Haim Watzman And the Lord appeared to me by the sycamores of Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv as I sat at the door to my tent in the heat of the day, and I raised my eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by me. And when I saw them, I ran out to [...]

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Haim Watzman “Fire! Fire! The Temple’s on fire!” I cry out, waking myself up. Ilana rolls over and glares at me. “Calm down,” she says. “Your freedoms do not include shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded Temple.” “Ohmigod,” I say. “I had the weirdest nightmare.” “It must be something you didn’t eat,” Ilana suggests. “I was [...]

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Haim Watzman Sometimes a mediocre film puts everything in perspective. When the lights went down in the Cinematheque last night I was in the middle of discussion with my companion (full disclosure: I’m married to her) how to parse Bibi’s two-state speech. One position (not mine) was that the prime minister had offered an honest [...]

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Haim Watzman It’s a hot afternoon and I’m still feeling heavy from overeating on Shabbat. So should I go to my Sunday night masters swim group or stay home and watch Binyamin Netanyahu’s much-heralded policy address? Which will get my pulse up higher? I think I’ll go for the swim. By all accounts, Netanyahu will [...]

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Haim Watzman Gershom and I had an argument back in 1996, when Binyamin Netanyahu was elected to his first term as prime minister. Gershom claimed that Bibi was, at core, a radical right-wing ideologue, whereas I argued that he was an opportunistic hack. In that term, Bibi went on to prove himself a devout Republican-style [...]

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Haim Watzman The talk in the locker room at the Jerusalem Pool has been surprisingly conciliatory since the election last week. Dani, who voted Meretz (after seriously considering Hadash) and Siman, who voted Likud, agree that the next coalition should consist of the Likud, Kadima, and Labor, under Bibi Netanyahu’s leadership. When I pointed out [...]

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Haim Watzman The exit polls show Tzipi Livni and the Kadima party slightly ahead of the Netanyahu and the Likud, but the right-wing nationalist block with a small majority. The Green Movement-Meimad did not achieve the two percent threshold. So was my vote wasted? There are two possible answers. Had the Green Movement-Meimad’s votes gone [...]

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Haim Watzman Is Birthright a wonderful program that encourages Jewish identity and commitment to Israel, or is it a propaganda machine aimed at promoting a particular right-wing nationalist vision of the Jewish state? The latter, says Josh Nathan-Kazis in his op-ed How Your Free Trip Will Help Israeli Hard Liner Benjamin Netanyahu Become Prime Minister [...]

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Haim Watzman When my son informed me Saturday night that he was taking all three of my pairs of walking shorts back to the army with him, I was left scratching my head. Why would a commando-in-training need three pairs of walking shorts? He wasn’t telling me, and I resigned myself to the fact that [...]

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