Ben Lynfield covered Israeli and Palestinian politics for The Independent and served as Middle Eastern affairs correspondent at the Jerusalem Post. He writes for publications in the region and has contributed to the Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy and the New Statesman.
Ben Lynfield
By Ben Lynfield
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Israel News Israel’s Decision To Withhold Tax Money From Palestinians May Impact Security
In August 2011, a report by the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee hailed the Palestinian Authority’s “comprehensive security coordination” with Israel in thwarting terrorist attacks — a judgment echoed in May 2012 by the chief of the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency. “The security coordination with the P.A. is good,” Yoram Cohen told…
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Israel News Arabs Vote for Change in Election Derided by Many
In this city of 20,000 just 20 kilometers east of Tel Aviv, red flags of the Hadash party, a left-wing Arab-Jewish list, fluttered on the main road. Posters elsewhere featured Isawi Freij, a local who is No. 5 on the Meretz party list. Other posters showed Ibrahim Sarsur of the United Arab List, another local,…
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News Israeli Arabs Gripped by Election Apathy
“To whom are you leaving the country?” entreats one poster for Balad, an Arab party, showing a photo of Avigdor Lieberman, head of the Yisrael Beiteinu party. The party has proposed stripping Arabs of their voting rights if they refuse to pledge loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state. But the pitch seems to be…
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Israel News Seeking Asylum, Sudanese Face Israeli Prison
Israel’s Interior Ministry is preparing prisons in the Negev desert for the mass detention of some 15,000 Sudanese nationals who are seeking asylum as refugees in the Jewish state. The planned sweep, which the ministry now hopes to launch sometime after October 30, follows hard on the heels of Israel’s deportation in June of hundreds…
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Israel News Israelis Change Tack on Syria Policy
Shedding their caution about being seen as interfering in the Syrian crisis, Israelis both inside and outside the government are now openly advocating armed Western intervention to topple the beleaguered regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Critics of the new posture say it plays into the hands of the Assad regime, which has been eager to…
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Israel News Israel’s Security Insiders Split on Iran
With the looming prospect of an Israeli unilateral strike against Iran, the national debate has seen an urgent onrush of warnings from past and present members of Israel’s usually taciturn national security establishment. That reflects a profound change in the country’s political culture, analysts say. And it presages further public questioning of future security decisions….
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Israel News Israel’s Establishment Speaks Out on Iran
Against Uzi Arad Former head of National Security Council, former director of research for the Mossad What he said and where Told Forward columnist J.J. Goldberg that Israel must work with Washington, not unilaterally, against Iranian nuclear threat in July 22 interview. What it means Believes Israel alone cannot stop Iran from achieving nuclear weapons…
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Israel News Palestinian Statehood Returns (Ho-Hum)
A second bid by the Palestinian Authority to have the United Nations recognize Palestinian statehood appears to be a case of “once more, but with less feeling.” The P.A., which provoked a furor in Israel last September when it pushed unsuccessfully for recognition as a state by the Security Council, will go to the body’s…
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