SDEROT, Israel — As Barack Obama’s plane took off from Ben Gurion Airport for Germany early Thursday, Israelis were opening up the morning newspaper to a center spread’s worth of photos and quotes tailored to the local political palate.
In Jerusalem strolling arm and arm with Shimon Peres at his presidential villa. In a yarmulke Read More
TEL AVIV—As if staring at each other across the front page of the newspaper, the 10-year-old boy bleeding from a Gaza rocket attack looked up into the controversial photo of the Illinois senator wrapped in a white turban.
“A Hillary Clinton Production,’’ proclaimed the headline in the tabloid Yediot Ahronot, Israel’s top-selling daily paper. “Obama, Read More
JERUSALEM–As if cribbed from a page in a Passover Haggadah, the real estate pitch sketches a "Next Year in Jerusalem” vision for the well-heeled: a gated community nestled in a bucolic hillside terrace overlooking a panorama of the Old City walls, the Dome of the Rock, and the Mount of Olives.
RAMALLAH, West Bank —On the recent morning he became a minister in the Palestinian “emergency” cabinet, Ashraf Eid al-Ajrami’s mobile phone alternated between calls of congratulations and calls of desperation from the Gaza Strip.
“If I can help you, I will do my best,” Mr. al-Ajrami, a Fatah operative who writes for the party Read More
Shimon Peres’ angry quip after being narrowly upset by Benjamin Netanyahu in the 1996 election was supposed to be rhetorical. But it came to symbolize the Peres paradox: Israel’s Nobel Peace laureate never managed to win over voters during a 30-year-long string of defeats.
Today, as the 83-year-old elder statesman seeks the ceremonial post Read More
TEL AVIV—It’s probably the most clichéd adjective used to describe the recent Israeli-Palestinian truce. And yet, the “fragile” cease-fire has proven robust enough to survive 15 rockets fired from Gaza into Israel and the killing of four Palestinians by Israeli troops in the West Bank. But that’s not because Israelis and Palestinians are on the Read More
TEL AVIV—It’s probably the most clichéd adjective used to describe the recent Israeli-Palestinian truce. And yet, the “fragile” cease-fire has proven robust enough to survive 15 rockets fired from Gaza into Israel and the killing of four Palestinians by Israeli troops in the West Bank. But that’s not because Israelis and Palestinians are on the Read More
JERUSALEM—By all accounts, Avigdor Lieberman began his first full week as Israeli vice prime minister by getting the political wind knocked out of him—first in a British weekend broadsheet and then by his own boss.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s newest coalition partner—a West Bank settler—is arguably the most provocative Israeli politician since Rabbi Meir Read More
JERUSALEM—By all accounts, Avigdor Lieberman began his first full week as Israeli vice prime minister by getting the political wind knocked out of him—first in a British weekend broadsheet and then by his own boss.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s newest coalition partner—a West Bank settler—is arguably the most provocative Israeli politician since Rabbi Meir Kahane, Read More
GAZA—Ahmed Yousef got his doctorate in political science from Missouri’s Columbia State University. But to describe the root of the Palestinians’ Hamas-led government’s paralysis, Mr. Yousef, the political aide to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, borrowed a metaphor from the world of sports.
As diplomats, explained Mr. Yousef, the rookie Islamic militants are out of shape Read More
