Kamala’s push for Palestinian statehood
September 1, 2024 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
During her 27-minute interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Thursday night, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris prefaced several of her answers with the expression, “Let me be clear.” Read more
The Israeli imperative to destroy myths, not just missiles
August 26, 2024 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
Israel’s preemptive strikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon during the wee hours of Sunday morning temporarily shifted focus away from Hamas in Gaza and from the next round of bogus “ceasefire” negotiations in Cairo for the release of hostages. Read more
Has Israel’s security apparatus learned nothing from Oct. 7?
July 2, 2024 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
If Mohammed Abu Salmiya hadn’t filmed a couple of hate-filled videos upon his triumphant return to Gaza on Monday morning, the Shifa Hospital director’s release from Israeli incarceration would have remained under the radar. Read more
Dr. Phil’s moral clarity
May 14, 2024 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
It’s not surprising that the press had a field day following Dr. Phil’s interview on Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu. Read more
The Russian dictator’s double terrorism standards
March 25, 2024 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
Following Friday’s massacre at the Crocus City Hall concert venue in the outskirts of Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a video address to his nation. The slaying of “dozens of peaceful, innocent people … including children, teenagers and women,” he said, was a “bloody, barbaric, terrorist act.” Read more
Blinken’s Rafah blunder
March 24, 2024 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
In a press conference on Thursday in Cairo, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated his opposition to an Israeli ground operation in Rafah, saying that such a move would be a “mistake.” Read more
Where is the ‘humanitarian aid’ for the hostages?
March 4, 2024 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
The day after President Joe Biden announced that the United States would begin airdrops of humanitarian aid to Gaza, U.S. military planes parachuted pallets of food and water over the beach in the southwest of the Strip. Read more
The Jerusalem rally was a reminder that democracy didn’t lose; the left did
April 30, 2023 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
Those of us who were among the hundreds of thousands of participants in the right-wing rally in Jerusalem on Thursday evening weren’t surprised when the “resistance” bloc pulled a two-fer: downplaying the significance of and attendance at the event, on the one hand; and treating the happening as evidence that Israeli democracy is in danger of annihilation at the hands of fanatics, on the other. Read more
Three Jewish funerals and an Israeli hate-fest
February 13, 2023 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
Imagine the scene on Saturday night at 8-year-old Asher Menachem Paley’s funeral. Read more
Israel Prize laureate’s anti-government stance reveals a sinister view of the Jewish state
January 11, 2023 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
Anyone still puzzled by the outcome of the Nov. 1 Knesset elections should listen to professor Asa Kasher’s interview on Sunday with Kanradio. Read more
Penalising Palestinian lawfare
January 9, 2023 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office announced on Friday plans to impose sanctions on the Palestinian Authority for its latest act of lawfare aggression against the Jewish state. Read more
Israel’s new diaspora minister hits the ground running
January 2, 2023 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
The swearing-in on Thursday of Israel’s 37th government elicited a collective sigh of relief from right-wing voters, for whom the nearly two full months that it took Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to forge his coalition felt like an eternity. Read more
Israeli ‘liberals’ aren’t doing the LGBTQ flag—or democracy—proud
December 28, 2022 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
In an Army Radio interview on Monday, MK Yorai Lahav Hertzanu—an openly gay member of outgoing caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid Party—warned that the coalition deals currently being finalised could be deadly for the LGBTQ community. Read more
Is Alan Dershowitz right to warn against the ‘override clause’?
December 7, 2022 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
The enthusiastic response of the “anybody but Bibi” camp to a video message delivered on Friday by renowned criminal attorney Alan Dershowitz through the Hebrew news site Ynet is amusing. Read more
Let’s replace the term ‘national unity’ with ‘majority rule’
November 14, 2022 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
Once his formal consultations with each party in the Knesset came to a close on Friday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog was left with no choice. Read more
Bibi’s victory, Biden administration blues
November 7, 2022 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
Let’s set aside speculation as to why President Joe Biden has yet to congratulate Israel’s former and soon-to-be prime minister, Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, on his victory in the Nov. 1 Knesset elections. Read more
The danger of another Israeli electoral deadlock
October 26, 2022 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli, the head of Israel’s falsely dubbed “centre left” Labor Party, doesn’t even bother these days to temper the radicalism that makes her indistinguishable from Meretz leader Zahava Gal-On. Read more
The ‘settler violence’ narrative and Knesset elections
October 23, 2022 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
The current spike in Palestinian terrorism, marked by dozens of rock-throwing, firebombing, stabbing, car-ramming and shooting attacks each day, was upstaged last week by what the local press and certain politicians were highlighting as an intolerable “surge in settler violence.” Read more
Ehud Barak’s outlandish accusations
October 16, 2022 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
In an interview on Saturday night with Channel 12’s new version of its “Meet the Press” program—this one with hosts Amit Segal on the right and Ben Caspit on the left—former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak did the “anybody but Bibi” contingent proud. Read more
The unlearned lessons of 9/11
September 12, 2022 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
Sunday marked the twenty-first anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Read more
The latest Yad Vashem fiasco
August 31, 2022 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
When Effi Eitam was tapped in 2020 by then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the new chairman of Yad Vashem—to replace Avner Shalev, who had held the position for nearly three decades—all hell broke loose on the left. Read more
Time is running out to act against Iran
August 29, 2022 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
With the United States and its P5+1 partners on the last stretch of their frenzied race to sign a new version of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, a number of retired Israel Defence Forces generals and current think-tank experts have been taking the opportunity to insist that “a bad deal is better than no deal.” Read more
Look who’s interfering in the Knesset elections to block a Netanyahu victory
August 22, 2022 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
The only thing surprising about Friday night’s Channel 12 revelation that the Palestinian Authority is attempting to influence the outcome of the upcoming Knesset elections was that it was reported as a big scoop. Read more
The satanic stabbing of Salman Rushdie and the dangerous Iran deal
August 15, 2022 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
The attempted murder on Friday of Salman Rushdie is the latest in a string of appalling incidents that ought to put the United States and its P5+1 partners to shame for their efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with the evil regime in Tehran. Read more
Bennett’s bad precedent and the curse of Israel’s small parties
July 27, 2022 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
Ever since the Knesset elections on April 9, 2019, foes of Likud Party chairman Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu—the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s history and currently the head of the opposition—have been blaming him for the political quagmire that is sending the public back to the ballot box this fall for the fifth time in three-and-a-half years. Read more
What constitutes a ‘last resort’?
July 20, 2022 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
In an interview last week at the White House with Israeli Channel 12’s Yonit Levi, U.S. President Joe Biden reiterated his administration’s desire to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran from which his predecessor, Donald Trump, withdrew in 2018. Read more
The disgraceful disruption of the Abraham Accords
July 18, 2022 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
The debate in Israel about the significance of U.S. President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Israel and affirmation of America’s “bone-deep” relationship with the Jewish state should make way for a far more serious question. Read more
Yair Lapid’s attempt to appeal to the majority
July 4, 2022 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
In his maiden speech on Saturday evening, Israel’s newly instated interim prime minister, Yair Lapid, performed very well. His delivery was good and whoever wrote the address deserves kudos for its content and tone. The trouble was the circumstances, which rendered the whole thing moot. Read more
Bolstering Bibi by deriding his backers
June 29, 2022 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 13 on Monday, former TV news anchor Gadi Sukenik unwittingly gave a boost to the very politician whose supporters he was trying to discredit. Read more
Let UNRWA die already
June 27, 2022 by Ruthie Blum - JNS
Despite managing to raise $160 million in New York on Thursday, at a pledging conference of the Ad Hoc Committee of the U.N. General Assembly, the head of the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) was not pleased. Read more