Daniel Lubetzky

Here’s a story from The New York Times that I thought you’d find interesting. Gazans and Israel could have made peace before. Now, demographic and ecosystem issues add urgency.

By Thomas L. Friedman

Princess Diana once famously observed that there were three people in her marriage, “so it was a bit crowded.” The same is true of Israelis and Palestinians. The third person in their marriage is Mother Nature — and she’ll batter both of them if they do not come to their senses.

Let’s start with Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist organization that rules the Gaza Strip. If there were an anti-Nobel Peace Prize — that is, the Nobel Prize for Cynicism and Reckless Disregard for One’s Own People in Pursuit of a Political Fantasy — it would surely be conferred on Hamas, which just facilitated the tragic and wasted deaths of roughly 60 Gazans by encouraging their march, some with arms, on the Israeli border fence in pursuit of a “return” to their ancestral homes in what is now Israel. [Read more →]

BY DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN

The more Israel’s prime minister escalates tensions, the more his popularity grows.

In 2015, Benjamin Netanyahu was elected to a fourth term as prime minister of Israel. Within months, pundits began speculating when his government would fall. So far, the answer has been never.

Netanyahu has faced trouble, including ministerial resignations and police investigations, since shortly after the 2015 elections. Over the last year, the arguments for his imminent demise gathered steam: In February, police recommended that the attorney general indict him for corruption based on investigations in four different cases. The situation in the Gaza Strip festered; the Temple Mount nearly exploded; and the news warned almost nightly of a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. There has been no progress on Israeli-Palestinian peace since negotiations collapsed in 2014. And at home, a wave of rage against economic hardship and massive social inequality erupted in 2011, when Netanyahu was prime minister as well, yet there has been no relief for the exorbitant cost of living in the seven years since.

Why then is Bibi more beloved than ever? In 2016, Netanyahu’s Likud party polled at an average of 25.7 seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, lower than the 30 seats it won in 2015 but still ahead of all rivals. Each year, the average has crept upward. When the police recommended indicting Netanyahu, his party’s numbers rose. When U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal on May 8, polls gave him the highest numbers in a decade, 35 or 36 seats; one survey was even rumored to predict 42. [Read more →]

Amos Oz, as always, provides interesting insights on a variety of topics in this succinct interview on BBC

Mount Herzl

Jerusalem, Israel

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Zvia, Yoni, Chemi and generations of the Peres family; President Rivlin; Prime Minister Netanyahu; members of the Israeli government and the Knesset; heads of state and the government and guests from around the world, including President Abbas, whose presence here is a gesture and a reminder of the unfinished business of peace; to the people of Israel:  I could not be more honored to be in Jerusalem to say farewell to my friend Shimon Peres, who showed us that justice and hope are at the heart of the Zionist idea.

[Read more →]

A joint poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) in Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in Ramallah and released on August 22, 2016 shed some interesting insights on the state of public opinion on both sides.  The findings include:

A slight majority of Israelis and Palestinians support the two-state solution. However, they do not trust each other, have disparate views on the terms of a permanent settlement, underestimate the level of compromise on the other side, and view its intentions as threatening. Nonetheless, at least a quarter of the opposition to a permanent settlement on both sides is flexible and it is likely that its opinion might be changed with the right incentives.

STATISTICAL HIGHLIGHTS BELOW

[Read more →]

[Read more →]

[Read more →]

As a person that has worked over two decades for a two state solution and who firmly believes true political and civic leadership on both sides of the Israeli Palestinian divide is essential if we are to rescue the people of the region from a fate like today’s Syria. I also find the thought of a 13 year old Palestinian boy stabbing a 13 year old Israeli boy coming out of a candy store to be the saddest, most depressing and most deplorable warning of the descent into hell this region will experience if we allow violent absolutism to take society over.

Whether it is the Palestinian terrorists that have been rampaging through Israel and killing innocent people throughout this month, or the Jewish terrorists that burnt the Dawabsheh family – including an 18 month old baby – to death, we must all uniformly condemn, confront and apprehend all these murderers.

And we must educate all our children, on both sides, that the dehumanization of the other is going to be our undoing. Enough self righteousness on either side. We both have plenty to own up to and take responsibility for. Anyone who just thinks the other is to blame and their side is flawless lives in denial and lacks necessary information and introspection.

We are running out of time.

Moderates need to rise up, lead, and empower each other on both sides. Everyone of us has the power and responsibility to do so. And if we abdicate that power and responsibility, the fate of our peoples will stand on our shoulders – just as it does on failed leaders that have brought us to this point so far.

[Read more →]

[Read more →]