compromise

"Where is the balance between wisdom and force?"

I've thought of that question several times over the last few days, as accusations and counteraccusations fly over Israel's May 31 fatal commando operation against the flotilla of humanitarian aid ships attempting to break the blockade of Gaza. Nine civilians were killed, including a 19-year-old American citizen of Turkish descent.

A decade since the failed Camp David summit, the Obama administration should learn its key lesson. Rather than unmasking Netanyahu's true intentions, the administration should transform them. Leveraging popular support for the all-too-familiar peace parameters, a joint Israeli-Palestinian referendum will both encourage leaders to compromise and discourage violent resistance.

Tzvia Greenfield. Israel's first Haredi female to be elected to the Knesset, she is a fierce critic of her own community's attitudes to the peace process and modernity; describing the Haredi community as being "incapable of compromise." Yet she still lives in it, a resident of the Jerusalem suburb of Har Nof.
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Has a tipping point finally been reached in the Middle East? Lucy Netanyahu pulled the football away from Charlie Brown Obama once too often. And so now he has to realize, or at least accept publicly, that Israel has no intention of giving up control of Jerusalem, if not the West Bank. Joe Biden even linked Iraq and Afghanistan to the goings on in Israel. Now that's progress -- acknowledging even more of the obvious.

A lot of people are wondering how Israel got into such a mess. How could Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu make one concession after another before negotiations even start -- while the other side makes none -- and still, none of it is enough to please the United States or simply get to the negotiating table?

There is one important fundamental about truth: Genuine truth gives one the power to tolerate even the most heinous criticism. Tolerance of criticism is a sign of confidence. Intolerance is a symptom that what you believe may not really be true. So throw the toughest, harshest argument against what I believe, because I have faith in my own truth. Do you?

The residents of the Beit Yehonatan building in the Shiloach (Silwan) neighborhood of eastern Jerusalem are proposing a compromise.

J'lem court & Def. Min. agree to precedent-setting compromise: Student facing terrorist-like administrative jail term will travel to US instead.

In the first two parts of this article commemorating the 81st birthday of Dr. King and in tribute to the successful alliance with that of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, I stated what I believed to be the principal challenge and opportunity confronting the children and grandchildren of years of African American and Jewish community coalition and cooperation.

I could hear the prime minister's familiar voice on the telephone. "I want to advance a peace agreement with the Palestinians. I am capable of achieving an agreement. I have the political will inside me," Benjamin Netanyahu told me. He repeated this message during his speeches at the conference of Jewish communities in Washington and at the Saban Forum in Jerusalem: great concessions, generosity of spirit, territorial compromise, let's start negotiations and surprise the world, he said.
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