With brotherly love and deepest respect, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas Sunday embraced Ahmed Jbarra during his morning press conference in Ramallah. In the shadow of a dawn attack conducted jointly by Fatah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad that left four IDF soldiers dead and four wounded, Abbas lauded Jbarra who on July 4, 1975, placed a refrigerator…
The gravel-paved road to the outpost is lined with olive trees and vineyards. "Some of the trees and vines are saplings planted over the past couple years. Some, as you can see, are older," says 30-year-old Shibi Drori, an agronomist now working towards his doctorate in molecular biology at the Hebrew University, as he leads me up the…
From the beginning of May until last Tuesday, the Palestinians carried out 323 terrorist attacks against Israeli targets. That is an average of 12 per day. These attacks include suicide bombings, penetrations of Israeli towns by gunmen, roadside shootings, grenade and anti-tank missile attacks, mortar shellings, rocket attacks, assaults, and stabbings. The navy's interception last Tuesday of the Hizbullah…
As the world's media and foreign ministries have again trained their sights in on Israel and the Palestinians, a much more significant drama is being largely underplayed. At its meeting next month in Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency will address the recent confirmation of reports that Iran is now poised to produce nuclear weapons. Since a consortium…
"I have been in Israel for two years and have never spoken to someone with views like yours." So exclaimed a senior Western diplomat at the end of a pleasant lunch meeting with me on Wednesday afternoon. Surprised, I responded, "That's strange. If the results of the last election and recent polling data are any indication of national sentiment,…
In a meeting with Israeli left-wing political activists and Palestinian Authority cabinet ministers last week, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs William Burns made disparaging statements regarding US President George W. Bush's political supporters in the US, intimating that conservatives, Christians, as well as representatives of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby in Washington,…
After a 33-year delay, the IDF began distributing war decorations on Yom Ha'atzma'ut to veterans of the War of Attrition. That war, which until this past November was never officially recognized as a war by the government, lasted from June 15, 1967 until August 8, 1970. Its toll was 1,425 IDF soldiers and officers killed in…
In the days immediately following the US military's liberation of Baghdad last month, the anarchy in the streets was a clear sign that the US had succeeded in the first half of its mission in Iraq. Its armed forces had overthrown the terror-supporting dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. In the weeks since the military victory was achieved, the main question…
There was a distinct feeling of deja vu from 1994 in the air this week. Back then, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak saved the international community from embarrassment by physically forcing Yasser Arafat to sign the Gaza-Jericho agreement on live television. This week, Mubarak sent the commander of his intelligence service to repeat the performance. General…
After three weeks of intense fighting, the American military offensive against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq more or less ended last Saturday. The military operation can be compared to smashing down pieces on a chess board by a violent hand and rearranging them according to a new guiding logic. The manner in which the pieces…