Israel Shamir

The Fighting Optimist

To Make Sense of War

We have been struggling to understand the tragic events in the Ukraine, poring over a stream of current events to discover the master plan behind Putin’s strategy. We failed. Then we looked back to December last year. Suddenly it all clicked.

Israel Moves Rightwards

People do not like liberals – well-wishing, wishy-washy liberals. They prefer man-eating crocodiles. Israelis voted out their liberal PM Lapid and returned Bibi Netanyahu to Balfour Street. Bibi was out of office for all of one and a half years, [...]

The Dull War

The war was predominantly dull; with little movement. Trench warfare as in WWI. The big mistake was at the beginning when Russia tried to take a country of 40m with a few soldiers. The Head of Russian Intelligence Mr Naryshkin recently 

Ukraine War

The immediate beginning of the trouble was a Geneva summit between two presidents that apparently went wrong. We don’t know what went wrong. The pro-Western Russian officials ran away to Georgia and Israel; they are being replaced by anti-Western[...]

Second Month of Ukraine War

The second month of Ukraine War was quite slow moving. Line of contact hardly moved. Ukrainians fought insistently. After one month, the most important event was not a military victory, but financial one. Russians couldn’t sell their oil and gas [...]

The Invasion

After many requests, Russia invaded Ukraine. We all were mistaken; we thought the invasion wouldn’t happen. But it did. The Russian logic is straightforward: if NATO would come that close to Moscow, Russia won’t be able to defend oneself. Time of[...]

Victoria Annoys Russians, But Properly

Rarely has Russia used this sort of language to a top rep of the major Western powers, but she was sorely pushed. Diplomats are usually polite, but Mrs (“F*ck the EU”) Nuland awoke the beast in her Russian counterparts. Probably it was a mistake to insist that she should be the one to deal with the Russians. As a young woman, Victoria Nul[...]

Things Go Awry

An interesting coincidence: the beginning of October ushered in a double crisis: the first collapse of the Internet and the final failure of the Green Economy. Facebook employees used saws and axes to get into their working places, for the smart [...]

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