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Sundown: Israel’s Changing Demographics

Plus former Mossad head criticizes Romney, and more

by
Marc Tracy
March 28, 2012

• A plausible projection puts an equal number of Haredi and non-Haredi Jews in Israel within 50 years. [Ynet]

• Former Mossad head Ephraim Halevy faulted Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney, whose bellicose talk, he argued, is likely to encourage Iran to speed up progress toward a nuclear weapon. [Times of Israel]

• Looking for the cause behind Shaul Mofaz’ landslide Kadima Party victory? Look not much further than the Arab vote: 25 percent of the total and more than 2:1 for the Tehran-born Mofaz. One Arab Israeli supporter cited Mofaz’ ostensible opposition to war with Iran. [Ynet]

• Today’s Beinart news: a talk with him in Oakland (of all places!) was cancelled due to institutional pressure, though it seems the bigger problem was the moderator, who is a founder of Jewish Voice for Peace; and a long Israeli television interview with Beinart contains in-depth discussion of the issues and his critics’ charges. [Jewish Voice for Peace/Shalom TV]

• Several dozen Israelis took to the streets in protest of the ugly incident several days ago in which fans of Beitar Jerusalem beat Arab cleaning personnel. [Haaretz]

• A fairly well known painting in England known as “The Old Rabbi” is likely, we just learned, a Rembrandt. [Guardian/NYT ArtsBeat]

New The Dictator trailer.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.