With at least 60,000 now in the country and 2,000 to 3,000 more coming every month, African refugees, for all the trauma they have been through, are unassimilable in this country. The first in a three-part series. On Friday, with the headlines screaming of Eritreans raping a 15-year-old Israeli girl,  I went with a photographer friend to the Hatikva neighborhood in South Tel Aviv to get a sense of how the Jewish residents were feeling toward the Africans, and vice versa. I was surprised to see no hatred on the faces of the Israelis nor fear on the faces of the Africans. Everyone looked calm, doing their Friday afternoon…

End the occupation and the militarism, which are conspicuous in the democratic world today but not in its history, and this could be a pretty cool place. I try not to go out of my way to write good things about Israel, but I also try not to go out of my way not to write good things about Israel, because, among other reasons, it's important to remember that for all the justified criticism and condemnation, there's something worth saving here. In that spirit, I want to take issue with a growing view that Israel is a violent society and becoming…

"A concerned citizen" and a radical rightwing MK claim to have found in trash bin an air force helmet and some secret documents belonging to Yonatan Shapira, a former IDF pilot and one of the most recognized anti-occupation activists Israeli news site Ynet is running today an exquisitely odd story, seemingly incriminating former Air Force pilot and prolific activist Yonathan Shapira. According to Ynet, a "concerned citizen" helping a friend repair a flat noticed a strange bundle in the trash bin. As a "reservist of 16 years" he was "shocked and appalled" to discover in the bundle a pilot's helmet, secret navigation documents…

One of the visitors on the Knesset's Committee discussion that hosted Glen Beck today was a settler named Baruch Marzel. Marzel, seen below meeting Beck, was the secretary of Rabbi Meir Kahane's Kach movement. After the assassination of Kahane, Marzel, a resident of Hebron, chaired the party. Kach and Kahane Chai (a faction of the party, formed after Kahane's death) were outlawed in Israel. Both groups are considered terrorist organizations by Canada, the European Union and the United States. See, for example, item 20 of the  State Department's current list of designated foreign terrorist 0rganizations. I am sure that Beck,…