Category: Middle East

As a new Jewish year begins, renewed U.S.-led peace talks continue between Israel and the Palestinians. Much has been written about the low expectations surrounding these negotiations on both sides. Certainly, Israelis and Jews have good reason to be skeptical. The resumption of Palestinian violence at the...

This past August, the General Council of the United Church of Canada, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, adopted a motion urging its members to boycott goods produced in West Bank settlements. The proposal was part of a larger, rather one-sided report prepared by the church’s Working Group...

On May 7, Israelis went to sleep thinking they were heading for an election in September, 18 months before it was required by law. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apparently decided to call an early vote in order to capitalize on his high poll numbers and strengthen his...

Will Iran acquire nuclear weapons and use them to wipe Israel off the map, as its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has threatened to do repeatedly? Is Iran rational or irrational? Would it or would it not unleash nuclear weapons on Israel? Can Israel take the chance? Does...

Not surprisingly, Thomas Mulcair won the NDP leadership last month, replacing Saint Jack Layton as the man social democrats hope can rally left-of-centre voters to defeat Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. Here’s hoping he’s successful, but as I argued in an earlier post, it seems unlikely that...

Campuses around the world are beginning to witness a series of annual events known as Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), and it’s a particularly depressing time of the year to be a progressive Jew. That’s because when you call Israel an apartheid regime, as many on the...