Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak pledged to ramp up defense cooperation with Greece at a meeting with his Greek counterpart in Athens. Barak and Greek Defense Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos on Tuesday discussed defense cooperation for 2012, including...
It's not common for citizens of Israel, a haven of democracy in a historically repressive region, to feel simpatico with those in surrounding nations. Yet as matters of gender equality move to the media forefront across the Middle East in the aftermath...
BY Marcy Oster, JTA, JERUSALEM
• Published December 28, 2011
For several years now, the Jerusalem suburb of Beit Shemesh has been the site of on-again, off-again religious violence. But it wasn't until the plight of a fearful 8-year-old girl from a Modern Orthodox immigrant family from America was broadcast on...
During this season of Hanukkah, it is particularly sad to see extremely disturbing acts of violence in the modern Jewish State of Israel by Jews against fellow Jews. While the holiday celebrates the victory of Maccabeans against their enemies, the historic...
By Mati Wagner, JTA, YITZHAR, West Bank
• Published December 21, 2011
Charred tires and boulders pushed to the sides of the road leading to Yitzhar, a West Bank Jewish community near Nablus, were among the signs that residents had made an effort to prevent Israeli soldiers and police from entering the settlement. Patches...
By Uriel Heilman, JTA, NEW YORK
• Published December 7, 2011
A few different sparks led to last week's flare-up over a two-month-old Israeli ad campaign to lure home expatriates in the United States. An ad suggesting that a child of Israelis living in America would mistake Chanukah for Christmas. The claim by an...
Not a moment too soon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled the plug on one of most pathetically inept marketing campaigns since New Coke or the Edsel. The ads, according to JTA's Uriel Heilman, were produced by Israel's Ministry of Immigrant...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu embraces Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit at the Tel Nof Air Force base in Israel on October 18, 2011. Shalit was moved into Egypt from captivity in Gaza in a prisoner swap deal including hundreds of Palestinian prisoners...
BY ROBERT A. COHN, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus
• Published September 28, 2011
There have been oceans of ink, forests of paper and countless electronic communications about last week's drama at the United Nations, where Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas presented a formal request to the United Nations Security Council...
By Ron Kampeas, JTA, WASHINGTON
• Published September 28, 2011
After the mutual accusations of ethnic cleansing and the sarcastic posturing, the ball is back in the Palestinians' court. The upshot of last week's Lollapalooza of speechmaking at the United Nations is that the Obama administration has succeeded in persuading...
By Linda Gradstein, JTA JERUSALEM
• Published September 14, 2011
Retired Israeli Air Force pilot Uri Dromi remembers the day 34 years ago when Egyptian President Anwar Sadat landed in Israel to tell the Israeli people that he was ready to make peace.Dromi, who had flown missions in the 1967 Six-Day War against Egypt,...
BY ROBERT A. COHN, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus
• Published September 7, 2011
After recently returning from Israel, Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., met with local Jewish leaders last week and stressed that while he has long supported a two-state solution in which Israel would peacefully exist with Palestine, he opposes efforts by the...
