To understand the polarization in Israeli society between the center and the periphery, the divide between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim, right and left, we must look back to the often fraught relationship between economically dominant Kibbutzim and neighboring “development towns.” Since the establishment of the state of Israel, this dominance was characterized by segregated living conditions…
The Netanyahu government’s most left-wing member, environmental defense minister Amir Peretz, quit the cabinet on Sunday and declared war on the prime minister, vowing to work for a new government committed to peace and economic justice. Peretz, a onetime Labor Party chairman and defense minister, is a member of Tzipi Livni’s Hatnuah party. The move…
To understand why Shelly Yachimovich was booted out as head of the Israel Labor Party after just two years on the job, it helps to note that Labor has had a bad habit, ever since Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in 1995, of changing leaders every time it holds a primary. But this time was different. Previous…
Tensions within Israel’s governing coalition are reaching a boiling point over the impending release of 26 more prisoners, part of the agreement between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Secretary of State Kerry that paved the way for renewal of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. The cabinet is expected to vote on the latest release, the second in the…
Israel’s latest announcement of permits for 1,200 new housing units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has stirred a hornets’ nest of angry responses. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said it could undermine the negotiating process before it’s even started. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said America does “not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement…
More than half of all donations made to Israeli politicians’ campaigns over the past two years came from overseas contributors. Donations to political campaigns by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during that period amounted to $311,000, with 96.8 percent coming from outside Israel, according to Haaretz in a front page report on Friday. The paper wrote…
The Israel Labor Party chose a new leader in a primary runoff on Tuesday. The winner, Shelly Yacimovich, is a former television news anchor whom polls show to have the most realistic chance of leading the battered party back to major-party status after a decade of what has seemed like terminal decline. Yacimovich (ya-khee-MO-vitch) is…
HAIFA — “I’m going to tell you something that might surprise you,” novelist A.B. Yehoshua said over coffee in his hometown this past Monday. “I think this was a successful war.” This was indeed surprising. Three weeks earlier, Yehoshua, one of Israel’s most iconoclastic liberals, had joined with fellow novelists Amos Oz and David Grossman…
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