Ira Sharkansky

  By Ira Sharkansky   JERUSALEM — We’ve had a few days rest from coalition negotiations. Media and political personalities have been busy with Prisoner X, i.e., Ben Zygier. For all that has cost Israel in embarrassment (due to a prisoner who committed suicide while he was supposed to be under 24-hour supervision two years […]

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM –Currently we are reading a lot, but not everything about Ben Zygier, or Ben Alon, or Ben Allen. We are pretty sure that he was an Australian Jew who migrated to Israel, served in the IDF, was recruited to Mossad, and died in Ayalon prison in 2010. We hear that he

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — North Korea’s nuclear test has cast a shadow over Barack Obama’s visit to Israel.   Speculation was that a key item on the agenda would be Obama’s pressure that Israel forget about its own attack on Iran. We’re hearing that Israel might have been planning such a thing in the

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — In all the blather from politicians and media personalities following Israel’s indecisive election, it is possible to see two ideas that might provide a map to the country’s future. One is the equalizing of the burdens between the Haredim and the rest of us. Prominent in the explanation of Yair

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — How important is Sara Netanyahu?   She is prominent in the realm of politics as theater, presented by the media as a public spectacle.   She is a frequent subject of the cartoonist for Ha’aretz, who depicts her like a creature that would remove the certificate of kashrut from Israel’s

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — I went to bed after a limited time with the news focused on the ceremonial swearing in of Knesset Members, and what seemed like the circular going-nowhere blather about what kind of coalition Benyamin Netanyahu can assemble. Already well known are the problems. Yair Lapid and his second-largest party (There

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM –We hear from the anti-Israel rabble, as well as some highly placed politicians and professors that a pro-Israeli lobby is much too powerful and may even dictate things in Washington concerned with the Middle East.   It ain’t that simple.   No doubt that AIPAC is one of the most prominent

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–The Crusades that we read about in the books had, as their declared aim, liberation of the Holy Land, and especially the holy places in and near Jerusalem. The Jews had a part as victims. Christian hordes massacred them, most notably the communities along the Rhine, on their way to dealing with

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–For some time the pundits have been predicting the downfall of the Assad regime.   In what may be a significant addition, is one from the Prime Minister of Russia. till now one of Assad’s principal sources of support. Dmitry Medvedev has said that Assad’s support is weakening daily. That is not

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–Israel’s voters have done their job, and now can wait through a month or more while party politicians and media commentators fill the air with their talk of what is possible, what they want, and what they do not want.  Depending on what is between one’s ears or in back of one’s

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — One should never say never, but it appears that the Palestinians have shut the door against the idea of a state. Too often they have done what Abba Eban placed in the handbook of political aphorisms, missing yet another opportunity to miss an opportunity. One can produce numerous explanations of

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM –Thirty four parties were officially in the running. Polls indicated that 11 were certain of winning enough votes to enter the Knesset, two others were close to the minimum required, and four of the others attracted my attention as curiosities.   It will be another day before the ballots of Israelis