In 1981, IAF Col. Ilan Ramon flew one of the F-16 jets that blew up the Iraqi nuclear reactor in Osirak. In so doing he saved the country and perhaps the entire world from the specter of a nuclear holocaust. For the past 16 days, as Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon again saved us. This time he was not…
Discussions of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's options for forming his next governing coalition began immediately after the polls closed on Tuesday night. Will he form a coalition with the Right or a coalition with the Left? Will he bring in the religious parties or will he form a secular government with Shinui? Then again, perhaps he will decide to mix…
The faces of the audience in a packed school auditorium near Moshav She'ar Yishuv on Wednesday afternoon were the hollow faces of bereavement. There, hundreds of parents, brothers, sisters, and friends of the 73 soldiers who died in the collision of two IAF helicopters en route to southern Lebanon were joined by army brass, President Moshe Katsav, and Defense Minister…
If anyone doubts the power of the media to transform the policies of democratic governments, one need only to look to The New York Times' columnist Thomas Friedman for proof. It was Friedman, after all, who a year ago invented the so-called Saudi plan for peace in the Middle East. Last February, reacting to the precipitous drop in American…
A few days after Ehud Barak defeated Binyamin Netanyahu in the 1999 elections, my mentor, David Bar-Illan, wrote in a column in this paper, "There is not a great deal of difference between Barak's vision of the final-status agreement with the Palestinians and that of Netanyahu's. Both are committed to an undivided Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, both consider…
This past week, the right of Israel's representative bodies to exercise independent judgment was moved to the top of the national agenda. One month shy of the general elections, the media and the activist legal community launched an unrelenting attack against the members of the Central Elections Committee, indirectly indicting the institutional legitimacy of the Knesset. The controversy surrounded…
After meeting with the members of the Quartet to discuss the so-called road map a week ago, US President George W. Bush said, "I view the road map as a part of the vision that I described, it is a way forward." A study of the proposed road map suggests otherwise. Perhaps assuming that Yasser Arafat will reject this…
"If this is how you treat your friends, after we fought with you for 25 years, no one will ever want to make peace with you!" "We don't want land, we don't want money, we want honor for our blood!" The above are a representative sampling of the signs that were held by 1,000 demonstrators who stood in…
'Today, mine is the only right-wing party' MK Avigdor Lieberman, the head of the combined list National Union, comprised of his Yisrael Beitenu, Benny Elon's Moledet, and Zvi Hendel's Tekuma Party, is a man who does not shy away from controversy. He speaks bitterly of Sharon's policies and yet hopes to join his government. He views the Likud…
Over the past week, the leaders of Europe have been tuning their instruments ahead of today's meeting of the Quartet in Washington. The sound has been lousy. Last Friday, EU leaders met in Copenhagen for a summit on the Middle East in order to blast Israel. Israel, the European ministers alleged, is responsible for Palestinian terrorism because it dares…