Party Politics in Israel Archives

Prophesies and prayers for Rosh Hashanah 5784

September 15, 2023

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

Israel’s grand diplomatic opportunities and escalating dangers must outweigh partisan political considerations

September 1, 2023

Self-restraint and maturity are required from the Israeli left and right alike, to allow wise navigation through the next tantalizing and threatening year.

Ehud Barak’s poisonous pyromania

July 28, 2023

His seditious warmongering is the true threat to Israeli democracy.

The refusal-to-serve festival

July 21, 2023

Lost in the anti-Netanyahu netherworld are manifold affirmations of commitment to IDF service despite the judicial reform juggernaut. These have evaporated into the thin air of supremely biased conventional Israeli media.

Best books of the past year

March 24, 2023

My fifth annual list (for 2022-2023) of favorite books on Israeli, Jewish and other matters, ranging from diplomacy to Torah commentary.

Cool it!

March 10, 2023

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.

An economic tsunami – really?

February 3, 2023

The hysterical handwringing about judicial reform – which intelligent observers know will yet be moderated and slowed by the process of negotiating this through the Knesset – only feeds the anti-Israel monster that exists out there in the world, saps Israeli and Jewish self-confidence, and worst of all – creates self-fulfilling prophesies about Israel’s economic isolation. Alas, this is time-worn left-wing trick: Threatening global ruin to scare-off Israelis from reasonable right-wing policies.

Go away, Arye Deri

January 20, 2023

Arye Deri should resign immediately and stay home permanently. His ruinous record in politics is without peer. His brand of blithely sectorial, brusquely cynical politics has been catastrophic. Unfortunately, I expect that we will see Deri back soon as speaker of the Knesset or as alternate prime minister.

Judicial reform is reasonable and right

January 13, 2023

The overpowerful justice system threatens Israeli democracy, not Justice Minister Levin’s counter-revolutionary proposals.

Radicals with “Ben-Gvir-Phobia” purposefully seek to crash Israel’s diplomatic relations

November 11, 2022

I am less concerned about the direction of the emerging new government than I am about the hysterical reactions to the possible government by foreign and hard-left observers. People like Tom Friedman and Asa Kasher swiftly grab the opportunity to declare Israel a lost cause, and seem only-too-happy to jettison their associations with Israel and Judaism.

Category: Party Politics in Israel