June 7, 2014

The Bergdahl Exchange -- a Wider Legal View

A number of plainly sensible arguments have already been raised in opposition to President Obama's exchange of an American military prisoner for assorted Taliban terrorists. Wherever these arguments have centered on the expected creation of additiona...

August 6, 2011

To Fix a Broken Country: The Critical Limits of American Politics

Both Democrats and Republicans are widely criticized for failing to fix a broken country, but America's core problems are not remediable in politics.  By itself, no American government -- no president, no Congress, no national legislation -- can...

June 26, 2011

Anxiety and Absurdity in the State of Israel

Credo quia absurdum.  "I believe because it is absurd."  Israel, in the fashion of every other nation, shrinks from annihilation.  How could it be otherwise?  Oddly, although Israel's particular existential perils are now plain an...

June 5, 2011

Israel's Pain -- Beyond Human Language

We Jews have experienced so much horror in our long and arduous history that the recurrent pain of Arab/Islamic terrorism seems to be just another episode of indescribable suffering.  For the moment, we must endure.  And in the end, we shal...

May 24, 2011

The Samson Option: 'Palestine' and Israel's Nuclear Strategy

In the always arcane discourse of nuclear strategy, dialectical thinking is a "net."  Only those who cast will catch.  To calculate Israel's best strategic options following President Barack Obama's plans for "Palestine,...

May 22, 2011

Why Israel Has Become A Not-Quite Tragic Hero

"The executioner's face," sang Bob Dylan, "is always well-hidden."  In the particular case of Israel, the sources of existential danger have instead always been obvious.  Nonetheless, from 1948 until the present, virtual...

May 7, 2011

Slouching Toward Palestine

Intra-Palestinian politics remain on a steady course.  Following a carefully-choreographed rapprochement with Hamas, the more "moderate" Fatah forces, still trained and funded by millions of U.S. tax dollars,  will quickly resume ...

March 13, 2011

Israel's Future in the 'New Middle East'

For Israel, the basic Jewish philosophic choice between life and death, between the "blessing" and the "curse," has always been clear. What remains problematic, of course, is precisely how to best ensure the former. And in these e...

August 22, 2010

The Expanding Horror of Life on Earth

"The horror, the horror," mumbles the Marlon Brando character in Apocalypse Now. It is a timely observation. While individual death is an essential part of species survival, we humans need not always hasten the process with recurrent war, t...