Jerusalem Watchman

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Obama engages the Middle East

Barely in office, America’s brand new president and his secretary of state are already moving fast to position themselves on the so-called Israeli-”Palestinian” conflict.
Shining like new pennies, bolstered by the massive national wave of feel-good optimism, they stood in front of the television cameras last Thursday and drew up their battle plans, declaring their intentions [...]

But, Mr Prime Minister: Hamas HAS won

“I cannot entertain the notion that any Israeli would tell the Hamas that they basically won. If someone does this, I will face off against him with full force.” - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, January 18, 2009.
Are there any Israelis committed enough to the truth, and sufficiently in touch with reality to face the “full [...]

I choose to say it’s God

“God is to us a God of deliverances; And to GOD the Lord belong escapes from death.” - Psalm 68:20
A few hours ago, a rocket fired by terrorists in Gaza plowed through the roof of a synagogue in a Negev town, exploding right inside the building. It’s January 17, a Saturday – the Sabbath or [...]

F-16s, solidarity and popcorn on the Gaza-Israel ‘border’

I’m writing this (or at least starting to write it) on Israel’s “border” with the Gaza Strip.
Everybody calls it a border as if, like Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, Gaza is one of the sovereign states adjacent to Israel. Probably it’s because people know the power of words – how you can make fiction into [...]

Bewildered Peres: ‘I don’t understand’

More than any other Israeli, State President Shimon Peres has promoted – and cajoled and bullied his countrymen into following – what he insists is the route to peace: a “peace process” that has served only to dangerously weaken his country territorially and divide it internally in the face of its ever-stronger and more determined [...]

Israel’s painful dilemma: To win against Hamas is to lose

Israel’s young men are deep inside the Gaza Strip, making their way through a hellish labyrinth where terrorists feel securely at home, and where they hide behind civilian men, women and children, waiting in anticipation to kill – or capture and torture - the hated IDF troops.
It is hard to know how it must feel [...]