"Dismissing criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic is like dismissing criticism of the Nazis as anti-Germanic." --
Michael Rivero
Palestinian prisoners suspended on Wednesday night a hunger strike that was planned to start today after the Israel Prison Services (IPS) conceded to their demands and stopped all punitive and arbitrary measures against them, the official news agency WAFA reported.
Nearly two million Ukrainians – mostly women, children and the elderly – are pouring out of their country, becoming refugees in surrounding European countries, mostly Poland. Some of these refugees are finding their way to Israel, but like many issues in that country, controversies have followed.
The first flights carrying Ukrainians eligible for immigration to Israel arrived Mar. 6, from Moldova, Poland and Romania. They were assisted logistically and financially by the Jewish Agency for Israel and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
This week the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released its annual audit on antisemitic incidents in the United States. According to the data antisemitic incidents rose by 36% in 2022, resulting in 3,697 such occurrences. That’s the highest tally since the ADL began tracking this information back in 1979 and a nearly 500% increase over the past decade.
Thousands of Israeli protesters have taken to the streets, blocked main roads with some being arrested across the occupied territories in what they call “A Day of Paralysis” to protest plans by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right cabinet to overhaul the regime’s judicial system.
Protest organizers began a fresh day of demonstrations on Thursday, with dozens of large gatherings expected to draw as many as half a million people to the streets in major cities, on highways and outside the residences of the members of the coalition cabinet.
Roughly 200 Israeli Air Force reserve pilots reportedly notified their units that they would not be reporting for their weekly flying session next week following the announcement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday night that the government will move forward with its plan to overhaul the judiciary, despite widespread public protest.
The failure to report for weekly training sessions has serious implications because pilots who miss them are not certified to fly operational missions.
Israelis have taken to the streets en masse in protest against the government’s proposed changes to the judicial system, blocking roadways across the country and intensifying a months-long campaign decrying the move.
Thousands of people carrying flags and signs marched on a Tel Aviv thoroughfare on Thursday, stopping traffic in the middle of the workday. A small group burned tyres on the street outside a seaport, briefly blocking trucks. Police forced demonstrators from the road in front of a conference centre in central Israel.
For all their careers as diplomats, Alon Liel and Ilan Baruch advocated Israel’s case. Both served as Israeli ambassadors in South Africa, and Liel rose to be director-general of the foreign service.
Today, they are using all their diplomatic skills to destroy their government’s case before the international community, and last week were in London ahead of an expected visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.
Israel’s parliament on Thursday passed the first of several laws that make up its contentious judicial overhaul as protesters opposing the changes staged another day of demonstrations aimed at ringing an alarm over what they see as the country’s
Israel is currently undergoing one of the biggest domestic crises in its 75-year history as a result of new legislation being pushed through its parliament aimed at limiting the power of the country's judiciary.
The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made a judicial overhaul a priority since it came into office earlier this year.
