There is a great deal of heat and passion about the difference between "left" and "right" views in Israel. Yet these gaps, at least during this era, are far less significant than people think. I'm going to tell an anecdote that illustrates this point even as it seems to contradict it. First, though, let me quickly add that these debates have been very important in the past. After the 1967 war, Israeli society conducted a quarter-century-long argument that, in the...

When the Obama administration banned the terms Islamic extremism and jihad from US national security documents back on April 7, 2010, the United States aired out a new approach to the war against terror. No longer would the ideological or religious elements that had driven the 9/11 attackers be emphasized. Any terms insinuating the religious zeal that inspires and has inspired suicide bombers from Gaza, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere across the world, have been hastily filed...

Rhonda Spivak is an attorney, writer, and member of Canadian & Israel Bar Associations, now edits Winnipeg Jewish Review at Netanya, Israel I never expected to meet several of the Israeli naval commandos who stormed the Gaza flotilla, the “Mavi Marmara”, an event that has consumed the world’s attention since the day it occurred on May 31, 2010. It just so happened that my neighbor here, Orli Avior, the only Israeli to have served in the U.S. army in Afghanistan,...

1 Fatah's Intentions.. The standard reports in the media portray Machmud Abbas and the Fatah as peace partners for Israel in the current middle east negotiations. Rarely do we find any news reports which quote a senior Israeli government minister, Benyamin Begin, who tries to remind the public that the Fatah reiterated its commitment to the armed struggle against Israel at the seminal Fatah conference that took place last August in Bethlehem and that the Fatah never changed its covenant...

August 4, 2010 Along , some bushes were pushing in on the border fence. The fence is set in slightly from the border precisely so that Israeli soldiers can work on it. The IDF called UNIFIL and informed the UN that this work was going to be done today so that they could tell the Lebanese army that there was no aggression going on but just routine maintenance. Soldiers from UNIFIL came to observe and can be seen standing next to Israeli soldiers in the photos. Photographers were also...

This dispatch can also be read online at: There has been a significant increase in attacks on Israel in recent days. * Yesterday, a senior Israeli officer was killed and another seriously wounded by a sniper unit of the Lebanese army after an IDF engineering team was trimming trees along Israel's side of the border. The evidence suggests that the attack on Israel was pre-planned and pre-meditated on the basis of information provided by Israel to UNIFIL and then passed on to the Lebanese...

Robert s. Wistrich This year, Tisha B'Av (the annual Jewish fast day commemorating the destruction of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem) once again reminded us of the dangers of “gratuitous hatred” without rhyme or reason for one’s fellow Jews; the kind of hatred for its own sake, which seems more recently to have become part of our everyday Israeli reality. Divisions between Ultra-Orthodox and Secular Jews or the bitter antagonism towards the settlers in...

A specter is haunting the prospective Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations-the specter of the Nakba. The literal meaning of the Arabic word is “disaster”; but in its current, expansive usage, it connotes a historical catastrophe inflicted on an innocent and blameless people (in this case, the Palestinians) by an overpowering outside force (international Zionism). The Nakba is the heart of the Palestinians’ backward-looking national narrative, which depicts the creation of...