David Landau

Get to know the new, pragmatic, post-Gaza Avigdor Lieberman. Cold, calculating, still a hardliner, but free of the dangerous Messianic nonsense of other leaders of the right. And he might be Israel's next PM.

Honest, a stone-waller, endlessly frustrating. But also a straight-shooter, a man of his word. In this, Yitzhak Shamir brought honor to the Jewish state and the Jewish people.

Is there another United Nations member-state that the British Royals have so consistently and assiduously snubbed in this way?

At a recent debate with J-Street's Ben-Ami, rightist intellectual William Kristol helped answer a question the right has been avoiding: What do you intend to happen if you do not end the occupation?

Israeli politics mirrors human life in the often arbitrary allocation of reward and punishment. Livni may yet get away with it. Still, for the record at least, here is a brief catalogue of her most egregious inadequacies – from a fan.

To him, Zionism was humanism; not a narrow, tribal fetish but a noble destiny, albeit for one needy nation but with a timeless and universal significance.

How does a society professing the noblest values come to adopt policies of discrimination and persecution?

PM says in holiday interview he is convinced int'l pressure will be effective in pre-empting nuclear program.

Middle East envoy tells Haaretz he no longer believes 'land for peace' concept is sufficient in and of itself.

He favors far-reaching negotiations (but says he understands Israel's security needs). She promotes economic projects (but believes that nothing can be done without women). He advises Ehud, she has a word for Aliza. While Haaretz spoke to Quartet envoy Tony Blair in Washington, D.C., it also met with his wife in Jerusalem. Both are fairly optimistic. The New Middle East, according to Tony and Cherie Blair.

Olmert: International Jewish groups won't back undemocratic state; talks will be complex, require patience.

British PM says Western leaders are aware of global struggle against Islamic extremism, but public less so.

Annual economic forum's publication includes article by American academic calling for 'Movement Against Zionism.'

In interview with Haaretz, Arafat says that Israelis would be granted freedom of access to all holy sites under future Palestinian rule.

Yasser Arafat 'definitely' understands that Israel must preserve its character as a Jewish state, the Palestinian Authority chairman told Haaretz in an interview this week.

Arafat is ready to sign an agreement that would give Palestinians 97 per cent of the West Bank and Gaza - with the rest in a land swap, and the right of return of not all, but at least some refugees. In a free-ranging interview with Haaretz, conducted in the carefully preserved ruins of the Muqata, the PA Chairman also spoke of the historical family bonds between the two peoples.

Peres, for those in the world that wish Israel well, and for the thousands of his own friends and well-wishers who thronged the hall last night, stands for peace. And the fact that he failed to attain it, and that it seems so far off now, added to the poignancy of the moment.