More in ‘Israel’

When I was 3, I had a 10-year-old brother, and deep in my heart I hoped that when I grew up, I’d be just like him. Not that I stood a chance. My big brother had already skipped two grades and had an enviable understanding of everything, from atomic physics and computer programming to the ...

Over the past 15 years, the political conflict between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs has been reframed as a religious war in which leaders from Yasser Arafat to Hassan Nasrallah to Osama bin Laden have appealed to the authority of the Quran to support their goal of eliminating the State of Israel. The authority of ...

• The U.S. military transported hundreds of “bunker-buster” bombs, which can burrow underground and destroy (for example) secret Iranian nuclear-weapon facilities, to its Indian Ocean airbase. [Haaretz]
• The Israeli leadership is taking steps to resolve its tensions with America. [NYT]
• Jordanian King Abdullah II accused Israel of trying to cleanse Jerusalem of Arabs. [Haaretz]
• Mazel ...

• U.S. envoy George Mitchell, scheduled to head to the region today in advance of the proximity talks, has put his trip on hold pending an Israeli response to U.S. concerns. [AP/Gulf News]
• U.S. diplomats want Prime Minister Netanyahu to quash the 1600 planned new houses in East Jerusalem; however, in a speech, Bibi noted ...

The New York Observer may have found yet further evidence—if distantly circumstantial—of Mossad involvement in the January 19 assassination of Hamas weapons procurer Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. (To learn everything you need to know about the whole thing, click here.)
The interesting detail has to do with a New York City-based company called Payoneer, whose prepaid ...

• After meeting Prime Minister Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Vice President Joe Biden declared, “There is no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security.” [WP]
• A Reform Judaism task force proposed the establishment of separate blessings for major life events, including marriages, involving non-Jewish spouses. [AP/Vos Iz Neias?]
• With U.S. ...

Now that Vice President Joe Biden has touched down in Israel (and the Israeli military’s chief-of-staff has landed in Washington, D.C.), it’s time to take a slightly closer look at those indirect peace talks that, ostensibly, are about to kick off.
The idea: U.S. envoy George Mitchell will shuttle between the Israelis and Palestinians, with the ...

• The Palestine Liberation Organization formally dropped its requirement that Israel freeze all settlements before peace talks commence, in order to allow a new round of U.S.-mediated indirect negotiations. [AP/NYT]
• Vice President Joe Biden arrives in Israel today, ostensibly to kick-start those talks, but perhaps most of all to signal to Israeli leaders that America ...

The Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement is known for its outreach among non-Orthodox Jews, encouraging them to become more religious. Chabadniks are posted to about 75 countries, where their efforts are generally met with curiosity, indifference, or, at worst, irritation. But in Ramat Aviv, an upscale, liberal, and famously secular neighborhood of Tel Aviv, the sect’s arrival ...

• Both Israel and the United States have reason to convince the world that the former will bomb Iran, against the latter’s wishes. Actually, though, the two are cooperating on the subject ever more closely (with bombing relatively unlikely). [NYT]
• Syria accused Israel of planting uranium traces at the suspicious compound that IDF planes bombed ...