Israeli democracy is in critical condition.   Sunday, the High Court of Justice ruled that the government’s natural gas policy is unlawful. The policy, which was negotiated with foreign energy companies, was to be the basis for developing the massive offshore Leviathan gas field. It was supposed to anchor future gas prices, ensure gas revenues for the government…

  What do radical Israeli groups have in common with their European funders?     Last Thursday, Channel 2 broadcast candid camera footage of Breaking the Silence members gathering classified information on IDF operations. The footage was taken by Ad Kan activists.     Breaking the Silence claims to be an organization dedicated to collecting testimonies from IDF soldiers documenting…

  It was ironic that the day The Atlantic monthly published what was supposed to be the definitive work on US President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he was removing the bulk of his military forces from Syria.   Jeffrey Goldberg’s long profile titled, “The Obama Doctrine,” sought to define the theoretical underpinning of Obama’s…

  The American Jewish community is steeped in multiple crises. They threaten its present and its future. The crises that receive the most attention – skyrocketing intermarriage rates and communal positions on Israel, particularly in the face of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel – are a product of another, more basic quandary.   Throughout Jewish history,…

    This week we learned that Lebanon is no more. It has been replaced by Hezbollah’s Iranian colony in Lebanon.     Two weeks ago, Saudi Arabia listed Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and canceled its $3 billion aid package to the Lebanese military. The Gulf Cooperation Council followed suit. Rather than support the move by his sponsors and…

  Monday the Bethlehem Bible College, an Evangelical Christian college in Jesus’s hometown, opened its fourth biennial Christ at the Checkpoint conference. The conference, which is directed specifically toward US Evangelicals, will run through the week.   Today, Evangelical communities in the US number anywhere between 60 and 150 million people, depending on who is counting. They form the backbone…

    The messages from Washington ahead of Vice President Joe Biden’s arrival in Israel next week show President Barack Obama’s hostile policies toward Israel will maintained until he leaves office.   In recent weeks, the administration has warned various government ministers that any construction of housing for Jews in Jerusalem will be viewed with hostility by the administration. In…

    At a certain point, you just have to know when draw a line in the sand.   Sloan and Guy Rachmuth, Jewish parents in Durham, North Carolina, reached that point in 2014 when they opted to walk away from their local Jewish day school and home school their two children.   The Rachmuths pulled their children out of…

  After his smashing back-to-back victories in the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries and the Nevada caucuses, going into next week’s Super Tuesday contests in 12 states, Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump looks increasingly unbeatable.   What accounts for the billionaire populist’s success? And if Trump does become the next US president, what sort of leader will the former…