"Rest has come to the tired Repose to the toiler A pale night covers The fields of the Jezreel Valley Dew below and moon above From Kibbutz Bet-Alfa to Moshav Nahalal." This is what we sang when we were young. Now it is a TV nostalgia show, youngsters of the...
The bloody battles that have erupted around the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp near Tripoli in Lebanon remind us that the refugee problem has not disappeared. On the contrary, 60 years after the "Nakba," the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948, it is again the center of...
The Winograd committee of inquiry is not a part of the solution. It is a part of the problem. Now, after the first excitement caused by the publication of the partial report has died down, it is possible to evaluate it. The conclusion is that it has done much more...
I have been to many demonstrations in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, even when it was still called "Kings of Israel Square." I was at the legendary "Demonstration of the 400,000" after the Sabra and Shatila massacre (actually, there were around 200,000, which is still...
At this moment, negotiations on a prisoner exchange are in full swing. The term "negotiations" is really inappropriate. "Haggling" seems more fitting. One could also use an uglier expression: "trafficking in human beings." The planned deal concerns living people....
Can a pantheress turn into a pussycat? Impossible, a zoologist would say. But last week, we saw it happen with our own eyes. Condoleezza Rice came here to teach Ehud Olmert, once and for all, who is boss. The president of the United States wants to make order in the...
"We are ready for the next war," a reserve soldier in the Israel Defense Forces told a TV reporter this week, on the scene of a brigade-size maneuver on the Golan Heights. What war? Against whom? About what? This was not stated, and not even asked. The soldier saw it...
When a prime minister has just lost a war, is dogged by corruption allegations, and sees his popularity ratings in free fall, what can he do? Why, he can initiate provocations. A provocation diverts attention, generates headlines, creates the illusion of power,...
During the first Lebanon war, I visited Jounieh, a town some 20 km north of Beirut. At the time, it served as a port for the Christian forces. It was an exciting evening. In spite of the war raging in nearby Beirut, Jounieh was full of life. The Christian elite spent...
In its original German form – Liebermann – the name means "lovable man." It is hard to imagine a name less appropriate for the new deputy prime minister of Israel. He is not lovable, neither in his personality nor in his views – and that is the...
