Mideast War – Really Imminent? By now, a war in the Middle East will not catch anybody by surprise. Predictions have been so persistent, that the actual surprise is that the war has not started yet. Some people, not necessarily optimistic by nature, start...
The State of the Army, Part Two
So how did it go? The Mitchell Report recommended a cease-fire and freeze of all settlements activities. As spin, Sharon announced a "cease-fire" to push aside the issue of settlements. Then we had the Palestinian suicide bomb killing 21 young Israelis in...
Building Settlements, Killing Peace
In a perfectly calculated spin, Prime Minister Sharon unilaterally declared "cease fire" last Tuesday (22.5). He did not announce it in the press conference that day, but made it known indirectly several hours later, giving even more bubble-gum for the...
The State of the Army, Part 1
"In Israel, every human being is a soldier, and every soldier – a human being," went a famous old saying ascribed to David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founder and first prime minister. In the pre-sound-bite era, when lengthy and complex slogans were...
Israeli Left Sells Out Peace
In a previous column we have seen how Barak united an overwhelming majority of Israelis behind the dangerous conviction that "The Enemy Does Not Want Peace." By now, this has been affirmed empirically: According to the findings of a Peace Index survey...
BARAK’S LEGACY
Israel is presently experiencing a clear return to the past. The younger generation – Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, born in the 1940's – was forced out of the political arena, and the older generation – Ariel Sharon (as Prime Minister) and Shimon...