As a new party, Kadima has not yet organized an American support group, but Handelsman predicted the establishment of such an organization in the next two years.
Born into a strongly Democratic family but later a founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Berman, at 51, is a man of strong physique and opinions.\n\n\”I am fed up with intermarriage and with rabbis who reach out to gay and intermarried couples,\” he said during an interview in his spacious Sunset Boulevard office.
The official American Friends of Likud organization, in the midst of a California and national expansion drive, has come down solidly in support of Benjamin \”Bibi\” Netanyahu, the new head of the Likud Party.
Olmert was one of the chief architects of Sharon\’s main foreign policy achievement — last summer\’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank. When Sharon broke away last November from his ruling Likud Party to form a new centrist party, Kadima, Olmert was one of the first to follow him.
A year after Yasser Arafat\’s death, Palestinians are developing a new myth around their historic leader: Arafat did not die from natural causes but was murdered, most likely by Israel.
Now an Israeli Arab politician has joined the conspiracy bandwagon.
On March 31, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that 17 foreigners converted to Judaism by non-Orthodox rabbinic courts must be considered as Jews under the Law of Return. The Law of Return has long extended legal recognition as Jews to Reform and Conservative converts who have moved to Israel from the Diaspora.
American Jewish organizations rushed Tuesday afternoon to express support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon\’s Gaza withdrawal plan.
Does 2 percent of the country really believe legalizing pot is the most important issue? Are 12 percent really going to vote for Lapid, a former in-your-face talk-show host whose primary goal is to secularize the country?
Nearly 30 political parties are vying in Israel\’s Jan. 28 general elections. According to the latest polls, about 15 parties stand a chance of getting at least 1.5 percent of the vote, the threshold for getting at least one of the Knesset\’s 120 seats.
Tommy Lapid, who has made a second career hammering the ultra-Orthodox, says he didn\’t go into Israeli politics in order to become a government minister. But the outspoken, 71-year-old veteran journalist is suddenly warming to the prospect.
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