By Arieh Eldad
Israeli law books contain a prohibition against money laundering. The law was meant to be a tool in the war against crime, but all over the world such laws have become effective tools in preventing the funding of terrorist organizations. In September, Israel’s security cabinet suddenly declared that the Gaza Strip is an […]

By Arieh Eldad
Jerusalem’s Kfar Shiloah, Silwan as it is called by its Arab residents, lies on the southern slope of the Temple Mount. The Arab residents prostrate themselves five times a day when praying towards Mecca and turning their backs to the Temple Mount and the El Aksa Mosque that stands on the mount’s top. […]

By Arieh Eldad
In the middle of the Lebanese War, Ehud Olmert appointed his friend Tommy Lapid to be chairman of Yad Vashem. Two weeks ago the High Court rejected an appeal against this appointment. Once the challenge to his appointment was off the table, Lapid rushed to repay his buddy Olmert and protect him from […]

Arieh Eldad
On the night after Yom Kippur, the sounds of succot being built could be heard throughout the country. For forty years, the Israelites wandered through the desert, with only their succot sheltering them from the relentless sun and we, their descendants, three thousand and three hundred years later, sit in our succot in commemoration.
Like […]

By Arieh Eldad
Three bankrupts have gathered to make a deal. One has nothing to sell, one has nothing to pay with, and the middleman ostensibly charged with executing the deal is about to lose his job and has less and less power. A deal like this, which is all deceit and illusion, is usually a […]

By Arieh Eldad
This week the Israeli government decided to establish an administrative unit “to encourage those sectors that do not serve in the Israeli army to volunteer for civilian service.” The government chose its words carefully in the laundered announcement it made. It did not refer, heaven forbid, to “national service,” as thousands of religious […]

By Arieh Eldad
No one disagrees: Syria has powerful chemical weapons and missiles capable of reaching every part of Israel. Despite this fact, Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided this week that the defense bureaucracy would not distribute gas masks and similar protective gear to Israeli citizens. The Israeli army, the National Security Council, and the Knesset […]

By Arieh Eldad
Thus spoke the Romans. We often appear to have forgotten this ancient rule.
Thus Israel was caught sleeping on the eve of the Yom Kippur War and again in last summer’s Lebanese War. Because of our intense desire for peace on our northern border, we closed our eyes to Hezbollah’s arming and entrenchment. Our […]

By Arieh Eldad
The State Comptroller’s report on the Home Front does not tell the public anything it did not know.
Can words be mightier than the sights hundreds of thousands of refugees saw in the North? Can data and conclusions and recommendations be more deafening than the sounds of sirens and explosions? Can the governmental vacuum […]

By Arieh Eldad
Member of Knesset Haim Ramon missed 161 days of work. The Knesset regulations state clearly how many days a member is allowed to be absent as well as how he is to be penalized: His salary may be reduced. When he was charged, Ramon resigned from the cabinet and he suspended himself from […]