The fall of the Israeli government and the upcoming election

The moment that some Israelis have been dreading and others happily anticipating finally arrived on Monday. Though the announcement by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid of a call for the disbanding of the Knesset was virtually a foregone conclusion, it came as a bit of a surprise. Read more

Israelis, get out of Turkey right now!

For well over a week, the Israeli government has been urging Israelis in Turkey to return home as soon as possible. Read more

Noa Tishby’s surprisingly welcome splash on the ‘hasbara’ scene

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid’s appointment last month of Noa Tishby as the country’s first-ever Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism and Delegitimization of Israel raised more than a few eyebrows. Read more

Israel’s Memorial Day is about war, not peace

The purpose of Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism, which started last evening, is to pay tribute to and mourn all those killed while defending, or simply living in, the Jewish state. Read more

Ramadan goes out with a bang

Tens of thousands took to the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities and villages on the last Friday of Ramadan to participate in the Islamic Republic’s annual Quds [Jerusalem] Day rallies. Read more

The here and now of Holocaust remembrance

It is of tragic relevance that anti-Jewish Arab riots, rocket fire and hate-filled solidarity protests around the world have upstaged the lead-up to Yom Hashoah, which begins on Wednesday evening. Read more

Obfuscating the particularity of Passover

In an op-ed in The Jerusalem Post on Friday, Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai described visiting the Poland-Ukraine border, where he witnessed a “never-ending stream of refugees fleeing the savage war that has torn apart their lives.” Read more

Fear terrorism, not the Israelis defending against it

At a Tel Aviv café on Monday morning, I overheard a couple talking about the terrorist surge responsible for the fact that the normally packed establishment was as relatively empty as the adjacent Carmel Market. Read more

Crossing a line in coverage of the Tel Aviv carnage

Reporters rushed to Tel Aviv on Thursday night to cover the shooting at the Ilka pub on Dizengoff Street. Less than half an hour after the deadly spree, cameras and microphones flooded the vicinity, and the whole country tuned in to watch. Read more

A Ramadan intifada?

The Muslim month of Ramadan, which began on Friday night, is already proving to be the challenge that Israeli authorities had anticipated. Palestinians and radicalized Arab Israelis swarming the Old City of Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate on Saturday and Sunday attacked police, who were stationed at the site to keep the peace. Read more

Zelensky’s unfortunate Knesset address

Clearly realizing, or having been told by advisers, that he’d crossed a line in his Zoom speech to the Knesset on Sunday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky subsequently softened his tone. Read more

Assessing Israel’s vow to prevent a nuclear Iran

Aside from the concrete threat that Iran’s military activities pose to the Jewish state, the Israeli government has two major problems with what is emerging from Vienna as an imminent return of world powers to the nuclear deal with the mullah-led regime in Tehran. Read more

Israel’s ill-fated powwows with the Palestinian Authority

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid didn’t boast on social media about his meeting on Sunday with Palestinian Authority honcho Hussein al-Sheikh. The latter did so immediately, however.  Read more

There’s no cure for health-authority pig-headedness

It’s time for health authorities in Israel and abroad to stop vilifying the medical experts who’ve been issuing a reassuring message as to where the coronavirus pandemic is headed. Read more

Mahmoud Abbas plays Benny Gantz for a fool

Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz must have known that hosting Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas at his home in Rosh Ha’ayin would arouse the ire of the right. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have cloaked the outcome of his tête-à-tête last Tuesday night with the octogenarian honcho in Ramallah in typically euphemistic language. Read more

Coronavirus double-speak

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s announcement on Sunday evening of additional steps to confront the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus illustrates how easily government policies can be inherently contradictory. Read more

The bigger picture behind the narrow Gantz-NGO controversy

When Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz announced on Friday that he is listing six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist groups, all hell broke loose on the left. The outcry, which emanated not only from Washington and Brussels but from the halls of the Knesset in Jerusalem and Muqata in Ramallah, could have been anticipated. Read more

Rabin, Peres, #MeToo and the battle among sacred cows

Every year at this time, Israel stops to mourn and memorialize Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister who was assassinated on Nov. 4, 1995 at a rally celebrating the signing of the Oslo Accords. Read more

Meretz’s pilgrimage to Ramallah

If anything illustrates the farcical nature of the current makeup of the government in Jerusalem, it’s the parley in Ramallah on Sunday evening between Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and a delegation of Israel’s Meretz Party, headed by Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz. Read more

They’re terrorists, not ‘security prisoners’

How do news outlets love to portray the recent “great escape” from Israel’s Gilboa Prison? Let us count the ways. Read more

A rift of Poland’s making

The diplomatic crisis unfolding between Jerusalem and Warsaw is unfortunate. Eastern European countries have been staunch supporters of the United States and Israel in a way that their counterparts in the Western continent have long ceased to be. Read more

Iranian aggression and Israel’s fragile coalition

At the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett addressed the country’s security situation. Read more

Biden’s reward to UNRWA for bad behaviour

The United States transferred $135 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) on Saturday. Read more

Why the Shin Bet chief isn’t so hush-hush anymore

Enemies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were relieved, if not thrilled, when Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman broke his organization’s customary silence to bemoan the behaviour of those virulently opposing the makeup of the coalition-in-formation. Read more

Heading to New York with trepidation and a Star of David

I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I’m actually nervous—as a Jew—about my upcoming trip from Tel Aviv to New York. Read more

The Palestinian leaders’ Al-Aqsa hoax strikes again  

The anti-Israel response to the current Palestinian and eastern Jerusalem Arab violence was to be expected, particularly as it has been on a steady crescendo since the weeks leading up to and during Islam’s holy month of Ramadan. Read more

A tribute to the bereaved parents of unsung fallen Israelis

As Israel entered the 24-hour period that marks Yom Hazikaron—Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism—the country turns its attention to individual stories of heroism and bereavement. Read more

Abbas’s snubs work like a charm on Biden

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas may be facing serious challenges to his reign in Ramallah, but he’s having no trouble playing the powers-that-be in Washington. Read more

Meghan Markle, George Floyd, Muhammad and free speech

The latest scandal surrounding the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is noteworthy. Read more

Pfizer and fake news

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla was scheduled to arrive in Israel on Monday to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials. Read more

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