approach to Israel-Palestine utterly one-sided Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle EastBy Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel –How we got onto the topic of education about the Holocaust I don’t quite know, but in a recent conversation with some friends I happened to say that I didn’t think it appropriate or beneficial for Israeli high-school students to go on school trips to Poland to visit concentration
Should Israeli kids skip concentration camp visits? Read More »
Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Middle East
On September 13, inFOCUS editor Matthew RJ Brodsky interviewed Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. Over the course of his four terms in the U.S. Senate, Senator Lieberman became known as one of Congress’ most influential voices on security issues. He has been at the forefront of efforts to increase American investment in defense and transform
Lieberman wants Islamist extremism to be identified Read More »
Middle EastReport: UN Human Rights Council to call for Israel boycott (JNS.org) The United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) plans to release a report calling for a boycott of companies doing business with Israel, the Washington Free Beacon reported. The Free Beacon obtained an HRC report (http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/UN-Report-Sept-2012.pdf) targeting Hewlett-Packard, Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions, Veolia Environnement, Group 4 Security,
JNS news briefs: October 26, 2012 Read More »
InternationalBy David P. Goldman WASHINGTON, D.C. — Syria’s two million Kurds have become a wild card in the country’s crisis, after the Assad regime encouraged Kurdish autonomy as a ploy against its Sunni opposition in the ongoing civil war. The importance of the small Syrian Kurdish zone extends far beyond its possible role as a
Syria’s withdrawal from Kurdish areas worries Turkey Read More »
Middle EastPalestinians fire mortar to defy truce with Israel (JNS.org) Palestinian terrorists fired a mortar shell into Israel on Thursday morning to defy an informal truce between Israel and Hamas, Haaretz reported. The shell was directed at the western Negev following an Egyptian-brokered truce that had supposedly ended a two-day Palestinian onslaught that saw a total of
JNS.org news briefs: October 25, 2012 Read More »
International
By Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel CHULA VISTA, California — It’s a pity that gentiles don’t study Talmud. While there are a number of arguments in the Talmud that are pedantic and unexciting, the study of this ancient rabbinic work teaches people how to critically examine a text. During the second debate, President Obama called the
Transcripts tell story of White House and Benghazi Read More »
Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi, Middle East
By Isaac Yetiv , Ph. D. LA JOLLA, California –Among the many symptoms of our economic disease, the most ominous ones are the 23 million Americans unemployed and the more than 16 trillion dollars of national debt. There has been an ominous crescendo in the national debt: In 1990, it was 3 trillion; in 2008,10
Some ideas for cutting the U.S. budget Read More »
USA
By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. –There are two reasons for the U.S. to seek the demise of Bashar Assad’s regime — for what it would mean to Syria and for what it would mean to Iran. The first is insufficient reason for the U.S. to involve itself directly. The second raises the elephant-in-the-room question: “Would
In Obama’s chess game, Israel, Syria and Turkey just pawns Read More »
Middle East, Shoshana Bryen
By Danny Bloom CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan — Peter Starr, called the “Spielberg of motorcycle moviemaking” by his friend Jay Leno, is building a unique sort of bridge to Taiwan with the help of a small group of elderly motorcycle enthusiasts in America. Starr made 40 motorcycle racing movies from the 1970s to the 1990s. Now 69,
Jewish motorcyclist tours Taiwan Read More »
InternationalBy Evelyn Gordon WASHINGTON, D.C. — One of the most disturbing of many disturbing developments in the Middle East recently is the growing fear among America’s traditional Arab allies that Washington’s support can no longer be relied on. Whether this fear has any valid basis is irrelevant. Last month, for instance, Reuters reported on
Arab allies doubt U.S. steadfastness Read More »
Middle East