Hirsh Goodman

There has been much change this past decade, yet little seems to have changed. As we were closing the second edition of the magazine in October 1990, we had to change the cover story at the last minute. Riots had broken out on the Temple Mount. Dozens were killed and injured. Ten years later, almost to the day, the riots on the Mount, provoked by opposition leader Ariel Sharon's visit there, have spread throughout Gaza and the West Bank. Now, as then, stones, bullets, tear gas, Molotov cocktails, are the order of the day. Pushed into the background are seven years of progress toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians that started at Oslo and gained new impetus with the election of Ehud Barak as prime minister a year and a half ago. While we all expect this current bout of unrest to recede in coming days, the scar will remain. As I write, 30 fresh graves have been dug; 30 more families left mourning their dead. Of the hundreds injured, many will carry their injuries for life, reminders of the consequences of Sharon's political cynicism and just how volatile this region is, and how the slightest provocation can set it ablaze.

If there is one thing that has not changed this past decade it is the folly of prediction in the Middle East. Ten years ago it was illegal for an Israeli to speak to Yasser Arafat; negotiating with him was an impossible thought. Ten years ago Benjamin Netanyahu was on virtually no one's political map. He was a deputy foreign minister in Yitzhak Shamir's government. In October 1990 Iraq was a country that had done Israel a favor by having a protracted war with Iran. Who could have predicted that Saddam Hussein, in January 1991, would send Scud missiles against Israel? Shas, now the third largest faction in the Knesset, was in its infancy, its rabbis were pro-peace, its agenda limited to deepening Jewish religious values in society in general and among the Sephardi population in particular. Today the party is militant and virulent, a tool in the hands of hate mongers determined to build up their political strength by forging a rift between the Ashkenazi and Sephardi segments of the population. Ten years ago mass emigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union to Israel was a dream, not even a realistic hope and who, 10 years ago, would have suspected that Swiss banks were sitting on piles of gold stolen from Jews murdered in the Holocaust, and hiding the fact from the rightful heirs? That another Jew would murder an Israeli prime minister was unthinkable.

The Jerusalem Report has covered these events honestly, professionally and with dedication over the past decade. When we established it we pledged to produce a magazine of excellence devoted to covering Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world. That I believe we achieved. It has placed critical issues on the agenda and explained others to an audience that demanded, and received, the truth, no matter how disturbing. It is a tragedy that, a decade on, this issue is covering the same intifada it had to cover in its early days and not peace; a tragedy that so much has changed yet, how little has really changed.

Hirsh Goodman founded and edited The Jerusalem Report from 1990 to 1998.