The new Israeli government plans fundamental legal reforms to fix perceived vast overreach by the Supreme Court and the legal system. Critics charge the reforms foreshadow the demise of democracy. But would the reforms actually move Israel closer to the system in other parliamentary democracies?
After Kenneth Roth, the former head of Human Rights Watch, received a preliminary offer of a Senior Fellowship from the Carr Center at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, the offer was not approved by the Kennedy School's Dean. Roth's reaction was to lie about his own and HRW's record, and cast blame on -- surprise -- Israel and the Jews, thus illustrating why the Dean was right to nix him.
New York Times reporter Raja Abdulrahim has a long history of anti-Israel propaganda, and her latest article adds to the toll of distortions. She and her co-author charge that the IDF "never" refers to Palestinians injured or killed in military actions as civilians. But multiple examples prove Abdulrahim is once again, at best, wrong.
In the face of a rising tide of anti-Semitism, CNN deserves praise for presenting its special report Rising Hate: Antisemitism in America, but it’s important to note the report had both positive and negative aspects, including crucial omissions, such as noting that anti-Semitism comes from the left and the right, while failing to actually name any guilty parties on the left.
During the recent fighting Islamic Jihad fired at least 935 rockets and mortars at Israel, about 160 of them falling short and hitting Gaza. The errant rockets likely accounted for almost half the current Gaza death toll.
The Harvard Crimson has published an Editorial titled "In Support of Boycott, Divest, Sanctions and a Free Palestine." Despite the editorial's portentous style, as a Harvard alumnus (GSAS 1987) I do feel it’s important to respond in an instructive way, since there seems to be much these Harvard students are unaware of. For example, that it's silly to call for BDS when Israel has agreed multiple times to a Palestinian state, only to have the Palestinians reject it. Maybe these Harvardians should start boycotting certain Palestinians and Palestinian supporters instead.
A new or resurrected Iran deal, supposedly intended to delay or stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program but perhaps doing the opposite, may soon be concluded. Former senior U.S. official Gabriel Noronha believes it’s even worse than the original, and that negotiator Robert Malley deserves much of the blame.
Amnesty International has a long history of leveling maliciously false charges against Israel, and its leader Agnès Callamard had to apologize after her bizarre anti-Israel tweets were publicized. So it’s only fitting that in its latest report, alleging Israel is an apartheid and illegitimate state, the very first line is a blatant and malicious lie, a quotation from Benjamin Netanyahu mangled so that it seems to support Amnesty's false charges. And it's downhill from there.
Kai Bird’s very positive new biography of Jimmy Carter unfortunately perpetuates a blatant lie the former president has been telling for more than 40 years – that Israeli PM Menachem Begin broke his Camp David promise of an open-ended settlement freeze. In fact Begin had promised, and delivered, a three month freeze, and Carter knows this.
Human Rights Watch repeatedly scoffs at IDF claims that there are Hamas tunnels under Gaza, saying that HRW’s investigators could find no trace of these supposed tunnels. However, Israeli journalist Gal Berger reports that the UN is worried about such tunnels undermining their school's foundations, but Hamas is preventing UN experts from checking. If Hamas won't let the UN check for tunnels, did they really let HRW check?
