THE FIRST shock has passed. President-Elect Donald Trump. I am gradually getting used to the sound of these words. We are entering an era of complete uncertainty. We Israelis and the entire world. From shoe-shine boy to head of state. Nobody knows. BUT FIRST we must say goodbye to Barack Obama. Frankly, I like the … Read more
PRESIDENT TRUMP. I am still in a state of shock. But I had better get used to it. This is not just another US election. In my life I have seen many. Some had results I liked, some not. But this one is entirely different. This is an earthquake that changes the face of the … Read more
WHO WILL win the elections in the US in three days? I know for sure. No need to ask the public opinion polls, the modern equivalent of the Roman interpreters of animal entrails and the more modern readers of coffee grounds. The polls are no more exact. The winner will be the PLE – the … Read more
WHAT WILL Donald Trump do if he loses the elections in a week and a half from now, as most polls indicate? He has already declared that he will recognize the results – but only if he wins. That sounds like a joke. But it is far from being a joke. Trump has already announced … Read more
SHIMON PERES would have enjoyed it. A public battle about his funeral. The Arab members of the Knesset did not attend. So what? I did not attend, either. We never liked each other, and my attendance would have been sheer hypocrisy. I don’t like hypocrisy. The Knesset members of the Joint List decided to boycott … Read more
I AM writing this (may God forgive me) on Yom Kippur.Exactly 43 years ago, at this exact moment, the sirens sounded. We were sitting in the living room, looking out on one of Tel Aviv’s main streets. The city was completely silent. No cars. No traffic of any kind. A few children were riding about … Read more
DAVID BEN-GURION was not buried in the Great of the Nation portion of the national cemetery in Jerusalem, but next to his wife’s grave in Sde Boker, the Negev settlement he loved. Shimon Peres, his pupil and follower, was not buried next to his wife’s grave in Ben Shemen, the place she loved. But in … Read more
MAHMOUD ABBAS was not present at my first meeting with Yasser Arafat during the siege of Beirut in the First Lebanon War. That was, it may be remembered, the first meeting ever between Arafat and an Israeli. Some months later, in January 1983, a meeting was set up between Arafat and the delegation of the … Read more
SHIMON PERES is a genius. A genius of impersonation. All his life he has worked on his public persona. The image replaced the man. Almost all the articles written about him since he fell ill are about the imagined person, not the real one. As the Americans like to say: He is so phony he … Read more
ZIONISM WAS a revolutionary idea. It proposed that the “Jewish people” should create a new Jewish entity in the land of Palestine. The Zionist project was very successful indeed. By 1948 the embryo nation was strong enough to create a state. Israel was born. When one builds a house, one needs scaffolding. When the building … Read more