Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during an official welcoming ceremony at Ben Gurion

Obama, in key speech, to target Israelis who could make or break a future peace

Barack Obama has shown that he can change the world in one speech. More than once.But he's yet to face a challenge, or an...

By Bradley Burston | 10:03 PM | 9

U.S. President Barack Obama boarding Air Force 1.

Obama visit marks a choice for Israel: Grow up or grow old

President Barack Obama's visit to Israel comes less than a month before Israel reaches retirement age. As Israel faces the...

By Bradley Burston | 01:11 PM | 4

The purpose of Israel is peace

Does every nation need purpose? Probably not. Many countries, perhaps most, do quite nicely just getting by. Making a living....

By Bradley Burston | 05:56 PM | 9

West of Eden

Obama's all-out, guns blazing, no-holds-barred charm offensive on Israel's unsuspecting public

The term charm offensive was first recorded in an interview given in 1956 by American general Alfred Gruenther, Supreme...

By Chemi Shalev | 08:05 PM | 14

Netanyahu’s new Yaacov Agam government: what you see depends on where you stand

Other than being a serial bigamist, King Frederick IV was a wise and enlightened monarch who ruled Denmark and Norway at the end...

By Chemi Shalev | 11:16 AM | 3

Days before Obama visit, NYT publishes pro-Palestinian manifesto

Days before U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel, the New York Times magazine has published an unusually...

By Chemi Shalev | 09:31 PM | 53

East Side Story

IDF soldiers patroling along the border with Lebanon, Jan. 31, 2013.

Why did Israel attack Syria now, and why did the Syrians admit it?

Two days before the night when Israeli planes attacked a weapons convoy or "Scientific Research Center" in Syria - according...

By Amos Harel | 07:53 AM | 62

A protester at the Palestinians’ protest camp last week. A new one was built Friday.

Palestinians discover the strength of soft power

U.S. President Barack Obama's carefully timed attack last week on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was apparently the first...

By Amos Harel | 05:34 AM | 20

An illustration of Syrian President Assad is seen riddled with bullets on a wall.

Tipping point in Syria edges closer as West sees signs of Assad's demise

For the past couple months, it's seemed as if everyone has been waiting on two dramatic developments in the Middle East - the...

By Amos Harel | 03:00 AM | 6

The Axis

An Iranian technician holds a monkey which has been prepared for riding Iranian rocket into space.

After the monkey that didn't quite make it to space, the Iranian 'stealth bomber'

Iran continues to present unique technological achievements as part of its Ten Days of Dawn, a series of events commemorating...

By Anshel Pfeffer | 08:55 PM | 11

IAF long-range capabilities mean more than just Iran in the crosshairs

The Israel Air Force has dedicated the lion's share of it resources and effort on what senior IAF officers refer to as...

By Anshel Pfeffer | 03:50 PM

Scientists in Iran surround a monkey ahead of a space launch.

Iran's space monkey is merely a PR stunt

Iran announced Monday that it launched a ballistic missile carrying a Rhesus monkey to a height of 120 kilometers above earth....

By Anshel Pfeffer | 08:58 PM | 2

Diplomania

Screenshot from video released by the Israeli embassy in Washington ahead of Obama's vist

WATCH: U.S. and Israeli diplomats give Obama's visit a whimsical twist

U.S. President Obama's visit to Israel brings with it many amusing public diplomacy videos, which are being disseminated by the...

By Barak Ravid | 02:57 PM

Netanyahu with Avigdor Lieberman in the Knesset.

Israel's foreign ministry will pay the price for Netanyahu's surrender to Lieberman and Likud MKs

One of the main victims from the formation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government has been the Foreign Ministry....

By Barak Ravid | 08:41 AM | 8

WATCH: White House details Obama Israel trip agenda in YouTube video

Are you curious about what U.S. President Barack Obama is planning to do during his trip to Israel, the Palestinian Authority...

By Barak Ravid | 09:34 PM | 2

Routine Emergencies

Obamamania online: the good, the bad, and the impossibly lame

As the days of the Obama visit draw closer, not only the employees of the King David Hotel, the thousands of police providing...

By Allison Kaplan Sommer | 05:51 PM | 2

Gotta have it: Fashion Police's Joan Rivers wants a gay Israeli couple to be able to have a baby

Comedian Joan Rivers may be known for her barbed and cruel remarks about red-carpet celebrities and their outfits on her...

By Allison Kaplan Sommer | 09:52 AM

An Israeli cook displays locusts during a kosher meal in a restaurant in Jerusalem.

When God gives you locusts, make locust stew

In my bleary-eyed early morning condition, all I noticed, at first, when I turned on the television Wednesday was acclaimed...

By Allison Kaplan Sommer | 12:12 PM | 6

Jerusalem Vivendi

An Israeli family hold signs reading "welcome" in Hebrew and English

Love or loathe Obama, Jerusalemites share a common concern: how to navigate the president’s trip

'We walked here on foot during the snowstorm, and if we have to do that again, we will' says the manager of the neighborhood supermarket closest to where Obama will be staying.

By Ilene Prusher | Mar 20, 2013 | 07:34 AM

The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance's 'flash waltz' performance at Hadassah University Hospital

Waltz in the ward: A musical flash mob at Hadassah goes viral

A spontaneous musical performance of Tchaikovsky in the ward of a Jerusalem hospital raises the question of whether flash mobs can be purely a deed to 'make people feel good,' or whether they're inherently – and unavoidably - political.

By Ilene Prusher | Mar 13, 2013 | 05:10 PM

Arab woman attacked by Jewish women at Jerusalem light rail station

Let's face it: Israel has a racism problem

When an Arab attacks a Jew, he’s a terrorist, he’s been taught to hate. When a Jew attacks an Arab, he’s just a loner, an oddball, a bad egg. But we’ve seen so many bad eggs at this point that something here has begun to stink.

By Ilene Prusher | Mar 12, 2013 | 03:05 PM | 22

Modern Manna

Making order of an Israeli-style fusion Passover seder

Traditional Passover Seder menus can tell us a lot about the differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardi cuisines. While Ashkenazi...

By Vered Guttman | 02:53 PM

Bringing Jews together through food (never underestimate the power of lox)

When the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington looked for something that could bring together as many members as possible...

By Vered Guttman | 06:41 PM

Mediterranean ingredients for a healthy and affordable stew

News about the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet was everywhere this week. A five-year study of more than seven...

By Vered Guttman | 09:59 AM

Strenger than Fiction

Yeshayahu Leibowitz: Prophet of wrath, harbinger of the future

Rinat Klein and Uri Rosenwaks’ three-part documentary series “Leibowitz: Faith Country and Man” could not have come at a more...

By Carlo Strenger | 12:03 PM | 10

Israel isn't being delegitimized – the settlements are

The European Union's consuls in East Jerusalem and Ramallah have recommended the EU to strictly enforce the trade agreement...

By Carlo Strenger | 02:25 PM | 24

Obama's chance to connect with Israelis and promote peace - despite Netanyahu

Few American presidents have been elected into a messier situation than Barack Obama. He inherited both a crumbling economy...

By Carlo Strenger | 02:16 PM | 36

Focus U.S.A.

Orphan children play in their bedroom at an orphanage in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.

In clash with U.S., Russia isn't above using its own orphans as pawns

For those who have visited Russian orphanages (and many Israeli and American Jewish families have, looking for children to...

By Natasha Mozgovaya | 06:37 PM

An Israeli man waves a Palestinian flag during a rally in Tel Aviv, supporting Palestinian statehood

Peace process may be on ice, but it's still a hot-button issue

With Israeli elections coming up and changes expected in U.S. President Barack Obama's key cabinet posts (secretary of state...

By Natasha Mozgovaya | 02:49 PM

Would a Hagel nomination really be a slap in Israel's face?

The Obama administration's support of Israel's right to defend itself against Gaza rocket fire and its vote against the...

By Natasha Mozgovaya | 12:07 PM | 20

The Fifth Question

Quinoa and butternut squash salad with dried tomato powder

Quinoa and Orthodox Judaism's relevancy problem

There has been a dueling of Judaisms going on in the blogosphere over the past week. When a New York Times columnist devotes...

By Mira Sucharov | 12:57 PM | 2

Screenshot of image on Facebook showing Dov Hikind, center, dressed in a black face.

Blackface on Purim: Is anybody listening?

When I was a head counselor at a Jewish summer camp years ago, I was tasked with judging a set of theatrical versions of...

By Mira Sucharov | 03:42 PM | 2

Roses are displayed in a flower shop in Vienna for Saint Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day may not be a Jewish holiday, but I wouldn't want it to disappear

Last night, my six-year old asked what his Hebrew school would be doing for Valentine’s Day. “Um, nothing, really,” I...

By Mira Sucharov | 07:02 PM | 4

Haaretz Select

Yityish Aynaw, the first woman of Ethiopian origin to be crowned 'Miss Israel'.

Black trailblazers Obama and beauty queen Aynaw to talk about ... Pollard?

Have Israeli leaders co-opted the country's beauty queen to raise the issue of Jonathan Pollard with President Obama because she is Ethiopian? Do they think Obama will reconsider Pollard just because another black person asks him to?

By Sarah Hankins | Opinion

Facing the (Passover) music at Yad Vashem

By Judy Maltz | Jewish World Features

The superstar accountant: Yaron Zelekha's crusade to save Israel from itself

By Asher Schechter | Features

Someone Else's Simcha / Amit and Nili's wedding - Don't stop believing

By Ron Ben-Tovim | Someone Else's Simcha

Yair Lapid, leader of the Yesh Atid party, center.

David's Harp / Yair Lapid: New politics, or just born yesterday?

The Yesh Atid leader and his unlikely partner Naftali Bennett seem to have wrested control of economic policy. Or have they?

By David Rosenberg | David's Harp

Culture Fop / Obama’s wet 'n' wild Spring Break 2013

By Brian Schaefer | Culture Fop

In a flurry of telegrams, Israeli diplomats respond to 'The Gatekeepers'

By Barak Ravid | Diplomacy & Defense | 16

Israel's yummy girl just wants to have some fun

By Amy Klein | Arts & Leisure

Opinions & Blogs

Netanyahu, your move

U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel is an important event, intended to demonstrate his deep commitment to the Jewish...

Gideon Levy

Please pressure us, Obama

Ely Karmon

Time to put an Alawite state on the map

Amira Hass

America’s defender of the status quo(s)

Ari Shavit

Obama's wake-up speech to Israelis: Don't let your freedom drown in the swamp of occupation

Ravit Hecht

The charm of the wretched and outcast

Martin Indyk

Resurrecting Obama's reputation in the Middle East

Aluf Benn

President's visit marks the end to Israeli insularity

Adar Primor

Should Hezbollah fret over Europe?