THERE IS something tragicomic about the persona of Richard Goldstone. First there was a veritable storm of fury when the original Goldstone report was issued. What a fiend! A Jew who claims to be a Zionist and an Israel-lover, who publishes the most abominable slanders about against our valiant soldiers, aiding and abetting the worst … Read more
IT WAS Napoleon who said that it is better to fight against a coalition than to fight as part of one. Coalitions mean trouble. To conduct a successful military operation, one needs a unified command and a clear, agreed upon aim. Both are rare in coalitions. A coalition is composed of different countries, each of … Read more
ON THURSDAY EVENING I could not think of anything except Libya.First I heard the blood-curdling speech by Muammar Qaddafi, in which he promised to occupy Benghazi within hours and drown the rebels in a bloodbath. I was extremely worried and extremely furious with the international community and especially with the US, which had wasted days … Read more
JERUSALEM IS abuzz with brilliant new ideas. The brightest minds of our political establishment are grappling with the problems created by the ongoing Arab revolution that is reshaping the landscape around us. Here is the latest crop of mind-bogglingly innovative ideas: Minister of Defense Ehud Barak has announced that he is going to ask the … Read more
OF ALL the memorable phrases uttered by Barack Obama in the last two years, the one that stuck in my mind more than any other appeared in his historic speech in Cairo in the early days of his term. He warned the nations not to place themselves “on the wrong side of history.” It seems … Read more
“WHY DON’T the masses stream to the square here, too, and throw Bibi out?” my taxi driver exclaimed when we were passing Rabin Square. The wide expanse was almost empty, with only a few mothers and their children enjoying the mild winter sun. The masses will not stream to the square, and Binyamin Netanyahu can … Read more
THIS IS a story right out of “1001 Nights”. The genie escaped from the bottle, and no power on earth can put it back. When it happened in Tunisia, it could have been said: OK, an Arab country, but a minor one. It was always a bit more progressive than the others. Just an isolated … Read more
UNTIL THE very last moment, the Israeli leadership tried to keep Hosni Mubarak in power. It was hopeless. Even the mighty United States was impotent when faced with this tsunami of popular outrage. In the end it settled for second best: a pro-Western military dictatorship. But will this really be the outcome? WHEN CONFRONTED with … Read more
WE ARE in the middle of a geological event. An earthquake of epoch-making dimensions is changing the landscape of our region. Mountains turn into valleys, islands emerge from the sea, volcanoes cover the land with lava. People are afraid of change. When it happens, they tend to deny, ignore, pretend that nothing really important is … Read more
I ALWAYS thought this a specifically Israeli trait: whenever a scandal of national proportions breaks out, we ignore the crucial issues and focus our attention on some secondary detail. This spares us having to face the real problems and making painful decisions. There are examples galore. The classic one centered on the question: “Who Gave … Read more