Sheikh Jarrah

People often ask why, at a time when revolutionary fervor has seized nation after nation here in the Middle East, no revolt has yet begun in my countr...

For over a year the Gawi, Kurd, and Hanun families have been sitting on the side-walk opposite the houses from which they were evicted, watching the settlers treating their former houses as their own.

In their goals and in their view of governance, Hamas, Kahanists and Haredim have much in common. Why not just let them run the Holy Land?

In his recklessness and tunnel vision, Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat is undermining the very legitimacy of Israel at a time when Israel can least afford it.

Occupation is an ugly word. That is why people who support the idea of a Jewish state should use the term. Because, on this, Israel's 62nd independence day, the Occupation has to be identified for what it has become: Israel's worst enemy.

Now that Israel has almost completed its "Separation Wall", it wants to build a "Wall of Silence" and control the flow of information and limit the presence of foreign-born eyewitnesses.

The recent clashes in East Jerusalem, though limited in scope and duration, are forcing us again to question the presentation of Jerusalem as a united city.

No one knows fascism better than Israelis. They are schooled, drilled in the history, the mechanics, the horrendous potential of fascist regimes. Israelis know fascism when they see it. In others.

Last Saturday, as Sheikh Jarrah's orthodox Jews observed the Sabbath, an easy-going music teacher blinked his lazy blue eyes and said he intends to make a weekly walk until Israel's eviction orders are overturned.

What seems to have slipped under the radar overseas is a siege of a totally different kind: the siege on Israeli democracy itself.

Over the last few weeks, a coalition of Israeli organizations and many private citizens have protested against the eviction of Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah.

In Sheikh Jarrah, more than 300 Palestinians, internationals, and Israeli activists continued their protests over the evictions of Palestinian families in East Jerusalem.

Sheikh Jarrah -- an East Jerusalem neighborhood where Jewish settlers, backed by the Israeli courts, are gradually displacing Palestinian residents -- is "turning into a powder keg," says the former Speaker of the Knesset.

On a sunny afternoon, Dina Goldstein and I hail a cab in downtown Jerusalem on our way to the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in Northeast Jerusalem.

Israel is becoming an arena for unchecked action by extremist groups that acquire properties by questionable means, operate private police forces with State funding, and seek confrontation with the Palestinian population.

Expressing disappointment and calling on Israel not to repeat its actions is ineffective, so when will America's policy change from a slap on the wrist to a handcuff to international law?