Kudos to Rabbi Eric Yoffie, head of the Union for Reform Judaism, who has publicly spoken out against Jewish political cooperation with Christian Zionists, their most prominent organization – Christians United for Israel – and its leader, John Hagee: The heart of Pastor Hagee’s message is to be found in these words: “Stop giving the [...]

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Poor kids get worse educations and graduate from high school at lower rates than rich kids. That’s bad. What could be worse? The Bank of Israel’s annual report (not yet available on line, but here’s a report in today’s Ha’aretz) says that the education gap has remained virtually the same since 1992. We’ve made no [...]

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The Government Press Office was kind enough to send me a notice from the Municipality of Ariel: Some 600 American Christian Zionists, led by well-known Evangelical leader, Pastor John Hagee, will arrive in Israel this week to express their support for Israel on the Jewish Homeland’s 60th year of Independence. One of the highlights of [...]

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The problem with calculating a nation’s well-being via per-capita GDP: …you and your friend are the only people sitting at a bar. Then Bill Gates walks in, and your friend states (correctly) that “The average person in this bar is a billionaire!” That’s from The G-Spot, where Blogger Kathy G. (didn’t Dylan write a song [...]

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Here’s an update in the value of doubt from veteran health journalist and muckraker (the word is a medal of honor) Shannon Brownlee, writing in the Washington Post: Striking fear… serves pharmaceutical companies, which want you to worry about diseases, because people who worry are more likely to go to their doctors and ask for [...]

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I live in a supposedly united city that in reality is fragmented. The average Jewish teenager in Jerusalem would not be able to name a major street in Palestinian East Jerusalem. The average Palestinian teen knows Israelis as Border Policemen in dark green uniforms. Arabic, supposedly a required third language in Jewish schools, somehow gets [...]

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This idea that Israel should offer asylum to non-Jewish refugees – how new is that? Some crazy concept thought up by secular Tel Aviv liberals with no concern for Israel’s Jewish character? Actually, no. Just a bit older than that. After my post a few days ago on the need for a new policy on [...]

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Ethan Bronner’s article on Highway 443, the Israelis-only West Bank road, is now up at the New Yorks Times. Bronner cites the documents first published at South Jerusalem, proving that the road was conceived from the start as part of settlement plans, contrary to what the government told the Supreme Court. As I’ve written: …the [...]

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My new piece at The American Prospect explain what’s behind attempts to smear Barack Obama by smearing one of his advisers, former Clinton administration foreign-policy expert Robert Malley. There’s more at work here than the usual, nearly boring, attempts to slime a liberal candidate as anti-Israel for the “sin” of supporting what Israel needs most [...]

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If you’ve come to visit our fair blog in search of the documents on Road 443, as described today in Ethan Bronner’s story in the International Herald Tribune, just click here. But while you’re here, we invite you to read more, and to come back again.

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Though organizers of the new, dovish Israel lobby are still not talking about their plans, James Besser has a report in the Jewish Week: Dubbed the J-Street Project – “K Street” has become a cipher for Washington’s lobbying establishment and “J Street,” missing from Washington’s downtown grid, has become a local “in” joke – the [...]

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Gershom, you’re right about a number of things in your“Politics of Measurement” post. Science is never free of social, economic, and cultural constraints, even if the scientific method offers, by and large, a good way to minimize those influences and approach the truth. And proving cause-and-effect relationships in politics and relations between nations is a [...]

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