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Aug 9, 2026, 1:37 AM

Questions to Myself: Sequel to a Non-Interview with Mohammed

Non-Interview for Track Two Conflict Resolution: Questions! (Gemini-generated by my prompt)

Telling myself, ask answerable questions. Unanswerable questions deter progress. WhatsApping with Mohammed, last week, I asked questions and withheld questions. Discussion. Everything will never be said. Not that I couldn't ask. We both asked and answered. No expectations to adopt...

Sheldon Kirshner

Aug 2, 2026, 5:08 PM

The Contagion Of Settler Violence

On the eve of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington last week, Trump received a letter from Matan Vilnai, the chairman of Commanders for Israel's Security, an organization of retired officials who served in...

Aug 2, 2026, 2:46 PM

A famine in the house of bread

A man rests by a row of empty shops near the Church of the Nativity, where Christians believe Jesus Christ was born, ahead of Christmas in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, December 17, 2024. (Mahmoud Illean/AP)

Bethlehem's Christians are going abroad to escape economic collapse, leaving behind weaker institutions and a more fragile West Bank. Israel can't afford to lose them

Aug 2, 2026, 5:11 AM

Not an Interview and Necessary Omissions: Mohammed’s Take on a Toxic Term

Evening news. Hilltop Youth become adults. Other settlers. Terrorists in Palestinian villagers defend themselves. Then labeled terrorists? Throwback to WhatsApp exchange with Mohammed. Palestinians never had the right to defend themselves – Mohammed's response when asked if he thought Israel and...

Jul 29, 2026, 12:19 AM

Four Characters and Who Knows?

Peace rally in Kfar Saba with my partner in protest (photo by Harriet Gimpel)

"Is your sister staying in the safe room?" Our 4-1/2-year-old granddaughter ordinarily refers to it as the toy room, despite its other purpose. But seeing my sister had taken over the room as our guest last weekend, she seemed...

Jul 28, 2026, 9:45 AM

I am an “Armed Settler.” Here Is What the Media Never Tells You.

I am an "armed settler." Today I took 150 Jewish children on a camp trip. To do that, I needed a security detail worthy of a foreign diplomat entering a war zone. We think we know what the international media means...

Jul 26, 2026, 12:52 PM

An Armed Fringe Is Not Defending Israel. It Is Hijacking the State

A sovereign state alone determines where its soldiers fight, which civilian presence it can defend and how it resolves the political future of millions of Palestinians. No faction may manufacture danger, commandeer the army, convert casualties into political authority...

Jul 25, 2026, 9:18 AM

In Israel and Palestine, only outsiders are free to see the whole land

An American traveler crosses from Israel into the West Bank with a passport, a backpack, and freedoms unavailable to many people born there. For outsiders, the land can appear continuous and open; for Israelis and Palestinians, laws, permits, checkpoints, walls, and military zones divide the geography into separate worlds. (AI-generated).

I have spent more hours than I care to admit watching travel vlogs from Israel and Palestine – those breezy, handheld, parasocially intimate videos in which a 20-something with a backpack and a foreign passport lands at Ben Gurion,...

Charlotte Mendel

Jul 22, 2026, 8:52 PM

Are you a black and white thinker? A protective presence shift

Images by Charlotte Mendel

The photo shows left-wing protesters demonstrating outside a conference held by Haaretz in London and extremist settlers who have broken into Husni's compound–my Bedouin host where I sleep when I'm in the West Bank. They are insisting an Arab...

Jul 21, 2026, 3:55 PM

Nine Items for Blogging Last Week

9 Items and WTF (gemini.AI generated)

Radio talk show. Murderer sentenced. In May 2020, he strangled his 19-year-old girlfriend. Her father was interviewed. How did he feel, sitting in the courtroom during the confessed murderer's trial? "Unbearable," he said, "to think this guy's bare...

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