Recent Blogs

• Trump is Making the Gaza Crisis Even Worse

  The Trump administration continues to do nothing to help improve the situation in Gaza -- and, in fact, has deliberately made it worse.

• The Two-Way Street: Elul D’var Torah for J Street

  We all have a stake in the future of Israel and of America, not only for the sake of their citizens, but also because of these countries’ impact around the world, including on the way young American Jews perceive what it means to be Jewish. At a time when the United States government practices family separation of asylum seekers, reduces taxes on the very wealthy at the expense of the poor and undermines access to health care, we all have an obligation to speak up. At a time when settlement-building in the West Bank, unequal distribution of government services within Israel and changes in Israel's Basic Laws are moving us rapidly away from the ideals expressed in Israel's Declaration of Independence, we all have a moral obligation to speak up.

• Word on the Street: The Nation-State Bill

  This month, the Netanyahu government passed major legislation designed to minimize the rights of minorities and undercut the country’s status as a “state for all its citizens.”

• Israel Rolls Out Red Carpet for Hungarian Leader

  Israel is giving a fulsome welcome to visiting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who used an anti-Semitic poster campaign to win his last election and has made hatred of immigrants a centerpiece of his platform.

US Ambassador tells Israeli MK ‘no reason to evacuate settlements’ in peace deal, Times of Israel

Jacob Magid reports, “In a meeting with several settler leaders Wednesday, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said that he saw ‘no reason to evacuate settlements’ in a peace deal, a Likud lawmaker said. MK Yehudah Glick, who organized the sit-down with Har Hebron Regional Council chairman Yochai Damari, recounted the statement to the Times of Israel and said that the ambassador was ‘very explicit’ in his remark regarding Israeli communities in the West Bank.”

How Israeli Right-wing Thinkers Envision the Annexation of the West Bank, Haaretz

Carolina Landsmann writes, “The ‘sovereignty dialogue’ is gaining pace in Israel, so now is the time to examine what the proponents of sovereignty mean when they talk about it. [The co-chairs of the pro-settler organization Women in Green, Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katsover] told me who they think the major players are, so I set out to discover what they’re anguishing over and which issues bother them – legally, economically and morally – and what they argue about among themselves.”