Ira Sharkansky

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — The future is not clear. Yet it is common to frighten or encourage with predictions that appear to be certain. Those who know that things will get worse have no more claim on our time than those who are certain that everything will work out fine.   Bibi’s rejection of Obama’s […]

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–The results of a poll, just released, shed light on the stall in what optimist label the peace process.   It is just a bit of light, insofar as the results should not surprise anyone.   A majority of Israelis (54 percent of those polled), are willing to withdraw from territory in

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM –Last weekend the Egyptian government announced that it had arrested an agent of the Mossad who had been sent to Cairo to provoke demonstrations against the regime.   The culprit is Ilan Grapel, since featured in a number of media reports.   Descriptions by those who knew him are of an

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — The lead story in Monday’s Ha’aretz carries the headline, “U.S. pressuring Netanyahu to accept Obama’s peace plan; Israeli source says Americans frustrated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for hampering U.S. efforts to stop Palestinians trying UN route to statehood in September”   It is not clear if this is coming

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Go to war. Then think about it. It’s the story of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Libya.  The New York Times reported: “As NATO airplanes and attack helicopters struck fresh targets in Tripoli and the oil port of Brega on Sunday, senior British and American officials said there was no

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — When I lit up my computer on Monday morning, the lead story on the New York Times Internet site reported on Palestinian-Syrian efforts to send a mass of demonstrators toward the Israeli border on the Golan Heights. The article described the motives of the Syrian regime to distract attention from

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — This is a story still developing, with potential to harm or at least to intrigue. It concerns Sami Ofer, one of the world’s richest men, and perhaps the richest of Israel, whose family businesses involve shipping, banking, chemicals, and refining. There are also addresses for the family and its businesses

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–Notions of justice will not go away. In response to my recent comment about having an equivalent lack of patience with the Palestinians’ claims about a right of return and the Jews’ claims about a God-given title to the Land of Israel, one of my friends responded, “without the ‘claims that God

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — The basic flaw in the Palestinian logic, joined by Barack Obama and lots of others, is the problem in turning back history.   Why 1967? Why not something else, earlier or later, equally irrelevant?   By this thinking, what we call the eastern part of United States could still be

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–As I understand what has happened:   Prior to Barack Obama’s ascendance to the presidency, the Palestinians of the West Bank and Israel were moving at their own pace to a tolerable coexistence. A technocrat as prime minister, financial aid and training by the United States and Jordan had improved Palestinian security

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — It is hard to imagine a better show than two heads of state, both fluent, and capable of pushing the buttons that bring forth waves of applause. Barack Obama and Benyamin Netanyahu know how to do it.   The immediate commentary in Israel was either partisan or skeptical. Party colleagues

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — We’re in the midst of a competitive talkathon. Barack has spoken twice, once to clarify things after Bibi spoke out against his first speech. Bibi has spoken to AIPAC and his bigger one will be to Congress. What came through Israel Radio’s coverage of the AIPAC speech was less intense