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Article 49
• The European Jewish Congress has a new office in Brussels to serve as a lobby to the European Union; it’s devoted to, among other things, the lofty goal of “reconciliation between the three great...
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Article 48
• Two South Carolina Republican officials defended U.S. Senator Jim DeMint against the accusation that he hasn’t directed enough money to public projects: “There is a saying that the Jews who are...
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Article 47
The human-rights world has spent the last month debating the Goldstone Report’s conclusions that Israel may have committed war crimes during its assault on Gaza last winter. Human Rights Watch is...
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Article 46
• New York City’s once-formidable Jewish vote “is declining in both significance and cohesiveness,” even as two-thirds are expected to vote for Mayor Michael Bloomberg. [Forward] • Israeli officials...
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Article 45
• The United States and allies are close to an agreement in which Iran will ship its uranium to Russia for enrichment, not to weapons grade. But Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, issued a...
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Article 44
• Google co-founder Sergey Brin donated $1 million to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which helped his family escape the Soviet Union 30 years ago. [NYT] • Jeffry Picower, a billionaire thought to be...
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Article 43
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week came up with a new gambit to bolster Israel’s reputation in the wake of the controversial Goldstone report, which charges that both the IDF and Hamas...
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Article 42
Tomorrow, the House of Representatives is set to consider a nonbinding resolution calling on the White House and the State Department to oppose the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Goldstone Report, which...
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Article 41
• Visting Morocco, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton clarified her praise for what she’d called Israel’s “unprecedented” concessions in the settlements: after Arab leaders expressed dismay that she...
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Article 40
• The Israeli military seized an Iranian ship holding a hidden stock of arms intended for Hezbollah. [Haaretz] • Meantime, in East Jerusalem, a group of Jewish settlers hired guards to help them...
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Article 39
The political football known as the Goldstone Report—the U.N. Human Rights Council-backed inquiry alleging that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes during last winter’s Gaza war—is still in...
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Article 38
• Although President Barack Obama is not actually Jewish, it turns out his half-brother is; in a new novel, Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo presents a fictionalized account of his (and Barack’s) father’s...
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Article 37
After two days of debate, the United Nations General Assembly voted last night to endorse the recommendations of the Goldstone Report, the much-contested inquiry commissioned by the U.N. Human Rights...
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Article 36
The United Nations General Assembly yesterday afternoon approved the Goldstone report, which alleges that both the IDF and Hamas committed war crimes in Gaza last winter, but the debate over the report...
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Article 35
• Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren told the United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism that dovish American group J Street is “a unique problem” because it “opposes all policies of all Israeli...
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Article 34
• Palestinian human rights organizations urged Fatah and Hamas to honestly self-assess the Goldstone Report’s accusations of international law violations against them. [Haaretz] • In a pre-election...
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Article 33
• The last time global anti-Semitism attained its current level, World War II was still going on, a new report found. Jewish Agency head Natan Sharansky and an Israeli minister presented the document....
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Article 32
After what was no doubt an exhaustive and scrupulous investigation, Hamas has found that it committed no war crimes during last January’s Gaza conflict, despite allegations to the contrary in the...
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Article 31
• Did Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tip the U.S. hand? She said “the 1967 borders, with swaps, should be the focus of the negotiations over borders,” maybe revealing plans to use the Green Line as...
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Article 30
• President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad publicly ordered further enrichment of uranium, ostensibly for a medical-research reactor. The move immediately heightened tensions over the country’s nuclear program....
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Article 29
• Per court order, the IDF is rerouting a portion of the West Bank security barrier, placing 170 additional acres in the Territories. The nearby Palestinian village, Bilin, has been a lodestar of...
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Article 28
• An Arab League-backed resolution to give Israel and Hamas five-month extensions to complete probes recommended by the Goldstone Report is expected to pass the U.N. General Assembly. Israel opposes...
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Article 27
If you have not been following this exciting story, I wrote a catch-up today for the magazine: do check out. I’ll also be updating it as news that fits it breaks. As for what’s happened since then...
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Article 26
• Both Israel and the United States have reason to convince the world that the former will bomb Iran, against the latter’s wishes. Actually, though, the two are cooperating on the subject ever more...
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Article 25
• Vice President Joe Biden gave his big speech in Israel, after tweaking it in response to the East Jerusalem construction announcement. The speech was mostly warm, with Biden explaining, “Only a...
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Article 24
• Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon argued that, whether or not the East Jerusalem announcement’s timing was unfortunate, Israeli development there is legitimate: “Jerusalem has always been out of...
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Article 23
• Steven Byers, who scored $225 million in a real estate investment Ponzi scheme targeting Orthodox Jews, was convicted of fraud yesterday by the same federal judge who convicted Bernie Madoff. [NY...
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Article 22
This won’t exactly detract from the controversy of the Goldstone Report. Richard Goldstone is the (Jewish) South African jurist who conducted a report on the January 2009 Gaza conflict for the U.N....
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Article 21
• The Gaza-bound “Freedom Flotilla,” carrying over 800 activists, will soon be halted by the Israeli military’s blockade. But what will the PR fallout be? [WSJ] • Former Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Florida)...
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Article 20
• Remember the new push for Iran sanctions? A vote on them, which had been backed by Russia and China, will now be delayed due to the flotilla brouhaha. [Laura Rozen] • Ireland formally requested that...
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Article 19
Michael Oren, a 55-year-old U.S.-born historian of the modern Middle East and the author of two best-selling books, one on the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and another on the United States’ 200-year-old...
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Article 18
• Bill Kristol says White House will back a U.N. (read: Goldstone-esque) investigation into the flotilla raid; White House vehemently denies this, saying it continues to support an Israeli-led probe....
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Article 17
• In a leaked memo, U.S. diplomats threatened to withdraw strong support for a Palestinian state if President Abbas does not quickly accede to direct talks. [AP/Haaretz] • Director Oliver Stone blamed...
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Article 16
Israelispeak is the way Israelis and the Israeli media use Hebrew. Behind the literal meaning, there’s an additional web of suggestion, doublespeak, and cultural innuendo that too often gets lost in...
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Article 15
When Philip Weiss, the Jewish anti-Zionist writer and blogger, compares himself to Theodor Herzl, he’s not being ironic. “I actually am like him in certain ways,” he says. “Herzl said, ‘Anti-Semites...
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Article 14
Columnist Michelle Goldberg has a must-read profile of Philip Weiss, the Jewish proprietor of the popular anti-Zionist blog Mondoweiss, today in Tablet Magazine. Fascinatingly, Weiss came to the...
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Article 13
With recent events in the larger Middle East—the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Iran—this seemed like an opportune time to reconsider Israel’s place in the region. This week I argue that...
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Article 12
• Goldstone: My bad. (More at 10.) [WP] • How Iran lies behind all of the United States’ calculations during this time of regional upheaval. [NYT]Continue reading "" at...
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Article 11
Richard Goldstone, the South African judge who headed the U.N. Human Rights Council investigation into the 2008-9 Gaza conflict, announced Friday in an op-ed that, basically, he was wrong: Contrary to...
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Article 10
Sorry, but I just can’t resist. In his op-ed, Richard Goldstone distinguishes Israel, with its rigorous internal probing, from Hamas, which has done absolutely nothing in response to allegations that...
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Article 9
• The U.N. Human Rights Council will not revoke the Goldstone Report without a majority vote; Goldstone’s op-ed, it says, reflects merely his opinions, not his committee’s or the Council’s. [Ynet] •...
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Article 8
Richard Goldstone, the South African judge who headed the U.N. Human Rights Council investigation into the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict, admitted to having made some mistakes in his eponymous report. His...
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Article 7
Winner gets a free Nextbook Press book appropriate to his or her comment (provided he or she emails me at mtracy@tabletmag.com with his or her mailing address). This week’s winner is “Hershel (Heshy)...
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Article 6
• Newly leaked diplomatic cables (courtesy WikiLeaks) reveal that Israeli officials expect 500 missiles a day—100 of them capable of reaching Tel Aviv—during the next war with Hezbollah. [JTA] • Amir...
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Article 5
• The other three members of the panel that produced the Goldstone Report strongly repudiated chairman Richard Goldstone’s mea culpa. [NYT] • Lebanon’s more complicated, diffuse upheaval. [NYT]Continue...
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Article 4
Yesterday, in the U.N. Security Council, Ambassador Susan Rice called on the international body to sever all connection. “As we made clear when the Goldstone Report was first presented, we did not see...
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Article 3
If Saul Bellow were alive, his next novel would be about Richard Goldstone. Bellow would have loved this lonely, somber, classically diasporic Jewish man of the law who, with noble but deluded...
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U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice Addresses Rabbis at AIPAC
The United Nations is probably not the easiest sell at the AIPAC Conference, given the institution’s long record of ganging up on the Jewish state in the General Assembly. The list of outrages might...
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Looking Beyond the Numbers in Gaza
The charge of intentionality—that Israel is intentionally targeting Palestinian civilians—has resurfaced in the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas, along with the familiar charge of...
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Israel Plans To Use 'Disproportionate Force' in the Next Conflict With...
Dear Amal Alamuddin, I am writing to urge you to reconsider, and say yes to your appointment to the U.N. Committee that will investigate war crimes in Gaza. Look, I know you’re busy. You have eight...
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