Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel » Dan Kosky

Another election – still no representation

Dan Kosky — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 10:26:16 +0000

Like many Israelis, I have yet to decide exactly how to cast my vote in next week’s election. A succession of polls indicates that around one in four Israelis have yet to choose who to select at the ballot box. Unfortunately, calculating who to vote for in Israel is rarely a simple exercise and the decision often [...]

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Adding Diplomatic Creativity to Iron Dome Ingenuity

Dan Kosky — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 12:33:35 +0000

Perhaps the biggest hero of Operation Pillar of Defense is the Iron Dome missile defense system. Its impressive interception rate blunted the rocket threat from Hamas. saving countless lives and buying crucial time for the Israeli government to calculate its next steps. Having been put to the test, the Iron Dome has proven to be [...]

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Cool the Olympic outrage for just one minute

Dan Kosky — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 05:59:28 +0000

On Monday evening, a moving ceremony was held in London’s illustrious Guildhall to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich. Although the event wasn’t hosted by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), its president Jacques Rogge was in attendance alongside an impressive list of luminaries including [...]

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Forget the Tal Law, It’s All About Education

Dan Kosky — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 08:32:37 +0000

It has taken just two months for a concerted attempt to regulate ultra-orthodox (haredi) military service to collapse. Charged with replacing the redundant Tal Law with a mechanism to ‘equalize the burden’ of national service, the Keshev Committee has unravelled in the face of numerous disagreements on the ultra-orthodox and Arab contribution. However, if we [...]

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Her Majesty’s lesson on democracy

Dan Kosky — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 21:00:23 +0000

Nobody does pageantry quite like the British. If this week’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations are anything to go by, the pomp and ceremony of a royal occasion has lost none of its appeal. The British public turned out in huge numbers to show their appreciation for the Queen’s 60 years of tireless public service. Yet, beyond [...]

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Time to Give the Voters a Voice

Dan Kosky — Wed, 16 May 2012 07:42:07 +0000

The dramatic Likud-Kadima coalition deal has been dubbed a “mega stinking” manoeuvre. And in many ways, it represents all that is noxious about our political system. Yet once the odour dissipates, the new unity government will have a golden chance to change the way we are governed forever. Party leaders Netanyahu and Mofaz have been [...]

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Must we dance to the beat of the Iranian war drum?

Dan Kosky — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 11:35:33 +0000

Israelis are hardly known for their polite silence. Yet, barely an eyebrow was raised when Prime Minister Netanyahu described himself as “duty-bound” to equate a nuclear Iran with Nazi Germany at last week’s Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony. For those still unsure of its meaning, the consequence of evoking the ultimate evil was clarified by IDF Chief of [...]

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The alternative 1948

Dan Kosky — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 11:51:24 +0000

“Out of sight, out of mind” — or so the saying goes. However, having just returned from Sri Lanka on my first bona fide trip as an “Israeli traveler,” I am beginning to doubt the wisdom of this phrase. The more I discovered about the “pearl of the Indian Ocean,” the more I uncovered uncanny parallels [...]

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The curious case of Mrs. Assad

Dan Kosky — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 10:58:54 +0000

Last week’s sham vote on a new Syrian constitution fooled nobody. As President Assad’s troops continued the bloodshed in Homs, the Syrian leader and his dutiful wife beamed at the cameras before casting their votes. While global condemnation rightly greeted Assad’s attempts at deception, little attention has been paid to another Syrian contradiction. The country’s [...]

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No Cosmetic Answer to Israel’s African Influx

Dan Kosky — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 06:18:10 +0000

Last week, the dubious distinction of housing one of the world’s largest detention facilities moved one step closer towards reality for Israel. The National Council for Construction and Planning gave its approval for the construction of a huge detention center in the South, slated to house up to 11,000 African migrants expected to enter the [...]

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The Jewish state in a world of confusion

Dan Kosky — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 06:55:05 +0000

In recent weeks, the Israeli media has been flooded with coverage of our very own ‘kulturkampf’ in Beit Shemesh. Perceived as a symbol for the future of the country, every angle to the story has been dissected relentlessly on our TV screens and in our newspapers. Perhaps we have been too self-absorbed to appreciate that [...]

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