Tuesday May 21, 2013
Despite Israel’s tough challenges which demand substantive debate, too many reporters distract, sensationalize and trivialize instead. Rather than deliberating how to balance the individual freedom needed to prosper economically with the collective responsibility needed to thrive communally, the press prefers irrelevant exposés about prime-ministerial expenses. Amid most Israelis’ frustrations with an overly-demanding,...
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Monday May 13, 2013
It is awards and honorary doctorate season, a time for contemplating who should – and should not -- be honored. In Washington, Cliff May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, forced the Newseum to reconsider its decision, in honoring journalists killed in 2012, to include two cameramen for al-Aqsa TV – Hamas TV -- thus saluting terrorists masquerading as journalists. In Israel, news that Cherie Blair...
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Tuesday May 07, 2013
Last month, when we celebrated Yom Ha’atzmaut, we talked mostly about Israel’s “atzmaut,” independence. We were also celebrating 65 years of “sovereignty,” meaning control of our political destiny, in the form of a modern nation state. The Jewish return to sovereignty has been complicated. It has come with a steep price tag due to the ongoing Arab repudiation of our sovereignty. At the...
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Tuesday Apr 30, 2013
Controversy continues regarding the hard-hitting Oscar-nominated documentary “The Gatekeepers,” because it is more misleading than illuminating. In interviewing the last six Israeli “Shin Bet” intelligence chiefs, the film showcases Israel’s democratic vitality while seeking to undermine it. Democratic Israel should be debating the complex Palestinian question and responding to the movie’s challenge...
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Tuesday Apr 23, 2013
We in Israel know the scenario all too well. A beautiful day. A happy crowd. A little 8-year-old boy, beaming, delighted, flanked by his mother and sister. A young woman, enjoying the street party. An international student, experiencing our culture, our rituals which seem so exotic to her and so normal to us. Then, abruptly, evil intrudes with a boom, generating puffs of smoke. Normally benign ball bearings trigger a lethal shower of...
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