יום חמישי, כ״ה חשוון תשפ״זThursday, November 5, 2026
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Extremist Sunnis could eventually ruin what began as a peaceful movement for reform and change in Assad's Syria. It would be even more tragic if they did the same thing in Lebanon after the Beirut Spring showed so much promise.
The first step to remaking Zionism in the future is learning what Zionism meant in the past.
The world often thinks of the Gaza Strip, home to 1.4 million Palestinians, as one of the poorest places on earth, where people live in misery and squalor. But an investigative report shows that it is home to at least 600 millionaires, who have made their wealth thanks to the hundreds of underground tunnels between Gaza and Egypt.
By Barry Rubin
Muslim communities in Europe and America hardly ever renounce terrorism or fight the Islamists. Why? Because those radical forces are in power, often with collaboration from Western leftists.
By Steven Plaut
In November 1947, the United Nations was considering the creation of a Jewish state in parts of Western Palestine and a new Arab state in the other parts.
By Dov Shurin
In Israel today there is a new generation whose members may not be outwardly observant but who are intrinsically religious and have the utmost respect for the Torah and its scholars.
Alan Dershowitz writes that President Obama must make it clear that he has rejected the view of those who are prepared to contain a nuclear Iran and that he will indeed employ military action if that is the only option other than a nuclear Iran.
Yeshiva University’s Center for the Jewish Future seems to expand with each passing year. Founded in 2005, the Center – among other activities – now educates hundreds of ordained rabbis through its Rabbinic Training Placement and Continuing Education program; sends 1,000 students every year to help communities around the world through its Experiential Education and […]
On January 30, 1968, in the midst of the Vietnam War, tens of thousands of Viet Cong guerrillas and North Vietnamese soldiers launched a coordinated attack on 100 cities across South Vietnam against the forces of the United States, South Vietnam and their allies.
We were hardly surprised by the final column of New York Times departing public editor (as the Times refers to its in-house ombudsman) Arthur Brisbane, in which he acknowledged the paper harbors a liberal bias on public issues.
Many people have a problem with the Chick-fil-A chain of chicken restaurants. Universities have asked it to leave campus cafeterias and mayors have tried to ban it from their cities. The Jewish mayor of Chicago summed up his displeasure by saying “Chick-fil-A values are not Chicago values.”
The land of Canaan was only gained in stages by the Israelites, who had to overcome many internal divisions in order to progress. The same holds true in our day, as Jewry struggles to maintain internal unity while vacillating in its attitude toward the Land of Israel. Though the Jewish right to a sovereign state in its ancestral homeland is incontestable – biblically, historically, morally, and legally – too many Jews and Israelis are self-shackled in the chains of constraint, still mired mentally in the vulnerabilities and fears of the last two millennia, unable to discard the Diaspora.
“Rabbi, is there any religious requirement for Jewish men to wear mezuzahs around their necks?” “Rabbi, if you yourself are clean-shaven, why does this inmate claim his Jewish religion prohibits him from using a razor on his face?”
Earlier this month the London Games were all the rage. Tens of thousands descended upon Great Britain’s crown jewel to witness the Olympics and cheer for their respective countrymen.
Palestinian-Arab journalist and Judea-Samaria resident Hisham Jarallah says it is time that the "pro-Palestinian" activists leave the Palestinians alone and search for another cause to advance their messages of hate and violence.
By Yoel Meltzer
In less than three months time the Jewish Home Party, formerly known as the National Religious Party (NRP), will be holding its first ever internal primaries.
When all the bubbles of rhetoric pop, there are still the hard unpleasant realities to deal with.
By Adam Levick
It is shameful that ISM will never face serious critical scrutiny for their recklessness, despite of their well-documented record of terror-abetting extremism, which ultimately took the life of Rachel Corrie.
By Soeren Kern
Areas of France have become lawless and off-limits due to non-Muslims due to Muslim violence. The government has finally embarked on "North-American style" campaign to bring the areas under control, designating an initial 15 areas "Priority Security Zones."
By Barry Rubin
It’s the age of revolutionary Islamism, especially Sunni Islamism. And you better learn to understand what this is all about real fast.
By Soeren Kern
A recent study revealed that nearly half of all Turks living in Germany say they hope there will be more Muslims than Christians in Germany in the futureIslam is becoming an increasingly important component of the value structure of Turks in Germany, especially among the younger generation of Turkish-Germans, who hold religious views more radical than their elders' views.
By Ryan Yuffe, Israel Campus Beat
As students prepare for the new academic year, the campus Israel community is stocking up with new ideas for attracting participants.
By effectively making their nuclear program appear to be primarily a threat against Israel, Iran sends a message to the Europeans and the US that they are safe.
A short video to remember all the other Rachels who were murdered by Palestinian Terrorists.
By J. E. Dyer
Dinesh D’Souza’s film, 2016: Obama’s America, is very good at putting the viewer in the milieu of Jakarta or Nairobi, which continue to feel “different” enough to engage the American viewer’s sense of distance and wonder. Conveying the difference of Barack Obama’s childhood and his idea of cultural roots – the difference from American life – is the movie’s most effective accomplishment.
Israel’s economic growth during the 2nd quarter of 2012 was 3.2%, surpassing the 2.5% expectation, compared with a 2.8% growth during the 1st quarter. Growth per capita increased 1.4%, reaching almost $30,000. Exports of goods and services –40% of Israel’s economic activity - surged 10%, following a decline during the previous three quarters.
Dr. Mordechai Kedar on the visit of a recent Israeli delegation to Turkey and why Israelis faithful to their religion and not the disciples of Left may be Israel's best chance at improving relations with its neighbors.
By Barry Rubin
America, this is not the Victorian age of dark satanic mills and brutal capitalists who laugh while watching children starve.
By Moshe Dann
The expulsion of 10,000 Jews from their homes five years ago was not a localized event in the Gaza Strip. It was a national implosion, a national disgrace. It caused enormous physical, psychological, social, cultural, military and strategic damage to the entire nation - and it still does. Like an ecological disaster, its foulness still seeps through our foundations, and continues to poison us.
The communication revolution - and the unprecedented access to information it brought - has ushered us into a new world. It is a world of wikipedia and youtube, but also a world of live-streaming al Qaeda beheadings and slow-motion car crashes. Positivecco, an ambitious online enterprise, seeks to harness the internet to promote positivity.
By Amos Harel
Israel had previously ignored, or sometimes secretly approved, Egyptian violations of the treaty. These always concerned deploying more battalions than agreed, but only for a short period of time, in order to fight the terrorist groups. This time, Cairo is aiming for a more serious goal.
By Hillel Fendel and Chaim Silberstein / KeepJerusalem.org
In the heat of the American election campaign, it's fascinating to note the large part being played by Israel's capital, Jerusalem – at least in the Mitt Romney campaign.
More than any other reason, “social justice” killed Moshe Silman. Here’s why: Who confiscated his truck and for what purpose? Social security. After all, what is social security, if not the mechanism established by the state to ensure so-called social justice? It is an institution authorized to take from the “haves” and give to the “have-nots.” And from whom will the Institute for Social Justice take if not from the owner of a moving company? And to whom will it give the value of the truck? To the tycoons? Of course not. It will give the truck’s value to the have-nots, or to those who know how to hide what they have.
President Obama recently rose to the defense of Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, when a handful of congressmen alleged that close relatives of Ms. Abedin had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood (which is on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations) and implied that the State Department had, as a result of the supposed connection, cut some members of that group slack in terms of gaining entry into the U.S.
As it turns out, the terrorist gunmen who killed sixteen Egyptian border guards some two weeks ago in northern Sinai presented a gift to the new Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi.
Earlier this month, a pricing error in El Al's reservations system resulted in tickets to Israel being sold online for prices as low as $325, all included.
Many American parents are passionate about providing their children with opportunities to participate in sports and develop as great athletes. A recent article in the Financial Post posed the question “Are your kids’ athletic dreams worth breaking the bank for?” For parents of elite athletes, the costs can be astronomical. Such parents designate “tens of thousands of dollars of their household budget to help their child’s athletic career blossom, a sacrifice that impacts everything from daily spending to retirement.”
For more than a decade, anti-Israel activists have sought to shoehorn Israel into the nomenclature of apartheid-era South Africa through the use of a tactic named BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions). Apartheid was a universally decried racist system. BDS activists argue that Israel is the second coming of apartheid South Africa and must be treated the same.
By Dr. Michael Goldblatt and Dr. Daniel Mandel
When Barack Obama entered the White House, he promised to make Israeli/Palestinian peacemaking his priority from "day one." And, indeed, in his own way he did. He pressured Israel into freezing Jewish construction in the West Bank for ten months in a bid to entice the Palestinians to negotiate.
White House spokesman Jay Carney recently reiterated the administration’s mantra about Iran, saying there was still “time and space” for a diplomatic solution to be found to resolve the impasse over its nuclear threat.
Internationally renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman and acclaimed Chazzan Yitzchak Meir Helfgot, chief cantor at Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue, have collaborated on a forthcoming CD titled “Eternal Echoes: Songs and Dances for the Soul.” The Jewish Press recently interviewed Perlman at his summer home in the Hamptons.
It’s important to acknowledge this right from the beginning: I love Batman. In fact, no one loves him more than I do. He and I have a history that goes back over four decades.
In the last five years there have been multiple Muslim plots to bomb synagogues. The NYPD is investigating bombs in synagogues, not bacon, because there really is a disturbing trend of anti-Semitic hate crimes. The best evidence that there is no similarly disturbing trend of Islamophobic attacks is that the NYPD is bagging and tagging bacon at a Staten Island football field.
By Sandra Ziv, Israel Campus Beat
Today, students come to study in Israel for many reasons, including professional advancement, academic requirements, personal growth, international experience, an alternative to the classroom and, of course, a connection to their Jewish heritage.
While the Obama administration continues to say that the Islamic group Boko Haram's jihad against Nigeria's Christians—which has seen countless churches destroyed, and thousand Christians killed— has nothing to do with religion, the group once again made clear that it is all about religion.
The fact is the U.S. and Israel have been somewhere between sanguine and cautiously happy regarding increased Egyptian concern about jihadists in the Sinai, and have accepted an Egyptian buildup that includes aircraft and helicopter gunships. Israel Radio reported that the deployment includes anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles near the border.
Yigal Palmor of the Israeli Foreign Ministry sent me a compilation of recent Iranian 'foreign policy proposals'. Useful to have them all in one place. I don't know about you, but to me, they just don't sound reasonable.
Much ink has been spilled about the desirability or even the inevitability of a separate State for Palestinians, whose identity stems from the middle of the 20th century, but what has been much less discussed by the international community -- and for the most part ignored -- is a similar claim by the Kurds, a people with a truly separate ethnic identity as well as a long history.
By Soeren Kern
Underscoring German officialdom's anxiety over home grown Islamic terrorism, the German state of Lower Saxony recently published a practical guide to extremist Islam to help citizens identify tell-tale signs of Muslims who are becoming radicalized.
By dvora
The focus of a wedding and its source of simcha changes as one ages.
By Barry Rubin
Saaed Eddin Ibrahim, arguably the Arab world’s leading sociologist and certainly the leading advocate of liberal-Islamist alliance against the old Arab military regimes has now totally changed sides, warning that the Islamists want to hijack power and establish dictatorships. He pleads for Westerners to wake up.
The center of Jewish culture — spiritual, scientific, entrepreneurial, artistic — is today, as it should be, Israel. This was not the case in 1948 or 1967, but it is true now, and I can only expect it to become more true as time goes by.
Many Israelis do not know the rules of the game of the Middle East: the more we show enthusiasm for something, the higher its price rises, and the opposite holds true as well: the less interest we express in something, the lower the demanded price will be. If we announce day and night that we want peace with our enemies or to obtain the release of a kidnapped soldier who is in their hands - the price for the peace or the soldier will be more than we can pay.
From time immemorial, the Jewish People has faced powerful adversities in asserting its sovereignty over the Land of Israel, and by undertaking unilateral national security actions. Conviction-driven defiance of adversity has earned the Jewish People deep respect.
Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad's attempts to prevent Palestinian workers from going to the settlements has failed largely because they were not able to provide them with alternative employment. Despite the billions of dollars that were showered on the Palestinian Authority in recent years by the international community, Abbas and Fayyad still have not been able to solve the problem of unemployment in the Palestinian territories.
J Street should get out of the business of telling Israel how to balance existential risks regarding the security of its citizens. It should stop undercutting American policy with regard to Iran. And as an organization that claims it is both pro-Israel and pro-peace, it should recognize that its superficial approach to this complex problem is bad for peace, bad for Israel and bad for American efforts to prevent a nuclear Iran without the need for a military attack.
By Barry Rubin
A friend of mine listened to the sermon given at the Ramadan evening prayer in a village near the north Syria town of Idleeb August 7. The closer one gets to ground level in the Middle East the crazier things become. Sure, by the time the Western-educated, suit and tie wearing leader sits down with the Western reporter everything sounds calm and cool. But the earth is boiling.
By Rotem Sella
Prominent Americans like David Petraeus have been saying non-stop that Israel does not have the capability to destroy Iranian Nuclear capacities, and surely not Iran's ambition to go nuclear. But if Israel can indeed delay the project while in the meantime having taken out of the picture one of Iran's most important allies, then things might look very different from the office of Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Senator Lautenberg, how exactly has our President demonstrated his friendship to Israel? He declared Israel's settlements to be illegitimate, put near-unilateral pressure on Israel to make peace without any expectations from the Palestinian side, declared that Israel should return to the arbitrary 1967 borders, and treated Prime Minister Netanyahu shamefully at a March 2010 meeting where he refused even a photo op with the elected leader of the Middle East's only democracy.
They are known as the Greatest Generation, and for good reason. As children of the Depression, they learned to make do with little, and lacked, most significantly, a sense of entitlement. As they came of age, they were called upon to serve and defend their country, and they did so magnificently, many with their very lives. They then went on to raise families and build the country into the superpower it has become – all with little noise and fanfare; continuing, through it all, to quietly do their duty.
Those who think that Hamas and other Islamic groups do not have a strong presence in the West Bank are completely detached from reality. True, these groups are lacking in arms and ammunition in the West Bank, but they still enjoy broad public support among Palestinians.
By Barry Rubin
I want to discuss three articles that I basically agree with to point out how they miss the key issue and thus are somewhat misleading. I’m glad to see these three articles being published but it’s a case of -to quote Lenin- two steps forward, one step back.
The Israeli media portrays Israeli brass and ex-brass who oppose Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak on the Iran issue as a group whose assessment is based solely on a cold hard analysis of the situation. Unfortunately, there is a reasonable possibility that the Israeli brass and ex-brass themselves have piggy-backed their agenda to the Iranian debate.
Israel can theoretically negotiate a compromise with the Arabs in which it gives up land for an end to belligerency. There is a flavor of extortion here, but nevertheless Israel has a position from which to negotiate. But if Israel begins negotiating from the position that it is occupying someone else’s land, then the only thing there is to negotiate is the timetable for withdrawal.
If it weren’t so sad, the draft brouhaha in Israel would be the greatest show in town. It is a masquerade ball, a tragicomedy whereby each actor says the complete opposite of what he really wants.
Over the course of the past week, the Israeli media have been consumed by reports of an impending decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to launch a military strike against Iranian nuclear installations.
Recently, my wife Clary and I traveled to Lithuania to experience what remains of one of Judaism’s most magnificent centers of learning. My journey, organized by Zvi Lapian of Israel and led by the eminent historian and distinguished scholar Dr. Shnayer Leiman, took me to what was once the world’s center of Torah learning.
During the Yom Kippur War, when the IDF was running out of ammunition in the middle of the fighting, and there was a need for an airlift but Nixon and Kissinger where not quick to respond at first, Wolfson employed every resource he had in the House and in the Senate, enormous resources. He later told me that he even desecrated Shabbat for the sake of his effort, anything to save the nation of Israel.
By Rabbi Abraham Cooper and Harold Brackman
If there were an Olympics for lying, the winner of this year's gold medal for prevarication would be Egypt’s president, Mohammed Morsi. Of course heads of state lie, but rarely do they display it with such chutzpah. The recent sleight-of-hand involving a president-to-president exchange would shock even cynics.
I never watched “Candid Camera” when I was a kid. We only watched The Wonderful World of Disney” and “Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.” My parents enforced strict TV rules. But as an adult, when I can watch whatever I please, I really enjoy those old shows and have made up for lost time when it comes to shows like “Candid Camera.”
When Israelis say, “I worry about my grandchildren’s future,” it has a radically different dimension than similar concerns expressed in many other countries.
By Yoel Meltzer
The co-founder and former chairman of the MyIsrael (Yisrael Sheli) national movement, the recipient of the 2012 Abramowitz Israeli Prize for Media Criticism and a close associate of Naftali Bennett – the two worked together in the office of Benjamin Netanyahu prior to the 2009 elections – Shaked is raising some eyebrows due to the fact that she, unlike Bennett, is a secular candidate for HaBayit Hayehudi -a traditionally religious party.
Time will tell whether Mitt Romney’s choice of Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate is a game changer with respect to the outcome of November’s presidential election. But it already is clear that the Ryan selection has served to sharpen the policy differences between President Obama and Governor Romney.
The massive turnouts around the world celebrating the completion of the twelfth cycle of the Daf Yomi should finally put to rest any remaining claims by leaders of non-Orthodox movements that they represent the wave of the Jewish future.
Arguably, no previous U.S. president has had as many disconcerting friends and associates as Barack Obama. Many Americans know of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, and Rashid Khalidi, but few have heard of perhaps the most important figure in Obama’s life: Frank Marshall Davis.
Parents know each child is different. Similarly, each month is different; each has a different “personality” and a different function. What is the nature of the month of Elul?
By Soeren Kern
In recent weeks, the Obama administration has claimed that al Qaeda "is on a path of decline that will be difficult to reverse" and the US State Department has even declared that the "war on terror is over." But the recent arrests in Spain of three suspected al Qaeda terrorists, accused of plotting an airborne attack on a shopping mall near Gibraltar, suggests that Obama's triumphalism may be premature.
By Lauren Schmidt, Israel Campus Beat
Many campus Israel groups have brought Israeli soldiers to speak at their schools in recent years because they value the insights and perspectives IDF veterans bring to the campus Israel dialogue. But some people who have had life-changing experiences serving in the Israel Defense Forces later earn their college degree in the United States. These students offer a unique view on Israel, based on their experience, and their advocacy on campus conveys that.
By J. E. Dyer
Iran’s relative situation has deteriorated. To regain a sense of leadership and invulnerability – as well as to vindicate Shia Islam over the recent Sunni triumphs in the region – Iran needs a big strategic win. She needs a trump card over the emerging Sunni centers of gravity in Cairo and Ankara.
Right now the Obama administration is being very, very careful about saying what it thinks about Israel, not wanting to upset the electoral applecart. But the New York Times isn’t afraid to let it all hang out, as it did in today’s editorial on Israel and Iran. The Times is important because its positions are so closely correlated with those of the administration. At least on foreign affairs, the Times is Obama’s Pravda.
By Soeren Kern
The issue of forced marriage is especially acute in Catalonia, where the Muslim population has skyrocketed in recent years. Catalonia, a region with 7.5 million inhabitants, is now home to an estimated 400,000 Muslims, up from 30,000 in the 1980s.
By J. E. Dyer
Prosperity has met its match. Regulation will kill prosperity by stealth unless we the people wake up to what’s going on. We are wildly, insanely overregulated today, and if we don’t attack the idea of the regulatory state on those terms – on the premise that regulation itself is mostly a bad thing, and we need far less of it than we have – then we will never recover.
As the lights dimmed on Broadway for 60 seconds last night in memory of Oscar-winning composer Marvin Hamlisch, who died on Monday, I took a moment to reflect on the moment in 1976 when I interviewed Hamlisch.
The Egyptians are finally learning that terrorism is a double-edged sword, and that those who approve of terror activities will one day find themselves targeted by the same terrorists.
Focusing on the relations between Israel and the Palestinians turns the conflict inside out. In fact it is driven by the absolute rejection of a Jewish state in the Middle East by all the Muslim nations in the region, which dates back to the beginning of Zionism, before the founding of the state of Israel, before the development of specifically Palestinian nationalism, and long before the 1967 war.
The circumstances that were created after the murder of the Egyptian soldiers and the failure of the terror act against Israel proves the truth of the saying: "Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan." We can only imagine how great would be the cries of joy in Gaza if 18 Israeli soldiers had been killed, heaven forbid, instead of Egyptians.
Tom Friedman’s pro-PLO stance dates back to his active involvement, while at Brandeis University, in the pro-Arafat radical-Left “Middle East Peace Group” and “Breirah” organizations. It was intensified during his role as the AP’s and NY Times’ reporter in Lebanon. There he played down Arafat’s and Abbas’ rape and plunder of Lebanon and their strong ties with international terrorism, while expressing his appreciation of the PLO’s protection of foreign media in Beirut.
By Barry Rubin
Al-Destour, an independent Egyptian newspaper, has just had a full issue seized on charges of “fueling sedition” and “harming the president through phrases and wording punishable by law.”
“Israel’s moral standing” is not necessarily enhanced by failing to stand up for its legal rights and by, in effect, selling out the Jewish people.
For years the Egyptians have been trying to erode the Sinai force restrictions set in the peace treaty they signed with Israel. Force restrictions that were a necessary condition for Israel agreeing to restore the Sinai to Egyptian control. The Egyptians see the force restrictions as impinging on their sovereignty. Israel always considered the force restrictions as critical for the Jewish State’s national security.
By Rotem Sella
When four of out four newspapers in Israel deal with any single subject one can count on the fact that there is a deliberate effort by some personnel to set the headlines on fire.
Although Shia and Sunnis do not pray together, as both sects have the same goal – hostility to Israel – the Shia cleric, to set a precedent, recently asked the Sunni Imam to lead a prayer service attended by both congregations.
If Muslim fanatics cannot tolerate moderate and secular Muslims, why should they be expected to accept those who belong to other faiths?
The Levy Report on the settlements in Judea and Samaria was like cold water on a parched landscape. The committee members who drafted the report and dared to publicly say what every child in Israel can and should know deserve credit and appreciation. The report factually states that there never was an occupation in Judea and Samaria because no entity there was ever occupied.
November 6, 2026 
