December 03, 2008

Welcome new thinking on the Palestine Question

In Washington today former deputy speaker of Israel's Knesset Naomi Chazan had some great advice for President-elect Obama. Noting that Israel's election comes just 20 days after Obama's inauguration,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:21 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

November 29, 2008

Israeli analysts prepare next war against Lebanon

In the latest issue of its quarterly journal, Tel Aviv's Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) carries two (or three) articles debating in some depth whether-- in the event of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:56 PM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

November 20, 2008

L. Rozen on Israelis in Kurdistan

Laura Rozen has a great new investigative piece at Mother Jones about the very lucrative business and security activities undertaken in post-2003 Kurdistan by former Israeli Mossad head "Danny" Yatom...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:05 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

September 30, 2008

Olmert's late-term epiphany on Iran and Palestine

It was not quite Saul the tax-collector on the road to Damascus but it was almost like that. Ehud Olmert, still nominally in office as Israel's PM but leaving very...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:00 AM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

September 21, 2008

Still-PM Olmert presents resignation

Ehud Olmert has been an ineffectual lame duck in Israeli politics for over two years now. It's possible many people have forgotten that he is still, actually, the country's prime...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:34 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

September 17, 2008

Count Folke Bernadotte, RIP 9-17-1948

Read this and weep....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:54 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

August 11, 2008

Arrest warrants for former Israeli military chiefs

Spain's highest court, the Audiencia Nacional, has issued arrest warrants on charges of war crimes against six Israelis who were high-ranking military officials at the time of the IDF's bombing...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:20 PM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

June 25, 2008

Disarray in Israel's ruling group

This is how Haaretz's Uzi Benziman describes what's been going on: June 2008 may be remembered as the month when the Israeli public's patience with its leaders and their style...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:54 PM | Fulltext link (19 comments)

June 22, 2008

Levy and Bronner on Israelis' distaste for peace

The headline of Gideon Levy's article today is even more provocative than mine: "Quiet is muck" is how it reads in the English translation. He leads off with this: A...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:44 PM | Fulltext link (61 comments)

May 27, 2008

Likud taking down its apostate?

It strikes me that the current, very specific allegations of financial malfeasance being made under oath against Israeli PM Ehud Olmert in a lawcourt in Israel may well be part...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:02 AM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

May 24, 2008

Israel deports Finkelstein. Official US reaction?

Norman Finkelstein is a citizen of a powerful country (the US) whose financial, political, and military support to Israel is a vital ingredient of Israel's security, that has also allowed...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:44 AM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

May 23, 2008

Hagee, Hitler, & CUFI program

(updates in extension) Amid revelations (pun intended) that Pastor John Hagee deems the Holocaust to have been divine retribution against the Jews, presidential candidate John McCain belatedly sees the light...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 08:06 AM | Fulltext link (32 comments)

April 24, 2008

The real history of Israel's movement controls in the OPTs

I just went to an excellent briefing that the Israeli saint (and journo) Amira Hass gave to Human Rights Watch about the background to the extremely intrusive and life-strangling system...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:31 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

March 12, 2008

Ehud Barak the blocker?

Abu Mazen has been quoted as saying that a "senior figure" in the Israeli cabinet has been blocking the Israel-Hamas peace deal and he is widely thought to have been...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:21 PM | Fulltext link (37 comments)

March 04, 2008

Israel's restrictions on reporters

Thanks to McClatchy's Dion Nissenbaum for informing all readers of the specifics of the restrictions imposed on all Israel-based reporters covering the conflict with Gaza. Of course it is a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:37 PM | Fulltext link (130 comments)

January 30, 2008

Winograd: a nonsense report?

I am trying to imagine the physiological distortions the members of the Winograd wound themselves up into when they issued this crazed judgment on the decisionmaking in the last days...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:34 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

January 01, 2008

INSS studies on 33-day war, and the next one?

The Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University has just sent me the latest edition of their "Strategic Assessment" quarterly. It contains the usual mix of good-sense realism...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:20 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

December 18, 2007

Israeli strategic analysts on the 33-day war

I had a 3-hour-plus bus-ride this afternoon from Charlottesville to Washington DC, so I had a good chance to read the weighty study titled The Second Lebanon War: Strategic Perspectives...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:30 AM | Fulltext link (17 comments)

December 01, 2007

Post-Annapolis score: Israel/Cheney - 1; World - 0?

Yesterday, US Ambassador to the UN Zal Khalilzad was humiliatingly forced by the powers-that-be in Washington to withdraw the text of a draft resolution he had presented to the Security...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:56 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

November 30, 2007

Israeli precedent in France/Algeria?

I went to an interesting discussion today. It was led by the Franco-Israeli writer Sylvain Cypel, who was talking about his recent book Walled: Israeli Society at an Impasse. I...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:33 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

November 29, 2007

60th anniversary of Palestinian Partition Plan

I was at a fascinating post-Annapolis briefing this afternoon, jointly delievered by two Israeli peaceniks (Daniel Levy and Ori Nir), two Palestinian negotiations officials (Ghaith al-Omary and Greg Khalil) and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:58 PM | Fulltext link (28 comments)

November 25, 2007

Annapolis: the Israeli political aspect

Two interesting articles in Monday's HaAretz. This one is headed Rightists target mainstream to fight concessions at Annapolis, and tells us the following: On the eve of the Annapolis peace...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:05 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

November 03, 2007

1956 and all that

Last night, Bill and I hosted a fun little dinner party with some old friends (and one new one) in Washington DC. The conversation turned to 1956. Firstly, in the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:02 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

July 28, 2007

Meet the Evangelical Zionists

This is a brilliant short video by Max Blumenthal, shot during the recent big meeting held in Washington DC by a big Evangelical organization called Christians United for Israel (CUFI)....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:15 PM | Fulltext link (71 comments)

June 22, 2007

Ze'ev Schiff, RIP

I was really sorry to hear of the death, a few days ago, of the veteran Israeli defense-affairs correspondent Ze'ev Schiff. Schiff was a smart, well-connected, and extremely canny individual....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:12 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

May 01, 2007

Protests in Israel: their nature and prospects

In Portugal, in 1974, it was the country's conscripts and junior officers who-- questioning why they had to spend long years ruling distant colonial outposts rather than enjoying the good...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:04 AM | Fulltext link (18 comments)

April 30, 2007

Israel's Winograd Commission blasts Olmert, Peretz, Halutz

The Winograd Commission, established by Israeli PM Ehud Olmert to investigate Israel's notably unsuccessful performance in last summer's war against Lebanon, today issued a first "Partial Report" in Jerusalem. The...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:34 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

March 30, 2007

Olmert on peace prospects, etc

Somebody seems to be spinning the line to AP's Matti Friedman that Olmert's response to the Arab Peace Plan is generally positive. But it is quite weird for Olmert either...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:42 AM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

March 21, 2007

Molewatch: Cheney & Ahmadinejad?

On a lighter note, Nicholas Kristof recently suggested that Americans will learn more about Israel's real problems by reading Israeli papers than in the self-censored pablum in the US mainstream...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 01:42 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

New Challenges to AIPAC

An interesting crop of articles examining AIPAC - the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee - has emerged in the wake of the latest AIPAC convention in Washington. In his taboo breaking...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 12:17 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

March 19, 2007

Tanya Reinhart, RIP

I have been so sad to learn of the death, both early and I think sudden, of Tanya Reinhart. (Hat-tip for David for alerting me to this.) Tanya was a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:07 PM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

January 22, 2007

Released IDF documents reveal ethnic cleansing effort in South Lebanon

HaAretz's Amos Harel has an informative reconstruction of the decsionmaking last summer within the Israeli General Staff, over crucial aspects of the-- failed-- war against Hizbullah. This reconstruction gives a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:31 PM | Fulltext link (54 comments)

January 17, 2007

Israel's political turmoil-- leading where?

Just six months ago, Israeli chief of staff Dan Halutz and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were riding high. On July 12, they had launched what they were still convinced would...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:31 AM | Fulltext link (27 comments)

December 13, 2006

Depends what the meaning of "introduce" is...

Ever since 1963, the official Israeli policy regarding the possibility (!) that it has nuclear weapons has been-- as Shimon Peres first said that year-- that "we shall not be...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:09 PM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

December 11, 2006

Olmert on Israel's nukes: a slip or not?

In an interview broadcast by Germany's N24 broadcast station today Israeli PM Olmert very clearly implied that Israel has nuclear weapons. I heard a re-broadcast of his words on a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:36 PM | Fulltext link (32 comments)

December 09, 2006

Americans for Peace Now calls for ISG implementation

Good for Americans for Peace Now-- the support group in the US for the Israeli PN organization... They're organizing a campaign to demand that the Prez implement the ISG report....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:41 PM | Fulltext link (22 comments)

November 25, 2006

Ron Tira on the 33-day war

Strategic Assessment, published by the institute formerly known as the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, has a new issue, wholly available online, that is almost completely devoted to analyses of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:05 PM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

November 22, 2006

On human shields (and Human Rights Watch)

I've been having a bit of an email exchange today with Sarah Leah Whitson, the director of the Middle East Division of Human Rights Watch, over their decision, yesterday, to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:18 PM | Fulltext link (32 comments)

November 20, 2006

Amb. Dani Ayalon's interview with Ma'ariv

Here is an English-language version of a fascinating interview that Israel's outgoing ambassador to the US, Dani Ayalon gave recently to ben Kaspit of Ma'Ariv. (Thanks to the US government's...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:33 PM | Fulltext link (32 comments)

November 13, 2006

"We Want Peace" on YouTube

Hagit Tarnari, one of the dedicated pro-peace Israeli participants in our recent U.N. University conference on nonviolence in Amman, Jordan, made a little video at the end of the conference...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:48 AM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

November 12, 2006

Accountability for the Beit Hanoun massacre

Gideon Levy in Ha'Aretz. A true voice of the Jewish/Israeli conscience. Read him: Nineteen inhabitants of Beit Hanun were killed with malice aforethought. There is no other way of describing...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:35 PM | Fulltext link (59 comments)

September 21, 2006

Israeli leadership's slow implode continues

Israel's national command authorities continue the sustained and serious process of implosion that was sparked by the many failures of strategy and intelligence (in both senses of the word) revealed...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:28 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

September 13, 2006

Patrick Lang: "The Best Defense..."

On 9/11, the Miller Center at the University of Virginia featured a talk by Colonel Patrick Lang - who returned here by reputation as a voice of reason, experience, "independence,"...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 10:28 AM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

September 12, 2006

1.2 million cluster bomblets; phosphorus bombs

From HaAretz's Meron Rapoport today: "What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs," the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said regarding...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:25 PM | Fulltext link (22 comments)

September 09, 2006

Planning for June 2007

The early days of June 2007 will see two significant Middle Eastern anniversaries: 25 years since Israel's June 1982 invasion of Lebanon and 40 years since the beginning of the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:02 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

September 08, 2006

More on that 237,000-shell artillery bombardment

Today's HaAretz has an informative article on Israel's use of artillery, including a new form of "cluster rocket" as well as cluster bombs. It's by Meron Rapoport. He writes this:...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:42 PM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

September 07, 2006

237,000 artillery shells!

Yes, that is what the IDF has now said that Israel rained on Lebanon in the 33 days of the recent war, according to this HaAretz report.... And then there...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:36 AM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

September 05, 2006

Deep political/leadership crisis in Israel

I'm always intrigued both by those very revealing 'dogs that don't bark in the night' (as in 'The Hound of the Baskervilles') and by dogs that, though barking, are not...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:14 PM | Fulltext link (28 comments)

September 01, 2006

Israel's navy (and other branches) in the war

Israel's hasbaristas (propagandists and apologists) have been out in force the past couple of weeks, here and elsewhere, desperately trying to shore up the confidence of Israelis and their friends...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:22 PM | Fulltext link (37 comments)

August 29, 2006

And now-- Nasrallah for PM of Israel?

HaAretz's Bradley Burston has a great piece in Wednesday's paper-- and I don't see an "irony alert" anywhere in there, so he has to be serious, right? Burston first of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:10 PM | Fulltext link (26 comments)

August 23, 2006

The war comes home for Olmert

The war that Ehud Omert launched against Lebanon on July 12 is now coming home to haunt him. (Even if many of the young men whom he sent to fight...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:21 PM | Fulltext link (40 comments)

More on the Marjayoun convoy, Israel's attacks on civilians

Bob Fisk, writing in today's Independent, gives these details about the fateful "Marjayoun convoy" of August 11: "They went so slowly, I was enraged," a relief worker recalls. "People at...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:16 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

August 22, 2006

Haunting Images from Israel

Maybe I'm still too human. I resist viewing the many available web pictures of death in Lebanon and Israel in the recent carnage - even as my head tells me...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 01:10 AM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

August 17, 2006

160 IDF infantry soldiers accuse their commanders

We are still only 36 days after the start of the 33-day war, and already a group of some 160 IDF infantry soldiers have decided they wanted to join a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:51 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

More on Israeli leadership chaos

Israel's leadership truly is in chaos. Not only are there all the messy recriminations, charges, and counter-charges over the unsuccessful handling of the war. But in addition we have: (1)...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:31 PM | Fulltext link (18 comments)

Hizbullah building bridges; Israel's command authorities fracturing

I just read this Yahoo/AP news report about Lebanese Army units deploying to south Lebanon today, and I clicked onto the slideshow accompanying it. In a number of slides you...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:58 AM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

August 15, 2006

Imshin's view from north Tel Aviv

I've kept the link to Imshin's blog Not a Fish, Provincially Speaking on my sidebar just about since the beginning of this blog. Even for a good while when Imshin...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:15 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

Value changes in Israel, too

Back in March, I wrote in this CSM column about some Israelis "sip[ping] lattes in lavish shopping malls as conflict with the Palestinians seems comfortably distant." Some commenters here on...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:11 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

August 08, 2006

High command problems in Israel

Aluf Benn and two colleagues writing in Wednesday's HaAretz tell us that: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is still debating whether to approve the proposed expansion of the Israel Defense Forces'...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:38 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

July 29, 2006

Historical and moral clarity from Prof. Ze'ev Ma'oz

I know that in blogosphere terms I'm wildly out-of-date to draw attention at this point to this article, published on July 25 by Prof. Ze'ev Maoz. But it is an...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:31 AM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

July 21, 2006

Is it "helpful" and "appropriate" to seek peace yet?

Spokespersons for the Bush Administration have been doing linguistic gymnastics to explain how the US is both "mourning" the loss of innocent life in Lebanon, but not yet showing any...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 03:11 PM | Fulltext link (27 comments)

July 19, 2006

Is Israel "uniting" Lebanon? & PM Siniora's appeal

Israel's ongoing country-wide punishment of Lebanon, we have been told, is meant to convince Lebanon to take-back their country from "the terrorists," to divide those who want peace with Israel...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 06:23 PM | Fulltext link (40 comments)

July 15, 2006

The need for a single set of standards

Is there a single set of standards that we apply to the behavior of all actors in the Middle East? I would certainly hope so, since the concept of a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:49 AM | Fulltext link (45 comments)

"A bad movie rerun" and international opinion

I'm glad Helena has already focused our attention on Friday's WaPo essay by David Ignatius. I think it worthy of further comment, particularly to draw out his points about...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 04:15 AM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

July 14, 2006

Olmert flunks the test

In the Middle East, recent events have faced an inexperienced national leadership with a tough test-- and so far, they have been failing it. I'm talking about Ehud 'the hair...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:17 PM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

May 19, 2006

Olmert prepares his DC debut

It's a kind of rite of passage for new Israeli leaders: soon after they have finished forming their coalition government at home, they need to visit the United States.... And...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:22 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

May 04, 2006

Israel has a government

38 days after their recent parliamentary elections, Israel has a government. That link goes to a JPEG file with pics and party affiliations of all the ministers. So it's 12...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:08 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

March 29, 2006

Democracy in Israel

HaAretz is now saying that the vote count there, with 99.5% of votes counted, gives this result for the 120-seat Knesset: Kadima-- 28 seats Labor-- 20 Shas-- 13 Yisrael Beitenu...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:37 PM | Fulltext link (21 comments)

March 28, 2006

Israel election: the allure of 'separation'

HaAretz had a fascinating piece yesterday that was Ari Shavit's account of a fierce discussion he had with Kadima MK (and Labor defecter) Haim Ramon about the virtues of the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:25 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

March 16, 2006

CSM column on the Israeli election

The CSM today published my column on the Israeli election (here and here). It underlines the fact that in this election, the main platform plank of the front-running party is...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:26 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

March 14, 2006

Olmert's campaign brings down the walls of Jericho

Ehud Olmert continued his election campaign today by (1) traveling to the West Bank settlement of Ariel and telling its residents they would be included inside the news borders he...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:31 PM | Fulltext link (28 comments)

March 12, 2006

Ted Meron and the Israeli settlements

Israeli researcher Gershom Gorenberg has an important new book coming out about the first decade of Israel's pursuit of its settlement policy in the occupied territories, 1967-77. This recent piece...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:04 AM | Fulltext link (18 comments)

March 04, 2006

Weekend Haaretz

One of the interesting things about being in Israel is to be able to read the paper versions of English-language Ha'Aretz and the Jerusalem Post... However good it is to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:34 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

March 01, 2006

Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Walls

Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:23 PM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

February 23, 2006

Conversations in Jerusalem, #1

My schedule here in Israel and Palestine is gradually coming together. I decided I needed to get a bit more specific in defining what I want to report while here......
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:22 PM | Fulltext link (17 comments)

February 22, 2006

In Jerusalem

Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:42 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

February 14, 2006

Kevin Sites and Gal Uchovsky

Kevin Sites has a fascinating interview in his 'Hot Zone' project-- with Gal Uchovsky, the Israeli writer of a new film called 'Walk on Water.' Excerpt: KEVIN SITES: Your movie...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:01 AM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

January 05, 2006

Thinking about the post-Sharon

Sharon hasn't even (as far as I know) died yet and some people are already writing the kinds of rosy-tinted things about him that are usually reserved for obituaries. How...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:10 AM | Fulltext link (23 comments)

January 04, 2006

Israel/Palestine: leadership crises and the risk of escalation

So, Sharon had a cerebral hemorrhage today... and in Palestine the humiliating concrete barricade that has kept the Palestinians of Gaza separated from those of their countrymen who live in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:51 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

October 27, 2005

Ahmadinejad's toxic fallout

Recently elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday in a speech to youthful organizers of the country's annual "Jerusalem Day" observances that, "Israel must be wiped off the map." This...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:09 AM | Fulltext link (132 comments)

September 09, 2005

Religion, politics, "God's judgment"

Some great good sense and interesting analysis today from Gershon Baskin, the Israeli co-director of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information. Writing in the Palestinian newspaper Jerusalem Times-- unfortunately...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:18 AM | Fulltext link (15 comments)

August 29, 2005

Gaza settler removals: into the afterlife

What is weird about the lead in this AP story today? JERUSALEM - A Gaza settler, his coffin draped in prayer shawls and an orange flag representing the settlers' protest,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:29 PM | Fulltext link (29 comments)

August 20, 2005

Week's end in Israel

It has been an emotion-wracked week in Palestine/Israel. But I think AP's Steven Gutkin was right when he noted this: So far Israel's withdrawal from Gaza is as significant for...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:49 PM | Fulltext link (39 comments)

August 18, 2005

Gaza, Yamit, the future?

A great piece on Counterpunch yesterday by Jennifer Loewenstein, about the Gaza evacuation "drama". She writes: A great charade is taking place in front of the world media in the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:07 PM | Fulltext link (35 comments)

August 15, 2005

Two views from Israel

Ze'ev Schiff writes this in HaAretz today about expectations in the Israeli security forces: ... The security forces have no knowledge of any plans by [Israeli] extremists to use weapons,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:51 AM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

July 27, 2005

Meanwhile, in Jerusalem...

The list of inflammatory, escalatory, illegal, and otherwise violent actions that the US-supported Government of Israel has taken against Palestinians in recent weeks continues to grow. One recent addition to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:14 PM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

July 25, 2005

An admirable vision from Israel

Gershon Baskin is someone I like, respect, and admire a lot. He's a Jewish Israeli, quite forthright in his espousal of his version of the Zionist ideal. Moreover, unlike a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:03 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

July 22, 2005

Ariel Sharon's Ariel "full monty"

I was going to title this post "Sharon's bait and switch". As in, making a big show about withdrawing from the tiny Gaza Strip while quietly consolidating Israel's hold on...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:06 PM | Fulltext link (26 comments)

February 16, 2005

Nice work if you can get it, eh?

I am totally delighted that the Israeli Knesset has voted for the bill that authorizes the compensation package for the 9,000 settlers who'll be relocated out of Gaza this summer....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:21 PM | Fulltext link (17 comments)

February 05, 2005

The IDF and the settlers

An important piece by Gideon Levy in Sunday's Ha'Aretz paints the sorry history of the IDF's very close relationship with many segments of Israel's settler society, including settler extremists. He...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:34 PM | Fulltext link (24 comments)

January 25, 2005

Hallelujah!

This, from AP: Israel has stopped targeting Palestinian militants for death, according to Israeli security officials, fulfilling a key Palestinian demand for a truce to end four years of violence....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:33 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

November 26, 2004

Neo-Nazis in Israel

Sometimes, when you're running a well-funded colonial venture, you have to put up with having the most disturbing kinds of riff-raff queueing up to take part... But I suppose from...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:42 AM | Fulltext link (23 comments)

November 05, 2004

Good sense from Ze'ev Schiff

Ze'ev Schiff is a crusty old guy, one of Israel's founding generation, and I admit I've grown very fond of him and his wife Sara over the years. We disagree...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:59 AM | Fulltext link (41 comments)

October 05, 2004

Diversionary spin (again) in Israel

In the world of political 'spinning' as in combat--and especially, perhaps, in the political spinning that surrounds combat-- there is a really handy maneuver some people use which is to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:42 PM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

September 29, 2004

Alert! Christian peacemakers attacked by Israeli settlers

The following came in from the Christian Peacemaker Teams, which have maintained a team of nonviolent witnesses in Hebron (al-Khalil) in the southern West Bank for many years now. You...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:36 AM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

August 28, 2004

The Israeli spying accusation: big questions!

Such interesting news yesterday about the FBI "investigating a mid-level Pentagon official who specializes in Iranian affairs for allegedly passing classified information to Israel..." That WaPo account there names the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:26 AM | Fulltext link (21 comments)

July 16, 2004

He who lives by the sword...

I am quite unequivocally against the killing of all people. Period. Recently, we have learned that extremists among the Israeli settlers, including some of their so-called Rabbis have been threatening...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:08 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

June 26, 2004

Israel and the BBC

You've probably read a lot from time to time about various pro-Israeli organizations slamming the BBC for being "anti-Israel". Well now, the Mass Media Unit at Glasgow University, in Scotland,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:16 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

May 19, 2004

Or now, do you understand 'unilateral'?

Read this. Then, if you have the stomach for it, see how President Bush referred to Israel's actions in Rafah at the AIPAC conference yesterday....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:17 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

May 18, 2004

Now, do you understand 'unilateral'?

Oh boy, has Ariel Sharon been given plaudits in the west for his "courageous" decision to withdraw from Gaza... Trouble is, too few policymakers in the west have any real...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:50 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

April 15, 2004

The timing of it!

I cannot believe George W. Bush. His administration's policy in Iraq is a bloody and dangerous shambles. Afghanistan is slipping back into anarchy. He needs every iota of support he...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:06 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

March 23, 2004

More data on Israel's assassinations

B'tselem's server is up again today. If you go here, you can find the following information, which covers the period from the beginning of the current intifada (September 29, 2000)...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:05 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

March 22, 2004

Governments as assassins: back to the Dark Ages

Israel's killing of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin is by no means the first act of "targeted killing" (= extra-judicial execution, = assassination) that the Israeli government has carried...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:30 AM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

March 18, 2004

Remembering Rachel Corrie

The courageous, visionary Israeli peace organizer Gila Svirsky delivered a moving address/homily at an event the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions held to mark this week's one-year anniversary of the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:50 AM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

February 25, 2004

Palestinian suicide bombings: another explanation

So here I am, trying to work through the whole complex subject of Palestinian suicide bombings (and the nature of Israel's reactions to them)... But Ze'ev Boim, Israel's deputy Defense...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:40 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

February 11, 2004

Great experiences; limbo nonetheless

I've been hanging around here in Israel/Palestine for the past few days, for reasons that will become clear to you if you read one third or so of the way...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:23 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

January 03, 2004

Z. Schiff dubious of disengagement talk

My old friend Ze'ev Svhiff, the crusty doyen of the Israeli defense correspondents, has an interesting column in Ha'Aretz today in which he seems to be expressing considerable doubts about...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:20 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

November 25, 2003

Israel lied about October raid

Remember the grainy black&white footage the Israeli Air Force rolled out to "prove" that the urban area of Gaza where they dropped two munitions on October 20 had been almost...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:04 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

November 17, 2003

Jewish Israeli views on peace, security

Every year, Tel Aviv University's prestigious Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies conducts and then reports on a wide-ranging study of public attitudes in Israel on peace and security issues. (Not...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:44 PM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

November 15, 2003

Shin Bet ex-chiefs speak out

Four retired chiefs of Israel's fearsome and ultra-repressive Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency have now added their voices to those in Israel calling for more reliance on realistic diplomacy with...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:46 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

October 29, 2003

Israel: Yaalon tells it like he sees it

The Israel Defense Forces' Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon was, according to the online edition of the NYT, the "senior military official" quoted in today's Israeli press as having said...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:22 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

October 15, 2003

Palestine/Israel: final outcomes

I'm back. Here's a link to my CSM piece of Oct. 9th. In it I argue that if Israelis are unwilling to provide the Palestinians with the territorial/jurisdictional basis for...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:46 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

September 24, 2003

Israeli pilots of conscience

Heroes in the Israeli Air Force!! Bring them on!!! Here's an English translation of a good article about the IAF's newest (partial) conscientious objectors, thanks to Gila Svirsky of Women...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:06 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

September 21, 2003

Palestine/Israel: one state or two?

I was reading Imshin's blog from Israel, and came across a post in which she translated a long extract from a recent article by Shlomo Avnieri bitterly criticizing the few...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:21 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

September 19, 2003

Camp David 25 years after

So, we've ridden out the 20-hour power-out that Hurricane Isabel brought us, and finally I have time to write a few quick things about the conference I went to in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:38 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

September 13, 2003

Mideast anniversaries

This day, ten years ago, I was sitting on the White House lawn watching the truly bizarre sight of all the leaders of the US Jewish community and the US...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:06 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

August 20, 2003

Tragedies, tragedies

I was stunned by yesterday's bombing of the UN HQ in Baghdad. Why the UN? Why Sergio Vieira de Mello, and so many other members of his team? I was...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:31 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

July 30, 2003

Israel and South Africa compared

I wanted to write a bit about one of the conversations I had on Star island last week, one in which we were comparing the issues of Israel and South...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:34 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

June 26, 2003

Amos Oz on compassion

Yes! A great piece-- once again-- from Israeli writer Amos Oz. There was a small period there, at the beginning of the current intifada, when he got a little too...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:18 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

June 15, 2003

More on Israel's assassins

Friend Judy S sent me the URL for an interesting examination of the degree to which Israel's policy of extra-judicial executions (a.k.a. assassinations) has affected/stimulated the development of similar policies...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:36 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

June 13, 2003

Israel's history of assassinations

Great piece by Jackson Diehl in today's Washington Post. In it, he details how in each of June 2001 and December 2001-- though he erroneously referred to this having happened...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:21 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

June 12, 2003

Harley-size cycle of violence

Well, my timing really stinks. Not the first time that the story has majorly changed between deadline-time for my column, and the time of its appearing. (And probably, given the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:14 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

June 10, 2003

Bush angry with Sharon?

So maybe Sharon really did piss W off last week, at Aqaba, as Akiva Eldar reported in HaAretz today? Here's what Reuters reported this afternoon, about Bush's reaction to the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:12 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

May 26, 2003

SHARON USES THE 'O' WORD:

SHARON USES THE 'O' WORD: Might the fragile-seeming Mideast 'roadmap' have some legs after all? The most intriguing indication that this just might be so came from reports that were...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:14 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

March 21, 2003

FOUND! A WORTH-READING ISRAELI BLOG:

FOUND! A WORTH-READING ISRAELI BLOG: From Salam via Diane I found a good-to-read blog by an Israeli. At last! Someone who writes from the heart. She's Imshin. For some reason...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:14 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

February 07, 2003

Like Peres, Like Powell?

Colin Powell's big oral presentation Feb 5 was aimed mostly at other governments-- right? Well, put it this way, not wholly right. In fact, a large part of the speech...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:11 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)