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If you think 2016 is going to be a better year for Israel and the Palestinians, I'd advise lying down and waiting until the feeling passes.

Two days before Christmas, an Israeli Jew was fatally stabbed and another injured and later accidentally killed by security forces in an attack by Palestinian youths. The incident was the latest of the some 120 attacks and attempted assaults that, since October, had left 19 Israelis dead -- and several times that number of Palestinians. And now, on the first day of the new year, two people were killed and at least seven hurt in a shooting at a pub in Tel Aviv.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Facebook Intifada

Three weeks ago, my father was riding on a public bus in Jerusalem’s Armon Hanatziv neighborhood when terrorists from East Jerusalem shot him in the head and stabbed him multiple times. Afterward, as he lay unconscious in the intensive care unit of Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, fighting for his life, one question was on my mind: What inspired the two young Palestinian men to savagely attack my father and a busload of passengers?

My father, Richard Lakin, dedicated his life to the cause of Israeli-Arab reconciliation. Ever since moving to Israel from Connecticut in the 1980s, he spent his career teaching English to Israeli and Arab children.…  Seguir leyendo »

When the Prime Minister of Israel offers a new interpretation of the Holocaust, the world listens. In the sad case of Benjamin Netanyahu's false claim that Hitler was inspired by the grand Mufti of Jerusalem to order the mass murder, only damage has been done.

In an address to the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem made before official visits in Germany and the United States, Netanyahu said that Haj Amin al-Husseini persuaded Hitler to "burn" the Jews rather than expel them to the Middle East. No one quite knows where Netanyahu got his information, which is not in the transcript of the November 28, 1941, meeting of the two leaders.…  Seguir leyendo »

Almost always the news makes violence in Israel seem worse than the reality. This time the opposite is true, and the rage and fear go deeper than what the news cameras can capture. The problem is that dueling narratives are bringing out knives, and beliefs are causing bullets to fly.

Both sides are literally experiencing different realities, they each see the "other" as a monolithic bloc that is bent on doing them harm. And they have a list of events they use to justify their narrative. For Palestinians, they are the Al-Aqsa Mosque clashes and the growing settlements; for Israelis, the stabbing attacks and memories of suicide bombings.…  Seguir leyendo »

A Palestinian protester threw a tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops during clashes near the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip on Friday. Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

The streets of Jewish West Jerusalem are eerie and still. Silence hangs over the city, punctured occasionally by a siren’s wail. Buses are half empty, as is the light rail that runs alongside the walls of the Old City.

Heavily armed security forces, joined by army reinforcements, patrol checkpoints, bus stops and deserted sidewalks. Young men in plain clothes carry assault rifles. The evening news broadcasts images of stabbings and shootings. Among the few shops doing good business are those selling weapons and pepper spray.

In the city’s occupied East, residents are frightened, too. Massive cement cubes block exits from their neighborhoods.…  Seguir leyendo »

Israeli special forces members search inside the Central Jerusalem Bus Station after police said a woman was stabbed by a Palestinian outside the bus station October 14, 2015. REUTERS/ Noam Moskowitz

Since the beginning of the latest spate of violence here, Israelis and Palestinians have been at a loss about what to call this amorphous, scary thing.

The main question hovering above the public sphere is, “Is this finally the third intifada?”

The Jerusalem Press Club thinks so. It has invited members of the media to a Sunday talk on “The Third Intifada: Causes and Solutions.” The speaker is Dr. Shmuel Berkovits, author of The Battle for the Holy Places and How Terrible Is the Place: Holiness, Politics and Justice in Jerusalem and the Holy Places in Israel.

Hamas, the extreme Islamist faction that governs the Gaza Strip, has routinely been calling for “days of rage.”…  Seguir leyendo »

Israel has increased security in Jerusalem in the past days. Photograph: Jim Hollander/EPA

What could be more innocent than a young child on a bicycle? Surely any child should be safe to cycle down the road in his home town. Any parent in the world would demand that basic security for their child.

So put yourselves in the shoes of the parents of the 13-year-old Israeli boy who on Monday was riding his bike when he was suddenly set upon by two Palestinian boys – one 17, the other also 13. They stabbed him, leaving him critically wounded.

The current horror for my country is that attacks such as this are a regular occurrence.…  Seguir leyendo »

To be in Jerusalem these past few days is to feel a city giving way to an overwhelming feeling of panic and terror.

The city, on high alert after a series of stabbings by Palestinians in recent weeks, is surrounded by roadblocks and checkpoints manned by nervous, heavily-armed soldiers. Helicopters whir overhead. Any Palestinian vehicle trying to enter is stopped and searched. The government has empowered the police to close off Palestinian neighborhoods and impose curfews.

And yet it is doubtful whether these measures can do anything to restore calm or prevent attacks. Israel is not facing an offensive mounted by organized terror cells but a series of seemingly spontaneous individual knife attacks mostly carried out by teenagers.…  Seguir leyendo »