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Michael Boyden

Michael Boyden

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

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Pomp and Circumstance

The coronation of King Charles III was full of the pageantry and ceremony that one would expect from a state occasion of this nature, the like of...

06.05.2023 30

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Does Israel have a Future?

We Jews have an uncanny habit of practising hara-kiri. I don’t mean the ritualistic suicide practised by the Japanese samurai, but rather the...

26.04.2023 30

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

You Can’t Just Paper Over the Cracks

What did the leaders of the government and the Opposition believe when they called on the nation to preserve the sanctity of Israel’s Memorial Day,...

23.04.2023 30

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Yom Ha-Zikaron is not Holy

Yom Ha-Zikaron is not holy. Stop all of that nonsense about the need to be silent sheep at the memorial services across the country as though Yom...

21.04.2023 5

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Manipulating the Media

It is high time that Israel’s TV channels stopped allowing themselves to be manipulated by Benjamin Netanyahu into allowing him to use prime-time...

11.04.2023 20

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

The Tail Wagging the Dog

Government ministers and coalition Knesset members marched to the Israeli outpost of Evyatar today. Evyatar was originally established in 2013 in...

10.04.2023 7

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Israel Needs a Constitution

The calm that has fallen upon our beleaguered country since a temporary halt was put on the government’s legislative plans should not deceive...

06.04.2023 2

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

To Remain One People

At an army gathering to celebrate the upcoming festival of Passover, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “We are fighting for our security and...

04.04.2023 4

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Another missed opportunity

Anyone who might have hoped to come away from Benjamin Netanyahu’s appearance on national television on Monday evening with the feeling that here...

27.03.2023 10

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Israel has only four options

Many Israelis, who watched Netanyahu’s appearance on prime time on the news programmes on Thursday evening, will have been extremely disappointed by...

25.03.2023 10

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

The Awful Truth behind the Numbers

Elections and coalitions are all about numbers. As we know, Prime Minister Netanyahu was successful in putting together the most right-wing, religious...

20.03.2023 5

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

One Step Closer to a Police State

Prime Minister Netanyahu is reported as having stated that “a country that wants to live cannot allow disobedience and anarchy”. (That sounds like...

19.03.2023 30

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

A Letter to Yariv Levin

In any other circumstances I would have addressed you as, as we say in Hebrew, כבוד השר ליון”” (the honorable Minister Levin). However,...

19.03.2023 5

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Miki Zohar criticizes the Attorney General

Attorney General, Gali Baharav-Miara, instructed that the removal of Tel Aviv District Commander Amichai Eshed from his position be frozen...

10.03.2023 10

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Perhaps the Dream is Over

In a recent article Daniel Gordis described the sense of frustration and anger that is felt by each and every section of Israeli society. The...

10.03.2023 20

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Israel Bonds – Shame on You

It is reported that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich MK, will be addressing an Israel Bonds leadership meeting in Washington DC later this month. ...

03.03.2023 20

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

J’accuse

Benjamin Netanyahu will go down in history as having been the man who destroyed Israel. It wasn’t Gamal Abdel Nasser, Yassir Arafat or Hassan...

28.02.2023 7

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Charedi Jurisdiction over the Kotel

Aryeh Deri, a convicted criminal, who served time in prison and only last year admitted that he was also guilty of tax evasion, is now urging the...

09.02.2023 7

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Is Israel a democracy?

Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s published draft bills aim at changing the balance of power between Israel’s legislative and judicial branches. ...

06.02.2023 9

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

On the Path to a Dictatorship?

It doesn’t happen overnight. However, there are views being expressed and steps being taken in Israel that have no place in a liberal democracy. It...

01.02.2023 7

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

The Right to Disagree

I understand Eliyahu Revivo MK. He is behind a bill to bar people from standing for election, who either directly or indirectly favour boycotting...

26.01.2023 30

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Israel Will Have to Change

When I first visited Israel in 1967, it was a different place. The Six Day War had just been won, and the military threat posed by our Arab neighbours...

24.01.2023 5

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

What Bibi Should Have Said

At the first meeting of his government following the Supreme Court ruling that Aryeh Deri was unfit to hold public office, Prime Minister Netanyahu is...

23.01.2023 9

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Aryeh Deri Needs to Go

Aryeh Deri’s supporters can protest until they are blue in the face that their idol is innocent. They did so when he was convicted in 1999 of...

18.01.2023 5

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Equal Funding for Charedi Schools

Yoav Kish, has announced that his top priority in his new post as Education Minister is to ensure that charedi schoolchildren receive equal funding....

17.01.2023 5

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Is Israel’s Democracy in Danger?

The findings outlined this week in the Annual Report of the Israel Democracy Institute should be of concern to all who want Israel to remain a...

16.01.2023 10

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Destroying Israel from Within

Israel prides itself in being a country that has gathered in exiles from the four corners of the earth. Many of them come from countries that never...

14.01.2023 10

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Will Israel remain a democracy?

The Holocaust Encyclopedia informs us that “Hitler transformed Germany by manipulating the democratic political system. Hitler and other Nazi...

11.01.2023 4

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

On the Brink of Rebellion

It doesn’t take an awful lot to start a revolution. When the British government legislated the Tea Act on May 10, 1773, allowing the British East...

10.01.2023 3

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Getting Bibi Off the Hook

Simcha Rothman MK is due to address the Middle East Forum next week on the subject of “The Undue Influence of Israel’s Supreme Court”. Rothman...

09.01.2023 4

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Destroying Israel’s Democracy

Israel’s newly elected coalition government has set its goal on reining in the power of the Supreme Court. It plans to reduce the retirement age of...

05.01.2023 30

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Temple Mount Obsession

What exactly was government Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir looking for when he visited the Temple Mount? Getting some headlines on the news media? Was he...

03.01.2023 8

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Don’t Despair of Israel

Many are unhappy at the outcome of Israel’s recent elections, and appalled that Bibi should have formed a coalition government that includes the...

01.01.2023 4

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Making Discrimination Kosher

It will be re-called that when the wife of Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of the Religious Zionist Party, was in hospital back in 2016 to give birth to...

25.12.2022 10

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

To Hell with Principles

Israel, like any democracy worthy of the name, has laws in place to ensure that those seeking public office are persons of integrity, who foster the...

24.12.2022 10

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

The Misrepresentation of Chanukah

Anyone observing us from the outside would gain the impression that Chanukah was about lighting candles for eight days and eating doughnuts. ...

22.12.2022 6

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Israel’s Democracy in Danger

The highly respected, late mayor of Jerusalem, Teddy Kollek, once remarked that one of the amazing things about Israel was that we had managed to...

15.12.2022 10

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Destruction from Within

Following the Fast of the 9th of Av, which commemorates the destruction of the 1st and 2nd Temples, it is customary on the following seven Sabbaths to...

12.12.2022 10

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

What should a Jewish State really be?

One often gets the impression that the charedi political parties have forgotten what a Jewish State ought to look like, although they claim to favor...

09.12.2022 20

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

Bibi is destroying our country

Many Israelis, and not only Israelis, are deeply concerned about what Prime Minister elect, Benjamin Netanyahu, is doing to our country. Had he been...

05.12.2022 10

The Times of Israel (Blogs)

Michael Boyden

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