Column
The splintering on both the left and the right in advance of the April 9 elections may have little to do with who will eventually govern the Jewish state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s innate drive is identity and security; he has chosen to avert the existential threat posed by Iran and to create a secure situation with the Palestinians without falling prey to any illusions.
The great novelist’s passing should remind us that understanding the glories of modern Hebrew literature is essential to the future of the Jewish people.
Amos Oz came to embody the ideal of a “virtuous Israel”—namely, of a man who works the fields by day and writes novels at night, and who dreams of peace and must go to war.
Is the Holocaust, it is often asked, any more important than other demonstrations of inhumanity in the world? And what of the co-opting of its messages for political purposes?
What’s crucial is that any occupant of the White House understands that America is not a planet in another galaxy. What happens 5,000 miles away may well affect its own security and well-being.
Fortunately for Israel and the United States, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu possesses an uncanny ability to function on multiple fronts simultaneously.
After a year of division, it’s time for Jews on both sides of the blue-red divide to be willing to take on their allies.
Israeli and American Jewry could both come up with lists of gripes, but doubling-down on the items that divide threaten to rip apart the Jewish nation.
With funding and direction from Iran, Hamas has raised its flag in the Palestinian Authority capital of Ramallah, where it hopes to kill two birds with one stone: attack Israel and topple leader Mahmoud Abbas.
Giving BDS groups and novelist Alice Walker an undeserved pass for targeting Jews creates an atmosphere where Jew-hatred is normalized.
U.S. troop withdrawal may lead to disaster in Syria, but it also illustrates the basic contradiction in the president’s foreign policy on ISIS and Iran.