David Weinberg

Everybody knows that the rapidly growing and politically muscular Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Israel can no longer altogether avoid military and/or national service. But haredi leaders will not relinquish their rigid communal structure of full-time and lifetime-long Torah study. And nobody can draft haredi Israeli Jews against their will – no matter what the Supreme Court rules or the Knesset legislates. So here is my national service plan for haredi men during “bein hazmanim,” their long semester breaks.

The tectonic threat of Iran to Mideast and global stability must be countered head-on.

Israel must resist America’s fantasy framework for a swift, dangerously indecisive, end to the Gaza war.

An ugly, fringe phenomenon being falsely puffed up to "balance" the crimes of Hamas.

Take this Rosh Hashanah political-security quiz and prognosticate on the future for the Jewish new year. (My predictions are recorded at the bottom of the article.)

Oslo is the root cause of today’s terrible epidemic of terrorist and crime shootings.

Chances for a deal are high, the risks manageable, and the value overwhelming. The doubters and naysayers, as well as those who actively are trying to sabotage such an agreement, are wrong.

Lost in the anti-Netanyahu netherworld are manifold affirmations of commitment to IDF service despite the judicial reform juggernaut.

Rabbi Gold, who passed away this week at 88, was known for feisty and infectious Zionist passion and for biting witticism. He understood God’s love for all Jews in absolute terms (which he sought to emulate absolutely), and he understood God’s grant of the Land of Israel to the Jewish People in absolute terms, in a totality wrapped with kedusha, holiness. These are not gifts that one can simply fritter away.

The only real power standing in the way of Palestinian terrorism and Iranian hegemonism is Israel.

There is no moral equivalence whatsoever between Palestinian terrorists and Israeli troops. Falsely balanced diplomatic formulations like those that “call upon all sides to end the cycle of violence” must be rejected. This is prattle that covers for Palestinian extremism and rejectionism, and retards the cause of peace.

Alas, coming soon: More American goodies for Iran in exchange for more pious and empty Iranian pledges.

Dr. Kissinger is most consequential figure in US foreign policy of the past century. His record regarding Jews and Israel remains controversial, but I think that on balance Kissinger deserves respect.

We are obligated to be doresh Yerushalayim, to spiritually refine ourselves and draw closer to He who truly owns Jerusalem; to long for God’s revealed presence, seeking to encounter Him with the tools at our disposal. Already today, the Divine Presence peeps at us through the cracks of the Temple Mount retaining walls, there to be seen and experienced, if we only seek it.

The illustrious Jewish-American novelist is a penetrating and courageous critic of contemporary society and its attitudes to Jews and Israel.

Israel’s future depends more on repairing a modicum of national unity and even global Jewish accord than it does on countering Iran

On the 75th Yom Haatzmaut, focus on the brilliance bursting forth from the nation of Israel in realms galore.

A comprehensive picture of Iranian belligerence and its tectonic threat to Mideast and global stability.

The US president is neighing about Israeli democracy and stiffing Netanyahu to counter Israel’s insistence on acting against Iran.

This is what national suicide looks like.

I do not believe that the Saudi-Iran agreement closes the door on Saudi-Israeli entente, nor on a renewed pro-Western regional alliance involving Israel and the Saudis

Beware the doomsday discourse about irreparable depredations in Israel’s democratic moorings. The poison it pumps into Israel’s soul and standing is far worse than its proximate cause.

Compared to the ongoing Palestinian terrorist mega-pogrom against Israeli Jews, the Huwara rampage must rank as one the weakest pogroms in the ugly history of pogroms. So where is the anguish over Israeli Jews continuously murdered by Palestinian terrorists?

Fight fire with fire. The terrorists want to chase Israel off this land; in response, Israel should lay stakes on more land each time they fire a shot.

One would think that Jordan’s “special role” means it has a responsibility to maintain the site as a place of prayer, brotherhood and tolerance.

Restoring the pre-Aharon Barak juridical culture of restraint is a necessary process.

PALESTINIAN-JORDANIAN IMPUDENCE and ISRAELI INFIRMITY.

In Washington and other capitals, an ungenerous spirit has set in.

My first “aliyah” this week to “Har HaBayit” was scary, emotional, fascinating, and infuriating. And necessary.

I told interlocutors in the Arabian Gulf last weekend that Israel firmly will assert its sovereignty and governance in the face of Israeli Arab and Palestinian lawlessness. That is what most Israelis expect of their new government! At the same time, I assured Israel’s Emirati and Bahraini allies that Israel will do so without racist incitement and delegitimizing rhetoric, and without crude demonstrations of its power, but rather with finely calibrated tools and from an approach of maximum willingness to dialogue. (I hope that I am right….)