Every week – it’s been 15 years now – I do an OpEd piece for the Forward, America’s only national Jewish weekly newspaper. There, I write about a wide variety of matters, including, of course, what’s happening in Israel. In the nature of such things, my Forward column is less intimate and by and large somewhat more elegant than my musings in this space on the APN web site. The two efforts are, and are meant to be, separate.

But now and then, major events may lead to a confluence of what I write for the Forward and what I write here. Just now, as we are witness to an unexpected transformation of Israel’s political culture, I am for the first time posting here my column for this week’s Forward. The TKO of Shimon Peres, the ascent of Amir Peretz, Ariel Sharon’s break from the Likud – the importance of these three events can scarcely be overstated.
Read on…