Free Republic

Quite a banquet will take place Thursday night in London to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration. That’s the letter in which Britain announced its support for the establishment in Palestine of what became the state of Israel. The letter was sent a century ago to a leader of British Jewry, Lord Rothschild, from Britain’s foreign minister, Lord Balfour. The nub: “His Majesty’s Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” Its enormous impact was acknowledgment by the world’s then-mightiest empire of the legitimacy of Jewish claims to Israel. That the...

Former US Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger was this year's laureate of the World Jewish Congress Theodor Herzl Award. At the annual gala dinner in New York, the 91-year-old Kissinger was presented with the award by US journalist Barbara Walters. WJC President Ronald S. Lauder said in his address that "Henry Kissinger brought an unusual combination of knowledge, brilliance and skill to the office of Secretary of State." More than 500 guests attended the dinner at Manhattan's Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Introducing the laureate, Lauder particularly highlighted Kissinger's efforts to secure peace in Vietnam and in the Middle East....

These are tough times for the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. Everywhere one seems to turn, Zionism and its values are in retreat. Aliya is on the decline, settling the land is no longer in vogue, and classical Zionist institutions are under attack for promoting the distinctively Jewish character of the state. Last week, the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption announced that a paltry 19,700 people chose to immigrate to Israel in 2007, representing barely two-tenths of one percent of Diaspora Jewry. That is the lowest number to arrive here in the past 20 years. The government of Israel...