A core question arises from last weekend's Arab League summit in Damascus. Boycotted by half the league's members, the conference demonstrated the depth of Egyptian and Saudi opposition to Iran's rise to prominence in the Arab world. So too, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki's ostentatious participation at the summit showed the strength of Iran's strategic ties with Syria. The question…
Since my article appeared last week, I have been inundated with requests to help support the organization. Some people have asked to join. Others have asked to contribute. For those who wish to join the Guardsmen, contact Ro'i Sonnenberg. His phone number in Israel is 054-638-3998. As to contributions, the group is just completing the process of registering as a…
On April 10 two brothers are scheduled to begin serving prison sentences for a crime they never committed. Yitzhak and Daniel Halamish were convicted of aggravated assault and were sentenced respectively, to seven and eight months in jail. The two men, who live in Maaleh Rehavam south of Bethlehem were arrested on February 22, 2004. The day before their arrest,…
In her monthly trip to Israel and the Palestinian Authority next week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to criticize Israel for its announced plan to build new housing for Jews in Jerusalem. Referring to the government’s plans in a recent tour of the city, U.S. Ambassador Richard Jones said that as far as the U.S. was concerned, the…
Moshav Tzipori, in the Lower Galilee, is a microcosm of the history of the Land of Israel. A regional capital under King Herod, Tzipori was the seat of Jewish learning and the preservation of the Torah through some of the most tumultuous periods of Jewish history. After the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, refugees from…
US Vice President Richard Cheney's visit to Iraq on the fifth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom was given scant coverage in the media. And yet it may go down in history as a pivotal moment in the transformation of post-Saddam Iraq into a beacon of democracy and freedom in the Arab world. Hours after Cheney's departure, the Iraqi presidency council…
My book, Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad is OUT. Click on the link to order from the publisher. Or you can order it on Amazon. Great reading for yourselves and all your friends, family, casual acquaintances, nodding acquaintances and complete strangers who you happen to pass on the street! Buy it, read it, and let me know what…
I grew up on the south side of Chicago in the 1970s and 1980s so I have a bit of local interest in Senator Barack Obama’s race for the White House. Obama and his family live in my old neighborhood, Hyde Park. My siblings and I all attended our local public high school – Kenwood Academy. Obama’s wife Michelle went…
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's speech in German before the Knesset this afternoon will be the culmination of what the Israeli media has referred to as an "historic" three-day state visit to Israel. The day before Merkel launched her "historic" visit, Der Spiegel reported on the "historic" visit of another German to Afghanistan. That visit ended on March 3 when the…
To understand the strange twists that Hamas's war against Israel has taken over the past week, it is instructive to cast a glance at the current situation in Pakistan. For in their dealings with Hamas, the Bush administration and the Olmert-Livni-Barak government have apparently been operating in accordance with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's playbook. In a radio interview this week,…