Ira Sharkansky

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM –Israel’s summer of discontent is maturing. Last week we reached the peak of romantic anticipation of upheaval from below. Young reporters on the popular news and commentary programs were ecstatic in reporting the daily expansion of tents, marches, and proclamations. Older commentators expressed their own sense of the injustices involved in high prices […]

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — A friend sent me a link to a New York Times Op-Ed piece entitled “Israel’s Identity Crisis.” The points were Who is a Jew? and Why is Netanyahu confounding the peace process by insisting that Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish State?  It is not difficult to understand why the New York Times would

By Ira Sharkansky   JERUSALEM –One of the elementary lessons in civics is that government does the job of sorting through various demands and deciding priorities, or Who Gets What. The key to the ongoing exercise is politics. In a democratic regime, votes bring to office the officials who make those decisions. If enough citizens find

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM  — One might say that this is a hell of a way to run a government, and then argue whether the reference is to Israel or the United States.   Here the quarrel is whether the problem is housing, medicine or the government. There it is the the stubbornness of Republicans

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — It is instructive to compare the experiences of African-Americans and Palestinians. We can find differences, similarities, and lessons for one and the other in their histories, social statistics, cultures, and politics. While some may see Israeli paternalism in what follows, my intentions are the admirable ones of seeking insights that

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Israelis have good reasons to complain. In that trait, they resemble the residents of 192 other member states of the United Nations, plus Palestinians and others who want into the club. Currently the problems have gone beyond the price of cottage cheese and housing, and have spread to the plight

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — It’s mid-summer. Lots of people in Israel and other countries are on holiday. Leaders of most Arab countries are either dealing with domestic problems or worrying when the unrest will land on them. The recent humor was news that the Syrian government has joined the ranks of those recognizing Palestine

By Ira Sharkansky Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM –The Knesset passed a law against those who would promote a boycott on  Israel or its settlements. The anti-boycott movement began as an action against performers who refused to appear in the cultural center of Ariel, one of the large towns located over the 1967 borders. The Knesset vote

By Ira Sharkansky Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — It is common to assign responsibility to Israel, or more narrowly the present government, or even more narrowly to Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu  for the failure of the Israel-Palestine peace process. I’d prefer to put more responsibility on the nature of Palestinian  institutions, and the international arrangements that

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–If he is still alive, and if he is still in Gaza, Gilad Shalit has now passed five years as a captive. The lack of certainty reflects the absence of information about his existence for a year or more. His captives have never allowed a visit with an independent source, such as

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–Israel aspires to be a normal country, but can’t make it.   Two issues dominant in recent news are the price of cottage cheese, and a prolonged labor dispute between physicians working in the public sector (the vast majority of the country’s medicine) and several governmental agencies about salary, working conditions, and