For almost three years, since the disengagement from the Gaza Strip, senior defense officials and politicians have repeatedly threatened retaliation for the incessant rocket attacks on the western Negev. At the same time, the officials have acknowledged that a large-scale operation into Gaza would only happen after blood was spilled in Israel.
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Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 | 3 comments
THE BIRTH of the state of Israel 60 years ago this week was an astonishment. It is not unheard of for a nation to vanish from the map and later reappear. Poland, for example, was partitioned out of existence in 1795 and regained its independence in 1918. But the restoration of Israel was unlike anything the world had ever seen.
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Envy surrounds no country on Earth like the state of Israel, and with good reason: by objective measures, Israel is the happiest nation on Earth at the 60th anniversary of its founding. It is one of the wealthiest, freest and best-educated; and it enjoys a higher life expectancy than Germany or the Netherlands. But most remarkable is that Israelis appear to love life and hate death more than any other nation. If history is made not by rational design but by the demands of the human heart, as I argued last week , the light heart of the Israelis in face of continuous danger is a singularity worthy of a closer look.
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President George W. Bush will soon make his second visit to Israel in less than six months, this time to celebrate the country’s 60th anniversary. The candidates for the presidency, Republican and Democratic alike, have all traveled to Israel and affirmed their commitment to its security. So have hundreds of congressmen.
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On the eve of Israel’s 60th Independence Day, the country’s population stands at 7,282,000, according to figures released by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).
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Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz.
Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski [file]
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Saturday, May 3rd, 2008 | 5 comments
The Future of Israel Is the Future of the West
Melanie Phillips says that the prosperity and growing cultural confidence of Israel is a fitting riposte to the Western intelligentsia, American meddling and the daily propaganda assault that ignores the Islamisation of the Palestinians
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Holocaust Remembrance Day

DF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi visiting former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau on Wednesday. (IDF Spokesperson’s Office)
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ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT SHIMON PERES
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