Opinion The Creeping Fascism of Israel’s Right-wingers
It’s not by chance the latest government target is Israel’s universities: Academia offers a constant challenge to their dream of social discipline in the Jewish state
Bernard Avishai
Bernard Avishai teaches political economy at Dartmouth College and business planning at Hebrew University. He is the author of The Tragedy of Zionism, A New Israel, and The Hebrew Republic, and writes regularly for the New Yorker online, Harper’s, and The Nation.
Rabin’s Killer Wasn’t a Jewish Extremist
Yigal Amir is a true son of the cultish, flattened and nationalist Judaism which has colonized traditional Jewish thought in Israel. He may die in prison – but savoring ‘his’ Judaism’s triumph.
How the Nuclear Deal Can Benefit Both Iran and Israel
Iran’s anticipated integration into the global system will present Tehran with a different kind of economic pressure, which can work to the world’s advantage.
If Herzog Wants a Revolution, Here's What He Has to Say
Imagine if the Labor leader finally stopped allowing Benjamin Netanyahu to set the terms of debate and delivered this speech.
What Jews and Christians Can Teach Each Other This Holiday Season
For many Jews and Christians, the grass is greener on the other side of the menorah and/or the Christmas tree. Why?
Netanyahu’s Misguided Prophecy
Angry, hungry for the punishment of crime, incapable of managing ambiguity, lacking compassion: in short, missing a critical kind of self-consciousness. Jonah’s message for Israel’s prime minister.
An Insult to the Word 'University'
Who can doubt that Ariel's 'college,' plunked down in the middle of a population denied the elementary rights of citizens for 45 years, is an insult to the word 'university' in the same way that universities in all other authoritarian dictatorships are?
Memo to the Marchers
The answer is that the atmosphere on Planet Netanyahu is slowly suffocating us.
Israel's 'March of Folly'
Ironically, inevitably, the Goldstone report, focusing as it did on the conduct of the Israeli military after the attack was launched, obscured the larger tragedy. The hyperbole in the report made it the target of people who were only too happy to look at three months in 2008-9 and not the two decades preceding them.
Look to the Bund
The situation of Israeli Arabs is like that of the Jews of Poland during the interwar period.
Independent and Interdependent
The challenge, in short, is to create dignified ways for Israelis and Palestinians to become equals and partners in each other's lives. Postponing this invites new violence that will rip apart the fabric of both Palestinian and Israeli society. And who knows how the violence will spread?
Give Us a Border
President Obama clearly wants to make a clean break with the past, and even make a show of force to Israeli extremists. But a total freeze is now out of the question.
No More Dr. Phil Approach
It may seem hard to believe, given America's vital regional interests, but the last president to develop a deal to mitigate Middle Eastern violence - and throw the full weight of his presidency and the international community behind it - was Dwight D. Eisenhower.