Last week, Judge Noam Sohlberg was appointed to the Israeli Supreme Court, which, in Israel, is also the High Court of Justice, a court of judicial review carrying important constitutional functions. Sohlberg will become the first settler judge in Israel’s history.Being a settler, Sohlberg has a clear conflict of interests, since he will have the authority to rule on appeals against government policies violating International Law,...
What the early Zionists conveniently forgot when they began to promote the hero-worship of the Maccabees and their Jewish nationalist uprising against the Assyrian Greeks in 169 BCE, was why the rabbis had been so keen to down-play the rebels' story in the first place. Why did second century CE rabbinic Judaism want to ignore the muscular Maccabees and shift our focus to the miracle of the Temple oil instead? Why was lighting candles in menorahs...
In the hectic Israeli political environment, anything not perceived as an “existential threat” to the state of Israel is barely worth a mention. But then, “existential threats” abound. In addition to the Palestinian insurrection, the brewing war with Iran, the Arab Spring and the “de-legitimization campaign” against Israel in the world, the Israeli government now faces a new threat to its existence: “African ...
The Netanyahu government on December 2nd ordered the removal of several government ads displayed in various American cities. The Ministry of Immigrant Absorption's (MIA) 'Returning Home Project' had placed several video ads and billboards warning Israeli expatriates of the dangers of marrying American Jews. The ads all finished with the line, “They will always remain Israelis, their children will not.”U.S....
As the population of Europe and the US ages and their economies slow down, economic miracles half a world away begin to assert their dominance. History has been said to jump, not crawl, and recent international developments are paving the way for what may be the next leap.The rise of the ‘BRIC’ nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), as predicted by a Goldman Sachs report in 2001, has become the new reality. Israel is keeping a...
Israel has been dependent on international support from the day of its founding. It received donations from Jewish communities, massive aid from the U.S (to the tune (PDF) of US$ 3 billion annually in weapon subsidies), reparations from Germany for the Holocaust (which rarely find their way to the actual Holocaust survivors), and other forms of donations.Today the Palestinians are following a similar path – with a highly aid-dependent economy....
A. Is the annexation of the West Bank imminent?“Yesha Council”[i] and "My Israel"[ii] have recently circulated a propaganda video clip as part of a campaign addressing the old Israeli-left argument, that "if a two-state solution is not established soon, Israel will lose its Jewish demographic superiority". In the clip they demonstrate how by deducting the estimated Gaza Strip population from their...
It is not common for the Hasbara machine, disseminating Israeli state propaganda, to be exposed in such a way. As if by coincidence, two expatriate South African Jews, with a bit of a liberal reputation, came out of retirement to produce almost identical pieces for the press, rejecting the analogy between Israel and apartheid. That both have chosen to do that at the same time, using the same arguments and examples, raises an obvious suspicion that...
The EUMC report is a substantial document, providing a comprehensive overview of antisemitism in the 15 member-states of the EU at that time, based on an “overview of incidents of antisemitism, the political, academic and media reactions to it, information from public opinion polls and attitude surveys, and examples of good practice to combat antisemitism, from information available in the years 2002 – 2003” (p.3). On the basis of all...
In the last decade, political debate on the Left has focused on the one-state/two-states issue. Historically, progressive forces in Israel saw the two-states solution as the only alternative to the occupation and Israeli domination over the entire country.Initially that position enjoyed the support of a small minority of Israeli Jews, but by the end of the 1980s the situation had begun to change. With the first intifada of 1987, and the declaration...
The Israeli Supreme Court and the de-liberalisation of Israel
Maccabees, Miracles and Zionists...
Netanyahu’s African quest
The demographic threat
Emerging Superpowers: India, China, and Brazil - New Realities for the Middle East
If foreign aid is OK for Israel’s government, why not for its NGOs?
The Yesha Council Disengagement Plan
Israel, apartheid, and the Hasbara machine
The Real EUMC Definition of Antisemitism
A land for all its people?