Yesterday I blogged about Wednesday night’s race riot in south Tel Aviv and the resulting silence from American Jewish groups. Thankfully, that has now begun to change. Kathy Manning, chairwoman of the board of trustees of the Jewish Federations of North America, said the Federations “deplore expressions of racism, the stereotyping of population groups and, of course, all violence.” Rabbi Steve Gutow, the president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said “We hope and expect that the authorities will take effective measures to protect this population from further violence and that legitimate requests by refugees to remain in Israel based on fear of persecution in their home countries will be considered humanely and with due process.” Good for the JCPA for condemning not only ... Continue reading →

God knows, Israel is not the first country struggling to deal with unwanted immigrants. I doubt there’s a single first world nation where an influx of migrants from the global south has not sparked public hatred. Anti-Zionists love suggesting that there is something in Zionism itself that leads residents of south Tel Aviv to revile the Sudanese and Eritreans who have arrived in their midst. But last I checked, neither Jean-Marie Le Pen, Filip Dewinter nor Joe Arpaio learned their nativism from reading Jabotinsky. So yes, what happened yesterday in the Hatikva neighborhood of Tel Aviv has happened in other countries with swelling immigrant populations, some of which don’t get as much international flak as does Israel, which is unfair. And yes, what happened yesterday ... Continue reading →

By Christopher Peleo-Lazar May 24, 2012 | 9:35 a.m. This year's presidential election between President Obama and Mitt Romney will be the first time since 1944, when President Roosevelt defeated Republican Thomas Dewey for a fourth term, that neither major-party candidate on the ballot served in the military. That's quite the anomaly, when looking at the scope of presidential history. Out of the 43 American presidents, only 12 didn't serve - though a few are up for debate (like Thomas Jefferson, who played an administrative role during the Revolutionary War). But with the number of Americans who served in the military on the decline, what was once a prerequisite for many voters has become an afterthought. Most of the first eight presidents either served in ... Continue reading →

You have to laugh, or it would make you cry. That is, if you are someone who genuinely cares about Israel and believes that the two-state solution is the only thing that can save Israel as a democracy and a Jewish state, and that can end the occupation and permit the Palestinians to live, finally, as a free people with dignity and self-determination. I’m talking about Congress. Yes, I know that Congress is always doing things that are less than supportive of Israeli-Palestinian peace (I actually chronicle these things weekly, in excruciating detail). But members of Congress, especially this Congress, are crossing lines that haven’t been crossed before. Senator-elect Mark Kirk (R-IL) during an election-night party November 2, 2010. Kirk won the Senate seat vacated ... Continue reading →

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More and more, the 2012 presidential election is looking like it will be very, very close.While national polling has borne this out for weeks now, perhaps more telling are new polls in a trio of major swing states that could well decide the election — Florida, Ohio and Virginia. (AP) President Obama holds a narrow lead in all three, according to new polling from NBC News and Marist College. But the polls also indicate Mitt Romney is well within striking distance in each state. The Marist polls show Obama at 48 percent in all three, while Romney trails by just a few points in each.Here’s the rundown: Florida: Obama 48, Romney 44 Ohio: Obama 48, Romney 42 Virginia: Obama 48 , Romney 44While Obama leads ... Continue reading →

WASHINGTON - For decades at the White House, photographs of the president at work and at play have hung throughout the West Wing, and each print soon gives way to a more recent shot. But one picture of President Obama remains after three years. In the photo, Mr. Obama looks to be bowing to a sharply dressed 5-year-old black boy, who stands erect beside the Oval Office desk, his arm raised to touch the president's hair - to see if it feels like his. The image has struck so many White House aides and visitors that, by popular demand, it stays put while others come and go.As a candidate and as president, Mr. Obama has avoided discussing race except in rare instances when he seemed ... Continue reading →

Even if you’re not a Zionist of South African parentage (not everyone can be so fortunate), it’s worth grabbing your biltong (don’t worry, it’s kosher now) and tuning into the political brawl currently underway between Israeli and South Africa. Last week, the Pretoria government told its retailers to begin designating products from beyond the green line as hailing from the “occupied West Bank” rather than “Israel.” In so doing, South Africa did its part to help Israel from becoming, well, South Africa. After all, as those well-known radicals Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert have both warned, the deepening occupation threatens to plunge Israel into a South Africa-style struggle over the character of the one state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan, a struggle that would ... Continue reading →