Ariga Editorials

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• Dec 23 1997 Ben Mollov of Bar-Ilan University and Musa Isa Barhoum of Al Quds Open University have been working together on a project bringing Israeli and Palestinian students together. here are some of the lessons they've learned. They call it BUILDING CULTURAL BRIDGES BETWEEN ARAB AND JEWISH UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

• Dec 12 1997 Joe Shea of the American Reporter gets a visit from some State Department-hosted Arab journalists.

• Nov 24 1997 Saving America.Joe Shea, editor in chief of The American Reporter, writes about the skinhead movement and its causes, in an essay called Saving America. Nov 24 1997

• US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright explains American policy vis a vis the peace process -- A speech delivered to the National Press Club in Washington D.C. August 6 1997

• Medical Emergency in the Territories August 7 1997

• To Yossi-- with kindness Birzeit University President Dr. Hanna Nasir writes a letter to Captain Yossi -- August 6 1997

• The USS Liberty Tragedy Computer science historian Mark Midbon uncovers evidence to show the Israeli attack on the US spy ship in 1967 was an accident.

• Sharing Jerusalem by Gila Swirksy -- June 1997

• Peace Loyalism Three years after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, it's time to remember that it was supposed to be a way station on the road to statehood. By Charles Lenchner - May 1997

• Humpty Dumpty The police recommendations to indict the prime minister and his closest friends, came as no surprise. April 1997

• March 1 1997 The State of Israel, as an entity based on democratic rule of law, is under attack from its own Prime Minister, whose election campaign was based on declaring open war on the "elite establishments." March 1997

• February 21 1997 Netanyahu turns Nixonian An Ariga editorial on the constitutional crisis over Roni Bar-On's aborted appointment as attorney general. Feb 1997

• Jan 5 1997 From Anika A letter from a day trip to Nablus Jan 1997
• Have Hope for the New Year A Guest Editorial by Gila Swirksy Jan 1997
• Hebron is a Town without Pity A Guest Editorial by Gila Swirsky Nov 1996
• Shoot or Listen In the process of recreating themselves as a nation into the State of Israel, the Jews helped create Palestinian nationalism. Now if either nation is to survive -- Israeli or Palestinian -- both must end the war and share the land both call home.... As an Israeli Jew, it is not my responsibility to speak for the Palestinians. As a Jewish Earthling, it is my responsibility to understand the suffering of the Other. Oct 1997
• The Current Crisis Opening a 2,000-year-old tunnel in Jerusalem is of great archeological significance. But it has nothing to do with religion and the manner it was opened was a display of the Netanyahu government failure to understand the peace process. A statement from the International Center for Peace in the Middle East. Plus Reader reactions. Sep 1997
• Netanyahu meets Arafat Call it farce, call it hypocrisy, but ten months after Rabin was assassinated the man who led the campaign against the old general's recognition of the PLO met with Yasser Arafat. Sep 1997
• Netanyahu's Israel: A New, Sad Chapter on the March of Folly by D.B. Solomon. "Don't be fooled by articulate talk of peace." Sep 1997

• August 2 1996 Bus 300 -- Back to Haunt the GSS A Guest editorial By Charles Lenchner -- Ehud Yatom's revelation that he killed the two terrorists captured after the Bus 300 hijacking more than a decade ago, raises questions about the limits of power in a democracy.

• June 22 1996 Letting go of Resentment A Guest editorial by Immanuel Suttner. Holding ill-will against someone else is a CHOICE maintained because it gives the resenter something. My belief is that it always gives less, however, than it takes.

• June 18 1996 To Laugh or Cry... If not for the seriousness of the problem, which goes far beyond the question of where to fit Arik Sharon's impressive girth into the new Israeli government, we could have been enjoying the past few weeks of "coalition-building" as a marvelous comedy of errors. Reader Reactions to the Article

• June 14 1996 I myself am a Labour supporter, and have a lot of irrational resentments re the right wing and the haredim. But I acknowledge that these prejudices are irrational and arbitrary and almost a form of denial of the ongoing realities being formed anew each day. By Immanuel Suttner, a constant reader (and poet )

• June 14 1996 Sheinkin shrugs it off; not many hurt by Thomas O'Dwyer: "THEY" call them ``the Sheinkin brigade'' and wonder how that defeated rag-tag unit is taking the bad news.

• June 5 1996 Reader Reactions to post-election commentary at Ariga -- and a Last Word

• June 4 1996A Constitutional Crisis Bibi did not get more than 50% of the vote... it's up to the High Court to decide what to do.

• June 1 1996 Promises, Promises Post-election conclusions, speculations, and promises of our own.

• May 30 1996 Possible Scenarios Like Menachem Begin in 1977, Binyamin Netanyahu will want to prove he's no bogeyman.

• May 27 1996 One good reason to vote for Shimon Peres

• May 12 1996 A Strange Campaign Only the cynics and the ignorant believe that there is no difference between the two sides in this campaign, the most critical since at least the 1967 Six Day War, if not all the way back to the first election.

• May 1 1996 Dialogue, not sanctions needed to change Iran A guest report from Andrea Wright at a conference in Texas.

• April 14 1996 A Window of Opportunity: Between the Lebanese fleeing north and the Israelis fleeing south lies a political conundrum that both holds up the peace process and provides a window of opportunity for a great leap forward.

• Pessah 1996 A Pessah Editorial On the face of it, therefore, a suicide bomber can tilt this election. But so could another Yigal Amir. That dilemma drives this campaign.

• April 2 1996 What happened to the Israeli Left? ... Why should Meretz lose so much support to the Labor party ... Why do polls predict an increase of seats for Hadash, seven years after Communism failed? And where are the groups and individuals that comprised the extra-parliamentary left from the war in Lebanon until the Intifada? A Guest Editorial from Charles Lenchner

• March 5 1996 The Test of Terror Terrorism, in particular the horror of suicide bombers, is by virtue of its drama, the most immediate challenge. The instantaneous communications of the end of the 20th century makes the terrorism tangible to the rest of the world. Terrorism is as international as CNN... and even when it seems to be about the most local issues -- the Oklahoma bombing comes to mind -- it is really about a world war between the two main forces on the planet that have been in conflict for all of human history, reason and irrationality.

• March 3 1996 History's Timetable There have been so many buses that became symbols: The coastal road bus, the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem bus, the Ashkelon bus. The Ismailia bus. The Hadera bus, the Afula bus, the Number Eighteens in Jerusalem Originally published as a Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv column February 8, 1990

• Feb 27 1996 Richard Sherwin of Bar Ilan University writes in response to "The Choice is Clear"

• Feb 21 1996 In Israel, the choice is clear: What's better -- to need the army to get to Ma'arat Hamachpela aka The Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, or to make a peace that enables MacDonalds to open a Palestinian franchise in Hebron open to anyone visiting the Tomb. Neither the tomb nor the burger joint is our idea of a fun place to visit. We prefer cyberspace, and therefore opened Ariga's own little Cyberspace Nation Web this week, our own modest effort to respond to "don't ask what the 'net can do for you, ask what you can do for the 'net."

• Feb 11 1996 On Tel Aviv's Shenkin Street on Fridays more young Israelis between the ages of 12 to 40 juggle and jiggle through the one block roadblock of pedestrian walkway from Allenby to the little people's park with the huge fountain, than there are Jews in Palestine. Last week, a stand gathering signatures for the legalization of marijuana collected its thousand John Hancocks in a country where the military censor still is legitimate by democratic standards. This week, Prime Minister Shimon Peres, a 75-year-old man with more understanding of what could be in the year 2020 than most 20 year olds in Israel -- or for that matter overseas -- explained why he wanted what are being called early elections in Israel, probably in late May.

• Feb 3 1996 Looking Ahead Elections this May or October, it doesn't matter. What matters is getting the roads open to Africa, Asia and Europe. Israel is the California of Europe, peculiarly facing West at the eastern end of the Med. It's possibly the Hong Kong of the next century -- it will be the world's most densely populated country by the year 2020 -- and there's no reason there shouldn't be a road all the way there. Meanwhile, the Negev's time is coming soon, as the interests of the country mature from tribalism and paranoia to internationalism and free trade.

• January 21 1996 For Jews as well as Arabs the Palestinian elections are a key milestone on the road toward the 21st century. Meanwhile, the right-wing's complaints in America about free speech on the internet are as dissonant as the right wing Israeli's complaints about the "surrendering leftists," Bibi Netanyahu's latest euphemism for the government.

• January 10 1996 -- Lots of firsts today -- the king, in day-time, in Tel Aviv, the head of the shabak named in the newspapers, the Syrians calling for marathon talks. It's all making Ariel Sharon very nervous.

• December 30, 1995 -- Goodwill is not naivete . It is the essence of the win-win deal, the best kind of commerce that exists. For the first time in their history as neighbors, Israelis and Syrians are talking about what they can share as common goals, listening to each other as partners rather than as adversaries. On both sides, those out of power are opposed to the move; expecting treachery to burst bloodily into the open at every turn of this long and winding road to a new era. On the fringes, they can't hide their disappointment that the violence is dwindling; the more diplomatic, if not responsible, stake increasingly desperate claims to isolationist ideologies, at a time when isolationism is increasingly impossible.

• Dec 16 1995 -- Tonight, less than 24 hours before the first candle of Hannukah, the national religious community is invading Tel Aviv, assembling outside city hall in the place now known as Kikar Rabin, to declare that while they are not proud of Yigal Amir the assassin, they are proud of what he learned in their community.Say them: you don't blame a common criminal's secular education -- or lack of it -- for his crime. Why do you blame us for Yigal Amir's crime? They deserve an answer.

• Tel Aviv is the Spiritual Center of the State of Israel: If not for the life and death issues at stake, the celebrations of Jerusalem's 3,000 birthday would seem farcical. A dissenter's view of the Jerusalem 3000 celebrations

• Dec 10 1995 -- The election campaign has begun Democracy, said Plato, "is a charming system of variety and disorder.'' Israel's rules for the democractic process have always been slightly askew. From the start, the free press has been if not shackled, then at least reined in by security considerations; religion has been kept off the free marketplace of ideas; and pluralism has been frowned upon in the name of a desire for national consensus.

• Dec 3 1995 -- From Zion shall come Torah Israel is the leading strategic power in the Middle East because of many reasons, among them its affiliation with the United States. That affiliation is derived from an inherently democratic impulse in Israel, that does not exist -- yet-- anywhere else in the Arab world. That impulse, unfortunately, is far from perfect -- witness the corrupting influence the occupation had on Israeli (and Palestinian) society.

• Nov 19 1995 -- A Mythological Moment This is a mythological moment in the history of the Jewish people. The dimension of this moment encompasses the entire hundred years of 20th century Zionism as Jewish self-determination.We are indeed divided, and in large part because of religion.

• Nov 11 1995 -- Back to Business In Jewish tradition, the seven days of shiv'a are all about enveloping the mourner with the love of relatives, friends and community. But at the end of those seven days, though three more weeks remain until the end of the first month of a mourning period that will last a full year, the mourner is supposed to get on his or her feet and go back to work.

• Nov 6 1995 -- Now we are a country Israel is the only country born as a democracy after World War II that did not have a revolution, a junta, a coup, a civil war, a dictatorship calling itself a republic or people's democracy. Now we have had an assassination.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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