Shlomo Avineri
By Shlomo Avineri
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Opinion Why Zbigniew Brzezinski Choked Up In Israel
In the spring of 1976, the Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter appointed Zbigniew Brzezinski (March 28, 1928 – May 26, 2017), who was teaching at Columbia University, as his foreign policy adviser. I served at that time as the director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, and I knew that Brzezinski had never visited Israel, so I…
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Opinion The Time For Peace With The Palestinians Was After The Six Day War
On Friday, June 10, 1967, when the enormity of Israel’s stunning victory in the Six Day War became clear, I presented a memo to Israel’s foreign minister, Abba Eban. Now was the time, I argued, for Israel to propose a bold initiative to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My recommendation was that we use the dramatic…
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Opinion What Happened to Israel’s Center?
Nobody won the Israeli elections. Tzipi Livni’s Kadima managed to overcome the initial lead of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud by siphoning off left-wing voters from Labor and Meretz. Kadima, however, would have great difficulty setting up a coalition. Likud lost many voters to Avigdor Lieberman’s more strident Yisrael Beiteinu party, but the right-wing and religious bloc…
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Opinion Facing Down a Wounded Nation
Between the inconclusive outcome of Israel’s war against Hezbollah and the widespread perception in Israel that the war was badly managed, it is far from clear that the Olmert government will survive. Most Israelis are in agreement that at no previous time in the country’s history have the two top positions in the government, prime…
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News Why ‘Sharonism’ Will Hold the Center in Israel
In the year leading up to this past August’s disengagement from Gaza, Prime Minister Sharon had great difficulty in marshaling parliamentary support for his plan even though 65-70% of Israelis consistently supported it. His own party voted against it in an intra-party referendum, many of his fellow Likud ministers were either opposed to it or…
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News Why ‘Sharonism’ Will Hold the Center in Israel
In the year leading up to this past August’s disengagement from Gaza, Prime Minister Sharon had great difficulty in marshaling parliamentary support for his plan even though 65-70% of Israelis consistently supported it. His own party voted against it in an intra-party referendum, many of his fellow Likud ministers were either opposed to it or…
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News Between War and Peace, There Is Disengagement
A Rubicon in Israeli politics will be crossed by early September, when the evacuation of around 8,000 Jewish settlers from Gaza and parts of the West Bank is scheduled to be completed. What will follow on the day after disengagement is still very much in the air, but this much is clear: The situation will…
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News Bilateral Will Is Key Issue
Is Ariel Sharon an Israeli de Gaulle, come to power promising to implement the program of the nationalist right and instead becoming the vehicle for carrying out the ideas which the left had been unable to implement on its own? Will the death of Yasser Arafat really clear the way of the stumbling blocks that…
Most Popular
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Theater Hidden in this picture, the murder of 1.1 million Jews
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News The great tent conspiracy theory: Are ‘outside agitators’ supplying protesters’ tents?
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Opinion Yes, antisemitism is rising. But pro-Palestinian protests aren’t the real threat to our campuses
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Opinion Edward Said tried to erase Jews. So do the pro-Palestinian Columbia protesters citing his legacy
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward Two more hostages, including an American Israeli, are seen in video released by Hamas
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Opinion This Passover, college campuses like mine are caught in a very narrow place
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News ADL chief backs campus crackdowns. As a student, he stood up for free speech — even by antisemites
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Opinion I was arrested protesting at Columbia in ’68. Today’s student encampments carry on a proud, brave tradition