Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Samuel Johnson once said: “when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” Apparently, nothing concentrates Pat Robertson’s mind more than a $50-million investment opportunity rapidly going south. Otherwise, how else to explain Pat’s “sort of” apology sent via a letter to Omri Sharon and [...]

Sharon’s heir apparent as leader of the Kadima party, Ehud Olmert, has always struck me as a smiling hatchet man. Now, Uri Avnery, a man much more experienced in Israeli politics than I, has written a sharp incisive portrait which damns with faint praise:

One has to face the fact that Sharon is leaving the [...]

Ariel Sharon celebrates Hanukah hours before his second stroke (photo: Reuters
I may’ve spoken prematurely in my last post about Ariel Sharon in saying now may be the right time to let him go. The most recent medical reports in Haaretz say that he’s now breathing on his own and has shown “slight movement” [...]

The Israeli and and international media and physicians themselves are raising serious questions about Ariel Sharon’s medical care. Haaretz in particular has run several stories, including one today, covering this angle. The questions that concern me most are:
1. Was there a real medical need to do a heart catheterization to repair the hole [...]

David Grossman: can no man take Sharon’s place? (photo: Vardi Kahana)
David Grossman, famed Israeli novelist and political essayist (he wrote the lyrics to the hip-hop smash Sticker Song) has written a searching and nuanced political eulogy for Ariel Sharon: How Sharon Won Israel’s Trust.
The most telling passage is this one:
What will happen now? Israel [...]

God, I’ve had it with Pat Robertson. Bless his pointy little head and big mouth. Whenever he opens it there’s sure to be dreck spewing out. People for the American Way carry the transcript and video of the “performance:”
Pat Robertson spouts bile about Ariel Sharon on 700 Club
…I said last year that [...]

Peres telling the world he’s with Arik. Is this man looking like a walking political cadaver? (credit: AP)
Peres: I’m Outa Here
As usual over the past month, yesterday had tons of fast-paced developments on the Israeli political scene. Peres made public the worst kept secret of Israeli politics–that he’s done with Labor and [...]

Posing with FC Barcelona soccer shirt before game against Israeli team: traitor to his Party, traitor to his team? (credit: AP)
Shimon Peres has done just about everything he can to telegraph he’s leaving the Israeli Labor Party for Ariel Sharon’s new Kadima except making the actual announcement. First, there were the hours of [...]

The Big Man has done it. He’s quit the Likud. It just won’t be the same without him. Now the Party can become the right-fringe, loony tunes outfit it always had the potential to be. But what can we expect from Sharon? Will he run to the center? Or [...]