fair

Cross posted with the Center on Public Diplomacy

Israel's 2009 war on Gaza has been exhaustively documented: some 1,400 Palestinian deaths (compared to 13 for Israel), a vast, rubble-strewn landscape, international condemnation culminating in the hard-hitting and controversial "Goldstone Report" from the UN, and a blockade, tacitly approved by the U.S. and EU, that led to a humanitarian crisis, and ultimately to the high-seas catastrophe this week on the Free Gaza flotilla.

Israeli author Amos Oz yesterday received the reader's prize at the Turin International Book Fair, despite calls from Italian academics for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel.

The US is the only world power that can help Israelis and Palestinians achieve peace. Few dispute the unique American standing. For the US to be able to help shepherd a serious peace process, America's trust towards the leaders of both parties in the conflict is critical.

Potential Immigrants received guidance at this weekend's MASA Aliyah Fair and Shabbaton, packed with lectures from Aliyah professionals.

Senator Charles Schumer recently took to the airwaves to express his stern disapproval of President Obama's handling of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Senator Charles Schumer recently took to the airwaves to express his stern disapproval of President Obama's handling of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

When Felice Friedson brought Palestinian journalists to Israel's parliament for the first time, the powerful chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee called it "unprecedented" and "courageous." When Felice chartered buses to bring Palestinian journalists to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem; and buses to bring Israeli journalists from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to Ramallah as the Second Intifada was winding down, her colleagues said she was "jumpstarting professional cooperation" that lay dormant for half a decade.

There is a reason for the fact that in modern times laws are written by representatives of the people to whom these laws are applied. Governments and parliaments come and go, but laws often outlive them.

The taboo was finally broken and the genie is out of the bottle, despite some attempts to force it back. America's military leaders have had enough and decided to speak out about the liability that a hardline Israel causes to America's national interest.

Popular American General David Petraeus finally said the words that many have been saying behind closed doors for decades. The statement of the star-studded general puts American blind support for Israel in direct opposition to the country's most sacred institution, the military.

If nothing else comes of it, you've got to admit that the health reform movement has given a lot of people a very detailed education about the sausage-making process in Washington. Remember when the word "reconciliation" was universally understood to mean "getting back together" instead of "open partisan warfare," for instance? The tortuous process health reform has wound in its progress from where we were a year ago to where we stand today at least provided many "teachable moments" on how things actually happen in Washington.