Trump Offers Two-State Peace Plan for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Amid Skepticism President Trump has unveiled his long-awaited Middle East peace plan that was hailed by Israel and ripped by Palestinian leaders. click Israel Matters! 141 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal.
Report from Israel: Happy Holidays! On our between-the-semesters trip to Israel, Esther and I divided our time between visiting with our daughter Dafna in Jerusalem and staying in Tel Aviv.To be sure, these are cities of contrast; Jerusalem, steeped in thousands of years of history, sacred to, fought over by, and now in some form of uneasy coexistence between Jews, Muslims and Christians. Surrounded by terraced hills and deep valleys. click Israel Matters! 140 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal.
Turkey’s Erdogan Bashes Israel and Calls on Muslims to Unite Against the West In a recent speech to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed Israel and called for Islamic unity among the “brothers and sisters” to confront the West and conspiracies against Islamic countries. Turkey’s ruler insinuated that Turkey was a victim of “terrorist attacks” because of its “principled stance” against “oppression in Jerusalem.” click Israel Matters! 139 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal
Democratic Presidential Candidates and US Military Aid to Israel Three of the four leading Democratic presidential candidates have said they would consider cuts in US military aid to pressure Jerusalem into changing its policy in the West Bank. Two of the three, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, belong to the radical branch of the party. They are battling two other contenders: former VP Joe Biden, who represents the moderate mainstream branch of the party; and Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg, who ideologically could be placed between the two poles. Warren and Sanders hold radical views about many political, economic, and social issues and are isolationist on US foreign policy. click Israel Matters! 138 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal
Netflix series, “The Spy” – The Story of Eli Cohen Sophie Ben-Dor, the daughter of Israeli spy Eli Cohen said “it hurt” to watch the new Netflix series about her father’s life and execution in Syria, noting some historical inaccuracies in the adaptation but praising Sacha Baron Cohen’s performance. Ben-Dor laments ‘the distance from the truth’ about her legendary agent father, but understands and respects the show. click Israel Matters! 137 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal
Israelis Test Classified Tunnel Tech To Stymie Terrorists Israel has developed systems that are uncovering a great number of tunnels that cross the Israeli border from Gaza and Lebanon. click Israel Matters! 136 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal
Netanyahu, Lieberman and the IDF – The Backstory
April 9th with the Likud party capturing 36 seats in the Knesset, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared ready to capture a fourth consecutive term, with a clear path to build a coalition government with his traditional political partners. But a crisis with his longtime ally and erstwhile rival Avigdor Lieberman thrust the country into unchartered territory. Without Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party and the five Knesset seats it won in the April 9th election, the Prime Minister’s Likud party could not muster a 61-seat majority and new elections have been called for in mid-September.
The New York Times — Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism The New York Times editorial board said in an editorial that the newspaper’s recent pub-lication of “an appalling political cartoon” [right] is “evidence of a profound danger — not only of anti-Semitism but of numbness to its creep.” The newspaper also acknowledged its own historical contributions to the rise of anti-Semitism. “In the 1930s and the 1940s, The Times was largely silent as anti-Semitism rose up and bathed the world in blood,” it wrote. “That failure still haunts this newspaper.” click Israel Matters! 134 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal
Unit 9900 - The Israeli Army Unit That Recruits Teens With Autism For eight hours a day, E., 21, sits in front of multiple computer screens, scanning high-resolution satellite images for suspicious objects or movements. As a decoder of Israel’s complex and often heavily civilian battlegrounds, he’s been critical in preventing the loss of life of soldiers on the ground in several different situations, his officers say. For many people, combing through each millimeter of the same location from various angles would be tedious work—but E., who is on the autism spectrum, describes the job as relaxing, “like a hobby.” click Israel Matters! 133 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal
Prominent Democrats Form Pro-Israel Group to Counter Skepticism on the Left Several prominent veteran Democrats, alarmed by the party’s drift from its longstanding alignment with Israel, are starting a new political group that will try to counter the rising skepticism on the left toward the Jewish state by sup-porting lawmakers and candidates in 2020 who stand unwaveringly with the country. click Israel Matters! 132 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal