Israeli soldier praying next to a tank along the Israel-Gaza border, Nov. 18, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov/Flash90/JTA) KFAR AZA, Israel (JTA) — In some ways, Israel’s latest confrontation with Hamas looks like past conflicts in the Gaza Strip. Operation Pillar of Defense has left some key Hamas leaders dead, depleted weapons supplies and hit more than 1,000 targets in Gaza. “We are exacting a heavy price… Read more »
Kiryat Malachi residents crying at the funeral of Itzik Amsalem on Nov. 16, 2012. Amsalem was killed in a missile attack the day before. (Ben Sales) KIRYAT MALACHI, Israel (JTA) — They pick through the tangled foliage, Orthodox men with long beards and black kipahs, wearing white gloves and bright yellow vests, searching for body parts. A few yards over and four stories up, construction workers drive drills into a bombed apartment building. They speak… Read more »
Memorial candles lit for Kiryat Malachi casualties in the apartment building where they were killed by a Gaza rocket. (Anav Silverman/Tazpit News Agency) It’s Thursday evening in Kiryat Malachi and the city of nearly 21,000 residents is strangely quiet. The usually busy city center is empty of people—most of the stores and restaurants have been shut down. There are no high school students loitering around, and no elderly folks smoking hooka or… Read more »
Lone soldier Stephen Segal (in purple beret) The firing of missiles from Gaza into Israel and Israel’s Nov. 14 killing of Ahmed Jabari, the chief of Hamas’ military wing, initiated the call-up of Israel Defense Forces’ reserves. The situation escalated over the following week, and since Nov. 21, a precarious cease-fire has taken hold. For members… Read more »
The Iron Dome defense system firing missiles to intercept incoming rockets from Gaza in the port town of Ashdod, Nov. 15, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov/Flash90/JTA) SDEROT, Israel (JTA) — Wage war to make peace. That’s the idea behind Israel’s strikes this week against Hamas targets in Gaza, including Wednesday’s attack that killed Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari. What’s not clear is how far Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense will go, what price Israeli civilians… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Hours after three Israelis in southern Israel were killed by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, a rocket struck the outskirts of Tel Aviv, bringing the conflict between Israel and Hamas to a new intensity. On Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces reportedly sent ground trips to the… Read more »
Ever since terrorists based in Gaza started firing missiles into Israel several years ago, the residents of Kiryat Malachi have been worried. Over the years, missiles have fallen around the town but have landed in open areas just outside of the municipal borders. All of that changed this morning… Read more »
Smoke rising following an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City, Nov. 14, 2012. (Edi Israel/Flash90/JTA) JERUSALEM (JTA) – The Israeli army began moving infantry units to the south and calling up reservists in preparation for a further escalation of hostilities with Hamas after an Israeli airstrike killed Hamas’ military chief in the strip. Ahmed Jabari and a passenger were killed by an Israeli missile… Read more »
Haredi Orthodox Jews watching the victory speech of President Obama at the American Center in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2012. (Miriam Alster/Flash90/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) – Most Israelis were asleep as the polls closed in America and voters waited for the results, but on one rooftop in central Tel Aviv a party with loud classic rock music and flashing lights was going strong. It was the pro-Obama election-watching party of Israel’s… Read more »
Members of HaNoar Ha'Oved V'HaLomed, a left-wing youth group, attending the rally in memory of the slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in Tel Aviv, Oct. 27, 2012. (Roni Schutzer/Flash90/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) — About a year before Guy Ben-Simon was born, his parents attended the Tel Aviv rally where Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. It was a night of shock and sadness, they recalled for him while he was growing up. They had called all of their friends, telling… Read more »
Walter Ferguson’s childhood encounter with birds piqued a lifelong interest. Road kill, for most people, is something you try not to look at too closely and leave behind. But for Walter Ferguson these misfortunate animals could be a prized treasure. Ferguson, one of the world’s preeminent wildlife artists, would never wish for a little creature to be maimed. However,… Read more »
Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, of Likud and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman of Yisrael Beiteinu holding a joint news conference announcing that their two parties are joining forces ahead of the upcoming Israeli general elections, Oct. 25, 2012. (Miriam Alster/Flash90/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) — Political pundits have long debated who is the real Benjamin Netanyahu. Is he a pragmatist handcuffed by his right-wing support base and fealty to his late father’s nationalist vision? Is he a true right-wing ideologue whose apparent concessions to Israeli-Palestinian peace are but feints? Or… Read more »
Israeli police arresting Anat Hoffman after she said the Shema Israel prayer at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Oct. 16, 2012. (Women of the Wall) TEL AVIV (JTA) — Last week’s episode was hardly the first time Israeli police stopped activist Anat Hoffman while she was leading a women’s prayer service at the Western Wall in violation of Israeli law. But this time, police actually arrested Hoffman — a first, she says — and… Read more »
A projection of what Rambam Hospital’s underground hospital will look like once it is completed. (Rambam Hospital, Haifa) When missiles rained down on northern Israel from Lebanon six years ago, surgeons at Rambam Hospital in Haifa worked, terrified, on the building’s eighth floor. That summer, missiles had struck fewer than 20 yards away, endangering the staff and patients of northern Israel’s largest hospital and the central facility… Read more »
TEL AVIV (JTA) — The Facebook page of PlayArt Labs, an Israeli gaming startup, looks more like the homepage of an art museum than the profile of an emerging technology company. It features an article about Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” an animation of Vincent van Gogh’s… Read more »
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announcing early elections in Israel at a news conference at his office in Jerusalem, Oct. 9, 2012. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) — It wasn’t Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for early elections that was unusual. After all, only a few governments have served a full term in Israel’s 64-year history. What was unusual was that seemingly everyone on Israel’s political spectrum — from left to right — appeared to… Read more »
U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during an offsite bilateral meeting as part of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Sept. 28, 2012. (Avi Ohayon/GPO/Flash90/JTA) WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not meet, but they ended up sounding not so far apart. Netanyahu’s address to the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 28 in many ways echoed Obama’s speech there on Sept. 25, with both ratcheting up the heat… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at a joint news conference with Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov in Jerusalem, Sept. 11, 2012. (Itay Beit-On/GPO) WASHINGTON (JTA) — In the U.S.-Israel relationship, “daylight” is back, but this time it’s Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is being called on to draw down the shades. Netanyahu’s recent sharp rebuke of the Obama administration’s Iran policies has drawn equally pointed pushback from Jewish Democrats. The back… Read more »
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaking at a rally in Nashua, N.H., Sept. 7, 2012. (Marc Nozell via Creative Commons) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Mitt Romney’s pessimistic take on Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects drew some media attention but not much noise from centrist Jewish groups. Only groups on the right and the left ends of the communal spectrum issued statements in response to the revelations this week of Romney’s remarks, respectively… Read more »
(Jewish Ideas Daily) — For those who have been taught—by Peter Beinart or some other recent chronicler of Israel’s history—that Zionism only began to go awry after 1967, Patrick Tyler’s new book, “Fortress Israel: The Inside Story of the Military Elite who Run the Country—and Why They Can’t Make Peace,”… Read more »
