Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein is a MintPress analyst who has written the Tikun Olam blog since 2003, specializing in Israeli politics and US foreign affairs. Silverstein works to expose the excesses of the Israeli national security state. He breaks major news stories that are often under judicial gag or military censorship, and which may not be reported in Israel. He has been published in Haaretz, Al Jazeera English, the Forward, Christian Science Monitor, Middle East Eye, and the Seattle Times. He speaks Hebrew fluently and incorporates the Hebrew-language press into his blog and other publications. He earned a BA from Columbia University, a BHL from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and MA in Comparative Literature from UCLA. He did two years of undergraduate and graduate study at the Hebrew University. He lives in Seattle. Follow Richard on Twitter: @Richards1052

Who’s Afraid Of Keith Ellison? The Israel Lobby

Keith Ellison, whose candidacy is supported by Bernie Sanders, is the future of the Democratic Party.  Hillary Clinton is the past.  Does Chuck Schumer want to hitch his star to pro-Israel political extortionists or to the future?

Richard Silverstein
By Richard Silverstein
U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., left and U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., right, take photos of the rubble of the American International school in Beit Lahiya in the northern of Gaza Strip, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

While Keith Ellison is odds on favorite to win the race as the next chair of the Democratic National Committee, we’ve only just begun to hear from the Israel Lobby on the subject.  You might ask: why would the Lobby weigh in at all? To answer this question, you have to return to the FBI wiretap of the Israeli embassy in Washington, which Shamai

Read Full Article

The Wheels Of Justice Won’t Budge For A Scottish Woman Killed In Israel

The case of Julie Pearson is bigger than the death of one woman and her family’s ongoing struggle for justice. It’s a lens through which to view larger institutional and cultural failings that allow violence against women to go unpunished almost as a matter of routine in Israel.

Richard Silverstein
By Richard Silverstein
Julie Pearson was found dead in Israel last November, allegedly beaten to death by her boyfriend. Her family in Scotland has waited, with increasing frustration, for the creaky wheels of Israeli justice to turn for Julie. This week marks the one-year anniversary of her tragic death.

SEATTLE --- When you’ve studied the Israeli-Arab conflict for as many decades and from as long a geographical distance as I have, you tend to emphasize major events and phenomena: the Occupation, wars, armies, Zionism, Palestinian nationalism, etc. It seems only natural to focus mainly on the Big Picture. Of course, the real tragedy is writ

Read Full Article

Israel’s Mossad Implicated In Assassination Of Palestinian Political Prisoner In Bulgaria

Mossad operations are often based as much on personal vendettas, petty jealousies, and professional slights as they are on sound judgment, and Israel’s intelligence agency has a long history of kidnapping and assassinating its enemies on foreign soil.

Richard Silverstein
By Richard Silverstein
In this Sunday, July 3, 2016. photo shows Yossi Cohen, director of Mossad, Israel's state intelligence agency.

S EATTLE --- (Analysis) Omar Nayef Zayed signed his death warrant in an Israeli courtroom in 1986. That’s when he and two young Palestinian accomplices pleaded guilty to the murder of Eliyahu Amedi. During a period when Israeli Orthodox schools, known as yeshivot in Hebrew, were moving into East Jerusalem’s Muslim Quarter and provoking

Read Full Article

How Shimon Peres Stole The Bomb With A Bluff

And why the military censors don’t want you to know about it.

Richard Silverstein
By Richard Silverstein
In an especially vain moment, Peres is pictured mimicking the pose of his political mentor, David Ben Gurion

Published in partnership with Tikun Olam תיקון עולם. UPDATE: I published this appraisal of a key moment in the political career of Shimon Peres just after he suffered a major stroke. I have updated it now that he has died.   You will read much hagiography in the Peres obituaries published in Israeli and world media. Here is a perfect

Read Full Article

Israel Ramps Up Its War On BDS And Other Critics With Heated Words And Targeted Harassment Campaigns

A veteran Israeli security journalist exposes the Israeli government’s role in coordinated campaigns to harass and threaten BDS activists, human rights lawyers, and other critics of Israel’s apartheid policies.

Richard Silverstein
By Richard Silverstein
Mary Anne Grady Flores of Ithaca, N.Y., wears tape over her mouth during a rally in the War Room at the state Capitol on Wednesday, June 15, 2016, in Albany, N.Y. Critics of Israel's treatment of Palestinians protested Gov. Andrew Cuomo's executive order prohibiting state investments in any company that supports a boycott of Israel.

SEATTLE --- (Analysis) Last month, Reuters reported that Dutch authorities opened an investigation into months of death threats made against a legal researcher who is working with a Palestinian legal rights group at the International Criminal Court. Nada Kiswanson works on behalf of Al-Haq in The Hague, where she is pursuing Palestinian claims

Read Full Article

Internet Watchdog Exposes Israeli Tech Company’s ‘Government-Exclusive’ Spyware

Israel’s advanced military technology sector is producing scores of hackers and tech startups. One, in particular, is helping governments and nanny states with deep pockets creep into citizens’ cellphones.

Richard Silverstein
By Richard Silverstein
Omri Lavie, co-founder of NSO Group, which is behind the recently discovered exploitation of iPhones with its Pegasus malware.

SEATTLE --- After investigating some suspicious text messages sent to an Emirati human rights activist in early August, researchers at the University of Toronto’s internet watchdog Citizen Lab and Lookout Security announced on Aug. 24 that they’d detected the most sophisticated mobile hacking tool ever developed. The spyware, known as Pegasus,

Read Full Article

The Rise & Fall Of The Jewish Forward

The Jewish Forward needs to decide: Will it become a repository of listicles and fast-food news, or will it maintain its record of journalistic excellence? Its latest media experiment shows that it can’t do both.

Richard Silverstein
By Richard Silverstein
Laura Adkins atricle, “Pro-Palestinian Student Group Accused of Compiling List of Jewish Student Dorm Addresses”, published at 'The Forward'. has now been removed from the site.

SEATTLE --- (Analysis) For over a century, America’s great Jewish newspaper has been the Jewish Daily Forward, known to its readers and admirers simply as The Forward. It began in the rough and tumble days of New York newspapering in the late 19th century, when every Jewish political faction -- communist, Bundist, socialist, anarchist, Orthodox --

Read Full Article