BEV GOLDMAN
SA’s doyen of Zionist communication and education writing picks eight top reads from around the world over the past seven days.
1. Zionism is here to stay
Amos Yadlin and Uri Sadot, inFocus Quarterly, Spring 2015
Zionism has always been faced with grave challenges, but are the threats it now faces greater than those we overcame for nearly a century? Not at all. In fact, Israel, by most accounts, is more secure and prosperous now than ever in its history. The calculus is simple: it wields the strongest military power in the extended Middle East, the economy is on a steady rise and rich with newly found gas reserves, our demography is the healthiest in the West, our people are among the happiest in the world, and our society, as exemplified in the summer 2014 skirmish with Hamas in Gaza, is close-knit and resilient in trying times.
2. Givat Haviva and the pursuit of a shared society
Mohammad Darawshe, Fathom, Autumn 2014
Mohammad Darawshe, the Co-Executive Director of the Givat Haviva Institute, spoke to a Fathom Forum in September 2014 about how to tackle the inequality and discrimination which Israel’s Arab community faces. He outlined historic reasons for this discrimination, but suggested constructive ways in which coexistence and equality can be achieved – with positive examples that can be found in the work of Givat Haviva and other institutions.
3. Strategic follow in the framework agreement with Iran
Maj.Gen.(res.) Yaacov Amidror, BESA, 20 April 2015
Only a profound misunderstanding of the nature of the Iranian regime could lead anyone to believe that the proposed P5+1 deal will end or satisfy Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. The US is capable of bringing Iran’s nuclear program to a halt. Unfortunately, the US has simply chosen not to do so. Israel will now have to decide whether to acquiesce in Iran’s nuclear drive or prepare to confront it.
4. Remembering the genocides of the 20th Century
Raz Segal, YNet News, 19 April 2015
The commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide and the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II has created an opportunity to cast local and global meanings into the memory of the Holocaust in Israel, beyond the simplistic statement ‘never again.’
5. When did America forget that it’s America?
Natan Sharansky, Washington Post, 17th April 2015
The Obama administration apparently believes that only after a nuclear agreement is signed can the free world expect Iran to stop its attempts at regional domination, improve its human rights record and, in general, behave like the civilized state it hopes the world will recognize it to be.
6. Netanyahu must wake up to the new reality
Nahum Barnea, YNet News, 17 April 2015
With an American president who is losing patience with the insults hurled at him, a failed Israeli attempt at reshaping the Iranian nuclear agreement and a looming UN resolution on the Palestinians, it’s time for a reboot of international policy.
7. Obama’s unforgiveable betrayal
Mortimer Zuckerman, US News, 17 April 2015
The president’s nuclear accommodation of radical Islamist theocrats threatens Israel’s survival.
8. Israel as a Nazi state: Major Holocaust inversion in Europe
Manfred Gerstenfeld, Isranet, 16 April 2015
The widespread anti-Semitism in Europe is coming increasingly in the open. The more it develops, the more Israel is accused by hatemongers or by using double standards against it. For many, Europeans this is a necessity in order to whitewash both the continent’s past and present. For some it serves to specifically cover their ancestors’ crimes.
