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Editorial


Mapping a Way Forward

There is always reason for despair when it comes to the prospect of a negotiated settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and there’s no sense in enumerating why. The evidence is obvious. Those of us buoyed by each new attempt to jumpstart talks too often feel like Jets fans at the beginning of football season, bound for disappointment.Read More


Who Isn’t a Jew?

Like the Clinton-Mezvinsky wedding, reaction to the Tuscon shooting marks another milestone, and Gabrielle Giffords is rapidly becoming another New Normal in the elastic definition of who is a Jew. Many are not waiting for a rabbinic edict or Knesset legislation to settle the question. An answer is appearing in real time. There is reason for both cheer and dismay at this development.Read More


Make Worms, Not War?

Two points struck us as we read the fascinating story in the January 16 edition of The New York Times detailing the reputedly intricate arrangement between America and Israel to test and unleash a computer worm that appears to have seriously undermined Iran’s efforts at making a nuclear bomb.Read More


The Arab Street’s Dream

The speech that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered January 13 at a forum in Doha, Qatar, has been rightly lauded for its bold and direct push for governmental reform in the Middle East. Her argument was not based on a civics lesson, nor on the need to embrace democracy for democracy’s sake, but instead on the urgency of confronting the dire economic situation in the region, where one in five young people is unemployed, jobs are scarce, official corruption is rife and vital resources are rapidly depleting.Read More


From Tel Aviv to Amman

By Jane Eisner

It took a mere 45 minutes to fly from Tel Aviv to Amman on a recent family vacation. For those of us old enough to remember when Israel and Jordan were mortal enemies, the sheer normalcy of boarding an airplane in one country and landing in another in the same amount of time that it can take to go by subway from Manhattan to Brooklyn is nothing short of remarkable.Read More


Blood and Blame

As of this writing, it appears that the bloodbath in Tuscon that killed six people and injured 14 others was ignited by a deranged man propelled by personal demons and not political fanaticism. But to categorically state that the tenor of public discourse and the coarseness of public culture had no role to play whatsoever — a point Sarah Palin arrogantly stated in her inflammatory, slickly produced video released January 12 — is outrageous and must be refuted.Read More


The New Congress’s Task

Republicans in Congress are entitled to a bit of gloating as they settle into their new positions of power and get down to work. They said the voters were unhappy with the way President Obama and his congressional allies were governing, and the voters backed them up. Perhaps it’s true, as Republicans say, that the Democrats overestimated the mandate they were given in 2008. The Democrats’ earlier victory showed the depth of disenchantment with the Bush administration. It wasn’t necessarily a blanket endorsement of the Democratic agenda.Read More


The Lieberman Question

What are Diaspora Jews to make of Avigdor Lieberman? In his latest outburst before 170 of Israel’s senior diplomats, the pugnacious, rebellious foreign minister called the Palestinian Authority illegitimate, the Turkish prime minister a liar, and ridiculed the central policy of his own government. If Netanyahu persists in keeping Lieberman, both men should know this: The obligation we assume as Diaspora Jews to support Israel and combat delegitimization becomes much harder, more distasteful and less effective every time the foreign minister opens his mouth.Read More


Gaza Doctor’s Story: A Painful Legacy Of Occupation

By Jane Eisner

The public pain suffered by Izzeldin Abuelaish, the Gaza doctor who lost three of his daughters and a niece when their house was bombed by the Israel Defense Forces in the closing days of Operation Cast Lead two years ago, is by now well known, his horrifying cries — broadcast live on Israeli television — symbolizing the worst human outcome of that complicated military campaign.Read More


2010 in Verse

What a year this was, this twenty-ten!/Wikileaks, iPads, a Beck named Glenn, Tea Parties and miners in Chile,/A campaign that was strange and silly./For Jews in the news it was a year/Of achievement and reason to cheer.Read More


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