Whether it realizes it or not, American Jewry today stands before a precipice. It can force its way back onto stable ground, or it can fall. The chasm before which American Jewry now finds itself relates to the basic question of whether Jews in America have found a permanent, stable home in America where they are free to be Jewish…
Yesterday we awoke to a new reality: Hamas is the official leader of the Palestinian Authority and – thanks to the US and Israeli governments – the official representative of Arab Jerusalemites. If before Wednesday's poll Hamas concentrated its efforts in conducting its terror war against Israel and indoctrinating Palestinian society to support jihad, now the terror group will continue…
Apparently, the Olmert government's answer to the specter of Hamas's projected electoral achievement in tomorrow's elections to the Palestinian parliament is to advance the electoral fortunes and legitimacy of the imprisoned mass murderer and Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti. On Sunday, in an unprecedented step, the government allowed Al-Jazeera and Al Arabiya reporters to interview Barghouti in his prison cell.…
It's official: Anti-Semitism is "in." The decision to award the Palestinian film Paradise Now the Golden Globes Award for best foreign film tells us that Palestinian terror against Israelis has become so acceptable that it is now Hollywood kitsch. The sight of the Jewish American diva Sarah Jessica Parker, of Sex in the City fame, excitedly announcing that…
As Israel's election season moves into high gear, one key question now emerging is how much is the Bush administration planning to impose itself and its preferences on the Israeli electorate? There are three sides to the question's increasing centrality. The first is historic. The US has had an unfortunate habit of meddling in Israeli elections ever…
Since Ariel Sharon coined the term "disengagement," opponents of Israeli territorial withdrawals have complained about the Orwellian nature of the term. And yet, as hard as opponents of the leftist view that Israel's security is enhanced by Israeli land transfers to Palestinian terrorists fought against the withdrawal policy and pointed out its dangers, their warnings were no match for the…
What legacy has Ariel Sharon left Israel, and what will be the long-term impact of that legacy on Israel? Since the prime minister was stricken by a stroke last week, columnists and commentators have been clamoring to describe Sharon and to define the impact of his years in power on Israel and the Middle East. Disturbingly, most of the commentators…
Wednesday night ushered in a new era in Israel's political history. As we watch and worry as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dangles between life and death, one thing is absolutely clear. Sharon's massive cerebral hemorrhage on Wednesday night spelled the end of his political career. Sharon will never return to lead the State of Israel. He will never make a…
One day, years from now, after the war to defeat the global jihad has been won, historians will proclaim that the years of this war marked the darkest period in the history of Western journalism. In an essay in the current issue of Commentary magazine entitled "The Panic over Iraq," Norman Podhoretz makes the case that in its…