Over the past decade, many non-fiction accounts of the Allied Forces’ battles in World War II have concentrated on the extraordinary heroism of the soldiers who liberated Europe and the Pacific. Popular works such as Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers and Tom Brokaw’s The Greatest Generation have portrayed American GIs who fought their way across Europe as bloody…
Is Malaysian autocrat Mahathir Mohamad insane? Many critics of his latest anti-Semitic rant at the annual Islamic Summit Conference last week think so. It was there that he now infamously said, "The Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them." For his fellow Islamic heads of state and leaders, Mahathir…
In the aftermath of Wednesday’s attack on CIA personnel in Gaza, the US announced that the FBI would conduct a thorough investigation of the bombing. One can only hope that in conducting the investigation the FBI agents will avail themselves of the knowledge and know-how of the Israeli military forces in the area who are best equipped to help them…
Did the IAF's Sunday's bombing of the Ein Saheb terrorist base in Syria turn a new page in Israel's war on terrorism? Both Israel's critics and Israel's friends seem to think it did. On the critics' side, we have condemnations from Europe and the UN and others who've adopted Damascus's whining and mendacious line. In this version of events,…
FORT STEWART, Georgia – I arrived at Fort Stewart, the home of the US Army's 3rd Infantry Division, early this week to meet with the soldiers and officers of the 2-7 Mechanized Infantry Battalion, 1st Brigade, who had recently returned home after completing their deployment in Iraq. It was with these men that I hitched a ride through…
A close friend was recently called up to the reserves, where he serves as a commander in an infantry battalion currently responsible for an area of operations in Samaria. On his first furlough home, he told me the story of an interchange with one of his soldiers. The soldier – a kibbutznik whom we'll call Alon – gave my friend,…
This week began with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon succumbing to US pressure and tabling a security cabinet debate on the route of the security fence. After preventing his ministers from discussing the issue, Sharon sent his bureau chief Dov Weissglass to Washington. There, he pleaded with US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice not to sanction Israel for building the fence…
This coming Sunday, Israel's Who's Who will be joined by the rich and famous from around the world at the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv to celebrate Shimon Peres's 80th birthday. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is scheduled to attend the festival, as is former US president Bill Clinton. Mikhail Gorbachev and Nelson Mandela are also set to be there. More…
Speaking hours before Hamas began its Tuesday murder spree, Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon said he ordered the air force to use insufficient force to carry out its mission of bombing the Hamas leadership during its meeting in Gaza on Saturday. Ya'alon explained that he had purposely caused the mission of decapitating the Hamas leadership to fail, because…
In a recent interview with the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat, translated by MEMRI, Syria's Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass made a number of revealing statements. On the military front, he explained that Israel and the US are terrorist states. At the same time, terrorism-supporting countries like Syria and Saudi Arabia are victims, and terrorist organizations like Hizbullah in Syrian-controlled…