Amiel Ungar

There is no appeasing the BDS campaign and its supporters, most recently Stephen Hawking, because of its inherently anti-Semitic nature and its echoes of the pre-war boycott of German Jews.

The U.S. should listen to 2-state skeptics and Oslo opponents who not only occupy important posts, but also represent mainstream Israeli public opinion.

No matter how charmed the Israeli public is by Obama's visit, Israelis remain unconvinced that making major concessions will buy any real closure to the Arab-Israeli conflict, especially at a time when a hollowed-out American military can't ride to the rescue if everything turns sour.

If the trio of Lapid, Yacimovich and Bennett sell out their party platform for ministerial payoffs, in the Machiavellian way Tzipi Livni has done, it will be a shattering rebuff to the cross-party idealism that flowered during the election campaign.

What has been ignored in the partisan satisfaction and economic hand-wringing is that democracy itself is being weakened as a result of these developments.

Israelis were quick to call the Gaza ceasefire a victory. A closer look at what was - and wasn't - accomplished suggests that such optimism is unfounded.

Obama ads targeted at Jewish voters feature Sderot, while Romney ads feature Jerusalem, and this is the major difference between the two philosophies and platforms.

It is admittedly easier to run against Carter than against the Roosevelt legend, but one cannot pick one’s rivals.

Demilitarization is frequently dependent on outside guarantors, but this too can be iffy, as the current situation with Egypt shows.

Mitt Romney as a candidate cannot walk the walk on Iran, but at least he talks the talk and says the right things.

The ultra-Orthodox reaction to military service reform has the potential to either upgrade or set back religious influence on Israeli society in its richest sense.

In our system of government, the Knesset does not ‘detour’ around the court: As the legislator, it takes the legal highway.

Electoral reform will not break the power of 'sectoral' parties, it will only drive them to gravitate to and influence the major parties.

It is false consolation to argue that, once the elections have concluded, it will be business as usual.

The firebreak between Ashdod and Tel Aviv is temporary. Our failure to smash Gaza ensures that the situation in the south will soon be enacted in the Dan megalopolis.

Any system, including ours, needs occasional reform, but we should avoid the oversell and the irresponsible campaigns that promise a quick and total fix via an extreme makeover.

It would be preferable to err on the side of caution and address the Islamic surge with less complacency.

The cataclysms will continue to play out in our region. This will be the year when either Iran gets its nuclear weapons or is stopped.

Having taken the thoroughbred endangered democracy hobby horse for a canter, Schocken also trots out two venerable nags.

The right was allowed to reign, but the left in actuality governed via aggressive judicial intervention and equally aggressive judicial nonintervention.

The illusion about the new, improved Obama should have broken down as soon as the administration criticized Israel for the planned housing project in Gilo.

Yachimovich deserves support from her ideological opponents as well as from people in her camp.

Yachimovich deserves support from her ideological opponents as well as from people in her camp.

Will the left have to concede more political power to traditionalist forces?

Would Romania countenance thousands of 'demonstrators' from Hungary attempting to re-Magyarize Transylvania?