“Taking out the goat” is a known Israeli expression. It usually means creating a false demand during negotiations, so it could be dropped later in a public display of compromise. Obviously, the whole idea of taking out the goat revolves around ego-maintenance and manipulation of public o...

strip away all the b.s. and this is pretty much what you get... juan cole... Shorter AFP: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will try to tell Binyamin Netanyahu, the far rightwing prospective prime minister of Israel, that he should allow the rebuilding of Gaza and start up a peace process that lead...

Regrettably, Ari Folman’s animated doco-fantasy film “Waltz with Bashirâ€� didn’t win the Best Foreign Film at the 2009 Academy Awards presentation in Hollywood. With just a month passing after winning the Golden Globes film award, the American film industry second biggest awards extra...

Tomorrow, Wednesday evening, at 6 pm Jerusalem Time, President Shimon Peres will receive the official results of the general elections, which took place last week. These results will include all the votes, including the soldiers’ ballots. Peres’ decision won’t be an easy one. Neith...

From 1996 to 1999, Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu was Prime Minister of Israel. During his term in office he was viewed with skepticism, if not hostility by the Clinton administration, much of the American media, the foreign policy establishment and the opposition in Israel. In January of 199...

That's a graphic put together by the Jersualem Post. Labor lost out in a big way. The winners are far less certain. Kadima appears to have won 28 seats while Likud won 27 seats. Kadima is a center right party, while Likud is a right wing party. Those figures could still change as voting tallies are ...

Parliamentary elections are only a few days away, and ongoing pre-election polls are trying to determine what the most important issues are in regards to which political party, or parties, in Israel’s usual governmental coalition formations afterwards will wind up forming the next government. ...

I woke up this morning and read the news. Apparently there had been a televised debate on Channel 2 last night, between the three major contestants for the PM seat: Binyamin Netanyahu, Tzipi Livni, and Ehud Barak. Despite being a longtime advocate of such a debate — and as a self-admitted news...

For the very first time in Israeli history(?), ordinary people get the chance to submit questions to the major candidates who compete for the Prime Minister seat. YouTube — the video sharing hub, owned by Google — is holding an open contest, in which everyone is encouraged to submit a vi...

I’m confused. Last time I looked at the polls, the Likud was far ahead of Kadima. But today I read an article that says Kadima has a slight margin over Bibi’s party. It doesn’t make sense. Either poll makers are distorting the picture, or the Israeli public is more confused than I ...