My thoughts on politics.
President Joe Biden hasn’t called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, though the new president has been in office now for over three weeks. Biden has spoken to a flurry of world leaders, including Russian president Vladimir Putin, and Chinese president Xi Jinping. But no call to Bibi, which makes Biden the first president in 40 …
Trump’s time in the White House has been marked by the shutdown of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, in contrast with Obama’s JCPOA, which fueled those ambitions with pallets of cash to the mullahs, and more. Now Trump has sanctioned 18 more Iranian banks with ties to terror, missile development, and the development of Iran’s nuclear weapons …
Israel started off a winner in the fight against the coronavirus, with a lockdown that worked well to slow contagion. But when the lockdown was abruptly ended, coronavirus got the upper hand. Now Israel has surpassed the U.S. for per capita cases of coronavirus. Last week, Israel saw 8,000 new daily cases of the virus, …
Coronavirus is spiking like crazy in Israel, which had led to tougher lockdown measures just as Yom Kippur is ushered in. From the Jerusalem Post: “The Health Ministry reported Saturday that 8,315 new cases were diagnosed the day before, out of 62,035 people screened for coronavirus, which is a 13.4% positive rate.” Prime Minister Netanyahu …
In Israel, for the first time in 23 years, lakes and underground aquifers are filling up, rising above the arbitrary and somewhat mysterious “green line.” It’s a blessing for a land that didn’t get as large a portion of water and oil, as one might have hoped. But the good news is tempered with the …
Making a peace accord between the UAE and Israel? Check. Getting Kosovo to recognize Israel? Check. Getting Serbia to agree to move its embassy to Jerusalem, Israel’s capital? Check. Good enough reason to give this president a Nobel Peace Prize. Trump had already been nominated for the Abraham Accords, but with Kosovo and Serbia taking …
Serbia announced on Friday that it would move its Israel embassy to Jerusalem by next summer. On the same day, Kosovo announced that Israel and the Muslim-majority state had agreed to establish diplomatic relations. This was after two days of discussion with Trump administration officials that also led to the signing of an economic normalization …
On Monday, an El Al plane took off from Israel to the UAE for talks on opening embassies in the two countries, signatories to the newest peace accord with Israel. Besides being the first direct flight from Israel to the UAE, it was also the first time an Israeli plane, flying from Israel, flew over …
Rabbi Andy Kahn, assistant rabbi at New York’s Temple Emanu-El issued a shocking tweet on July 7: “Let me say this as plainly as possible: Jews are not an indigenous people. It is appropriative to make use of this word when referring to our relationship to the land of Israel, and it undermines the difficult …
American and Israeli Jews share a common heritage and faith, but don’t always agree on the nitty-gritty details of what that means. Maybe that’s why American Jewish tourist to Israel, Brandon Korff, ended up breaking his agreement with Israeli officials. Israel hasn’t allowed foreigners into the country, as part of coronavirus control, since March. But …