Ofer Shelah
By Ofer Shelah
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Opinion A Requiem for the Occupation
Israel’s military chief of staff, Lieutenant General Moshe Ya’alon, facing an unprecedented wave of criticism over his soldiers’ conduct and morals, did something last week that is also almost unprecedented, at least for him: He admitted that an army investigation into a controversial matter was faulty. “Officers and servicemen have lied to General Shmuel Zakai,…
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News Israel’s Anti-Corruption Cop Sacked Amid Likud Intrigue
TEL AVIV — In a move fraught with near-Shakespearean intrigue — though cynics said it was closer to “The Sopranos” — the top corruption fighter of the Israeli police force was sacked by his civilian boss Sunday, hours before a political gathering of the top cop’s most vocal detractors. The firing of Moshe Mizrahi, chief…
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News Lebanese Border Skirmishes Seen as West Bank Power Play
TEL AVIV — While Israeli politics went into a holding pattern this week, awaiting leadership changes in the post-Arafat Palestinian Authority — and in post-election Washington — other players in the region were seizing the initiative, beginning with Iran and Hezbollah. Intelligence sources told the Forward that Hezbollah had initiated a string of recent provocations…
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News Palestinian Leader’s Illness Changes Political Equations in Israel
TEL AVIV — After days of furious maneuvering to prepare for the post-Yasser Arafat era, Israelis and Palestinians were waking up this week to the sobering realization that reports of the Palestinian leader’s demise might have been premature. “Arafat’s prospects for recovery range between full recuperation and death,” Israel’s military intelligence chief, Major General Aharon…
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News In Gaza Face-off, Sharon Shows Foes Who’s Boss
JERUSALEM — For a day as historic as this one, the scene last Tuesday was almost comic: Ariel Sharon, facing the most crucial vote of his present term as prime minister, sat stoically at his usual place in the Knesset, eyes forward, hardly blinking. The four ministers challenging him, including finance minister and heir apparent…
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News Army Faces Criticism After Foray in Gaza
TEL AVIV — Looking back on Operation Days of Repentance, the massive incursion into northern Gaza that ended with a troop pullback last weekend, Israel field commanders called the 17-day foray a resounding operational success. New and advanced techniques for fighting terrorists were shown off, and an efficient, newly unified system of command was implemented….
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Culture Knesset Vote Against Sharon Seen To Signal Coalition’s End
TEL AVIV — It was, simply judging by the history books, a milestone. For the first time in Israel’s history, the Knesset on Monday refused to give its pro forma vote of approval to the prime minister’s annual “state of the nation” speech, by which he marks the opening of the winter term of the…
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Opinion When Victory Is No Victory at All
It is typical of the prolonged, ambiguous war between Israel and the Palestinians that no one can really say who prevails at a certain point in time. To some strategists, the important issue is who appears to be winning. “Let us project victory,” was the sound advice given once by Brigadier General Eival Gilady, former…
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