Resources

News

Arutz-7 (also in Hebrew, Russian, and French), HaAretz, and Jerusalem Post provide probably the most complete on-line news on latest events in Israel. While all of these are very professional, it may be useful to consider their potential editorial biases: Arutz-7 presents more of a settlers' and national-religious perspective, while HaAretz has a clear left/secularist outlook. Jerusalem Post is more uneven, and not consistent in its editorial biases. Editorial biases are a natural aspect of news and the above in no way imply that the news is distorted. It does makes sense to review news from a few perspectives to get fuller picture.

IsraelInsider provides an excellent summary of the news. That site may not be as exhaustive and up to the minute as the above (which are updated a few times every hour), but is excellent, well-balanced and compliments the news with great analysis, editorials and even multi-media. Among the sites I know, IsraelInsider does probably the best job of including all points of view.

Another site I discovered just recently is Jerusalem NewsWire. Check their "About Us" page (a feature hardly ever found in most of the other news - though it would be very useful there) for full disclosure.

Also check Yesha News, for greater focus on what is happening in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

Israeli embassy in Boston provides a Week in Review summary (somewhat official and dry, but a good way to keep abreast if you do not want to read news daily/hourly).

In addition there is a number of Russian language news sources:

  • cursorinfo.co.il gives probably the most frequent updates (a few every hour) and has many interesting links.
  • mignews.com and novosti.co.il are more "traditional" and commercial style Israeli news sources

Also there is Hebrew language rotter.net - an Israeli youth site, which also tracks most of Israel-related news sites
at rotter.net/nr-news/

Other very useful resources, which also present analysis of the latest events are:

Analysis, Background, Info

  • IsraelInsider - presents some news and editorials spanning the specter from the extreme left to strong right (extreme right like rav Kahane's movement is banned, and typically does not get a podium in any media except their own)
  • IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis) - is a terrific serious and deep source of analysis. There is always a variety of interesting items here that may have been skipped in the other news outlets, including from Arab sources.
  • MEMRI (The Middle East Media and Research Institute)- produces reports, focusing on translations from Arabic sources.
  • Israel behind the News
  • Media watch groups:

    Many other interesting information sources exist - we did not try to be exhaustive in the list above, but we tried to suggest the sites which would give the broadest and deepest perspective. We will try to expand this section in the future, though.

    It is interesting to compare the news like those above with "the other side":

    Palestinians suppress the news they do not like (e.g. palestinian police confiscating footage on the bin Laden support in the wake of terrorist acts in US).

    Of course, they are not the only ones: AP does it as well. See, for example this story about suppressing and hiding the reports of lynching and torture in PA.

    Many probably heard (or even saw) the Ramalla lynch (WARNING: this link contains very shocking images!). Even if you had, it's telling to hear the eyewitness accounts of some of the correspondents such as this British or this Italian ones - then you can understand how the slant of the news originates even without a prior political bias.

    More relevant links on this can be found here.

     

Teaching Hate

In the aftermath of 9/11, it becomes even more clear that teaching hate cannot be tolerated. Examples of hate mongering on Palestian Authority's Public TV programs and schools can be seen here (28k,  80k). The fruits of such hate can be seen in the Palestinian reactions to the terrorism (e.g. this collection). More interesting videos on the subject are available at IDF's site, but unfortunately completely miss the annotation and explanations. These videos mostly show programs on the official Palestinian Autonomy TV. The second video is particularly dramatic - it shows a palestinian TV commercial for children suicide bombers.

 

Definitive Statements

Here we would like to collect some of the general statements which truly bring new insights relevant for understanding the long term situation.

To get a sense of local realities in Israel on a personal level, here are a couple excellent sources:

  • A must read (in Russian) are the letters of Michael Ezer (the last two items at the bottom of the page). I cannot think of any other materials that better convey the view "from the inside".
  • Storm of Terror: A Hebron Mother's Diary is a powerful documentary of the wave of violence unleashed on the High Holidays of 2000. See here for more info on Hebron.
    • Check WordsWorth for a balanced collection of books both on Middle East and other subjects.

Helping Israel

 

Sister Communities Program

The goal list of communities links (to be completed)

Miscellaneous Links

A really great Christian Zionist site (it seems very respectful, featuring prominently an article on The Error of Replacement Theology). Of particular interest is their list of maps.

Other assorted interesting sites:

Neighbors and Other pro-Israel groups

  • JAT - Jewish Action Team (a page for "10-minutes a day activists")
  • Boston Area:
    • BIAC - Boston Israel Action Committee
    • SAIAT - South Area Israel Action Team (centered in Sharon, MA)
    • Project David - an advocacy group focusing, among others, on campuses
  • New York:
    • Coalition for Jewish Concerns-Amcha - NY based activist organization (led by Rabbi Avi Weiss)
  • Los Angeles

there must be many more - send us the links!

Stats

The following statistics chart shows the number of Israelis killed in terrorist attacks in the period from 1967 up to August 2002 (more recent statistics is available from IDF website; we would be very interested to find a similar charts but covering broader time period, and/or different types of statistics - e.g., numbers of shooting attacks, prevented attacks, etc.). It is interesting to view this chart against some dates and events. We list some such dates below.

1967 - the Six-Days War
1973 - the Yom Kippur War
1987 - "the first intifada" (Yitzhak Rabin is the Defence Minister at that time)
1989 -  Start of "the peace process": Israeli Peace Initiative (a plan by PM Shamir and DM Rabin to give Palestinians self rule); Peres urges more active US involvement; Baker plan
1991 - the Gulf war (Israel is forced by US not to respond to the Iraqi SCUD attacks); Madrid Conference
1992 - Rabin elected as the Prime Minister
1993 - Oslo agreement
1994 - Arafat and PLO come from Tunis, establish themselves first in Gaza, then in Judea and Shomron
1995 - Rabin is assassinated
1996 - Netanyahu elected as the Prime Minister (beating Peres, who publicly begged Palestinians to hold the terror at least until the election)
1999 - Netanyahu government falls, Barak is elected as the Prime Minister (July)
2000 - Barak pulls out from the Lebanon security zone; Camp David 2; Arafat's response - violence (going on till now)
2001 - Sharon defeats Barak in a landslide election victory

More information is available at the Terror Victims Association (in particular, they have similar charts, but more importantly, they have a much more personal view of the victims).