The Historical Roots of the Anti-Israel Positions of Liberal Protestant Churches
The verbal attacks and boycott calls by a variety of Western Protestant, mainly liberal, denominations, as well as the World Council of Churches, have raised new interest in the origins of Christian anti-Semitism and in particular its Protestant version.
The Historical Roots of the Anti-Israel Positions of Liberal Protestant Churches
The verbal attacks by a variety of Western Protestant, mainly liberal, denominations have raised new interest in the origins of Protestant anti-Semitism.
Components of Domestic Security in the Age of Global Jihadism
During the last ten years we have had to deal with a new player in the Middle East, Iran – the biggest terror state in the world today. Khaled Mashaal, the external leader of Hamas, started to increase the level of coordination and cooperation with Iran in 2001 and is trying to implement the Iranian strategy toward Israel in Gaza, in the same way as Hassan Nasrallah is implementing the Iranian strategy in Lebanon.
Post-Soviet Jewry on the Cusp of Its Third Decade – Part 1
Demographically, post-Soviet Jewry has seen an overall decline resulting from assimilation, intermarriage, low fertility, high mortality, and emigration of younger age cohorts. Some demographers believe that less than 500,000 Jews remain in the post-Soviet states. An intermarriage rate that some view as exceeding 80 percent creates complex situations for those Jewish groups that prefer to confine their programs to halachically Jewish individuals
The Growing Hamas-Al Qaeda Connection
Al-Qaeda generally thrives wherever central authority of governments is collapsing and therefore its current success in the war-torn Gaza Strip should not come as a surprise. Just after Israel’s unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip in August 2005, there were reports that al-Qaeda had exploited the new security vacuum that had been created and begun to dispatch its operatives to this territory.
How the European Union’s Attitude Toward Israel Evolved
For a very long time the Europeans’ weakness has been that so often somebody else has to solve their problems. Frequently the United States has had to do so. Yugoslavia and Iraq have been cases in point. It is possible that this will now change as European nations make major contributions to the multinational force that is being deployed on the southern borders of Lebanon after the Second Lebanon War of summer 2006.
Jewish Life in Independent Ukraine: Fifteen Years After the Soviet Collapse* (Part 2)
It is difficult to be optimistic about Jewish communal life in Ukraine. The Jewish population is declining rapidly and assimilation continues among those who remain. The intermarriage rate is extraordinarily high, and attractive gateways to Jewish community life are limited. Current Jewish programs engage a segment of the younger Jewish population and more of the very old; very few attractive Jewish opportunities exist for well-educated urban Jews in the broad age range between university and retirement, the cohort from which leadership is drawn. It is doubtful that more than 15 percent of Jews in this age cohort in major cities are active in any aspect of Jewish life.
The Sarkozy Victory
Nicolas Sarkozy’s victory is a defeat for the old ideological Left that has been appearing to many French voters as increasingly obsolete since the collapse of the communist Soviet Union. It also marks a crushing defeat for the extreme anti-Semitic Right and for all the extremists in the Muslim world, and sounds a clear warning to all who violate law and order among the immigrants in France.
Strategic Lessons of the Winograd Commission Report
In general terms, the Winograd Commission Report dealt mostly with the flaws in the decision-making process in Israel. However, the report contains important insights into the strategic thinking that was predominant in the Israeli political-military leadership from the time of Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon until the outbreak of hostilities in July 2006, with the advent of the Second Lebanon War.
Anti-Semitic Themes in Muslim Apocalyptic and Jihadi Literature
There is a connection between contemporary Muslim apocalyptic literature and jihadi movements. Both have a core belief in a grand anti-Semitic conspiracy theory designed to demonize the Jewish people. This theory has recently been exported throughout the Muslim world, where it fuels anti-Semitic tendencies and violent movements.
The Growing al-Qaeda Presence in the Hamas-Controlled Gaza Strip
Al-Qaeda generally thrives wherever central authority of governments is collapsing and therefore its current success in the war-torn Gaza Strip should not come as a surprise. Just after Israel’s unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip in August 2005, there were reports that al-Qaeda had exploited the new security vacuum that had been created and begun to dispatch its operatives to this territory.
The Strategic Challenge of Gaza
Disengagement caused the terror organizations to turn to new terror methods such as Kassam rockets, tunnels, and crossing over from Gaza to Sinai and then into the Negev, as happened in January 2007 with a Palestinian suicide bomber in Eilat. It is now possible for terrorists to move freely between Gaza and Egypt, and from there to Syria, Lebanon, and Iran for training.
From the Editors
This issue opens with articles on aspects of the post-Holocaust reality. Sidney Zabludoff’s “At Issue” essay notes the low percentage of stolen Jewish assets that were returned in the various restitution rounds. He emphasizes the fact that the highly publicized restitution negotiations at the end of the twentieth century led to payment for no more than another 3 percent of these assets. Zabludoff’s article, which has raised worldwide media interest even before being published, also underlines the divergence between what governments promised to return and what was restituted.
Jewish Life in Independent Ukraine: Fifteen Years After the Soviet Collapse (Part 1)
Estimates of the number of Jews living in contemporary Ukraine vary from 100,000 to 200,000. All observers believe that the Jewish population is in rapid demographic decline. It is likely to decrease even further in coming years due to a low birthrate, intermarriage and assimilation, and a lack of attractive gateways into Jewish life.
Holocaust Inversion: The Portraying of Israel and Jews as Nazis
The false accusation of Holocaust inversion—the portraying of Israel, Israelis, and Jews as Nazis—is a major distortion of history. This anti-Semitic concept claims that Israel behaves against the Palestinians as Germany did to the Jews in World War II. “The victims have become perpetrators,” is one major slogan of the inverters. By shifting the moral responsibility for genocide, Holocaust inversion also contains elements of Holocaust denial.
