InDepth

As The Jewish Press is about to go to press Tuesday evening, Hamas spokesmen are still declaring that they have no intention of adhering to a cease-fire. Whether Arafat was serious or not when he declared a cease-fire the other day, the bottom line is that none is in the immediate offing. Yet one gets the sense that the Palestinians are indeed inching towards an interruption of hostilities.

Carl Pearlston is a Californian who has been involved with the Anti-Defamation League for 25 years, has served on its Regional Board and Executive Committee and was particularly active in the organization's Speaker's Bureau. Now he's out, and he tells us why in a revealing piece carried exclusively by JewishWorldReview.com.

Two years ago the Monitor, inspired by the political humorist P.J. O'Rourke, published an "Enemies List" of anti-Israel journalists. The column struck such a responsive chord, with readers nominating dozens of their own media enemies, that a couple of follow-ups to the original list soon appeared.

Prime Minister Sharon's halting of all IDF actions against the Palestinians 'except in cases of genuine danger to human life' together with the renunciation of a cease-fire by Arafat and other Palestinian officials puts the current situation into stark relief.

As we report this week on Page 3, it seems that New York State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno has once again sought to use Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's religious observance as fodder for political advantage.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin has this rather refreshing habit of going against the Jewish establishment's liberal grain. He's also quite obviously unafraid of taking on even the most cherished folkways of American Jewry, perhaps most notably its obsession with the Holocaust - an obsession he views as nothing less than detrimental to the spiritual health of the community.

A rather straightforward article in this past Sunday's New York Times on the August 30, 1999 death of Gidone Busch eloquently points to the continuing shame to our community in that tragic event.

There's a new book out that, due to its subject matter, is certain to attract the interest of many a Monitor reader. Be warned, however, that the book in question - "Irreconcilable Differences" The Waning of the American Jewish Love Affair with Israel? - is a truly awful piece of work, hardly worth the time and effort of anyone who doesn't get paid to review such a wretched endeavor.

Would it be a tad tasteless for the Monitor to break into a hearty chorus of 'Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead' at the welcome news that Deborah Sontag is soon to vacate her post as New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief?

President Bush's heretofore steadfast message to Yasir Arafat - that the Palestinian leaders' abandonment of the peace table in favor of the battlefield will not be rewarded - is consistent with what we continue to believe is the only road to peace.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has steadfastly refused to renege on his pledge that Israel will not negotiate in the face of continuing Palestinian violence and terror.

May 31 will mark the second anniversary of the date set by federal law for the United States Embassy in Israel to have been relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

There's a certain maxim among media critics (and if there isn't, the Monitor just coined it) that goes like this: If all seems right in the world of journalism, you probably haven't opened up that day's New York Times.

Most Israelis now want "to teach the Arabs a lesson they won't forget," but they are also prepared to uproot most of the settlements.

There was a palpable sigh of relief in many quarters in the Jewish community when the Mitchell Report failed to call for the establishment of an international monitoring group for the Middle East.

Many were startled by Pope John Paul II's neglect to respond to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's anti-Semitic calumnies the other day in the presence of the pontiff.

Still dining out on the praise it garnered during the Gulf War a long decade ago, CNN (derided in its formative years as the 'Chicken Noodle Network' for its then ticky-tacky image and more recently as the 'Clinton News Network' for its unabashed infatuation with the former president) has for some time now been arguably the nation's most overrated news outlet.

There is no question that in the aftermath of the IDF's operation in Beit Hanoun, the Bush Administration has stepped up its involvement in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Again this past week, there was fresh evidence of the increasing propensity to demonize Hasidim in the public's perception.

The Monitor usually answers letters and e-mails privately, but sometimes a public response seems more appropriate, as the following three queries illustrate.

Harper's, the literary magazine founded in 1850 and celebrated in its early years for featuring the works of Herman Melville, Henry James and Mark Twain, has for most of its history been an insomniac's delight - a snooze-inducing bore found mainly in the waiting rooms of doctors who hope to impress patients with a little bit of culture-by-association.

We join Klal Yisroel in mourning the death of Rabbi Avigdor Miller, zt"l, one of the foremost marbitzei Torah of our time.

Bill Clinton doubtless thought that his long Op-Ed apologia on the Rich pardon in last Sunday's New York Times was just the tour de force needed to stanch the cascading criticism of his secretive eleventh-hour maneuver.