“The praises of God in their throat and a two-edged sword in their hand” Psalm 149: 6 Prophets have told us repeatedly than when Israel returns from Exile, God will fight for us. Likewise, the Torah promises that God will instill fear in the hearts of the natives and they would cleanse our land of themselves. Read More »

In order to impart their artificial identity to the people, nation-states embrace cultural homogeneity. They need to destroy traditional values so that people accept new ones. In doing so, states, essentially totalitarian institutions, enlist their opposite, the liberals. Read More »

Justice exists on the domestic level only. We can only single out criminals and other offenders of peace in our own society, because police enjoy sweeping powers domestically but none internationally. On the national level, offenses go unpunished—and Israel talks to Fatah terrorists. Read More »

Confidence-building looks good on paper. The assumption that both sides want to end the conflict but are reluctant to do so is mistaken. In real life, they want to win the conflict rather than end it. Hope dies last, and neither party loses the hope to prevail, especially when the confidence-building measures fan the hope. Read More »

The Torah bears obvious traces of the developing Jewish law. For example, between Exodus and Leviticus, “an eye for an eye” was expanded from pregnant women to everyone and apparently substituted with compensation. Read More »

Afghanistan served as a playground for liberal morale. If one read the American newspapers in those days, the liberation of Afghani women seemed almost to have been the reason for the war. And what was that liberation? Removing the veil. Never mind that many women welcomed the veil as a safety measure against male harassment. Read More »

The American invasion of Afghanistan was all the more bizarre since the Russians fled it just a few years ago. American politicians and military men universally predicted the Soviet failure, but rushed to fail on their own. Read More »

The American choice of Karzai for Afghanistan’s ruler is strikingly reminiscent of Shah Shuja, whom the British attempted to install there in the nineteenth century. The Afghanis, a proud bunch, cannot accept rule by a weak exile, essentially a puppet. Read More »

The story of American support for the mujahedeen must be instructive for Israelis. With rare exceptions, Afghani mujahedeen militias are a remarkably murderous bunch. While generally refraining from alienating the neighboring population, they often engage in grisly atrocities against less supportive segments. Read More »

The American involvement in Afghanistan had little to do with fighting terrorists. Al Qaeda had no responsibility for 9/11: always eager to appropriate other terrorists’ laurels, Osama has only announced that he knew about the attack a few days in advance. Read More »

The basic laws of Judaism apply to foreigners who live among us: the Torah obligates them to fast on Yom Kippur, refrain from work on Sabbath, and destroy leaven on Pesach. Likewise, they must not blaspheme. Read More »

They say that justice is the most important thing in the Torah since God reiterated it, “Justice, justice should you establish.” But the Tanakh offers us two examples of something reiterated still more strongly. One is the famous “Holy, holy, holy,” which the angels sing to God. Read More »

They say that justice is the most important thing in the Torah since God reiterated it, “Justice, justice should you establish.” But the Tanakh offers us two examples of something reiterated still more strongly. One is the famous “Holy, holy, holy,” which the angels sing to God. Read More »

Jews are humane. The only way to prevent Arab rioters from being killed on a daily basis is to expel them all. Jews are merciful. Since the Arab minority perpetrates a vast majority of the crimes in Israel, expelling the Arabs is an act of mercy toward Jews. Jews are realists. Read More »

“In many places, the Torah warns against [oppressing] gerim [strangers], for they are naturally evil [and can return to their ways],” – Rashi on “You shall not oppress the stranger” (Exodus 23: 9). Rabbis made rich biblical characters into plain vanilla saints. The story of Ruth, a model proselyte, is fraught with oddities. Read More »

Though talk about crumbling patriarchal societies is normally limited to Muslim countries, a similar process is taking place in America. The redneck majority was parochial, openly racist, and anti-Semitic just forty years ago. In the span of a single generation, tremendous changes took place. “Normal” families left the cities for the suburbs. Read More »

The end to the era of empires is yet another leftist end-of-history myth. Empires answer a very deep human need for grandeur. Already the ancient empires tend to be unprofitable. The Romans conquered the entire civilized world, yet poverty abounded in Rome. Read More »

Theoretically speaking, science can never contradict religion. Even miracles have rational explanations. The rabbis were adamant that God does not perform miracles by violating the laws of nature. Nor do the historical accounts have to be accurate: the rabbis insisted that all of them were given only for the sake of their interpretation. Read More »

Israel’s nuclear capability is tentative in a sense. The problem is not only just the Jewish cowardice which precludes the government from using effective weapons. The problem is, we do not know if the weapons are effective. Read More »

Stop worrying about how the Jews look, whether in giving charity to foreigners or working for the peace process. Whether we look like scrooges or enemies of peace, Jews will always look bad to anti-Semites. Read More »