SOMETIMES, SOMETHING is said about you, and you are not quite sure whether to take it as a compliment or an insult. Two prominent journalists, whom I respect very much, mentioned me in connection with the Prime Minister. Akiva Eldar of Haaretz asked last month about Ehud Olmert: “How to treat a son of the … Read more
WHICH OF the two men is the leader of the greatest power on earth and which is the boss of a small client state? A visitor from another planet, attending the press conference in Jerusalem, would find it hard not to answer: Olmert is the president of the great power, Bush is his vassal. Olmert … Read more
[The Case of the White Bird] TZIPI LIVNI, as her name indicates, is the white bird of Israeli politics (Tzipi is short for Tzipora, “bird”, and Livni comes from Lavan, “white”). As against the hawk Binyamin Netanyahu, the vulture Ehud Barak and the raven Ehud Olmert, she was seen as the immaculate feathered friend. In … Read more
MEPHISTO, the demon who bought the soul of Faust in Goethe’s monumental drama, describes himself as “a part of that force which always wants the bad and always creates the good.” Yossi Beilin, who resigned this week as chairman of the Meretz party, is Mephisto’s opposite: he always wants the good and all too often … Read more
FORGET THE Qassams. Forget the mortar shells. They are nothing compared with what Hamas launched at us this week: The chief of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, has approached an Israeli newspaper and proposed a cease-fire. No more Qassams, no more mortars, no suicide bombings, no Israeli military incursions into the … Read more
THE MOST famous words ever spoken in Gaza were the last words of Samson (Judges, 16, 30): “Let me die with the Philistines!” According to the Biblical story, Samson took hold of the central pillars of the Philistine temple and brought down the whole building upon the Lords of the Philistines, the people of Gaza … Read more
IT WAS like an atom bomb falling on Israel.The earth shook. Our political and military leaders were all in shock. The headlines screamed with rage.What happened?A real catastrophe: the American intelligence community, comprising 16 different agencies, reached a unanimous verdict: already in 2003, the Iranians terminated their efforts to produce a nuclear bomb, and they … Read more
“THE TUMULT and the shouting dies, / The captains and the kings depart…” Rudyard Kipling wrote in his unforgettable poem “Lest We Forget” (“Recessional”) King George departed even before the tumult had died. His helicopter carried him away over the horizon, just as his trusty steed carries the cowboy into the sunset at the end … Read more
I WAS awakened from deep sleep by the noise. There was a commotion outside, which was getting louder by the minute. The shout of excited people. An eruption of joy. I stuck my nose outside the door of my Haifa hotel room. I was told enthusiastically that the United Nations General Assembly had just decided … Read more
..THE ANNAPOLIS conference is a joke. Though not in the least funny. Like quite a lot of political initiatives, this one too, according to all the indications, started more or less by accident. George Bush was due to make a speech. He was looking for a theme that would give it some substance. Something that … Read more