February 28, 2011

We Must Not Fear the Tyrants of Tripoli

The favored excuse for President Obama's inaction on Libya is that there were hundreds of Americans stranded on a ferry in Tripoli for several days, waiting for weather conditions to improve before they could leave for Malta. Apparently, President Ob...

November 7, 2010

Schakowsky Invokes Anti-Orthodox Stereotypes

On a J Street conference call Thursday evening, Jan Schakowsky thanked the group for its financial and moral support. Her opponent, she said, was "an Orthodox Jewish Republican, Tea Party-endorsed candidate." It wasn't the first time Schako...

October 11, 2010

Dem Congresswoman Favors Terror Blindfold

On Sunday, at a candidate forum sponsored by the American Muslim Task Force, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) told the audience that she opposes FBI monitoring of mosques and "peace activists" for possible links to terror organizations:"The ...

June 7, 2010

Charge the Real War Criminals

The organizers of the Gaza-bound flotilla that Israel intercepted last Monday morning accused Israel of "war crimes," blaming it for the deaths that occurred aboard one of the six ships. Yet Israel acted within international law. It may enf...

June 2, 2010

A lesson in 'courageous restraint'

Many describe the clashes aboard the Mavi Marmara as a botched operation by the Israel Defense Force. Critics on the left say Israel should never have stopped the ships on their way to Gaza. Critics on the right say Israel should never have dropped s...

April 27, 2010

School Choice and the Limits of Liberal Jewish Compassion

Last month, the Illinois State Senate passed a bill that would provide vouchers to students at Chicago's worst-performing public schools. The bill has since moved to the state House, where the executive committee approved it last week by a vote of 10...

March 31, 2010

The Ruins of Byblos

Imagine, for a moment, that Iran and Syria had begun feuding publicly over the fate of the ruins in Byblos, Lebanon. Imagine that some Syrian-backed party in the Lebanese government had begun restoring the buildings of the early Islamic period, leavi...

March 25, 2010

End of the Road

In 2008, I was traveling through Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. when I encountered several delegates who had just left AIPAC's annual policy conference. Then-Senator Barack Obama had addressed the conference that morning, in which he tri...

March 19, 2010

On Ethics, Let the Minority Rule

The scandals surrounding former Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) and Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) threaten Democratic control of what Speaker Nancy Pelosi once boasted would be "the most ethical Congress in history." Just four years ago, a st...

February 3, 2010

What Is a 'Legitimate' Palestinian Grievance?

The day after President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union address, he was ambushed by a question from an anti-Israel student at a rally in Tampa, Florida: Why have you not condemned Israel and Egypt's human rights violations against the o...

September 2, 2009

Skeptics Surprise in Skokie

[Editor's note: Joel B. Pollak announced his candidacy against Rep. Shakowsky this morning just after 9:30 AM EDT on the Fox News Channel, to the surprise of both Megyn Kelly and me - TL. Update: Video here]If Rep. Jan Schakowsky hoped to use Monday ...

August 28, 2009

Drowning out the district

At a town hall meeting on health care in June -- before the nationwide outrage over the current legislation -- I asked my congressional representative, Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), how she could promise that the public option would merely compete with priv...

July 29, 2009

The political alchemy of Birtherism

I've seen how conspiracy theories can threaten a democracy. In 2005, when I was working as a speechwriter in the South African parliament, a far-left faction of the ruling African National Congress spun a yarn that accused the leader of the oppositio...

July 23, 2009

Palestinian Rights: A Warning

A grave injustice is being committed against the Palestinian people -- perhaps among the greatest in their history. Thousands are being systematically robbed of their citizenship, made stateless once more by a hard-hearted government that pays lip se...

July 15, 2009

Protecting Pelosi, not America

Democrat Jan Schakowsky of Illinois proved last week why President Barack Obama was right to threaten to veto a bill that could give more politicians access to classified briefings about covert CIA operations.Schakowsky took to the airwaves to accuse...

June 19, 2009

Obama's Missed Opportunity in Iran

One of the most under-reported facts about the Iranian uprising this week is that the regime has been using foreign paramilitaries to attack pro-democracy demonstrators in the streets of Tehran. Many are apparently drawn from the Iranian-trained Hezb...