The great Israeli disconnect is the chasm between day to day life in Israel and the way the country's portrayed in headlines. Life in Israel is far calmer, safer, smoother and lovelier than the media coverage - pro or con - suggests.
It is almost a foregone conclusion that the president won't authorize the 40,000 soldiers requested, but he probably will authorize a smaller number. Any increase, as opposed to embarking upon an immediate exit strategy, would be a grave error.
There is a degree of naiveté in the collective Israeli psyche, underpinned by an unhealthy preoccupation with wanting to be liked by "the world," and the mistaken idea that Israel could actually do something to get "the world" to like it.
Never one to shy away from controversy, Daniel Goldhagen has published a new book that reflects his decades-long study of the grim subject of genocide and includes a dire assessment of "Political Islam."
While scientists accept the Earth to be around 4.5 billion years old, there is a circle of political commentators who are having none of it. For them, the earth was created last March.
I have no statistics to back this up, but I believe that only 5 per cent of the world's population would be willing to sit through the movie of their own life. The rest, if they would even show up to the theater, would leave before the movie was over, or suffer from low grade nausea.
There are many challenges along the road to making aliya and successful absorption in Israel. I realize that as challenging as things may be, we have it much easier than the waves of olim who preceded us
I was born with a simple, straightforward name - David Harris. Yet it was actually quite unique in my milieu. I was surrounded by Jewish kids, and Harris was not exactly a common surname.
For Israeli professionals like Dr. Katz, who treats Sderot trauma victims daily, and Dr. Siderer, whose face still remains disfigured from a May 14, 2008, rocket attack, justice has not been served.
Despite the appearance of pandering to local concerns, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Mideast trip has been important in setting straight American priorities in an effort to get the peace process back on track.
Does Arab criminal behavior negate any of their political goals? So why are the Jews always having a finger pointed at them, not to mention the inaccuracies, the false claims, the lousy statistics, the misstated facts, etc.?
Updated November 19, 2009 14:58 IST
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