International Glance
Diaspora Jews around the world are beginning to realize that the time has come to reject the right’s dictate that being pro-Israel means that you need to support the policies of Israeli governments, no matter what they do; that the Jewish right represents a small minority of the Jewish people.
Caring about friends and family doesn’t mean that we do not criticize them, when we believe that they are harming themselves. In caring for somebody’s wellbeing, we are often required to make clear that they are going the wrong way. Hence Liberal Jews in the Diaspora firmly stand by Israel while trenchantly criticizing the occupation and settlements.
Strangely, in all this no one has wondered how it is possible that the IDF, the body charged with imposing the law on the West Bank, never lifted a finger against its officers who settled in an illegal outpost in the first place.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday signed a law banning Palestinians from working in Israeli settlements and selling settlement goods, with violators facing up to five years in prison and stiff fines.
The Israeli government has effectively frozen new Jewish construction in Jerusalem's disputed eastern sector, municipal officials said Monday. The decision was made despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's public insistence that building would not be stopped in the face of U.S. pressure.
For eight years, Israeli commuters have whizzed between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on Route 443, a highway whose West Bank portion is lined with barriers and is off-limits to Palestinians who live along the way.
Spain's most prominent judge, already charged with abuse of power in a potentially career-ending indictment, denied any wrongdoing as he testified Thursday as a suspect in a separate bribery investigation that has compounded his legal woes.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged all countries, including Israel, to sign the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT.
