What the hell has happened to them? Have they gone crazy? The British, of all people? I have always been an Anglophile. Even as a youngster, when I was a member of a terrorist organization devoted to driving the British out of our country. At the time I was working in a lawyer’s office which … Read more
SUDDENLY, A familiar face, almost forgotten, appeared on the TV screen. Well, not entirely familiar, because it now sports a prominent black beard. (If I were he, I would quickly shave it off.) Yes, there he was. Former Chief of Staff, former Prime Minister, Ehud Barak. Barak in a new format. Aggressive. Outspoken. Damning Binyamin … Read more
MANY YEARS ago I received a phone call from the Prime Minister’s office. I was told that Yitzhak Rabin wanted to see me in private. Rabin opened the door himself. He was alone in the residence. He led me to a comfortable seat, poured two generous glasses of whisky for me and himself and started … Read more
ONCE I heard the following story from the then Swedish ambassador in Paris: “In 1947, when the UN was discussing the plan to partition Palestine, I was a member of the sub-committee dealing with Jerusalem. One day, the Jews sent a new representative. His name was Abba Eban. He spoke beautiful English, much better than … Read more
I recently mentioned the German word Gleichschaltung – one of the most typical words in the Nazi vocabulary. “Gleich” means “the same”, and “Schaltung” means “wiring”. The long German word means that everything in the state is wired up the same way – the Nazi way. This was an essential part of the Nazi transformation … Read more
“THE BEST lack all convictions, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity!” Is there a better description of what is happening in Israel now? Yet these words were written, almost a hundred years ago, by the Irish poet W. B. Yeats. YEATS WAS writing shortly after the terrible slaughter and destruction of World … Read more
“PLEASE DON’T write about Ya’ir Golan!” a friend begged me, “Anything a leftist like you writes will only harm him!” So I abstained for some weeks. But I can’t keep quiet any longer. General Ya’ir Golan, the deputy Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, made a speech on Holocaust Memorial Day. Wearing his uniform, … Read more
WHEN DAVID BEN-GURION read out Israel’s declaration of independence (officially: “Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel”) on May 14, 1948, I was in Kibbutz Hulda. My company of the (still unnamed) Israeli army was ordered to make a night attack on the Arab village of al-Kubab, near the town of Ramleh. It … Read more
ANTI-SEMITES make me laugh. They are so funny. I know that many will consider this statement frivolous, if not obnoxious, considering all the terrible things committed by anti-Semites throughout the ages, including the Holocaust. But nowadays, they are just ridiculous. The things they believe in. The things they say. Ridiculous. TAKE THE ex-mayor of London, … Read more
NO. IT’S not “us” and “them”. Not “us” – the good ones, the moral ones, the righteous ones. Or, to put it bluntly, the magnificent ones. The Jews. And not “them” – the bad ones, the evil ones. To put it bluntly again: the despicable ones. Yes, the Arabs. We, who were chosen by God, … Read more