Shimon Peres joins a young couple having lunch at a seaside restaurant and asks them who they are voting for in Israel\’s upcoming election. They smile nervously, glance up at the swarm of photographers and TV cameras that surround the former prime minister and admit the truth: They don\’t know.
Last week\’s anti-Semitism conference at UCLA had the potential to be powerful and mind-expanding — except that almost no one showed up.
Omar Baransi, a 71-year-old retired building contractor with a lined, leathery face, brags that he won\’t be voting in Israel\’s general election on Jan. 28. \”We don\’t trust anyone these days,\” he said, \”not even the Arab candidates. We\’ve been citizens for 55 years and nothing has changed.\”
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.