Today Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The reason for this short diplomatic mission is the security threat posed to Israel by Russia’s recent military aid to the regime of Syria’s official dictator, President Bashar Assad. The Syrian civil war has raged for over four years, creating a dilemma for Israel. What began as an Arab Spring uprising in 2011 created an opportunity for the Islamic State group to join the rebels against the Assad regime and begin consolidating power along Israel’s northern border. The civil war is not a conflict…
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Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, was celebrated a few days ago. Jews in Israel and around the world took stock of the previous year and sought to make right any outstanding grievances in order to secure God’s blessing for the new year. It was a difficult year for Israel, full of challenges both at home and abroad. But it was also a year of many miracles, as God protected His people from hundreds of attempts to harm them by enemies bent on Israel’s destruction. Some lives were lost, but many more were saved. To live in Israel, you must be…
We received a beautiful narrative written by a young Israeli soldier who asked us to share his story with our readers. Hananya Naftali, the author, is a 20-year-old Christian soldier serving in the Israeli Defense Forces. Over the last two years, Hananya witnessed many things he would like the world to know about the IDF, including what it was like to fight in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge last summer. In his own words, here is the story of Hananya’s combat boots. If My Shoes Could Speak / Israeli Soldier If my shoes could tell my story, All the scratches…
Today marks 30 days until Congress votes on whether to approve or reject the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran Deal. Although President Obama tried to circumvent Congress’ authority in this matter by sending the treaty with Iran to the United Nations Security Council for approval immediately after it was signed, Congress still has an important role to play. If Congress rejects the deal, it has the power to maintain American sanctions over Iran’s economy and severely hamper its ability to continue its nuclear program. President Obama has pledged to veto any Congressional vote against…
On Monday, the US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the State Department could not identify Jerusalem as part of Israel on passports issued to American citizens born in Jerusalem. The decision reverses a law passed by Congress in 2002 which explicitly directed the State Department to recognize Jerusalem as an Israeli city. The law was ignored by both President Bush and President Obama, for fear of inflaming Arab anger. In fact, the Obama administration went so far as to claim the law would cause “irreversible damage” to America’s role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The Supreme Court sided with the…
When disaster strikes around the world, Israel is always one of the first responders. The massive 7.8 earthquake in Nepal on April 25th killed over 4,000 people and injured over 8,000 more. Tens of thousands of people are homeless, and the United Nations estimates that 1.4 million people are in need of food after the earthquake. A handful of countries have already sent teams of rescue workers and supplies to Nepal, and once again Israel is on the front lines of the relief effort. A day after the earthquake, 260 members of the Israel Defense Forces flew to Nepal with a cargo…
It would be hard to find anyone, outside of the Obama administration and the Iranian regime, who thinks the framework deal on Iran’s nuclear program that emerged last week is a good deal. American lawmakers don’t trust it. Israeli officials despise it. And other Middle East countries, namely Egypt and Saudi Arabia, fear it. Here’s why. A final deal won’t be negotiated until June, but the framework agreement described by the Obama administration raises several concerns. First, the deal is only designed to halt Iran’s nuclear weapons research and development for ten years. In a decade, the issue resurfaces and…
To say that President Obama doesn’t want Prime Minister Netanyahu interfering in his nuclear negotiations with Iran is an understatement. The Obama Administration has made increasingly hostile moves toward Netanyahu in recent weeks as they seek to prevent him from speaking to Congress next month. Never in the history of US-Israel relations has there been this much public tension between the leaders of the two nations. When Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner invited Netanyahu to speak before a joint session of Congress, the White House was offended that they were not consulted beforehand. Since then, various Administration officials…
Israel’s border checkpoints have an undeservedly bad reputation in the mainstream media. Pro-Palestinian activists and those sympathetic to their cause often use the checkpoints to support their claims that Israel is a racist and apartheid state bent on oppressing the Palestinians. The truth paints a very different picture. It is true that Palestinians traveling between territories controlled by Israel and the Palestinian Authority must pass through checkpoints guarded by Israeli soldiers and border police. Yes, this is inconvenient, but most often is no more a hassle than a standard inspection when crossing the US-Canadian border, for instance. Unfortunately, these stops…