The King is Dead; Long Live the King
By INSS Friday, May 11, 2012
In an interview a few weeks ago, Nicolas Sarkozy, playing on the statement often attributed to Louis XV, said that he didn’t expect a deluge to come after him. To judge by the election results, it seems that the French electorate shared his assessment and decided to entrust its future for the next five years to socialist François Hollande. Sarkozy thus joins a long line of heads of state in the EU who, since the start of the economic-financial crisis, have failed to be reelected to a second term. The reasons for Sarkozy’s failure were not only his leadership, personality, and lifestyle, which infuriated many, but more particularly his inability to implement even a fraction of his economic program. His successor now faces the difficult mission of extricating France from the crisis.
Palestine - Israel Has Had EnoughBy David Singer Thursday, May 10, 2012
The Palestinian Authority’s decision to unilaterally seek Palestinian statehood at the United Nations and UNESCO - in breach of its obligations under the Oslo Accords and the Roadmap - has propelled Benjamin Netanyahu and Shaul Mofaz into forming Israel’s government of national unity this week.
Bibi the SurvivorBy Daniel Greenfield Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Thirteen years after he was sent packing by Bill Clinton’s political consultants and a phony third party, Bibi Netanyahu has become a political survivor. The awkward politician constantly under siege by the media and at the mercy of domestic political squabbling, has become a veteran of Israel’s turbulent politics.
A matter of sovereignty: NGOs vs IsraelBy Moshe Dann Tuesday, May 8, 2012
The core of the controversy surrounding scores of politically-motivated NGOs in Israel is not only whether their activities are detrimental to the state, but their inordinate influence in shaping government policy, media perceptions, and public opinion.
Israel’s Peace Disease
By Daniel Greenfield Tuesday, May 8, 2012
For the last twenty years Israel has been swept into an obsession with few parallels except to the Dutch Tulip economy. Except instead of tulips, its commodity of choice is an even more insubstantial thing, the faint promise of peace.
Egypt’s Revocation of the Natural Gas Agreement with IsraelBy INSS Sunday, May 6, 2012
On April 22, 2012, the national Egyptian gas companies, EGAS and EGPC, announced the revocation of the agreement to supply natural gas to Israel. The announcement was relayed via the Egyptian company EMG, which has acted as the liaison between the Egyptian national gas companies and Israeli gas consumers, chief among them the Israel Electric Company (IEC). In 2010, Egypt supplied IEC with 37 percent of its gas consumption; in 2011, that dropped to 18 percent because of attacks on the pipeline in the northern Sinai Peninsula.
The gas was provided to Israel via an underwater line stretching from El-Arish to the intake facility on the coast of Ashkelon. The supply of natural gas was one of the few concrete manifestations of economic ties between Egypt and Israel.
Palestine - Two Opportunities Better MissedBy David Singer Thursday, May 3, 2012
Israel’s former Foreign Minister - the late Abba Eban - is remembered for his many wise and pithy comments - of which the following is probably the most memorable:
Have the Palestinians Despaired of the Two-State Formula?“The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”
By INSS Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Abu Alaa on the Peace Process and Two-States-for-Two-Peoples
In a recently published essay, Ahmed Qurei (Abu Alaa) called for the Palestinian leadership to consider renouncing the two-state formula that underlies the Israeli-Palestinian political process. As a possible alternative, he suggests examining the idea of a bi-national state: “The two-state plan,” he writes, “has lost its vitality and has gradually expired after a long period strewn with hopes for a just resolution and comprehensive peace in the region.”
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Israel
By Daniel Greenfield Tuesday, May 1, 2012
In times past the Forward newspaper celebrated the fast of Yom Kippur with a feast and in keeping with that tradition it celebrated Israel’s Independence Day by rewriting its anthem to remove the word “Jew” from it. The linguistic purge from the notoriously anti-Israel paper was meant as a way to help Muslims feel better about singing the Israeli national anthem.
The yearning of the Jewish soul becomes the yearning of the Israeli soul and the eyes turned east no longer long for Zion, but the generic “our country”. The proposal made by a self-proclaimed linguist seems rather devoid of understanding when it comes to the origin and meaning of words. Purging Jewish souls from the anthem and replacing them with Israeli souls doesn’t actually solve anything.
Nationalism, Social Justice, and Civil Rights: Palestinian Discourse on the Social NetworksBy INSS Monday, April 30, 2012
With a lack of consensus in the Palestinian camp on various issues and numerous obstacles to the two main political processes – the political process with Israel and internal Palestinian reconciliation – social network users are channeling their energy in new directions. The younger generation in Gaza and the West Bank is engaged in a lively debate on social networking sites on three major subjects: the Palestinian problem; the approach to the Palestinian leadership; and the transition from violent struggle to non-violent struggle, namely, from terrorism to popular uprising through demonstrations and non-violent actions, including the hunger strike by those held in administrative detention in Israel.
The Battle for Bahrain ContinuesBy INSS Sunday, April 29, 2012
More than a year after the “Arab spring” came to Bahrain, the fire has still not died down. Although recent days were essentially no different from those that preceded it, the Formula One Grand Prix held in the kingdom brought the uprising back to the headlines, with the royal family seeking to use the race to demonstrate business as usual, and the Shiite opposition exploiting it to win people over to its cause.
Post-Zionism is so 1990sBy Caroline Glick Friday, April 27, 2012
You can learn a lot about a nation’s health by watching how it celebrates its national holidays. In Israel’s case, compare how we celebrated our 50th Independence Day in 1998 to what celebrations involve today.
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