InDepth

Dangerous Times   Are we blind to what's happening? Are we so preoccupied that we don't realize the seriousness of how Iran's quest for a...

The poet Auden understood many things. He understood truly important things as only the poets can. He understood that humankind can always be found in pretty much the same imperiled condition.

I recently interviewed a Holocaust survivor who was present as the Russian army entered the town of Czetachowa.

Israeli public opinion polls taken in the aftermath of the war in Lebanon reveal a dramatic erosion of popular support for the Olmert government and its policies.

A few weeks ago, Jimmy Carter gave an interview to the German newspaper Der Spiegel, mostly on the recent Lebanon conflict. It was classic Jimmy Carter - at once moralizing and morally confused, ill-informed and preachy - illustrating why the American people voted him out of office after just one term and the politically partisan Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize.

A drama is slowly but steadily unfolding in Israel that is rare for that nation or any other civilized country. Fresh from the Lebanon battlefield, Israel's citizen-soldiers, joined by families of the fallen as well as ordinary citizens, are mobilizing again - this time for a campaign of marches, letters, petitions and other public activities in regard to the recent unpleasantness up yonder.

Why do so many Americans refuse to face the fact that our country is at war with international terrorism?

Many readers no doubt took issue with the relatively optimistic tone of my recent op-ed column ("Things Worth Remembering," Aug. 18) on the war between Israel and Hizbullah. Make no mistake: The outcome of the fighting upset me as it did all of us who love our State of Israel and our Jewish People.

Like a pig returning to his vomit, Mike Wallace came out of retirement last month to genuflect in the presence of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadine-jad and then to spread the word that the man who’s denied the Holocaust and called for wiping Israel off the map is not really such a bad guy after all.

Today, as in the past, the conduct of Jews who despise their own people spans the full spectrum of political depravity.

New Leadership Needed     If one were previously inclined to believe that Israel's leadership would finally muster the will to fight the Islamofascists chomping at...

Technically, the Lebanon war against Hizbullah is over. In fact, however, Israel remains starkly vulnerable to further rocket attacks, and - even more ominously - to a still-nuclearizing Iran. Making matters worse, Prime Minister Olmert has yet to openly change course from his indisputably catastrophic plan for "realignment" and "convergence."

Most Israelis feel the cease-fire was imposed on us before we finished the job. Hizbullah is not disarmed, our kidnapped soldiers have not been returned, and Iran and Syria seem to have been let off the hook.

For generations of Diaspora Jews raised on the idea of an invincible Israel, the last month has been something of a blow. While historians will probably have better luck sorting out the results of the recent weeks of fighting between Israel and its Hizbullah antagonists than journalists, there is little question that the result was a lot less than most of Israel's supporters in this country were expecting.

Clichéd postmortems analyzing Israel's failure to deal Hezbollah a clear defeat miss the point in blaming Prime Minister Olmert's lack of military experience or native ineptness. The key reasons for Israel's poor performance are deeper and far more ideological.

It pains me to write this. But it is becoming increasingly clear to me that Israel, in so many ways on the front lines in the fight against Islamo-fascism, is actually a force promoting it.

If a truly independent Israeli government inquiry is commissioned to scrutinize all aspects of the Jewish state's recent war against Hizbullah, the two Israeli political leaders most likely to undergo the most severe grilling are former prime minister Ehud Barak and the current premier, Ehud Olmert.

Unless you know your way around the blogosphere or get your news from publications like the Malaysia Sun, Australia’s Sunday Morning Herald or Germany’s Die Welt, you likely missed the story last week that some 84 Hollywood celebrities – actors, directors and producers – had signed an ad condemning Hizbullah and Hamas that appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Hollywood Reporter and Variety.

He Must Go    The time is now for every Jew who cares about Israel and the Jewish people to sound off and register a...

In an ancient myth, the Greek gods condemn Sisyphus to roll a great rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone will inevitably fall back of its own weight. By imposing this terrible judgment the gods had prescribed the dreadful punishment of interminable labor. But they also revealed something vastly more difficult to understand, namely, that even such useless labor need not be altogether futile. Such labor, they knew, could also be heroic.

Last week's conference on Jewish genealogy in New York featured many sessions dealing with the issues of tracing Jewish lineage.

Six days after the "Three Weeks War," our goal is to carry on, with all the more determination, the mission to bring about a great awakening among the Jewish people.

It was a war Israel was more afraid of winning than of losing.

Back in April, Rabbi Wolpe gave a sermon whose title took one aback: "Can Israel Survive?"

Here's a syndrome for the books: A renowned filmmaker gets stinking drunk. Angry and bizarre words then spew forth - from the lips (or pens) of others.

Undeterred by the Heathrow shutdown, I turned up for the Aug. 10 night flight to Israel. I had no business there and no formal holiday plans. I just felt I needed to be there, perhaps to help out friends and family whose breadwinners had been called up for reserve duty.

As the Hizbullah-Israel war wound down last week, pundits were quick to label winners and losers. Some said Hizbullah won because it survived, bombed Israel with 4,000 rockets, and earned the applause of the Arab "street." Others maintain that Israel won because Hizbullah was partially crippled, its leadership is in hiding, and the Lebanese will emerge from the dust furious at Hizbullah for a war they did not seek.

Our beloved Israel is engaged in an existential fight for survival. From the moment of its birth in 1948, Israel has been under constant siege. This latest war, however, feels different. It comes upon Israel after decades of non-stop terrorist attacks, large-scale military battles, and endless international boycotts and condemnation.

A general mood of depression has gripped Israel since the cease-fire in Lebanon came into force on Monday, August 14. It is unjustified. True, we again lost many precious sons in the quagmire of Lebanon. A large number of our soldiers and civilians are still crowding the hospitals, some of them seriously wounded. Our cities and settlements in the North suffered gaping wounds that will require months of rehabilitation.

Continued from last week, some random observations of what others have been saying about the warfare in Lebanon, beginning with a series of fiercely anti-Olmert columns by Ari Shavit in Haaretz, Israel’s preeminent left-wing daily.