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Hanan Shai

Dr. Hanan Shai is a lecturer in the political-science department at Bar-Ilan University.

IDF Artillery Corps units fire at targets in the Gaza Strip, May 17, 2021. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.

Did the Gaza operation achieve its political goal?

Despite the IDF’s spectacular exploits and extensive destruction of targets, it appears that control over the length of the quiet and the quality of Israel’s security will remain in Hamas’s hands.

May 24, 2021

An Israeli soldier holds the Torah Scroll carried by IDF Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren in the Six-Day War, during a ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, in memory of the soldiers killed in "Operation Protective Edge" and in Israel's other wars. Aug.12, 2015. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.

The common Israeli destiny

Renewing Israel’s national solidarity and moral legitimacy is the need of the hour.

January 20, 2021

Visitors tour the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial museum in Jerusalem on International Holocaust Day, Jan. 26, 2017. Photo by Hadas Parush/Flash90.

A serious moral failure at Yad Vashem

The museum, which was designed to perpetuate the memory of the Holocaust and its victims, now trumpets the values of European liberalism—the very values that paved the way to the Shoah.

January 3, 2021

Arthur Goldberg speaking with Golda Meir. Credit: Moshe Milner, GPO.

Golda Meir: The civilian who exposed Israel’s lack of preparedness for the 1973 war

Although she lacked military knowledge, on the eve of the Yom Kippur War Prime Minister Golda Meir exposed the fact that deterrence and early warning, the two cornerstones of Israel’s security conception, were without foundation.

October 12, 2020

A billboard in Tel Aviv on Sept. 14, 2020. Photo by Flash90.

The moral failure in Israel’s approach to COVID-19

Israel is not just a democracy; it is a Jewish democracy. In its fight against the pandemic, the country is acting in contravention of its own moral values.

September 15, 2020

The Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

‘Human Dignity and Liberty’ damaged democracy

Israel is engulfed in a moral crisis, not a judicial one, and it needs to be addressed as such.

May 23, 2019

Young protesters in the Gaza Strip take part in the continued “March of Return” riots near the Israeli-Gaza border on March 22, 2019. Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90.

Hold off on Gaza for now

The enemy was supposed to give up simply because of shock and awe caused by fireworks displays of advanced technology and intelligence, amazing in their precision and power. The result: an exhausting war of attrition that has gone on since 2002.

March 31, 2019

“Yellow-vests” protestrs in France on Dec. 29, 2018. Photo by Thomas Bresson via Wikimedia Commons.

Beyond populism and anti-Semitism … essentialism

Since classic anti-Semitism is currently out of fashion, it’s channeling its hatred of Jews to the State of Israel, whose insistence on constitutionally defending itself as a nation-state is a veritable call to arms.

February 20, 2019

Yahya Sinwar, leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Feb. 24, 2017. Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90.

Israel and Hamas are fighting a war of attrition

We also cannot hide from the fact that rather than beating and deterring Hamas, Hamas is beating and deterring us.

October 17, 2018