Despite the state’s formal commitment not to expand West Bank settlements, a government agency has been promoting plans over the past two years to construct thousands of housing units east of the Green Line, Haaretz has learned. Read more »
A price? Even if you multiply this so-called price by a thousand, this is still no price to pay. The thousand prisoners requested by Hamas are less than a tenth of the many prisoners rotting in Israeli jails. Most of them served lengthy sentences, and experience shows they are unlikely to return to terrorism if released. Some are political prisoners who should never have been arrested and jailed under any rule of law. They deserve to be released with or without connection to Shalit. Read more »
A former ambassador to Saudi Arabia with a history as a critic of Israel will reportedly be named to a top intelligence post in the Obama administration. Read more »
Arab and Israeli socialists have a special historical responsibility. A revolution does not happen by itself; and when it does break out it can take a disastrous turn if it is hijacked by regressive forces. In order to ensure that an Arab revolution can resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the benign way envisaged here (along with the other great problems of the region), we must start working and organising now in a democratic and non-sectarian way. We must closely coordinate our thinking, strategy and activity; and form organisational links on a regional scale, prefiguring the future in the present. Read more »
On the evening of October 29, 1956, Israel, allied with France and Great Britain, attacked Egypt, and the Sinai Campaign began. The operation lasted for about 100 hours and cost the lives of over 170 Israeli soldiers. Over the years, the widespread perception has been that Israel wanted this war, but to this day there is no consensus among scholars about the reasons why. Read more »
Opposition is created first and foremost in the street, not in an electoral carnival where the political programs are produced by strategist Reuven Adler and other propaganda experts. Whatever the makeup of the next coalition, the left’s role will be manifested in the streets, not in waiting for the next elections. Read more »
Anyone who wants a meaningful left must first air out Zionism in the attic. Until a movement that courageously redefines Zionism arises from the mainstream, there will be no broad left here. It is not possible to be both leftist and Zionist only in accordance with the right’s definition. Who has decided that the settlements are Zionist and legitimate, and the struggle against them is neither? Read more »
Despite the lack of clarity about the next government, one thing is becoming painfully clear – the entire left-wing bloc has suffered a crushing defeat in the election. Read more »
Palestinian support for the Islamist Hamas movement has soared in the wake of Israel’s three-week offensive against the Gaza Strip, according to a poll released yesterday. Read more »
The film “Waltz with Bashir” belongs to the kvetch genre: “Oy, how traumatic that massacre in Sabra and Chatila was for us.” The Jewish Agency is afraid that the tender soul of American Jewry might be hurt by the film and therefore it is offering them psychological relief on the Internet (jewishculture.org). Read more »
