palestinians Archives - Page 2 of 17

Israelis and Palestinians Marching in Step for Peace

OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM — For the first time in over 20 years, thousands of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists marched peacefully together on Friday to support the Palestinian drive for statehood expected to be endorsed at the UN General Assembly in September. “Only a declaration of Palestinian statehood can prevent bloodshed,” said Hillel Ben-Sasson, a … Continue reading

It Can Happen Here!

Years ago I said that there are but two miracles in Israel: the Hebrew language and democracy. Hebrew had been a dead language for many generations, more or less like Latin, when it was still used in the Catholic church. Then, suddenly, concurrent with the emergence of Zionism (but independently), it sprang back to life. … Continue reading

Palestinians Won’t Learn Israeli Lessons

EAST JERUSALEM — Widespread strikes across Palestinian civil society could be in store for East Jerusalem at the start of the next school year, as the municipality moves ahead with its current plan to implement an Israeli curriculum in Palestinian schools. “I expect that the beginning of the new school year will not be a … Continue reading

Things You Can Say, Things You Cannot

The anti-boycott law passed Monday night. Much has been said about what the American administration — blind as always to Middle East realities — tagged “an internal issue.” Let me just add that my readers should remember, from now on, that there are things I am not allowed to say. For example, I expressed my … Continue reading

‘Flytilla’ Debacle Another PR Nightmare For Israel

BEN GURION AIRPORT, Tel Aviv — Confused foreign tourists arriving at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport on Friday would be forgiven for thinking that a terrorist attack was about to take place. Hundreds of armed Israeli soldiers and police spread throughout the airport as Israeli police surrounded six Israeli pro-Palestinian peace activists who were arrested … Continue reading

By Torpedoing the Gaza Flotilla, Israel Sank Its Own Ship

Instead of high-fiving each other for their success in thwarting the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, Israeli officials should be throwing overboard the propaganda hacks who catapulted the flotilla into headline news for weeks and left Israel smelling like rotten fish. Last year, when the Israeli military killed nine aboard the Turkish ship, the incident made waves … Continue reading

Israel’s Instilled Memory

For several weeks now, our army and navy have been in a state of high alert, bravely facing a deadly threat to our very existence: 10 little boats trying to reach Gaza. These vessels are carrying a dangerous gang of vicious terrorists, in the form of elderly veterans of peace campaigns. Benjamin Netanyahu has affirmed … Continue reading

A Zionist Fights for Palestinian Rights

JERUSALEM — To many people, Rabbi Arik Ascherman would appear to be a contradiction in terms. He is an ardent Zionist and religious Jew who believes that God made a covenant with the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. But the core of Ascherman’s Zionist ideology revolves around fighting for human rights, especially those … Continue reading

Sacred Mantras

The Palestinians are planning something thoroughly obnoxious: they intend to apply to the UN for statehood. Why obnoxious? Any Israeli spokesman (not to mention spokeswoman) will tell you readily: because it is a “unilateral” move. How dare they proclaim a state unilaterally? How dare they do so without the consent of the other party to … Continue reading

Netanyahu: Stupid Like a Fox?

My hero of the year (for now) is a young, brown-haired Palestinian refugee living in Syria called Hassan Hijazi. He was one of hundreds of refugees who held the demonstration on the Syrian side of the Golan border fence, to commemorate the Naqba—“Disaster”—the exodus of more than half the Palestinian people from the territory conquered … Continue reading