Israel, Iran, And The Shiite Apocalypse (Second of Three Parts)

Posted on: July 11th, 2012

For Israel, and also its cross-pressured U.S. ally, there would be very difficult problems to solve if an enemy state such as Iran were permitted to go fully nuclear. These problems could lethally undermine the conceptually neat, but probably unrealistic, notion of balanced nuclear deterrence in the region.

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An American Odyssey (Part 11)

Posted on: July 11th, 2012

We left Reno, Nevada, early Sunday morning and decided to take the scenic route to Salt Lake City, rather than travel by super highway, but Route 50 turned out to be not very scenic as we crossed Nevada and Utah. We stopped at a roadside table at noon, where the men heated and ate LaBriute meals while the women enjoyed their cottage cheese, peanut butter sandwiches, fruit and vegetables. We have followed this pattern of meals ever since the women decided not to eat the packaged meals.

Jerusalem And The Three Weeks

Posted on: July 11th, 2012

Mourning, repentance – and love of the Land of Israel. These are arguably the major themes of these Three Weeks of Mourning over the destruction of the Holy Temple. The first two are well known and require little elaboration. But how does love and concern for Eretz Yisrael fit in to the picture?

Quick Takes: News You May Have Missed

Posted on: July 11th, 2012

Thousands Of Radicals Poised To Fight Assad At least 5,000 global jihadists are positioned near Syria’s borders with Turkey and Lebanon attempting to infiltrate Syria to aid the opposition fighting Bashar Assad’s regime, a senior Syrian government official told to this column. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Syrian military hopes to […]

From New Zealand to Israel

Posted on: July 11th, 2012

Yishai is joined by Hillel Ma'or, an instructor at the Caliber 3 range outside of Efrat to discuss his journey to Judaism and also Israel.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach: Why a Jewish Democratic Leader Attacked Sheldon Adelson

Posted on: July 10th, 2012

Ordinarily, an attack by the political hack of one party about a mega-contributor to another party would not merit attention or comment. But what made Harris’s vitriol most unfortunate was that it was one Jew deriding the two foremost private supporters of Jewish identity and the State of Israel in the entire world.

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Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians’ Islamist Spring?

Posted on: July 9th, 2012

In March last year, thousands of Palestinians, inspired by the "Arab Spring," launched their own protests in the West Bank to demand reforms, democracy, and regime change. But the Palestinian revolt was short-lived. Abbas's security forces, backed by Fatah thugs, attacked the young men and women who were protesting in the center of Ramallah, torching their tents and beating them with clubs and rifle butts.

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An Open Letter to Congressman Pascrell on School Choice and Vouchers

Posted on: July 9th, 2012

There are few choices as personal and important as the educational environment in which our children are immersed for most of their waking hours. Yet in the United States, unless parents want to risk bankruptcy just to afford tuition, they are given no choice.

Origins of Internationalization

Posted on: July 8th, 2012

Yishai Fleisher presents a talk that he gave to the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem about why the concept of internationalizing the city is not a good idea.

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Crowning Miss Holocaust Survivor

Posted on: July 6th, 2012

Yishai and Malkah talk about a recent beauty pageant for Holocuast survivors along with contrasts between new German and Israeli Laws. They also discuss a gift that was recently delivered from a fan.

Israel, Iran, And The Shiite Apocalypse (First of Three Parts)

Posted on: July 5th, 2012

Finally, after many years of effective disregard, a core irony in the matter of Iranian nuclearization can be acknowledged: For President Ahmadinejad, and also his clerical superiors, any prospect of hastening the Shiite apocalypse – a decidedly “sacred” prospect linked to war with Israel and/or the United States – could be welcomed. Naturally, this religion-driven view of a "terrible beauty" would contrast starkly with senior leadership attitudes in both Jerusalem and Washington. In these plainly more secular circles, of course, any thought of a conscious encouragement for Final Battle must always be rejected.

Deconstructing Israeli Society

Posted on: July 5th, 2012

The photo of homosexual soldiers on the IDF’s official website should have set off many alarm bells for many public figures. But they were all afraid. The heavy-handed politically correct code paralyzes our representatives. They prefer to remain silent and let somebody else fend off the arrows that are sure to come. MK Uri Ariel (National Union) deserves our appreciation and admiration, as he was the only MK to courageously state the simple truth by calling on the IDF to conduct itself on this issue as it has in the past.

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Psalms, Scuds And Shamir

Posted on: July 5th, 2012

Let me tell you how special it is to live in Eretz Yisrael. The other day I decided it was time for me to say the entire Book of Psalms – Tehillim. I’m the father of ten children and fifteen grandchildren (b’li ayin hara), so the power of Tehillim is where I turn, for my family’s needs.

Yitzchak Shamir – Israel’s Least Appreciated Prime Minister

Posted on: July 4th, 2012

I came to know Mr. Shamir quite well when I hosted him at the University of Oxford in the mid-90’s. He seemed all but forgotten even then and told me that his dramatic drop in popularity in Israel had been due to the euphoria over the premiership of Yitzchak Rabin and his dramatic overtures for peace. He told me this with a touch of resignation. It seemed he did feel underappreciated. More importantly, he seemed to divine the coming catastrophe.

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Quick Takes: News You May Have Missed

Posted on: July 4th, 2012

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Remembering An Anonymous Soldier

Posted on: July 4th, 2012

Yishai Fleisher is joined by Alternative Peace Activist Yehuda HaKohen to discuss the roots and life of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

‘Losing Zuckerberg’ and Reform Judaism’s Opportunity

Posted on: July 2nd, 2012

Had Mark Zuckerberg been told that the Jewish people have a mission to rebuild a Jewish state, and that his creative talents are needed, he may have harnessed his mind in that direction. Had he been offered an opportunity to take part in the most exciting project of the Jewish people in two-thousand years, he probably would have taken it.

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America’s $2 Billion a Year to Egypt Hinges on Its Peace with Israel

Posted on: June 29th, 2012

Democracy without a legitimate constitution and a Bill of rights, especially protecting the rights of minorities, can become a very scary thing. What you get is a tyranny of the majority. So the United States, as the world’s foremost democracy and sole superpower, must insist that elected regimes be restrained by a constitution that safeguards against a gravitation toward tyranny.

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‘Slaughter The Jews’: Israel, Anti-Semitism, And International Law (Third of Three Parts)

Posted on: June 27th, 2012

The Genocide Convention criminalizes not only various acts of genocide, but also (Article III) conspiracy to commit genocide and direct and public incitement to commit genocide. Articles II, III and IV of the Genocide Convention are fully applicable in all cases of direct and public incitement to commit genocide. For the Convention to be invoked, it is sufficient that any one of the state parties call for a meeting, through the United Nations, of all the state parties (Article VIII).

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Decision Time

Posted on: June 27th, 2012

It is impossible not to notice the similarity between the Ulpana situation and the Sharon-led Expulsion from Gush Katif. In both cases a prime minister elected by the Right, whose ideology certainly does not endorse destruction in Israel’s heartland, veers sharply left and compels his ministers and coalition to support a Peace Now move – a move completely against their will.