So on Wednesday it started. The fight for and against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to evacuate 8,000 law-abiding Israeli citizens from their homes has begun. There can be no doubt today in anyone's mind that in ignoring the mandate he received from Israeli voters in 2003 to oppose unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and in joining forces with the rejected…
During his meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Saturday, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas told Rice that the PA had ceased all incitement activities against Israel. Yet on the same day that they met, the PA's official news service WAFA "reported" that Israelis were sending hordes of wild pigs to Palestinian villages around Hawarah village in the Nablus…
During her visit to Jerusalem on Sunday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice applauded Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, saying, "He has displayed courage and vision in putting forth this disengagement plan." Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. In a new book, Boomerang, published in Hebrew last week, left-wing commentators Raviv Drucker and Ofer Shelach provide an…
In an in-depth article entitled "How we would fight China" published in the June issue of The Atlantic Monthly, military correspondent Robert D. Kaplan analyzes the encroaching specter of a cold war between the US and China. He also sets out the strategies and tactics that the US military's Pacific Command is constructing to contend with the emerging reality. In…
This week, the state prosecutor's office announced that it is considering a plan that would declare "negligent" parents of minor children who are repeatedly arrested for taking part in protests against the government's withdrawal and expulsion plan from Gaza and northern Samaria. In so declaring the parents, the state would pave the way for the forcible removal of these children…
Yesterday we celebrated Jerusalem Day, commemorating Israel's liberation of eastern and southern Jerusalem from Jordanian occupation 38 years ago. As usual, our political leaders pledged their undying and sincere commitment to the continued unity of the city as the "eternal, undivided capital of the Jewish People." Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, always one to flaunt his commitment to Jerusalem, pledged to…
On Thursday afternoon, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's personal attorney Dov Weisglass announced a major policy initiative during a speech at Tel Aviv University. Weisglass said that after the completion of the expulsion of 10,000 Israelis from their villages in Gaza and northern Samaria, Israel will expel still more citizens from their homes by destroying the so-called "unauthorized communities" in Judea…
The top story in Sunday's Washington Post reported that the Bush administration is revising its counter-terrorism strategy. Whereas since the September 11 attacks the US has concentrated its efforts on physically destroying al-Qaida to prevent it from carrying out another major attack by arresting and killing its operatives and leaders, now, according to the report, the US will be widening…
MK Yuval Steinitz, the chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, compares Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to enable the Egyptian military to deploy its forces in the Sinai Peninsula to the decision by the ancient Greeks to allow the Trojan horse to enter their city. "The strategic blindness of both decisions is equally complete," Steinitz…
How long is the Bush administration planning on putting up with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's terror circus? Ahead of his visit with US President George W. Bush at the White House this Thursday, Abbas said on Saturday that he plans to demand that Washington beef up its political and economic support for the PA. Abbas believes he…