By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Two issues were prominent on Friday’s agenda. Both were either large or small, depending on perspective and how they developed. Both combined local and international considerations. Most immediate was Land Day. Mar ch 30 is one of the prominent items on the protest calendar of Israeli Arabs and Palestinians. It […]
Planned anti-Israel protests seem to fizzle Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle East
By Rabbi Dow Marmur JERUSALEM–The Marker is the business section of Ha’aretz. It’s presented in tabloid form almost as a newspaper in its own right. It’s well written with a lot of photographs and charts. I read most of it every day but understand very little. The little I do understand tells me that last
High food prices, government salaries prompt talk of new protests Read More »
Middle EastBy Evelyn Gordon WASHINGTON, D.C. — Israel has allowed the world to think rocket fire from Gaza isn’t so terrible. Undoing that misperception is a crucial first step toward taking effective action to protect its population. The most chilling comment I’ve seen on the mid-March surge of violence from Gaza, when terrorists fired 300 rockets
Israel must make Gaza pay a price for rocket attacks Read More »
Middle East
By Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel CHULA VISTA, California — Oscar Wilde once said: “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it… I can resist everything but temptation.” There’s a lot of truth to Wilde’s temptation. As human beings we often give in to many temptations without
ZAKA reportedly in financial disarray Read More »
Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi, Middle EastBy Rabbi Dow Marmur JERUSALEM–What most Israelis anticipated has now been confirmed: Tsipi Livni has been replaced by Shaul Mofaz as the Head of Kadima and thus also the Leader of the Opposition in the Knesset. Less than 40 percent of the party members bothered to vote; Mofaz got the support of over 60 percent
Mofaz replaces Livni as Kadima chief Read More »
Middle EastBy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Recently I wrote about Jonathan Swift’s Modest Proposal. Now it is time to think about Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Before you accuse me of going literary, note that my metaphor gets us back to politics and the Middle East. What brings forth Alice in Wonderland, its fantasy
Skepticism in Israel over reports of Syria ceasefire Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle EastBy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM – Ha’aretz has long had a reputation as Israel’s most distinguished newspaper, read by the economic, political, and intellectual elites. Its language and the lack of a sensationalist front page are among the factors that make it the secular Hebrew language daily with the smallest circulation. It is also the most
Imagine if Israel followed Ha’aretz’s foreign policy Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle East
By Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO — The problem is not what we know; it’s what we feel. We do not really know what happened: for the vast majority of us, it happened somewhere else (in the previously unknown town of Sanford, Fla.). We are relying entirely on the media with its pundits and professional
In absence of facts, emotions are fanned in Trayvon Martin case Read More »
USAby Roz Rothstein and Roberta Seid LOS ANGELES — Over the past 10 years, we have repeatedly witnessed efforts to shut down guest speakers who present an Israeli perspective on college campuses and in communities. Typically, when sponsors publicize their upcoming Israel-related program, anti-Israel groups mobilize to plot to hijack the event and effectively silence
Advice for dealing with anti-Israel disruptions Read More »
USABy Rabbi Dow Marmur JERUSALEM — In order to avoid a bloody showdown with the settlers, the Government of Israel tried to work out something that looked like a compromise, even though it wasn’t. It sort-of abided by the decision of Israel’s Supreme Court that had ordered the dismantling of the illegal settlement of Migron by
Settlement giving Israel a big ‘migron headache’ Read More »
Middle East
By Dan Bloom CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan — One doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. When one of the modern world’s most brutal and fascist nations — Communist China, run like a brazen bully by the Chinese Communist Party — equates the revered and freedom-loving Dalai Lama with the German Nazis of the Hitler regime
Communist China maligns Dalai Lama with Nazi analogy Read More »
International
By David Brin ENCINITAS, California — A deep irony, underlying our political season, is that the U.S. middle class…the biggest victims of the first decade of this century, are also being slandered relentlessly. The ongoing campaign of propaganda that democracy can’t work and we should turn to oligarchy has many threads. May I take
The calumny against America’s middle class Read More »
USABy Rabbi Dow Marmur JERUSALEM — What we’ve surmised for a long time is now official: though the monies collected in the United States for Israel have doubled in the last 20 years (now about $2.1 billion annually), the traditional recipients (the Jewish Agency, the Jewish National Fund, the World Zionist Organization, etc.) have decreased
Americans increasingly picking their own charities in Israel Read More »
Middle EastBy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — There are some among my readers who will view my ‘modest proposal’ as the same kind of ungodly satire as an earlier effort by that name. Almost 400 years ago Jonathan Swift published his Modest Proposal to deal with the problem of overcrowding and starvation among the Irish according to
Present lines, not those of 1967, should be basis of negotiations Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle East