The Day After

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Sam Lehman-Wilzig

May 2, 2025, 7:50 AM

Israel’s Election Campaign Just Started (Here’s How and Why)

You most probably read the headline right here in The Times of Israel three days ago but weren’t aware of its electoral import. So here it is again: Dermer predicts war will be over in a year, regional peace...

Shlomit Metz-Poolat

Feb 27, 2025, 7:03 PM

Yarden, the sun will rise again tomorrow

Yarden, the sun will rise again tomorrow, for you, for us all, for we are a people of eternal hope. As we all know, even our national anthem here in Israel is called Hatikvah - “The Hope.” These are...

Feb 12, 2025, 11:15 PM

The battle against shame after the war

(IDF Spokesman's Office)

As the hostages are released and the war fades, a new and silent battle begins for thousands of returning soldiers—facing, for the first time, the full weight of what they saw and endured on the battlefield The past few weeks...

Jan 29, 2025, 8:16 PM

Now can we at last get to the end game?

Way back on October 23, 2023, I posted a column I called “Getting to the End Game.” In it I observed: Israel threatens a long ground war, making almost boastful claims about its anticipated success, albeit with many casualties and...

Sheldon Paul Stone

Jan 14, 2025, 6:45 PM

The Great Chanukah Polemic of 1891– Relevant Today?

Hayyim Zelig Slonimski aged seventy-five. From The Jewish Encyclopedia, New York, Funk and Wagnalls, 1912.

If, as the polemic suggests, the Rabbis invented the miracle of the oil lasting 8 days, was this to avoid glorifying military might and tell a cautionary tale against internal division and misuse of Jewish power? Criticism from kids...

Oct 25, 2024, 8:27 PM

The Day After: Crafting a New Israeli Reality in the Post-War Era

The idea of “the day after” has become a common refrain, especially in the days when the prospect of enduring peace feels both tantalizingly close and frustratingly elusive. Israel, scarred and transformed by a brutal period of conflict, will...

Aug 11, 2024, 1:46 PM

Investing in Peace

I am not a military man, but to my uneducated eyes, Israel doesn’t seem to actually control much territory in Gaza. Instead, Israel seems to be continually discomfiting both the fighters and the population in the hope of reducing...

Jul 18, 2024, 12:10 PM

Wanted: Boring People who can Change the World

Last week, an expert in Middle Eastern policy asked me why I care so much about post-war Gaza. At the time, I didn’t have a full answer for him. Now, I do. First, I don’t want to send my children...

Jul 10, 2024, 2:33 PM

Stop focusing on the ‘day after’

All wars have a day after, eventually, but true victory is established not on the day but in the decade following the end of hostilities The conversation about the Day After has become more pervasive over the nine months since...

Jul 3, 2024, 12:30 AM

The ‘Day After’ can be more than a good story

In 2016, I started work on The City on the Heights. In the book, a geographically small city - akin to Hong Kong, West Berlin or Amsterdam - was created to serve as a model for an Arab world...

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