James Ron

I just returned from an eight-day trip to Israel and Palestine (specifically, the West Bank) with my 16-year-old son. We had attended a Tel Aviv funeral of an old friend, who died tragically, at a young age, from a freak brain bleed. To manage our sadness, we took a few days to travel around. We…

In 1985, I was drafted into the Israeli military for three years. Two of those were in the explosives company of the paratroop brigade, one of Israel’s more rigorous infantry units. Zeev Jabotinski, a right-wing Zionist thinker, once wrote that the Jewish community would have to erect an “iron wall” between itself and the Arab population,…

I recently traveled to Oaxaca for Life for a Child, the Australia-based charity that supplies insulin and blood glucose testing supplies to some 46,000 children in 45 countries, mostly living in lower or – in a smaller number of cases, like Mexico – middle-income nations. Mexico created, in theory, a universal health care system over…

This week, a brief clash between rival armed factions in Libya’s capital city, Tripoli, again emphasized the country’s unresolved civil conflict. This prolonged struggle has led to two competing political authorities, each holding sway over distinct territories within Libya’s eastern and western regions. To the east, authority is consolidated within the Tobruk-based House of Representatives,…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s comfort with autocratic leaders is well known. He celebrated his “great relationship” with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has designed a deadly anti-crime campaign that has attracted criticism at home and abroad; seeks to designate Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s political opponents as a “terrorist organization”; and supports Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, despite the…

President Trump seeks to drive a wedge between American Jews and the Democratic Party. He claims that the Republican Party is more concerned with protecting Jewish people at home and abroad. He also wants to stoke tensions between American Jews and American Muslims. He loves to attack the Democratic Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib,…

The Israeli air force just carried out a strike on Islamic Jihad leaders and installations in Gaza. Apparently, the bombings also killed 13 civilians, including the wives and children of the guerilla leaders, as well as a dentist and his wife. Collateral damage is horrific. Sometimes, it’s also a war crime, but sometimes, it’s not;…