The most recent audio missive from Osama bin Laden, claiming responsibility for the attempted Christmas bombing of Northwest Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, rationalizes Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab’s act in the name of the suffering of the people of Gaza: "America will never dream of living in peace unless we live it in …
Continue reading “Israel and Islamic Terrorism”
One year ago Thursday, the last Israeli tanks were lumbering out of the Gaza Strip, ending the 22-day Gaza War and leaving in their wake a decimated landscape and population. A year later, the humanitarian and security situation in the devastated coastal enclave remains dire, yet the Barack Obama administration continues to overlook the crisis …
Continue reading “US Policy in Gaza Remains Unchanged”
RAMALLAH – Israel is lashing out at international criticism and attempting to crush local dissent in what appears to be growing sensitivity to reproach of its policies. Several recent incidents have dominated media headlines, including the arrest of a Jewish-American journalist on the grounds of security, threats by an Israeli minister against international diplomats and …
Continue reading “Israel Crushes Local Dissent, Attacks Global Criticism”
Is all criticism of Israel ultimately anti-Semitic? asks Ira Chernus
RAMALLAH – According to several prominent Palestinians and Israelis, another major Israeli military assault on Gaza, even harsher than last year’s Operation Cast Lead, is imminent. But will this change anything, and have the underlying causes behind the previous bloody war been addressed? During the last week the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have carried out …
Continue reading “Harsher Gaza War Looming on Horizon?”
RAMALLAH – Israel has long argued that Palestinians should pursue their political objectives in a nonviolent way. However, several prominent Palestinian peace activists have recently been arrested and jailed for doing just that. Abdallah Abu Rahme, 39, the coordinator of the Bi’lin Popular Committee, which has challenged Israel’s illegal expropriation of Palestinian land both in …
Continue reading “Israel Jails Palestinian Peace Activists”
I tried to resist the temptation to tell the same classical Jewish joke a second time, but circumstances delivered a plausible excuse. Almost every Jew knows the sentence "Kill a Turk and rest." The whole story goes like this: In Czarist Russia, a Jewish boy is called up for the war against the Turks. His …
Continue reading “‘Kill Another Turk…’”
A country programmatically gripped by fear – yes, that’s us for more than eight years now. Fear of terrorism to be exact, even as truly terrible things happened in this land and elsewhere, from hurricane Katrina in 2005 to last week’s devastating Haitian earthquake, which should have put our fears into perspective. But no such …
Continue reading “The Wages of Fear in Israel and the US”
The recent diplomatic crisis between Turkey and Israel has raised questions about the future of relations between the two closest allies of the United States in the region and the direction of the markedly independent foreign policy agenda that Turkey has pursued in recent years. The heightened tensions between the two nations are expected to …
Continue reading “Turkey Going Its Own Way”
JERUSALEM – One year after the devastating attack on Hamas in Gaza a new wave of reports castigating Israel for war crimes has emerged. Now, Israel is fighting back with a report on the reports, picking on international NGOs such as Amnesty, Christian Aid, Oxfam, Trocaire, Finn Church Aid, Diakonia and Cordaid. The immediate target …
Continue reading “Israel Declares War on Peace NGOs” 
