The great Israeli disconnect is the chasm between day to day life in Israel and the way the country's portrayed in headlines. Life in Israel is far calmer, safer, smoother and lovelier than the media coverage - pro or con - suggests.

It is almost a foregone conclusion that the president won't authorize the 40,000 soldiers requested, but he probably will authorize a smaller number. Any increase, as opposed to embarking upon an immediate exit strategy, would be a grave error.

What is currently setting back peace talks is not something that has been a reality for 40 years.

There is a degree of naiveté in the collective Israeli psyche, underpinned by an unhealthy preoccupation with wanting to be liked by "the world," and the mistaken idea that Israel could actually do something to get "the world" to like it.

Never one to shy away from controversy, Daniel Goldhagen has published a new book that reflects his decades-long study of the grim subject of genocide and includes a dire assessment of "Political Islam."

While scientists accept the Earth to be around 4.5 billion years old, there is a circle of political commentators who are having none of it. For them, the earth was created last March.