In early December, under banners declaring “This is an emergency” and carrying signs with pictures of the 24 women murdered in 2018, more than 20,000 women gathered in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv to protest against femicide and gender-based violence in Israel.
As Israel’s municipal elections, scheduled for October 30, come closer, we are caught between two Jerusalems.
I didn’t want to listen to Hagai El-Ad, director of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, as he provided an official briefing to the United Nations Security Council about the situation in Gaza and the West Bank last week.
Bibi was just trying to be cool. When congratulating Israeli contestant Netta Barzilai for her Eurovision song, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent her a tweet. It worked in Hebrew. “Netta, Kapara alayich” he wrote.
Natalie Portman made a political statement: You, Mr. Netanyahu, she said, are not the state.
It’s been a roller-coaster two weeks for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—from the triumph of AIPAC to the discontent and rancor at home in Jerusalem.
The year 2017 was another rocky one in the relationship between Israel and many American Jews, punctuated by conflict over matters once considered common ground. Some controversies—including a backlash over comments about American Jews’ military service by Israeli deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely—suggest a level of misunderstanding that could end up harming both sides.
First-Time Knesset member Aida Touma-Sliman is a Palestinian, an Arab, a communist and a feminist who fights for the rights of all Israeli women.
I was at that peace rally in Tel Aviv, 22 years ago, when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. And for most years since, I have marked that date by attending memorial rallies in that same square. But this year, I won’t go to the annual rally in the square.
I’m not surprised that it took Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a full three days until he said anything about the events in Charlottesville. Or that, after three full days, he said, basically, nothing.
