At a very early stage in the campaign, I wrote to friends that though Obama is not a leftist or a part of the left, he must, in the given conditions be the candidate of the left in the United States. It was not the time for any third party fantasies. (This might be the place to suggest that any real genuine left initiative for presidential elections would have to base itself on a modicum of success in local and regional elections. A serious left would not go to national elections without any serious advanced preparation).

The recent incidents in Acre appeared to be spontaneous acts of racism and a threat to the "coexistence" between Arabs and Jews in the city. But that is only if we take seriously the idealist notion of "co-existence" that some said prevailed in Acre. If not, we are left with a reality where two peoples live in the same jurisdiction, but where the minority, the Arabs, are discriminated against in all areas - their rights, services, education and development.

The financial crisis does not skip over Israel. The country that has been integrating itself in global capitalist markets in the last decades is once again seeing the ugliest side of capitalism, as the stock markets have dropped over a stunning 10 percent since the beginning of the month and the GDP growth forecast for the next couple of years has been slashed.

In Colloquial Israeli Hebrew, when someone discovers something that everybody else already knows, we say: "Good morning, Elijahu!"

Why Elijahu? I don't know. Now one could say: "Good morning, Ehud!"

That's what I said to myself when I read the sensational interview that Ehud Olmert gave this week, on the eve of the Jewish New Year, to the newspaper "Yediot Aharonot".

At the end of his political career, after resigning from the prime ministership, while waiting for Tzipi Livni to set up a new government, he said some astounding things - not astounding in themselves, but certainly when they come from his mouth.

The German name Sternhell means bright as the stars. The name fits: the positions of Professor Ze'ev Sternhell indeed stand out sharply against the darkness of the sky. He warns against Israeli fascism. This week, Israeli fascists laid a pipe-bomb at the entrance of his apartment and he was lightly injured.

The choice of victim seems surprising at first. But the perpetrators knew what they were doing.

One of the wisest pronouncements I have heard in my life was that of an Egyptian general, a few days after Anwar Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem.

We were the first Israelis to come to Cairo, and one of the things we were very curious about was: how did you manage to surprise us at the beginning of the October 1973 war?

The general answered: "Instead of reading the intelligence reports, you should have read our poets."

I reflected on these words last Wednesday, at the funeral of Mahmoud Darwish.

AND SUDDENLY: quiet. No Qassams. No mortar shells. The tanks are not rolling. The aircraft are not bombing.

In Sderot, sighs of relief. Children venture out. Inhabitants who have exiled themselves to other towns return home.
 
And the reaction? An outburst of jubilation? Dancing in the streets? Applause for the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense, who at long last have come to their senses?

Not at all. The expression on the nation's face is a grimace of disgust. What kind of thing is that? Where is our victorious army?

AFTER MONTHS of a tough and bitter race, a merciless struggle, Barack Obama has defeated his formidable opponent, Hillary Clinton. He has wrought a miracle: for the first time in history a black person has become a credible candidate for the presidency of the most powerful country in the world.

The subject of a Tibet-China clash had been in the air for some time. Stories had appeared in the press about a massive campaign of protest being planned by Tibetan exiles in India. But it was not yet on boil – until one fine day, on March 14, it worked its way out of the back pages of the papers through to the headlines and spread like wildfire. Uprising! Street battles in Lhasa the capital! Reports of demonstrations and mass protests. Police battling the rebels, many killed – all with shocking pictures of streets strewn with bodies.