Prepare for the gnashing of teeth over the death of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, targeted in an Israeli rocket attack yesterday. Weak-kneed Europeans will condemn Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Misinformed Americans will see it as a provocative action by the Jewish state. And the Arab world will threaten fire-and-brimstone retaliation. My reaction? What took […]

One of the main tenants of secular, political Zionism is Israel as refuge. The philosophy fashioned and thrust forth upon the world stage by Herzl embodied the ideals of brotherly love and communal responsibility inherent in the Jewish tradition. From even before the establishment of the state, refugees came to Israel with the promise and […]

I am mad as hell and I will tell you why. After 2000 years of statelessness, we Jews finally achieved a rebirth of our independence in our ancient homeland, Israel. After 56 years of struggle, sacrifice, blood and tears, Israel has defensible borders and the most powerful army in the Middle East. So what does […]

Minister Uzi Landau (Likud) wrote a scathing op-ed piece for today’s (Sunday) Haaretz newspaper. The article, entitled “Our American friends are disappointed with us,” addressed the fact that many of Israel’s most ardent supporters in the U.S. feel betrayed. Dr. Landau stated that an Israel willing to backtrack on all previous declarations regarding the need […]

NEW YORK- The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is troubled and disappointed that former U.S. Mideast envoy Dennis Ross is largely blaming Israel for the lack of reforms among the Palestinian Arabs. Ross’s stance takes on potentially greater importance because the New York Times reported on March 1, 2004, that U.S. Senator John Kerry regards […]

Recently, I again visited some of the wonderful and essential Jewish communities in Gush Katif in Gaza. My son Mayer, a yeshiva student at the Israeli hesder Yeshiva Kerem BeYavneh, and I were members of an Orthodox Union (OU) Israel Mission to learn about and strengthen Jews under siege in Israel. It is not at […]

“Israel can just say no!” Dr. Rand Fishbein, former Professional Staff Member of the U.S. Senate Defense Appropriations and Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittees, told participants of the three-day Jerusalem Conference. “The democratically elected leaders of the State of Israel are under no obligation to reflexively bow to State Department pressure – you can say no!” […]

TEL AVIV – Israeli Interior Minister Avraham Poraz, a member of the secularist Shinui party, has reportedly said that immigration to Israel from Ethiopia, India and Peru will be frozen because immigrants from those countries undergo only Orthodox conversions and many choose to live in Judea and Samaria. Poraz made the statement to leaders of […]

‘We are an Al Qaeda family.” So spoke one of the Khadrs, a Muslim Canadian household whose near single-minded devotion to Osama bin Laden contains important lessons for the West. Their saga began in 1975, when Ahmad Said al-Khadr left his native Egypt for Canada and soon after married a local Palestinian woman. He studied […]

The US made the wrong plans for Iraq. We didn’t have enough allies. We didn’t have the “right” allies. We used too few soldiers. We didn’t use the “right” soldiers. We didn’t find the WMD (yet?). We didn’t plan “right” for the occupation. We didn’t anticipate the looting. We anticipated too many starving refuge es. […]