Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's daily talking points are becoming increasingly delusional. Standing before foreign audiences and journalists he libels his political opponents as "radical extremists" who have stolen the Likud from him. Between attacking them personally and deriding Israel's democratic process generally Sharon found the time to launch a weird rhetorical offensive against Hamas. In New York over the…
Less than a week after the IDF's final retreat from Gaza, Israel's senior military brass found itself warding off attacks on two fronts. In Gaza, now empty of all Jewish presence, the Palestinians lost no time in taking charge of events in their own special way. First came the firebombing of the synagogues. We were asked indignantly…
Last Thursday Israel sent a plane laden with relief supplies to New Orleans to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina. The Foreign Ministry's Web site noted that the shipment included "80 tons of food, disposable diapers, beds, blankets, generators and additional equipment which were donated from different governmental institutions, civilian institutions and the IDF." The Web site's notice of the…
They say that one picture is worth a thousand words. No doubt this is true. But what is the guarantee that those words are truthful? On September 30, 2000, The New York Times ran a photograph that, no doubt, for the photo editor, told the entire tale of the then two-day-old Palestinian terror war against Israel. The picture showed…
Last Thursday's "historic" meeting between Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri in Istanbul was immediately extolled by the local media as the "first fruits" of the disengagement from Gaza. In his statement following the meeting Shalom said, "I wish to particularly thank President Musharraf for his courage in promoting peace and moderation in our region…
SADLY, IN Israel, we have no diversity in our media and therefore, we have no public debate. The Pravda-like uniformity of the Israeli media was nowhere more apparent than in its coverage of Binyamin Netanyahu's press conference on Tuesday, where he announced his candidacy for leadership of the Likud Party against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Wednesday morning's headlines screamed out…
The deportation of the Jews from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria over the past week and a half and surrounding events have put paid to two of the foundational myths of the narrative that has been propounded for the past 30 years by the Israeli and international Left. In attempting to analyze these traumatic events in a…
Over the past few weeks, we have been witness to a remarkable phenomenon. Suddenly, in the wake of last month's suicide bombings in London, we hear of news broadcasts from Paris to London to New York in which terrorism analysts announce vociferously that their countries must follow Israel's tracks in everything having to do with contending with suicide bombers. …
As I interviewed now former finance minister Binyamin Netanyahu last Wednesday, it was clear that he was in the midst of a personal struggle. As he laid out the ways he felt his presence in the government had mitigated some of the enormous damage the Sharon-Peres government's withdrawal and expulsion plan from Gaza and northern Samaria will cause to Israel's…
With all the mayhem in Israel today it is difficult to step back and take note of a terrible crime that happens elsewhere. But Tuesday evening a terrible crime was committed elsewhere and it is worthy of our attention because its perpetrators are our enemies and their victim was our friend. On Tuesday evening freelance American journalist Steven Vincent…