A hundred and forty years ago, on August 22, 1862, US president Abraham Lincoln commented about the nature of the American Civil War in a letter published in the Washington Intelligencer newspaper. His draft letter contained a sentence which James Welling, the newspaper's editor edited out because he considered it too common and folksy for his "dignified" publication. The president…
On Sunday morning, November 3, 1968, the IDF General Staff was presented for the first time with COS Haim Bar Lev's plan for the defense of the Sinai Peninsula. The plan called for the construction of a line of separation along the water line of the Suez Canal to be defended by small outposts, spaced five to six kilometers apart,…
How did it come to pass that Yassra Bakri, a 20-year-old Israeli Arab nursing student at Safed College, and her girlfriend, Samiya Asedi, another Israeli Arab student, said nothing for 20 minutes about the presence of a mass murderer on a No. 361 Egged bus this past Sunday morning? And how is it that the murderer was certain that…
The television camera lens moves with seeming effortlessness from the pictures of suffering and death at the Hebrew University to the carnival in Gaza City, where thousands take to the streets in celebration of the pictures from Jerusalem. Gazing at the revelers on the screen, one strains one's eyes to find an expression of shame, guilt, or remorse…
With the government's backing off yesterday from its demand for international monitoring of the NIS 200 million it has agreed to transfer to the Palestinian Authority, we see the first concrete consequence of the IAF strike on Hamas military chief Salah Shehadeh in Gaza which killed 14 civilians in collateral damage. This cave-in is rife with dangerous consequences for…
In the world arena, why is it that "voices of victims" do not include Jews? On a clear day in early May at San Francisco State University, Jewish students demonstrating for peace in the Middle East were attacked by a mob in the campus's central plaza. Describing the events the next day, Dr. Laurie Zoloth, the director of the…
In a week chock full of diplomatic activity regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the calendars of Israeli diplomats have been awkwardly empty. While every Israeli government has maintained its absolute opposition to the internationalization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, what we have seen this week is that, in practice, this internationalization is occurring. How else is one to assess the fact…
Who's afraid of Aryeh Deri? ——————————————————————————– Jul. 12, 2002 ——————————————————————————– The Prisons Service Parole Board's decision Wednesday to release former Shas leader Aryeh Deri from prison next Monday contained a curious condition. In paroling Deri after he completed two thirds of his three-year sentence for accepting $60,000 in bribes, the board stipulated, "Due to the special circumstances of…
Yesterday was the Fourth of July and we Israelis celebrated US Independence Day in our hearts with a feeling of respect and kinship far deeper and closer than we ever felt before. For the past 35 years, the United States has been Israel's closest, and often only, ally. Yet, in spite of the closeness of our relationship, over the…
There was palpable anxiety nationwide in the hours that preceded US President George W. Bush's speech on the Middle East Monday night. All the talk of establishing a "provisional" state of Palestine, as the Palestinian leadership to the last man is stained by terror and murder, was terrifying and infuriating and demoralizing. So when Bush declared "the Palestinian state…