To the delight of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, an international coalition has coalesced around Iran's nuclear weapons program. In his remarks Tuesday in Los Angeles before the delegates to the United Jewish Communities' General Assembly, Olmert explained his enthusiasm. First he stated, "America's leadership in preventing Iran's nuclearization is indisputable and unequaled. I just…
A week before the US Congressional elections The New York Times published a front-page story which all but admitted that Iraq's nuclear program had been active until March 2003, when the US-led coalition deposed Saddam Hussein. The Times report relayed concerns of officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency regarding captured Iraqi documents which the administration had posted on the…
Many downplay the significance of the US Congressional elections. It is the six-year slump, they say. But the truth is nonetheless glaring. By all accounts, Tuesday the George W. Bush era came to a close. The consequences of this turn of events on Israel will be dramatic. Unfortunately, it is doubtful that anyone has explained them to Prime Minister…
Insofar as ethnic group politics are concerned, it may very well be the case that American Jewry has more riding on the results of today's Congressional elections than any other American ethnic group. The current issue of Commentary magazine includes an article entitled, "Dual Loyalty and the 'Israel Lobby'" by Gabriel Schoenfeld. Schoenfeld describes succinctly the corrosive impact that…
Israel is trying to reinvent itself. Last week Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni hosted a conference where she launched a new multimillion dollar project to "rebrand" Israel. As Livni put it, since coming into office, she has been struck by the disparity between the vibrant, liberal, free Israel she knows and Israel's image abroad. According to research conducted by…
Last week Iran began enriching uranium in a second network of centrifuges. Just as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dropped nearly all pretenses about his intention to achieve nuclear weapons, so too he makes it clear daily that he intends to use such weapons to annihilate Israel. The world's reaction to Iran's behavior is depressingly instructive. Russia tells us…
Apropos of nothing, Wednesday night Channel 2 news broadcast a jihadi snuff film. The video, produced by an Iraqi group called the Islamic Army of Allah, shows a jihadi sniper knocking off American soldiers one by one. Being a propaganda flick whose goal is to demoralize Americans and their allies and recruit new soldiers to the army of jihad,…
Last Thursday a French court found Philippe Karsenty guilty of libeling France 2 television network and its Jerusalem bureau chief Charles Enderlin. Karsenty, who runs a media watchdog Web site called Media Matters, called for Enderlin and his boss Arlette Chabot to be sacked for their September 30, 2000 televised report alleging that IDF forces had killed 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura…
Last week Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told his countrymen they needn't worry about Iran's escalating confrontation with the US because he has a direct line to Allah. Allah, he said, has assured him that everything will be just fine. Ahmadinejad also promised that Iran would not cease its enrichment of uranium "even for one day." Iran's nuclear triumph is imminent,…
In Acre this past weekend, what was supposed to be a joyous celebration of Simchat Torah degenerated into a near pogrom when for two nights an Arab mob physically attacked Jewish worshipers with crowbars, rocks and firecrackers, and verbally assaulted them with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic slurs. The worshipers were students from the hesder yeshiva Ruah Tzfonit (Northern Wind) located in…