JUST BEFORE Israel’s 66th Independence Day, the country acquired a new national hero.If it is true that every nation gets the national heroes it deserves, it was a rather worrying spectacle. THE VIDEO clip that turned David Adamov from an anonymous soldier into a national figure was taken with a Palestinian camera in Hebron. Such … Read more
HOW WOULD the US react to a declaration that the Palestinians would not conduct negotiations with an Israeli government that includes semi-fascist parties? With outrage, of course. How does the US react to an Israeli statement that Israel will not negotiate with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas? With full approval, of course. FOR ANYONE … Read more
IMAGINE A war breaking out between Israel and Jordan. Within two or three days the Israeli army occupies the entire territory of the Hashemite Kingdom. What will be the first act of the occupation authority?Establish a settlement in Petra? Expropriate land near Aqaba? No. The very first thing will be to decree that the territory … Read more
THE DEATH of Ron Pundak, one of the original Israeli architects of the 1993 Oslo agreement, brought that historic event back into the public eye. Gideon Levy reminded us that the Rightist rabble-rousers, in their furious onslaught on the agreement, called the initiators “Oslo criminals” – a conscious echo of one of Adolf Hitler’s main … Read more
POOR JOHN Kerry. This week he emitted a sound that was more expressive than pages of diplomatic babble. In his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations committee he explained how the actions of the Israeli government had torpedoed the “peace process”. They broke their obligation to release Palestinian prisoners, and at the same time announced … Read more
THERE IS nothing better than a scandal every week. A juicy scandal excites people, engages the media, takes our minds off matters like war and peace, occupation and apartheid. Like panem et circenses (bread and entertainment) in ancient Rome. This week we had several scandals to occupy us. Ehud Olmert, a former prime minister, was … Read more
NEW ZEALAND HAS decided to change its flag. This was only briefly mentioned in the media here. But it is a significant example for us. The old flag is based on the British one, the Union Jack, which signifies the union of England, Scotland and Ireland. The three different crosses are integrated in an intricate … Read more
THERE IS an old Chinese curse that says: “May you live in historic times!” (If there isn’t, there should be.) This week was a historic time. The Crimea seceded from Ukraine. Russia annexed it. A dangerous situation. No one knows how it will develop. AFTER MY last article about the Ukrainian crisis, I was flooded … Read more
SOMETHING VERY important happened this week in the most unlikely of places: the Knesset. On the agenda were three laws, one worse than the other. One was about “governance”. Its main provision raises the “electoral threshold” – i.e. the minimum an election list needs to enter the Knesset – from 2% to 3.25%. The obvious … Read more
BINYAMIN NETANYAHU is very good at making speeches, especially to Jews, neocons and such, who jump up and applaud wildly at everything he says, including that tomorrow the sun will rise in the west. The question is: is he good at anything else? HIS FATHER, an ultra-ultra-Rightist, once said about him that he is quite … Read more