Michael Curtis

Michael Curtis

  • October 1, 2022

    Sir Nicholas Winton: The Power of Good

    The Russian aggression that began on February 24, 2022 against Ukraine has created the greatest refugee surge in Europe since World War II. The current surge is the largest refugee crisis of the 21st century so far. In addition to the unknown number ...

  • September 10, 2022

    The quality of life has meaning

    Since the story in Thomas Malory's 1485 Tales of King Arthur, some people have engaged in the quest for the Holy Grail, allegedly the cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper. Their hope, in vain, is that possession of the Grail wo...

  • September 4, 2022

    Holocaust Repression among the French

    It is still an open question whether France has completely confessed its responsibility for its sins of the past in participating in the Holocaust, and whether the fate of Jews in France has been fully told.  It is clear that French preside...

  • September 3, 2022

    Rocking with Elvis Presley

    In mid-20th-century America, the country was blessed with two performers, each of whom self-described or self-billed as the "world's greatest entertainer."  Both to different degrees introduced in their singing ...

  • August 20, 2022

    The American Melody Lingers On

    Countries throughout the world can be identified by musical stereotypes: the tango in Argentina, samba in Brazil, mambo in Cuba, waltz in Germany and central Europe, stepdance in Ireland, foxtrot in Britain.  Then there is the Great America...

  • August 9, 2022

    How do You Celebrate Next to a Death Camp?

    Rendering moral judgement of human behavior, as Thomas Jefferson warned, must be “hazarded with great diffidence.”  Countless issues arise.  People change behavior based on the influence of others. Acute diffidence is necessary ...

  • May 30, 2022

    Lists of Russian lies

    Everyone composes lists — laundry, grocery, best books, favorite songs, most beautiful women.  The Great American Songbook is full of "list songs," catalogues of people, places, and events, often humorous. In politics, th...

  • May 23, 2022

    How a Corpse Turned the Tide of World War II

    Deception is an art, not a science.  Unfamiliarity is crucial.  You do not win in battle the same way twice.  Deception is a form of behavior present in all aspects of life — politics, economics, entertainment ...

  • May 22, 2022

    Margaret Thatcher: The Grocer’s Daughter?

    Almost immediately after a 20-foot-high bronze statue of Lady Thatcher was unveiled in her hometown of Grantham, Lincolnshire, it was pelted with four eggs thrown by a 59-year-old left-wing protestor, the deputy director of an arts center at the Univ...

  • May 19, 2022

    Boris Johnson, International Leader

    Boris Johnson has and is making a greater contribution with his practical actions to the support of Ukraine and defeat of Vladimir Putin, whom Johnson has called a “21st century tyrant,” than the grandstanding Macron in France or most EU ...

  • May 13, 2022

    The Northern Ireland Conundrum

    Over the centuries, Northern Ireland has been invaded by various groups, Celts, Vikings, Normans, Anglo-Saxons, Irish-speaking Gaels, and Scottish Presbyterians. The province of Ulster, was marked by two distinct, often feuding groups, the indig...

  • May 8, 2022

    The Anti-Semitism of Russian Elites

    On the evening of May 15, 1948 at the hall of the Tel Aviv Museum, David Ben-Gurion, born in Plonsk, Poland in 1886, chair of the executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel to be known a...

  • May 5, 2022

    The Fantasy World of the United Nations

    The UN has become, as Volodymyr Zelensky on April 5, 2022, told the UN Security Council, a venue for “conversation,” not one for action to stop aggression by Russia, a country that “has turned the right of veto into a right to die....

  • May 1, 2022

    What the West Thinks of Russian Aggression

    On April 28, 2022, a meeting took place at the former site of Auschwitz. The president of Poland, Andrzej Duda, right-wing politician, joined in the March of the Living with Holocaust survivors and 2,000 others at a ceremony on Israel's National ...

  • April 29, 2022

    The Fight Against the Virus of Antisemitism

    It is dispiriting to acknowledge that  the virus of antisemitism survives, has been increasing, and cannot be stamped out completely.  The sad conclusion, from recent studies, is that antisemitism, a malignant form of racism, still infects ...

  • April 27, 2022

    Banning Russia, Banning Russians

    Should Russian culture be banned or canceled to punish Russia and Vladimir Putin for their aggression against Ukraine? Dramatically, in March 2022, the Metropolitan Opera in New York decided to cut ties with all artists who were regarded as "...

  • April 23, 2022

    Zelensky: More than Something of a Hero

    Where are the heroes of today? They were present in every region, time period, culture and creed. In the distant past, Achilles, Odysseus, Hercules.  More recently, Mahatma Gandhi, Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, advocate of non-v...

  • April 16, 2022

    Operation Mincemeat: The Greatest Deception

    Deception is the act of trying to persuade people to believe information that is not true, through lies or trickery. As entertainment, the magician and performer Harry Houdini illustrated tricks of the mind and sleights of hand that deceived witnesse...

  • April 11, 2022

    When the creator of great art is a scoundrel

    The intellect of man is forced to choose perfection of the life, or of the work. A persisting problem is the distinction to be made between the creator and what is created.  The fundamental issue, succinctly stated by Jacques Maritain, i...

  • April 3, 2022

    Cancel Culture at Princeton

    The Princeton University Library collections are among the most valuable in the world with their holdings of seven million printed works and five million manuscripts and diverse objects. Those holdings continually grow with additions of print, digita...

  • March 30, 2022

    Biden, the gaffe machine

    Whenever I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.  —Humpty Dumpty Everyone sometimes makes mistakes in speaking — slips of the tongue that may be inconsequential or may reveal thoughts ...

  • March 29, 2022

    Free Speech Above All

    The cancel culture war has got out of control on many levels and must be checked. At an academic level, Nigel Biggar, Anglican priest and professor of theology at Oxford University, was victimized for wanting to tell the whole story of British histor...

  • March 14, 2022

    The Myth about NATO Expansion

    Perhaps the most notable achievement of the war criminal Vladimir Putin is his gift for disinformation and deception, the creation of an alternative reality. His shameful mastery is illustrated by his justification not simply of his aggression agains...

  • March 11, 2022

    Zelensky's stand

    On March 8, 2022, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky delivered a historic virtual address to the members of the British House of Commons for which he received a lengthy standing ovation.  He compared Ukrainians fighting today to save th...

  • March 5, 2022

    Putin the War Criminal must be Punished

    The Russian invasion of Ukraine illustrates the dichotomy between countries that defend international principles, law and order, and right of a people to choose its own destiny, and those countries supporting or tolerating autocratic and non-democrat...

  • March 3, 2022

    The Jewish David Faces the Russian Goliath

    Goliath, the champion of the Philistines, came out of his tent in full armor and challenged the Israelites to send a champion of their own to fight him in single combat. David without armor accepted the challenge and hurled a stone which hit Goliath ...

  • February 28, 2022

    The Madness of Vladimir Putin

    Throughout history, political leaders have acted in strange fashion, with symptoms of neurosis, trauma, and anxiety. The list is long of those exhibiting some indication of insanity. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon 604-562 B.C., made no secret o...

  • February 24, 2022

    The Abraham Accords are Working

    On February 14, 2022, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett arrived in Bahrain, a small island country in the Persian Gulf with a population of 1.5 million, which has had a very small Jewish population for more than a century. It was the first trip ...

  • February 19, 2022

    Woke Marches on in Black and White

    Are you having any fun? Is cancel culture wiping out comedy because of fear of offending someone? A BBC poll just reported that virtually half the British population toned down or disguised their opinions to avoid causing off...

  • February 16, 2022

    Putin’s Hypocrisy on Ukraine

    The current crisis between Russia and the West is fueled by a fallacious claim by Russian President Vladimir Putin that at the end of the Cold War in 1989-1990, the West, specifically the U.S., deliberately misled the Soviet Union and broke prom...

  • February 12, 2022

    Emmanuel Macron and the Ukraine Crisis

    In May 1939, as Adolf Hitler was issuing ultimatums to Poland, an article in a Paris newspaper asked the question. ”Mourir pour Danzig?” Today, the bellicose language of Vladimir Putin and the Russian military activity close to Ukraine ev...

  • February 10, 2022

    China and Scientific Funding

    Chinese military-linked conglomerates and universities are sponsoring high-technology research centers at many universities in the UK. There have been more than 1,000 academic collaborations between British and Chinese academics, a number that h...

  • February 3, 2022

    Londongrad and Sanctions on Russia

    Vladimir Putin has been taunting the West with his enigmatic utterances of intentions towards Ukraine; he resembles a Shakespearean malevolent character, “I will wear my heart upon my sleeve, for daws to peck at. I am not what I am.”...

  • February 1, 2022

    Hollywood and Anti-Semitism

    One of the existing mysteries is why actors and celebrities, whose job is to misrepresent people and actions, are taken seriously when they pontificate on political, social, and economic events. The most recent example is the outburst of support...

  • January 30, 2022

    Shakespeare vs. Molière: Who's the Better Playwright?

    Vive la différence between British and French culture in two of the greatest playwrights in history.  Britain has a rich literary heritage, but Shakespeare, "the Bard," is widely recognized as the greatest writer in the Eng...

  • January 29, 2022

    Countering Putin

    Ukraine is a former Soviet Republic with social and cultural ties to Russia and eight million ethnic Russians. Spokespeople for Russia declare it has no plans to invade the country, but what then are the reasons for the massing of troops and wea...

  • January 26, 2022

    Can London's Iconic Blue Plaques Survive the Woke Apocalypse?

    Monuments and images are accepted as portraits of the past, but does the breaking of images, the toppling or destruction of statues and monuments, articulate the values of the present? Woke barbarians are at the gates, but fortunately, so are thei...

  • January 23, 2022

    What the Rabbi Can Teach the United Nations

    One of the newest political and intellectual exercises is the search for "root causes," the core issue that leads to a chain of events and effects that can then be examined and become the basis for action.  Noticeably, in place of...

  • January 21, 2022

    The Royal Family Prevails

    This is the year of the Platinum Jubilee, to celebrate the 70 years of Queen Elizabeth II on the throne and her renowned custodianship of the position. In the twilight of her reign, she has had to make difficult, agonizing decisions. The most poignan...

  • January 17, 2022

    Cancel Culture and the Zeitgeist

    Politics has been said to be more akin to chemistry than to physics, and political events are more explicable by focusing on the different reactions of units with each other, rather than trying to explain the entire universe and attempting to fo...

  • January 15, 2022

    Guilty Men and Evil Men

    What makes a man evil? In life, as in fiction, individuals may be motivated to act in evil fashion by malice, by ideological hatred of victims, by wanting to impress superiors, by carrying out orders or instructions, by hunger to advance their car...

  • January 8, 2022

    Edmund O. Wilson and the Nature vs. Nurture Debate

    Are humans born good or evil?  Is Caliban in The Tempest a “born devil” because he is the misshapen son of a sorceress, and so brutal that education has no effect on him, or is he bad because of cruel circumstances?  ...

  • January 5, 2022

    Did Richard III kill the Two Princes?

    In a 2020 poll conducted by the BBC History magazine, the crown for the greatest historical mystery was given to the disappearance or murder of the princes in the Tower of London in 1483. The general belief was that the Duke of Gloucester, soon ...

  • December 30, 2021

    China Clamps Down on Hong Kong

    The assertion of Chinese aggressiveness and control over people in Hong Kong is increasingly disturbing now that it has imposed a new national security law on the area, giving authorities power to deal with acts of secession, subversion,...

  • December 24, 2021

    Scottish history gets canceled over vague ties to slavery

    A YouGov poll in 2021 indicated that only a third, 35%, of Britons say they think they know what cancel culture means, yet a majority, 57%, say that at least sometimes they feel unable to express their political or social views for fear of judgment o...

  • December 19, 2021

    Bizarre and Sane: North Korea and Israel

    History has encompassed different kinds of behavior from the terrifying to the ridiculous, from exciting and innovative to the bizarre. Perhaps the most weird episode was that of Roman emperor Caligula, 37-41, who thought of himself as a god, sometim...

  • December 11, 2021

    RIP, Stephen Sondheim: Composer, Loner, Pessimist

    A musical giant, a most controversial major figure, a leading musical theater composer in modern American music, and the man who is said to have reinvented the American musical died on November 26, 2021, aged 91.  With his fifteen musicals ...

  • December 6, 2021

    A Fresh Look at the Nuremburg Trials

    On December 1, 2021, a gang of thugs harassed a bus full of Jewish teenagers in Oxford Street, London's flagship shopping area in Central London.  This hate crime was caught on video, with the thugs abusing the youths, banging the bus, ...

  • December 5, 2021

    The best monarch and the airman who saw ghosts

    Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the greatest British monarch of them all?  Could it be good Queen Bess, Elizabeth I, or Henry VIII, or Queen Victoria, or Elizabeth II?  In a podcast poll in November 2021 conducted on Twitter, 8...

  • December 1, 2021

    Honoring the Honorable and Exposing the Truth in Europe

    On Oct. 14, 2021, a woman was acquitted of committing terrorist acts, 10-1 by a jury, in the British Supreme Court. The accused was the first century Celtic queen, Boudica, who was tried under the Terrorism Act of 2000 in a mock trial called ...

  • November 27, 2021

    Macron Goes Fishing

    French President Emmanuel Macron is embroiled in a dispute with Britain over French fishing boats and permits.  The dispute is related to the Brexit arrangement between the UK and the EU by which EU nations need permits to fish in UK waters....

  • November 24, 2021

    Tackling the Disease of Anti-Semitism

    It is commendable that the European Commission in October 2021 announced it was presenting the first-ever strategy on combatting anti-Semitism and fostering Jewish life. It proposes measures articulated around three factors: preventing all forms of a...

  • November 21, 2021

    A Slew of Political and Legal Mysteries to Solve

    Some mysteries are solved, but many remain unsolved.  A reminder of the latter appears in a new Swedish TV documentary about the assassination of the Social-Democratic Swedish prime minister Olaf Palme on the evening of February 28, 1986, o...

  • November 17, 2021

    A New Museum Dedicated to the Dreyfus Affair

    Alfred Dreyfus, the central figure in a political and legal affair that divided France, died in 1935, but he has re-emerged as an object of polemical discussion as the result of ludicrous fulminations of French history by Eric Zemmour, ultra-national...

  • November 13, 2021

    Wokery In Art and Science

    Since the BLM protests began, actions to increase information about slavery and colonialism have become ordained facets of social, political, and cultural organizations. No person doubts that slavery was evil or that our ancestors were responsible fo...

  • November 8, 2021

    Pro-Transgender Censorship Is Tearing Universities Apart

    While it is true that there are similar views on issues within particular gender groups, nevertheless, gender groups, like race or ethnic groups, are not monolithic.  Some women, almost always associa...

  • November 2, 2021

    Commemorating the Balfour Declaration

    Before World War I, the area of Palestine was a region of the Ottoman Empire with a small Jewish population. After the start of World War I, the British government began considering changes in the Ottoman Empire, the sick man of Europe, which had ent...

  • October 30, 2021

    Petain, Vichy, and Anti-Semitism

    As time goes by, there is a consensus that Casablanca, the story of the cynical hard-drinking American expatriate nightclub owner choosing between his love for a woman or helping her and her husband, is one of the greatest films of all time. Its char...

  • October 28, 2021

    Navigating the Culture Wars: The Anti-Woke Rebellion

    It is dispiriting that the virus of negative depictions of past history, peoples, and cultures continues, often in incomprehensible fashion, in this era of identity politics. Too many political and cultural institutions are stampeding to gratify any ...

  • October 24, 2021

    Two Exemplars for Comity between Blacks and Jews

    Two titans, black celebrities who achieved success and fame at the pinnacle of their vastly different professions, in public service and musical entertainment, and who were totally different personalities, are saluted for their contributions to Ameri...

  • October 14, 2021

    Cancel Culture Bedevils Britain, Too

    Cancel culture is not solely an American phenomenon, as the United Kingdom’s leftists are rampaging like their Yankee cousins. The exclusionist behavior is illustrated by Worcester College, Oxford, which in 2021 apologized to students for ...

  • October 1, 2021

    Is Modern Society Finally Getting Sick of Talking about Colonialism?

    In comments made in 2018 and leaked in September 2021, Kemi Badenoch, now British minister for equalities, remarked, "I don't care about colonialism because I know what we were doing before colonialism got there.  They came in and ...

  • September 29, 2021

    Should the US Have Spared Nazis for Their Political Usefulness?

    Should Nazi officials and collaborators have escaped punishment for their crimes?  Should they have found a safe haven in the U.S. and U.K. because of their supposed value to Western security agencies in confronting the Soviet Union in the ...

  • September 26, 2021

    The Exodus of Jews from the Muslim World

    Overlooked the news of the chaos in Kabul is the story of the exit from Afghanistan on September 7, 2021, of 62-year-old Zabulon Simintov, the last Jew in the country. Not a heroic figure, he is a difficult man who has debts, received food, including...

  • September 21, 2021

    French Diplomatic Anger at the U.S. and its Friends

    Liz Truss has only been British foreign minister for a week, but she is already a player on the international world stage, with appearances scheduled at the UN in New York, at the Global Investment Summit, at the UN climate change conference in...

  • September 19, 2021

    The Spirit of Dunkirk in Britain, Not So Much in Washington

    On May 10, 1940, German Nazi forces invaded the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium, all of which were occupied by the end of the month.  Then the Germans on May 14 burst through the Ardennes, moving quickly west and north toward the Engli...

  • September 15, 2021

    Forgiveness and Apology in the Age of Grievance

    If I caused you pain, I know that I’m to blame.  I must have been insane.  From the bottom of my heart I apologize.  Please let me make amends. In the course of the religious services on Yom Kippur (this year on Septe...

  • September 12, 2021

    Tough Guys in Film and Life

    Tough guys in films are strong, determined, heroic, charming, coolly confident in the face of danger, even when they are dealing with difficult or violent situations.  Their victories are inevitable.  In Hollywood, a number of act...

  • September 11, 2021

    20 years after 9/11, what Islam and terrorism look like

    The 20th anniversary of 9/11, September 11, 2011, coincides in the same week with two other manifestations of Islamist terrorism: the capture of power by the Taliban in Afghanistan, the group whose objective is to create an Islamic State, a...

  • September 1, 2021

    Too White: Plaster Is Racist Now, Too

    Cambridge University's Archaeological Museum is planning to explain the whiteness of its sculpture plaster casts as part of its anti-racist strategy.  The plaster casts in the museum and lecture rooms are said to give a misleading ...

  • August 29, 2021

    What Afghanistan Reveals about Joe Biden, Israel, and Iran

    The powerful bomb blast attack by an ISIS affiliate, ISIS-K (Khorasan), a deadly terror group of jihadists from Syria and other areas, on American forces and Afghan civilians in Kabul on August 26, 2021, killed 13 U.S. troops and more than 90 Afghans...

  • August 26, 2021

    An End to the Special Relationship?

    A major consequence of the turmoil in Afghanistan today caused by the refusal of President Joe Biden to alter his unilateral timetable to exit Kabul, is that it increased the damage inflicted on allies and friends, and has led to the possible demise ...

  • August 15, 2021

    The Menace of Hezb'allah

    In a speech during Sunday Mass on August 8, 2021, the Maronite patriarch of Lebanon, Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi, called on the Lebanese army to prevent the launching of missiles against Israel from Lebanese territory and said U.N. Security Council Resol...

  • August 14, 2021

    Can France and Britain Kiss and Make Up?

    The times, they are a-changing in France.  As a result of COVID-19, a tradition that goes back to Roman times and became prominent after the French Revolution is coming to an end.  La bise, the traditional way of greeting, a ...

  • August 12, 2021

    Loneliness and COVID-19

    The pandemic COVID-19 has affected our lives in many different ways. Social distancing, lockdowns, and physical isolation have highlighted the human need for intimate connection and good friends and the desire to be part of a shared community. L...

  • August 5, 2021

    Noel Coward, Not So Famous Spy

    Espionage has been called the world's second-oldest profession.  Its practitioners are familiar in the book of Joshua, Sun Tzu's Art of War, the Roman spies who used carrier pigeons, and notorious figures throughout history ...

  • August 1, 2021

    Noel Coward: An Entertainer for All Seasons

    Born on December 16, 1899, in the south-west London suburb of Teddington to a family of lower middle class, genteel poverty, son of an unsuccessful piano salesman but with an ambitious mother, Noel Coward had little formal education and trained as a ...

  • July 28, 2021

    Protecting World Heritage Sites

    Since its creation in London on November 16, 1945, UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, founded to strengthen the foundation of international peace and sustainable development, has been concerned with masterp...

  • July 24, 2021

    Now Prince Harry Is Writing a Book

    In one of his most famous sentences, written in his 1852 essay, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Karl Marx wrote that "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historical facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice....

  • July 21, 2021

    Woke is for the Birds

    Birds have eponymous names that celebrate the explorers, bird watchers, or colonialists who discovered them, some of whom have been connected with slaveowners or white supremacists.  Calls have begun for the removal of bird names that celebrate ...

  • July 17, 2021

    Anti-Semitism in England

    England has a sad history of persecution of Jews. It was the first Catholic country to make Jews wear distinctive badges, discriminatory taxation, and expulsion.  The Church of England, at a meeting on July 12, 2021, of its General Synod of the ...

  • July 15, 2021

    The U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan

    Afghanistan, whose history can be traced back to around 500 BC and which has been ruled by various kingdoms and empires, has for long been a strategically important location, a gateway to India and close to the Silk Road that carried trade from the M...

  • July 11, 2021

    Russia and the Black Sea

    The world is a dangerous place, and one of the most hazardous, and potentially destabilizing, spots is Russia’s border with Ukraine and the Black Sea into which Russia has introduced considerable military forces, including three nuclear submari...

  • July 5, 2021

    Wokeness Goes Global

    The cancel culture war continues in Western countries in politics, in academia, and in commerce.  In England, Oxfam, the nonprofit confederation of a number of charitable organizations, founded in 1942, focusing on aid to overcome global po...

  • July 3, 2021

    When the High and Mighty Apologize

    Most people, including political figures and public and cultural institutions, let bygones be bygones, and do not have the words “I’m sorry” or “I apologize” in their vocabulary. More familiar is the maxim, variously att...

  • June 27, 2021

    One Single Apology for Cancel Culture

    An important apology in the cancel culture war was issued on June 23, 2021. The Royal Academy of Arts apologized to the artist Jess de Wahls for removing her work from its gift shop because, in 2019 in a blog, she said humans cannot change sex. ...

  • June 20, 2021

    Beware, Wokery is Increasing

    The list is growing of historical figures or public personalities whose views are considered by the woke brigade as unacceptable, backward, or bigoted.  It raises not only the changing assessments of these figures, but also whether one can enjoy...

  • June 16, 2021

    Biden, Boris, Brexit, and the mess with Northern Ireland

    Before the formal meeting of the Group of Seven, President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson met in Carbis Bay, Cornwall to discuss and strengthen traditional and historic links between the two countries.  On June 10, 2021, they ag...

  • June 15, 2021

    Hypocrisy of the Woke Dons

    If a thing goes without saying it goes even better when being said. First, it should be said that the main, indeed usually the only real, target of the woke brigade is the democratic western world, primarily the U.S., the UK, and Israe...

  • June 12, 2021

    Wokism Hits Oxford

    The cult of woke is spreading like a contagious virus, misconstruing past and present at Oxford University and elsewhere. The members of the Middle Common Room  at Magdalen College, Oxford, passed a motion to take down an “unwelcoming...

  • June 10, 2021

    Second Thoughts on Racism

    The story sounds as if it were apocryphal, but it is authentic. In 1986 Nelson Mandela was visited in the Pollsmoor prison by the former Australian prime minister, Malcolm Fraser. Mandela’s first question to his visitor was, “Tell me, is ...

  • June 5, 2021

    Homage and Shame: Josephine Baker and Walter Duranty

    Two individuals can be regarded as contrasting illustrations of the good and the bad of human beings.  At the top is the exotic Black Venus, Josephine Baker, the American-born French entertainer who won the hearts of Paris and then became a Fren...

  • June 4, 2021

    Rutgers University, be Clear about Anti-Semitism

    Whatever the situation in the Middle East, there is no excuse for the importing of prejudice against Jews to the streets in Britain and the U.S. In both countries, there is anxiety about the increase in antisemitic incidents and expressions in recent...

  • May 31, 2021

    Bias in the World Health Organization

    The role of the World Health Organization (WHO), whose stated objective is the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health, has been challenged, especially by the U.S. The WHO has played an important role in public health issues...

  • May 30, 2021

    Seeking Sense on Culture

    In every generation, objects of the past tend to be devalued by those ardent on enforcing their own judgment of the past and canceling part of it.  Today, monuments and individuals are being displaced on the contention they are incompatible...

  • May 27, 2021

    Deciphering a Duo of Detectives

    In leisure moments mystery stories are captivating.  Readers and viewers are eager to watch the solver of the whodunit, able to overcome red herrings, false suspects, locked rooms, misdirection, genre stereotypes, and false alibis. Since...

  • May 25, 2021

    Hamas and the Rebirth of Anti-Semitism

    In the British House of Commons on May 23, 1939, Winston Churchill explained the pledge of the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It was made to the Jewish people who through centuries of dispersion and persecution patiently awaited the hour of restoration...

  • May 22, 2021

    The Uncertain Ceasefire in the Middle East

    The scorpion wants to cross the river Jordan but cannot swim, so asks a frog to carry it across. The frog hesitates, afraid the scorpion might sting, but the scorpion says if it did that, they would both drown. The frog accepts this, lets the scorpio...

  • May 21, 2021

    The Prevalence of Antisemitism

    Antisemitism is the canary in the coal mine of hatred.  Throughout the years and in a unique manner, Jews have experienced prejudice, discrimination, critical stereotypes, exclusion, accusations of conspiracy theories, and extermination....

  • May 19, 2021

    Whose Fault in the Middle East?

    Albert Einstein once wrote that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  Once again, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been acting in a reckless, excessive fashion, firing at least...

  • May 10, 2021

    Fishing in Troubled Waters

    A dispute between Britain and France involving warships catches the eye. Screengrab CNN Screengrab NYT On May 5, 2021, French President Emmanuel Macron laid a wreath and spoke at the tomb of Napoleon at the ceremony commemorating the...

  • April 29, 2021

    Sense Against Cancel Culture

    The campaign for sanity and fair representation of views of different sides in opinion and news continues against cancel culture in the U.S. and UK. The UK had been the setting for a number of recent cases where individual public figures, including t...

  • April 26, 2021

    The revival of English identity

    Smile at us, pay us, pass us, but do not forget for we are the public of England that never have spoken yet. —G.K. Chesterton What does it mean to be English in a multi-ethnic society?  The distinction between "English...

  • April 24, 2021

    The UN 'Experts' are Wrong on Race

    Cancel culture is at again and can’t take yes for an answer. This is evident in the reaction to an official report, issued as a  response to the BLM movement, by the British Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (BCRED), a body of...

  • April 21, 2021

    The British Royal Family Appraised

    The funeral of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, at Windsor Castle on April 17, 2021, an emotional if muted affair, arouses mixed emotions. It was a sad personal family farewell but also an event of public significance, political and military, and a ...

  • April 18, 2021

    How Wokery Dominates Society

    We live in a continually changing world, with new concepts and ways of developing practical arguments and evaluating moral truths on race, sex, and sexual issues.  Today, those ways are seen through the prism of racial justice, emphasized i...

  • April 16, 2021

    Royal Feud in Jordan

    The Middle East, as the historian Fouad Ajami once wrote, is a chronicle of illusions, despair, and politics repeatedly degenerating into bloodletting. Certainly the area has exhibited political instability, regional fragmentation, violence and klept...

  • April 9, 2021

    Cancel Culture, A Global Plague of Democracies

    A specter is haunting the Western democratic world, the specter of cancel culture accompanied by the phantom of wokeness.  In the United States, decisions in April 2021 illustrate the impact of that specter. The Major League Baseball Commissi...

  • April 1, 2021

    Homage to Alexei Navalny, Courageous Russian

    In March 2021, archaeologists in the Czech Republic uncovered a part of chilling history: the instillation of a forced labor camp that had been built in Prague during the communist regime, which ended with the Velvet Revolution of 1989.  Th...

  • March 25, 2021

    Time for Biden to Get Serious about Syria

    The tenth anniversary of the conflict in Syria that began on March 5, 2011 was greeted with deafening silence in Washington, D.C.  Though the Biden administration would favor a political settlement of the conflict and is conscious of humani...

  • March 15, 2021

    Israel is not an Apartheid State

    “Israel is an apartheid state, Israel is a racist state” will again be trumpeted to the world on March 14-21, 2021, this year’s Israel Apartheid Week (IAW).   This IAW, a familiar event since 2004, has been organized by Pale...

  • March 13, 2021

    Fake News and the Sussexes

    In the final scene of the Hollywood neonoir Chinatown, released in 1974, a character says to the disappointed private detective, “Forget it Jake, its Chinatown.” This enigmatic line is perhaps a comment on the manipulation of a vital...

  • March 6, 2021

    A Royal Conflict: Buckingham Palace vs. Hollywood

    It is an ironic twist of history that two American women should have been the cause of political crises in Britain and led to concern that they might affect the powers and even the very existence of the monarchy. In the 1930s, the Prince of Wales, to...

  • March 5, 2021

    Sarkozy Is Not the First Political Scandal in France

    Political scandals are not unknown in France and are well documented, but the list of well known politicians, including former presidents and prime ministers, accused in recent years of financial misdeeds or corruption is growing. In the present F...

  • February 26, 2021

    Russia and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy

    The latest view of the assassination of President Kennedy is presented in a new book, Operation Dragon: Inside the Kremlin's Secret War on America, written by R. James Woolsey, former CIA director, 1993–95, and Ion Mihai Pacepa, former...

  • February 23, 2021

    How Does the West Factor in Africa's Problems?

    The unsuccessful candidate for the presidency has called on the Supreme Court to nullify the election result.  He charged that the election was rigged.  He was prevented from campaigning; he and his supporters were attacked; soldi...

  • February 19, 2021

    Overcoming Cancel Culture

    In a letter of December 21, 1817 John Keats wrote of “negative capability,” that is when a person is “capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” In his terse re...

  • February 7, 2021

    Digging Up Old Bodies: Richard III and Jimmy Hoffa

    Now, in the winter of our COVID-19 pandemic, there are two mysteries to be solved, though less diverting than a previous puzzle.  In November 1980, more than 80 million people tuned in to watch the CBS Network program, the pop culture soap ...

  • February 3, 2021

    Tales of the Jet Set Elite

    In this period of COVID-19, one in which new fast-spreading strains of the coronavirus are developing and vaccination has reached only a small part of the world’s population, travel, especially international travel, has been limited or must be ...

  • January 31, 2021

    Bridgerton and racism

    It is a truth universally acknowledged that general interest in the landed gentry and the aristocratic prosperous property owners of the Regency period, 1790-1820, in Britain has been stimulated by the six major novels written by Jane Austen. These n...

  • January 24, 2021

    Cancel Culture Intensifies

    It may be too strong to say that a specter of uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions is haunting the Western democracies, but two interrelated issues are cause for concern.  One is the apprehension that the West is erasing too r...

  • January 18, 2021

    How Media Bias Hurts the Country

    Beware, lest we walk into a well from looking at the stars. In politics, John Stuart Mill told us, it is almost commonplace that a party of order and stability and party of progress or reform are both necessary elements of a healthy state of polit...

  • January 4, 2021

    The Puzzle of Identity

    In an interview on December 29, 2020 the lady, the 36-year-old wife of actor Alec Baldwin, who calls herself Hilaria Baldwin, found it strange that comments were mounting that she, a self-styled famous person with thousands of followers, was not what...

  • January 2, 2021

    The Godfather: Fiction and Reality

    In December 2020 the film The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone, was released to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the original version, The Godfather, Part III. Produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola from the screen...

  • January 1, 2021

    The New United Kingdom

    In 43 A.D. the Roman army under General Plautius returned to an island to crush the Celtic people of Britannia, a land ruled by warrior women and druids.  They extended the boundaries of the political unit, built roads of clay, chalk, gravel, an...

  • December 30, 2020

    Finding the Russian Moles

    Espionage is an old story. Long ago Moses dispatched twelve spies to explore the land of Canaan as a future home for the Israelite people. They reported they had found a land flowing with milk and honey. On December 8, 2020 it was disclosed that indi...

  • December 21, 2020

    Is China Committing Genocide against the Uighur People?

    On the first day of Hanukah, December 11, 2020, groups of Jews in a number of countries in a gesture of solidarity celebrated the festival with Uighur Muslims.  Prominent Jews had already expressed concern about China's treatment of the...

  • December 17, 2020

    Why We Love to Read about Spies and Mysteries

    In a couple of well known articles in 1944–1945, the eminent literary critic Edmund Wilson wrote unkindly of mystery novels, saying there was no need to "bore ourselves with this rubbish, the kind of silliness, and minor harmfulness that r...

  • December 13, 2020

    Free Speech vs. Discrimination: Which Should Win?

    A controversy is bubbling in British universities: that laws and rules concerning free speech and anti-discrimination may conflict with or limit free thinking, intellectual debate, and political activism.  Take the issue of some restriction...

  • December 9, 2020

    Fake News in Hollywood

    In the illustrious novel, In Search of Last Time by Marcel Proust the tasting of a madeleine dipped in tea evokes a journey of memories. The resulting sensory stimuli recall events or objects that elicit a response. Nowhere is this behavior...

  • December 5, 2020

    The Queen’s Gambit: Fairy Tale and Sport

    Netflix has produced a seven-episode TV series The Queen’s Gambit, a serious treatment of the game of chess that has become extraordinarily and unexpectedly successful. Released in October 2020, estimates are that over 70 million people watched...

  • November 28, 2020

    British Royalty and Why You Shouldn't Trust TV

    At a moment when Britain is disquieted by scandal about Prince Andrew, disgraced for his friendship with the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein; the ongoing drama of Megxit, the withdrawal of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle from royal duties; and the rift betw...

  • November 26, 2020

    Thanksgiving and the Mayflower

    Thanksgiving Day parades have largely been canceled in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but balloons and floats are symbolically celebrating the harvest and other blessings of the past year. American Thanksgiving is modeled on a three-day ha...

  • November 25, 2020

    The Influential Billie Holiday

    Philadelphia is the birthplace of U.S. democracy, the site of the first two Continental Congresses, the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, the temporary capital of the new country, and the home of the barely palatab...

  • November 4, 2020

    The Young and Democracy

    Youth satisfaction with liberal democratic ideals is declining over time and by generation. Perhaps, dissatisfaction reflects apathy about the actual functioning of democratic institutions in practice.  If it is simply the latter, the explanatio...

  • October 28, 2020

    The dramatic decline of the Jewish population worldwide

    Jews have long been an integral part of European history and culture.  Though calculations may differ because of alternative definitions of Jewishness, whether based on religion, ethnicity, parentage, or culture, the world's Jewish popu...

  • October 25, 2020

    France will not be Decapitated

    It is not often that a 47-year-old high school teacher is stabbed and beheaded in broad daylight in a street in the suburbs of Paris. Samuel Paty, a history and geography teacher at the school in Conflans-Sainte Honorine, suffered this fate. He had g...

  • October 20, 2020

    Fishing in Troubled Waters

    Fish is not the sole contentious issue in the bellicose Brexit trade talks between the UK and the European Union, but it is not a red herring. The issue preventing agreement is a mixed grill of disputes over factors such as fishing rights, control of...

  • October 16, 2020

    The Statue-Toppling Craze Plagues the West

    We know that Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492.  This voyager from Genoa, Italy was bound for Asia.  He never did touch the land of North America, but landed in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492.  Columbus...

  • October 11, 2020

    France Cracks Down on Everyone to Avoid Singling Out Islamic Terrorism

    On September 2, 2020 a trial, postponed because of COVID-19, openedin Paris concerning those alleged to have been involved in the deadly attack in 2015 on Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical weekly magazine.  Besides recounting the gruesome...

  • October 4, 2020

    Holocaust Knowledge Keeps Dwindling

    Two new studies have appeared indicating the lack of justice for Jews and even the lack of knowledge of the hideous truth about the Holocaust.  One is a comprehensive national survey in the U.S. of Holocaust awareness and knowledge among U....

  • October 1, 2020

    It’s good to be the King, but I’d rather be President

    In May 1782, General George Washington, still commander in chief of the Continental Army, encamped in Newburgh, New York, received a letter from Lewis Nicola, an Irish-born colonel in the Army. Nicola confessed he was not a “violent admire...

  • September 25, 2020

    New Book Sheds Light on the Mysterious Joseph Stalin

    In a broadcast on October 1, 1939, Winston Churchill spoke of Russia as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma."  The same comment has been made about the individual who began life as Ioseb Jughashvili and evolved as So...

  • September 16, 2020

    Normalization between Israel and Arabs

    After a history of so many failed efforts to reach peace in the Middle East it is welcoming and gratifying that history is being made with arrangements that may be laying the foundation for peace, security, and prosperity in the region. These ar...

  • September 13, 2020

    Massacres in September

    Many songs have welcomed the month of September, the beginning of fall.  But unfortunately, it has also been the season for massive terrorist attacks on innocent people. Some anniversaries of these attacks in France, Turkey, and the United State...

  • September 12, 2020

    Japan, Friend of the United States

    Is Japan a great power or a middle power? It is not a member of the UN Security Council and is ultimately dependent on U.S. protection, yet it is a major regional power that helped contain communist regimes during the Cold War. It has the third ...

  • September 7, 2020

    Will France Finally Rain Justice Down on Islamic Terrorists?

    A court case in Paris began on September 2, 2020 to render justice concerning a series of terrorist attacks in recent French history.  The case is occurring after five years of investigation and delay, partly due to COVID-19, which caused t...

  • August 29, 2020

    Russia: The Modern-Day Borgias

    Poison is no laughing matter. Shakespeare knew as much: Claudius poured poison into the ears of Hamlet’s father who was sleeping and tried to kill Hamlet with a cup of poisoned wine.  Romeo poisons himself beside what he wrongly think...

  • August 23, 2020

    Scotland and Independence

    The argument for Scottish independence has historic overtones.  On April 6, 1320, the Declaration of Arbroath was proclaimed.  Written in Latin, it was really not a declaration, but a private letter, perhaps the most famous letter...

  • August 22, 2020

    Shalom, Germany

    How many historic moments can occur in one week to one country? Dayenu, it would have been sufficient if only one had occurred. But improbably, lightning struck twice and two have happened to the State of Israel in mid-August 2020. During the honeymo...

  • August 17, 2020

    A Historic Agreement Peace in the Middle East

    News from the Middle East is usually cast in gloom and doom. What a delight that a positive image has emerged with the information that, with the help of the United States, a peace deal to normalize relations has been agreed between Israel and the Un...

  • August 14, 2020

    Belarus in turmoil over a disputed presidential election

    When elections for national leadership lose their legitimacy, chaos can be unleashed.  In Belarus, the presidential election of August 1, 2020 has been challenged as a travesty, generally regarded as fraudulent, with the official result a l...

  • August 10, 2020

    Jews Transcending Adversity

    “See you tomorrow, promise to be a good boy,” were the last words addressed in 1942 to a six-year-old by his mother when she dropped him off at his kindergarten in Amsterdam. She was arrested a few hours later by the SS, deported together...

  • August 8, 2020

    Adolf Hitler and Norway

    A number of books and films have told and made familiar the story of the invasion on April 9, 1940 and occupation of the country of Norway until May 8, 1945 by Nazi Germany during World War II. Germany quickly gained control of major coastal towns, b...

  • August 1, 2020

    Native Americans and the Law

    A statue of a Native American woman by a Chiricahua sculptor, Allan Houser, stands outside the Oklahoma State Capitol; another bronze statue of an Indian warrior is on the dome.  No doubt they were inwardly smiling with the announcement on ...

  • July 23, 2020

    Criminals in Occupied Paris

    The hours of the Vichy regime forever sully French history and insult the French past and traditions. President Jacque Chirac on July 17, 1995 confessed that the criminal folly of the Nazi occupiers was seconded by the French state. In his new b...

  • July 20, 2020

    Russia, Espionage, and the Coronavirus

    On July 17, 2020, authorities in the Kremlin issued a statement, “We have no information on who could have hacked pharmaceutical companies and research companies in Britain. Russia has nothing at all to do with those attempts.” Other auth...

  • July 19, 2020

    Turkey becoming Islamist

    On July 10, 2020 Turkish President Recep Tayyip ErdoДџan announced that Hagia Sophia, H.S., would be reopened for Muslim worship, and control over it was transferred from the ministry of culture to the directorate of religious affairs.  How...

  • July 4, 2020

    Black Lives Matter and the Art World

    The killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter campaign have had a dramatic impact on political and economic activity in the U.S. and elsewhere and led to considerations of the social, economic, and psychological legacies of slavery and racis...

  • June 24, 2020

    A Tale of Two Ditties

    The story of the United States, and of Britain to a lesser degree, has been told through popular music. The experience of the two countries, the issues they faced, and the nature of public responses are depicted directly or by allusion in songs, some...

  • June 22, 2020

    Race and Statues in France

    In his speech in Nice on June 14, 2020, French President Emmanuel Macron declared “I will be very clear tonight. The Republic won’t erase any name from its history. It will forget none of its art works, it won’t take down statu...

  • June 18, 2020

    Plaques on the Wall in London

    The great philosopher Casey Stengel once asked the question, can't anybody here play this game?  The game of politics and historical judgment is more difficult to play than baseball, with no single goal, no sense of final victory or mea...

  • June 15, 2020

    Topplers of Statues at Work

    Topplers of the world disunite.  You have nothing to lose but your brains. Britain is now following the experience of the U.S. in removing or calling for removal of statues or monuments of individuals associated with slavery, or racial discri...

  • June 13, 2020

    Lend-Lease: How the US Kept the Soviets Afloat in World War II

    In view of present-day antagonism and misunderstandings between the U.S. and Russia, it is refreshing to recall the days when a somewhat more cordial relationship existed and help was given to the Soviet Union by the U.S. and Britain.  Two ...

  • June 2, 2020

    2020 and the Spirit of Dunkirk

    These are the times that try the souls of Americans. Those that stand by the country deserve the love and thanks of their fellow citizens. Difficulties are not easily conquered. The scene is depressing with two factors: the continuation, if some miti...

  • May 30, 2020

    The United States and the World Trade Organization

    The most urgent problem today is the international fight against the pandemic, Covid-19 and the search for a vaccine to overcome the deadly virus, and for funds to develop its manufacture.  The issue has become controversial because of the delay...

  • May 23, 2020

    Misinformation, Disinformation, and Lies

    It is obvious that people cannot make a serious judgment about anything if the information available provides only half of the truth and not the rest, or if the media present stories in a way that makes it difficult to tell the truth, or if the media...

  • May 19, 2020

    Lawrence of Arabia and Jews

    Eighty-five years ago on May 19, 1935, Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence died as a result of a motorcycle accident in Dorset. So did Lawrence of Arabia, John Hume Ross, and T.E. Shaw, different names he adopted at various points in his short career. Bor...

  • May 14, 2020

    Winston Churchill's Affair

    At this moment of having commemorated the 75th anniversary of the official end of World War II in Europe on May 8, 1945, and when countries are engaging in the fight against the pandemic COVID-19, the world remembers the struggle against the ear...

  • May 10, 2020

    The Mystery of the Death of Natalie Wood

    An old mystery has resurfaced by the presentation on May 4, 2020 of the life and death of the actress Natalie Wood in a documentary produced by her daughter. Some of the facts of Wood's end are known and undisputed.  On the night of ...

  • May 4, 2020

    O.J. Simpson, Marilyn Monroe, and Reasonable Doubt

    Anyone watching a Hollywood film involving a criminal act will be familiar with the judge’s admonition to the jury that to find the accused person guilty they must use a standard of proof that is “beyond all reasonable doubt.” This ...

  • May 2, 2020

    Mystery in North Korea

    Since September 1987, millions of children, old as well as young, have amused themselves by searching in a series of puzzle books titled Where's Waldo (Wally in England and Charlie in France) to find a young man, wearing a red and white...

  • April 25, 2020

    The Disappearance of Agatha Christie

    In his famous article of January 20, 1945, the distinguished literary critic Edmund Wilson posed the challenging question, “Who cares who killed Roger Ackroyd?”  He was referring to the mystery novel of the same name by Agatha Christ...

  • April 24, 2020

    The Trouble with Harry

    During this time of COVID-19 the real British monarchy is quiet and isolated. Queen Elizabeth II is in lockdown in Windsor Castle with the Duke of Edinburgh and a reduced household. Prince Charles, 71 years old, who had tested positive for the virus...

  • April 19, 2020

    How the World is Beating COVID-19

    While the nations of the world are coping with the pandemic COVID-19, the widespread debate about the origin and reasons for the spread of the virus continue. Unfortunately, the predictions, motivations, fears, and preoccupations of individuals, and ...

  • April 12, 2020

    Singing through the Pandemic

    If music be the food of life, play on.  Say it with music.  I'll know that moment divine. On April 5, 2020, the 93-year-old Queen Elizabeth II delivered the fourth TV address of her 68 years on the throne, outside her annua...

  • April 5, 2020

    The COVID-19 Pandemic and Passover

    It symbolic that the upsurge in the coronavirus epidemic COVID-19 has coincided with the Jewish festival of Passover that commemorates the liberation of Jews more than 3,000 years ago from an enemy determined to liquidate them.  Individuals...

  • March 28, 2020

    Russia and the Pandemic

    It is more fitting to seek the truth of the matter than to have imaginary conceptions. In the midst of the deepening coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, which so far has caused more than 24,000 deaths, the truth about Russia policies and the intentions...

  • March 20, 2020

    Countering the Coronavirus

    Look how she washes her hands for a quarter of an hour. Will all the great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from her hand? Will her hand make the multitudinous seas incarnadine? Lady Macbeth was right, wash your hands. A little water, a ri...

  • March 13, 2020

    Fighting the Plague, Then and Now

    On March 10, 2020, the director-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, declared that the coronavirus, COVID-19 was now a "pandemic," a term used only a few times to apply to diseases, as in 1918 and 2009, and ...

  • March 6, 2020

    Electoral Politics in Israel

    The State of Israel on March 2, 2020 had its third parliamentary election for the Knesset in under a year.  Like the two previous occasions, it failed to end with a party or party group gaining an overall majority and thus able to form a go...

  • March 1, 2020

    Containing the Virus of Anti-Semitism

    They intended evil against you. Therefore, you should make them turn their back. On February 26, 2020 Pope Francis spoke of the too many offensive and harmful words, too much verbal violence, amplified by the Internet. Words indeed range from the ...

  • February 28, 2020

    Fake News and the 2020 Election

    It is more fitting to seek the truth of the matter rather than have imaginary conceptions. Political crises come when false words are spoken. At the raucous debate of Democratic presidential rivals in Charleston, South Carolina on February 25, 202...

  • February 22, 2020

    Free Speech and Religion in France

    The first law of thermodynamics is that energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be transferred from one form to another. A contemporary exemplification of this is the behavior of French President Emmanuel Macron, the ambitious politicia...

  • February 16, 2020

    Will Ireland Be United?

    Political earthquakes are rare, but the result of the parliamentary election in the Republic of Ireland on February 8, 2020 stunned the political establishment by the surprising performance of Sinn Féin (We Ourselves), the former political win...

  • February 9, 2020

    Britain and the Brexit Problem

    On January 31, 2020, the sun shone on British independence from the European Union.  That sunlight is essential to solve the complex and convoluted problems confronting the U.K.  The struggle, as Abraham Lincoln said, is not altog...

  • February 2, 2020

    Manuel Quezon: Little-known savior of Jews

    A new film debuted around the world last month, an account of events during World War II in Manila: Quezon’s Game directed by Matthew Rosen, a filmmaker who began in London and lives in the Philippines.  The film provides, us...

  • January 29, 2020

    Phyllis Chesler and Politically Incorrect Feminism

    Polarization and partisan acrimony are inherent in all organizations. In the famous Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison regarded factions as inevitable, and stated that people will continue to form alliances with others who are or feel s...

  • January 27, 2020

    Fighting the Evil of Antisemitism

    It’s a sin to tell a lie. Millions of people have lost their lives because lies were spoken. On January 23, 2020 a gathering of the World Holocaust Forum, which coincided with the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz was held...

  • January 24, 2020

    In Royal Family Drama, Harry and Meghan Look Worse and Worse

    As the drama of Harry and Meghan unfolds, it becomes ever clearer that Harry is a figure not of tragedy, but of self-interested hypocrisy.  The prince is not only dull, but the cause of dullness in others, more a figure of betrayal than of ...

  • January 12, 2020

    The British Royal Farce

    Where are the clowns?  Send in the clowns.  Don't bother — they're here. For some years, Britain has been struggling with the still unresolved issue of Brexit.  Now the country is disturbed and confused ...

  • January 6, 2020

    The love song of TS Eliot

    "I never at any time had sexual relations with [that woman] Emily Hale."  The words seem familiar, but they were uttered not by an accused U.S. president in January 1998, but by Thomas Stearns Eliot, poet, playwright, essayist, pu...

  • January 3, 2020

    Putin Rewrites History

    A resolution passed by the European Parliament in Strasbourg on September 19, 2019, titled "On the importance of preserving historical memory," has elicited a strong reaction.  The resolution expressed concern about the efforts of...

  • December 31, 2019

    Who Killed Dag Hammarskjold?

    Amid the turbid ebb and flow of history are inexplicable mysterious deaths, some of them still unresolved. The more intriguing of these deaths, occurring in a variety of countries and historical periods, are well known and become the subject of phant...

  • December 27, 2019

    The theater of politics

    All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.  They have their exits and their entrances.  Last scene of all is second childishness and mere oblivion. The political stage is akin to that of the theater ...

  • December 24, 2019

    Georges Picquart: Honest Hero in the Dreyfus Affair

    Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anyone else, these pages will show. Alfred Dreyfus never uttered these words, but they are appropriate for any real understanding of the Dreyfus Affair...

  • December 15, 2019

    Aung San Suu Kyi: Downfall of an Icon

    For the last several months it has been the misfortune of the U.S. Congress and mismanagement of its resources to spend countless hours to relate the legally undefined terms, “high crimes and misdemeanors” mentioned in the U.S. Constituti...

  • December 14, 2019

    Honoring Albert Camus

    Albert Camus was born in Mondavi (present name Drean), Algeria on 1913 in humble circumstances, and died as a world-famous celebrity on January 4, 1960 as the result of a car accident.  He was a writer, journalist, playwright, director, tra...

  • December 6, 2019

    The Evil of Antisemitism

    I spend my days in longing, wondering why it's me you're wronging.  I can't believe you have such a hatred.  The disease of antisemitism, a historic hatred, seems to have no end, as recent events in London, and in numero...

  • December 1, 2019

    NATO and the Trump Administration

    Alone together, beyond the crowd, above the world, to cling together, we're strong as we're together.  On December 3–4, 2019, the 70th anniversary of NATO, the collective military self-defense alliance of 29 countries, will...

  • November 28, 2019

    Snowflakes: An Educational Problem

    In January 2018 the Oxford English Dictionary added to its normal definition of what has traditionally been a flake of snow, a feathery ice crystal. Now the OED snowflake is an overly sensitive or easily offended person or persons who believe they ar...

  • November 24, 2019

    How Should the USA Treat Israeli Settlements?

    It was refreshing that an important policy statement has emerged from Washington, D.C., a city otherwise preoccupied with unending Congressional investigations. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on November 18, 2019 announced a significant change in U.S...

  • November 13, 2019

    The Wrath of Grapes: The EU and Israeli wine

    The European Court of Justice (ECJ) based in Luxembourg ruled on Tuesday, November 12 on a challenge to a French decision that certain Israeli wines must explicitly be labeled as products of occupied territories to enable consumers to make ...

  • November 11, 2019

    Corbyn and Labour: A Fish Rots from the Head

    Something is rotten in the state of the British Labour Party. Probably the most famous newspaper front page ever published is that of the French paper L’Aurore of January 13, 1898 with an open letter titled “J’Accuse,...

  • November 8, 2019

    Remembering the Genocide of the Roma

    The details of the Holocaust against Jews are well documented, but the Nazi treatment of the Roma is much less familiar. At the Nuremberg trials treatment of the Roma was not specifically prosecuted. Nor are there precise statistics about the number ...

  • November 2, 2019

    Anti-Semitism at Soccer Games

    A report published in June 2015 at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam on anti-Semitism in professional football (soccer) stated that this disease crosses national boundaries, though its historical origins and manifestations differs from one country to...

  • October 27, 2019

    The Nobel Prize goes to the Wrong Person

    A haunting, troubling social problem is whether we, as a society, should honor people who have achieved fame in some form of intellectual or artistic achievement but have committed an act or acts that are despicable. Can we distinguish between the cr...

  • October 22, 2019

    Where Will Francisco Franco Remain?

    The world today is full of dictators.  All are characterized by similar features: concentration of political power, no social liberty or personal freedoms, absence of the rule of law, manipulation of the media, personally cruel and frighten...

  • October 20, 2019

    Brexit and France

    The difficult is done at once; the impossible takes a little longer.  On October 17, 2019 after three years of discussion in Britain and in the European Union, turbulence and acrimonious confrontations since the referendum on June 23, 2016 ...

  • October 14, 2019

    Porgy and Bess: George Gershwin's Masterpiece

    They don't appear too often, musical geniuses, and when they do, they sometimes die too young.  Of these immortals, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at 35, and George Gershwin, originally named Jacob Gershowitz, born of Jewish Ukrainian and...

  • October 4, 2019

    The Netherlands and the Holocaust

    During WW II, the train systems of occupied countries were critical in carrying out the Nazi’s “Final Solution" regarding the Jews. The Dutch railroad system, Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS), deported 107,000 Jews during the Na...

  • September 30, 2019

    Jacques Chirac: Charming French conservative

    In 1942, 450 French police agents and gendarmes responded to the demands of the Nazi occupiers and arrested 13,000 Jews — men, women, and children — held them in terrible conditions at the Vel d'Hiv, the cycle track and sports st...

  • September 27, 2019

    UK Supreme Court's Smack-Down of Boris Johnson: Was It Legit?

    Here's that rainy day in U.K.  People laughed at the thought that political events in the country would turn out this way.  Besides the unusual deadly flooding, with a month's rain in London in one day, that hit the countr...

  • September 25, 2019

    Political Stalemate in Israel?

    Uncertainty was revealed once again in Israeli political life as the current results of 4.4 million votes in the Knesset election show. Assuming  possible major combinations, there are two: one roughly center-left led by Benny Gantz (Blue a...

  • September 22, 2019

    Winston Churchill: Patriotic Filmmaker

    It is a truth universally acknowledged except by left-wing members of the British Labour Party and unreformed Nazis that Winston Churchill was the most distinguished Briton of the 20th century. Born in Blenheim Palace, Churchill was a soldier, j...

  • September 19, 2019

    Does Israel Need a Kingmaker?

    On September 10, 2019, Leslie H. Wexner, founder and owner of Victoria’s Secret and Bath and Body works, commenting on his long-time friendship and relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, said “At some point in your life, we are all betrayed b...

  • September 12, 2019

    A Recession Is Not Inevitable

    Don't know why, there's no sun up in the sky, stormy weather, keeps raining all the time, amidst signs of gloom and misery everywhere.  Yet the music goes around and around, and the notes come out well.  In 2019, the note ...

  • September 5, 2019

    Poland and Judea: The Dilemma of Resistance

    On September 1, 2019, the 80thanniversary of the start of World War II, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at a ceremony at the town of Wielun asked Poland’s forgiveness for Nazi actions during the war. He bowed his head in mourning to th...

  • September 3, 2019

    Constitutional Problems in Britain

    In Britain political alignments and friendships are changing and a possible constitutional crisis exists as a result of two factors: the suspension of the UK Parliament for five weeks from the second week of September until October 14, 2019; and the ...

  • September 1, 2019

    Kenneth Bialkin: A Man for All Seasons

    Time and again I've longed for a true leader, someone to make my brain beat the faster. Some well known people possess contradictory elements in their character and outlook. A gifted writer like John Buchan, author of The 39 Steps was an imperial...

  • August 25, 2019

    Donald Trump vs. the New Charles de Gaulle

    The meetings of the largest advanced economies in the world indicate that love is now the stardust of yesterday, the music of the years gone by.  They rarely produce solutions for the complex problems they encounter, nor end with a comprehe...

  • August 14, 2019

    What Does Justice Look Like for Jeffrey Epstein's Victims?

    Pontius Pilate is not the only figure to have asked a crucial question: "What is truth?"  The United States legal authorities, faced with the same question today, may now provide an answer.  The issue arises as a result ...

  • August 10, 2019

    Kashmir: A Complex Problem

    For a long period, the sun never set on the British Empire, until after World War II when the UK experienced a relative decline from its prominence in the international arena and granted independence or ended its rule over territories it control...

  • August 4, 2019

    UNRWA: Hypocrisy Is the Homage Paid to Virtue

    Experience has shown that power changes purpose, often using hypocrisy as a mask.  Perhaps the most regaling if innocent demonstration is that of Prince Harry, the duke of Sussex, who most recently on July 31, 2019 gave a "barefoot...

  • July 31, 2019

    Is there hope for democracy in Tunisia?

    The stars are aglow in the heavens, but only wise men and Dizzy Gillespie know they guide you in a night in Tunisia.  The death on July 25, 2019 of Beji Caid Essebsi, president of Tunisia, has reminded observers of the political stars aglow...

  • July 26, 2019

    The Special Relationship Between the U.S. and the UK

    Just friends, lovers no more. Just friends, but not like before. Just two friends drifting apart. Is this to be the fate of the interaction between the United States and the UK? The fall of France in June 1940, and its surrender to Nazi Germany wi...

  • July 20, 2019

    When British Diplomats Criticize American Presidents

    On July 17, 2019, the most astute political commentator in the United States, the 72-year-old O.J. Simpson, announced he is afraid of what's happening in America today.  He attacked the Democratic Party for its failure to agree to impea...

  • July 16, 2019

    Investigating Anti-Semitism in England

    Early in World War II, the Polish underground obtained information about the monstrous conditions at the newly opened camp at Auschwitz.  It was communicated to the British government with a plea that the camp be bombed. However, the propos...

  • July 13, 2019

    What Are Human Rights?

    On July 8, 2019 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he was setting up an advisory panel, the Commission on Unalienable Rights, in the State Department to undertake an informed review of the role of human rights in U.S. foreign policy.  Head...

  • July 7, 2019

    We'll Always Have Paris, but Not Beijing

    Two centuries ago, the renowned economist Adam Smith wrote of China as "one of the richest, most fertile, best cultivated, most industrious countries in the world."  Today, China is anxious to be the dominant economic and military...

  • July 4, 2019

    The Council of Europe Blunders

    What do Abkhazia, South Ossetia, North Cyprus, and Crimea have in common? They are all the subjects of territorial changes in Europe which to a large extent have not been fully accepted by the international community as legitimate. The most disputed ...

  • June 29, 2019

    Read the Tea Leaves of China

    In the action movie Bullitt, 1968, the complicated story centers on a San Francisco cop, played by the cool Steve McQueen, asked by a slimy, ambitious Senate politician to guard the supposed Chicago Mafia leader who had agreed to testify at the ...

  • June 24, 2019

    Returning Stolen Artwork

    Dishonesty is a way of life, as is denial or dodging the truth, and disowning the consequences of actions.  This is familiar all over the world. To take a few recent examples.  Russia denied responsibility for shooting down M...

  • June 21, 2019

    Hong Kong, China, and the USA in the Age of Trump

    President Donald Trump is due to meet Chinese president Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Osaka of 19 countries and the E.U. on June 28–29, 2019, focusing on international co-operation for economic growth.  No doubt, the main conversati...

  • June 19, 2019

    On Women and How They Vote

    Once the question might be asked, "Why can't a woman be more like a man?"  This assumes that unlike the nature of women, men might be regarded as honest, eternally noble, good-natured, and kind.  That question is no ...

  • June 13, 2019

    Camp in American Politics

    What is this thing called camp, and who can solve its mystery? In 1964, the 33-year-old American writer Susan Sontag, the high priestess of the New York intellectual world, published her iconic essay on “the sensibility, unmistakably modern, th...

  • June 9, 2019

    President Trump, the Diplomat

    The test of a zealous politician, F. Scott Fitzgerald might have said, is the ability to exhibit two opposed forms of behavior at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. No one in the contemporary political world exhibits this more t...

  • June 5, 2019

    Should Jews Stop Wearing Religious Symbols to Protect Their Safety?

    Uncertainty pervades many facets of life.  First you say you do, and then you don't.  And then you say you will, and then you won't.  German history exemplifies the ironies of changing circumstances.  O...

  • June 2, 2019

    Sexual Abuse and a Re-Examination of Martin Luther King

    Just friends, but not like before. To think of what the Rev, Martin Luther King, Jr. has seemed to be seems like pretending. It is commonplace that prominent figures, like the U.S. Founding Fathers, are not devoid of faults, though they can be gen...

  • May 20, 2019

    Is It Time to Break Up Facebook?

    New Zealand, a country with a population of 3.5 million, whose indigenous people are Maori, has rarely been the source of important political proposals or taken the lead for global action.  However, in May 2019, its prime minister, 40-year-...

  • May 17, 2019

    Do We Need NATO?

    NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, remains a problem for the U.S.  Did it lose its purpose and objective after the Soviet Union was declared dissolved by Mikhail Gorbachev on December 25, 1991, or is it still a useful instrument ...

  • May 10, 2019

    Eurovision and Lack of Vision in the Gaza Strip

    Peace will be a little late this year, a little late arriving in the Gaza Strip, the 139-square-mile Palestinian area ruled by Hamas that borders the State of Israel on the east and north for 32 miles.  Since in 2007 it replaced Fatah as th...

  • May 4, 2019

    France is Still Divided

    According to Julius Caesar, in first century B.C., Gaul was divided into three parts, though it was probably more accurate to say that all Gaul was at that time divided into five parts. Differences still exist about the origins of France, but general...

  • April 30, 2019

    Never Again Means Never Again

    On October 27, 2018 anti-Semitic terrorism raised its ugly head in Pittsburgh when a gunman named Robert Bowers, using a semi-automatic rifle, killed eleven worshippers and injured seven others at the Sabbath morning service at the conservative ...

  • April 23, 2019

    The Right to Die

    All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity. It is the time and drawing days out that men and women stand upon. On April 17, 2019 the well-known twenty-seven-year-old British-Australian actress Miriam Margolyes spoke of the need to co...

  • April 15, 2019

    Israel Swings Right

    Elections in Israel often resemble performances of the theater of the absurd. This results from the parliamentary electoral system in which voters choose not individuals but vote for a party list. Political parties are allocated seats in the Knesset ...

  • April 3, 2019

    Not Taking No for an Answer

    In his Early Life, published in 1930, Winston Churchill declared, “Don’t take “no” for an answer.”  This aphorism may have inspired the young ambitious British politician destined to fame but it ...

  • March 25, 2019

    Trump Changes US Policy in Middle East

    Times are a'changing, as are policy proposals in Middle Eastern affairs, though religious festivals remind one of the complexity and perhaps relevance of the past.  Purim is a Jewish holiday in March 2019 that commemorates the saving of...

  • February 24, 2019

    The Plague of Anti-Semitism Spreads in France

    The disease of anti-Semitism is not new to France, and it has been spreading.  But a new threshold in response to it was set by the displays of outrage as a result of the verbal assault on Alain Finkielkraut, a well known intellectual ...

  • February 20, 2019

    Karl Was Not as Amusing as Groucho

    He sits and daydreams, he’s got daydreams galore. He may look like he’s obsessed and talk like he’s obsessed, but don’t let that fool you, he really is obsessed. Now that Bernie Sanders announced on February 19, 2019 that he i...

  • February 16, 2019

    Ireland and the Border

    Ireland has been a trouble spot since the invasion of the island by the English king Henry II in 1171, whether to prevent a rival, Strongbow, from controlling the area, or to overcome the damaging opprobrium resulting from the murder of Thomas Becket...

  • February 14, 2019

    Color and Politics

    It's not that easy being green, when I think it would be nicer being red, or yellow, or something much more colorful than that, even in a blue world alone.  Certainly, most political parties agree even about green when choosing colors, ...

  • February 8, 2019

    With a Song in the Heart of Israel

    Without a song, the day would never end; the road would never bend.  In the purple dusk of twilight time, the music is a beautiful melody that haunts one's reverie.  Yet the news that the Eurovision song contest (Eurovision) w...

  • January 29, 2019

    Fighting for Power in the US and Venezuela

    The rivalry for power and status is central in the theater of politics. Perhaps the most amusing, and certainly the least serious, contest for position is in France where the death in January 2019 of the Duke of Orleans reminds us there are thre...

  • January 24, 2019

    Why is Fake News Accepted by so Many?

    If there is a model of integrity in reporting the news and analyzing troubles ahead it is C.P. Scott, longtime editor (1872-1929) and later owner of the Manchester Guardian.  His counsel in his May 1921 centenary essay was pricele...

  • January 20, 2019

    A World Tour of Chicanery and Stupidity

    In one of his essays, Henry James asserted that goodness is apt to be weak, that folly is apt to be defiant, that imbeciles are in great places.  His aphorism is fitting when considering modern figures on the chessboard of political and soc...

  • January 11, 2019

    Women Must March on the Right Road

    Political theater in the United Nations is often in the wrong time and the wrong place in the wrong style.  In her farewell speech in the U.N. General Assembly on December 18, 2018, U.S. ambassador Nikki Haley spoke of the anti-Israeli bias...

  • January 8, 2019

    Time and Politics

    Nostalgia isn't what it used to be, and memories have been transformed over time into the longing for a desirable past by many in the present world of the internet, smartphones, social media, and global influence shifting from Europe and the...

  • December 25, 2018

    Trump the Nationalist and the Role of the Modern USA

    The decision of President Donald Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria and Afghanistan led to the announced departure on December 20, 2018 of secretary of defense James Mattis, four-star general, often regarded as a force for stability in the admi...

  • December 13, 2018

    Snowflakes and the Historical Narrative

    Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, where wise men never go, but the pounding of student snowflakes has become an ocean's roar, a thousand drums, expressing an anti-colonial and anti-racist ideology, in English and in French.  Thi...

  • December 11, 2018

    We'll Always Have Paris

    History in France does repeat itself. The gulf between ruler and ruled has been constant in French history. Since 1789 that gulf has led to removing three kings, two emperors, and several presidents in a country that has had 15 constitutions. Pa...

  • December 6, 2018

    Macron Confronts the People

    Since November 17, 2018, Paris has been akin to a war zone in which the bright golden haze is not the result of sunrise but of arson and burning by rioters and demonstrators in the famed, fashionable, and expensive streets and areas of the capital, t...

  • December 4, 2018

    Anti-Semitism and Moral Responsibility

    How fitting that Professor Elizabeth Midlarsky, Professor of Clinical Studies at Teachers College, Columbia University and Holocaust scholar, should have lighted the Hanukkah menorah at the University in New York on December 2, 2018. This event is th...

  • December 3, 2018

    The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!

    It is unlikely that President Donald Trump ever regarded relations between the U.S. and Russia as friendship, just a perfect friendship, and that when other friendships have been forgot, theirs will still be hot.  As a result of actions on ...

  • November 21, 2018

    The United Nations and Cognitive Dissonance

    The unholy war against the State of Israel never stops. Most nations in the world in discussing Israel suffer from mental disorder or discomfort, from cognitive dissonance, trying to hold two or more contradictory beliefs, both condemnation of I...

  • November 15, 2018

    Patriotism vs. Nationalism

    What is America to me? A name, a map, or flag, or a certain word, democracy? One of the great lines in American movies is that from The Man who Shot Liberty Valance: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." Nowhere is this better i...

  • November 12, 2018

    Arab- Americans and Muslims in U.S. politics

    The November 4, 2018 election remains unfinished as some races remain undecided. Recounting votes is an occupational affliction in Florida. In that state Broward County, one of the largest counties, is replete with voting machines that do not count a...

  • November 9, 2018

    The Israeli Settlements in the West Bank

    Say it over and over again, and never stop saying it.  It is a truth that should be universally acknowledged that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are not the central nor the only problem preventing a peace process to resolve the Israeli-Pal...

  • November 7, 2018

    Judaism, Pop Culture, and the Confusion of an Anti-Semite

    In the political ironic drama of life, hold as it were the mirror up to nature to show virtue her feature. Admirable though this may be as advice for the public arena, it is alas not universally esteemed.  Robert Bowers, the man who slaught...

  • November 2, 2018

    Anti-Semitism Is the Problem in Pittsburgh

    On January 27, 2017, U.N. secretary-general Antonio Guterres delivered remarks at the International Day of Commemoration at the U.N. in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.  The world, he said, has a duty to remember that the Holoca...

  • October 28, 2018

    No Flowers for Robert Faurisson

    One the giants of French literature, Chateaubriand, denounced silence in the face of evil.  When everyone trembles before the tyrant, the historian appears.  Unfortunately, historians may be assassins of memory, and one profession...

  • October 24, 2018

    Murder, Islamic-Style

    Here's the smell of the blood still.  All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten the little hand of Muslim prevaricators, murderers, and terrorists, and their fabricated and changing narratives of events and history.  Irrespe...

  • October 21, 2018

    Can Affirmative Action Survive in Academia?

    There is a change in the weather, a change in the sea of American politics. The state of Massachusetts, its people and academic institutions, continues to play a role in the changing drama of American politics, especially the issue of preferential...

  • October 19, 2018

    Tourists: Au Revoir, Not Arrivederci

    Yogi Berra was only partly wrong that nobody goes there any more, it's too crowded.  Mass tourism is a major source of income for many countries, providing goods and services for those seeking leisure and different cultures and cuisines...

  • October 15, 2018

    Charles Aznavour: More Than the French Frank Sinatra

    He had a song that he sung, he could make the rain go, anytime he moved his finger. On October 5, 2018 a state funeral of the 94-year-old Charles Aznavour, the singer-composer who had died four days earlier, soon after returning from a concert tou...

  • October 14, 2018

    Alcohol and the Kavanaugh Hearings

    For several weeks in summer 2018 the population of the United States was treated to the spectacle of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh to become a justice of the Supreme Court. Combative, contentious, and ...

  • October 11, 2018

    British Heroes: Thinking of Those Who Were Truly Great

    Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.  A recent release of documents of actions and beliefs of British citizens during World War II amply illustrates both the achievement by some of greatne...

  • October 9, 2018

    Jazz hands: The sound of silence

    On September 27, 2018, at the first meeting of the University of Manchester Student Union, a proposal was moved by Sara Khan, "liberation and access officer," to ban traditional applause at Union functions shown by clapping, which she claim...

  • October 7, 2018

    The Russian Bear and the Macedonian Lion

    The foreign adventures of Russia in the U.S. and in Europe, with varying degrees of success, have all illustrated a cardinal thrust of Russia's policy: the desire to influence the politics of democratic countries and prevent the expansion of West...

  • September 30, 2018

    The United States Senate and the Presumption of Innocence

    For what is a person profited if he shall gain the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives and lose his own soul? The highly emotional hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27, 2018, listening to allegations by Dr. Christine Blas...

  • September 27, 2018

    The Truth Comes to France

    French life is changing.  Bans on smoking in public places; cuts in the Grandes Vacances, the long school summer holidays; the virtual disappearance of the game of boules; free bicycles around town; fewer holiday tables under the trees...

  • September 19, 2018

    Spies, Enticing and Otherwise

    Espionage is as old as history, with individuals sent on missions to obtain information or secrets, political and military, or to sabotage the activity of opponents.  This was done through personal relations, and usually by physical presenc...

  • September 16, 2018

    Sweden (Still) Resists the Right

    Don't know why, there's no sun up in the sky, stormy weather.  The concern about an increase in the popularity of the far-right political party and national populism was the theme song of forecasters and commentators of the parliame...

  • September 12, 2018

    The Use of Poison in International Politics

    The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true.  This tongue-twisting line, uttered by Danny Kaye in the 1956 film The Court Jester, grounds perhaps the funniest sc...

  • September 10, 2018

    The Question of Palestinian Self-Determination

    Peace between the State of Israel and the Palestinians will be a little late this year.  It is a truism that peace is made with your enemies, but the problem is that the latter may still continue hostilities.  This was conspicuous...

  • September 9, 2018

    The Scallops War: Food for Thought

    Music may be the food of love, but the quest for food has often been the cause of friction and political insecurity.  That friction has been evident throughout history. Ancient Rome was troubled by the increase in the price of bread....

  • September 2, 2018

    Jeremy Corbyn Is Too Liberal Even for Britain

    At the length, truth will out.  If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.  Now the truth about the venomous presence of anti-Semitism in the British Labor Party is...

  • August 29, 2018

    Is China Ending the Pax Americana?

    It's still the same old story, a fight for power and glory.  Although the trade war between the U.S. and China dominates the news headlines, more attention must be given to the crucial issue that China is a formidable imperial colonial ...

  • August 25, 2018

    Leonard Bernstein: Music, Maestro

    I hear music when I think of you, a lovely strain inside of me. Somewhere, these words must delight the recipient being honored at the large number of events, musical, literary and cultural, commemorating the 100th anniversary of his birth on August ...

  • August 20, 2018

    The Jewish Nation and State

    Since Plato, political thinkers have addressed in different ways the reasons, basis, and conditions to explain why the many in any society are governed by the few. In the world today, official power and government is exercised by the modern state, us...

  • August 18, 2018

    Analyzing President Emmanuel Macron

    "Blame it on my youth" sounded like the basis for a limited apology by French president Emmanuel Macron when speaking to the joint meeting of the two chambers of the French parliament, held at the Palace of Versailles on July 9, 2018. ...

  • August 14, 2018

    Where Is the Ace in the Presidential Deck of Cards?

    Considering the nature of the muster of political figures now on the scene aspiring to be president of the United States, one may conclude they're either too gray or too grassy green.  The pickings are poor, and the crop is lean. ...

  • August 12, 2018

    A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Political Forum

    Everybody ought to have an aide, someone who can help when you need support. Certainly, political leaders must depend on advisors who are able to discern accurately, or pretend to know, what's going on, and speak truth to power. Throughout h...

  • August 10, 2018

    Danger Ahead: The Game-Changer Drone

    Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.  The unease of rulers may result from personal factors, constant worry, lack of sleep, and guilt for past odious actions, but also often from fear of assassination.  The list is long of the...

  • August 6, 2018

    Britain Confronts the Problem of Sharia Law

    I get along without you very well, of course I do might have been the song of a Muslim woman who had just won a victory in a court case in the British Family Division of the High Court in London on August 1, 2018, when Justice David Williams issued a...

  • August 2, 2018

    Israel Defines Itself

    The paths of glory lead but to the grave.  Certainly this has been the case with the Palestinian movement, which has been hanging its tears out to dry.  The glory of that movement, the PLO, Fatah, Hamas, was to be the destruction ...

  • July 27, 2018

    A French Watergate?

    Watergate may be the lodestar of cover-ups, the concealment or non-acknowledgment of regrettable behavior, but it was not the first or the last, nor confined to the U.S. French military authorities disgraced themselves and the French Republ...

  • July 24, 2018

    Italy and the Holocaust

    The familiar and prevalent view of Italy and the Holocaust is a positive one of the "good," benevolent, and generous Italians, who sheltered Jews in their country from the "bad" German Nazis.  This view is challenge...

  • July 23, 2018

    Erdogan's Turkey

    Optimistic expectations that the Turkish system established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, republican, nationalist, secular, and modernized, would continue have been frustrated.  Hopes for a successful multiparty democracy ended because of ...

  • July 15, 2018

    The Courts and Immigration

    A specter is haunting the United States and Europe: the specter of immigration.  It will not dissolve until the political and judicial systems of those countries enter into a holy alliance to exorcise it.  The issue arouses f...

  • July 12, 2018

    Donald Trump: American Matador

    This is the season of the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, at the Sanfermines festival, when hundreds of foolhardy youngsters run through the street, as has been the custom for 700 years, defying the animals intent on goring and trampling the...

  • July 8, 2018

    History, the Holocaust, and the French

    In its current edition, the Oxford English Dictionary named "post-truth," as the international word of the year. It defines this new term: "objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeal to emotion and perso...

  • July 7, 2018

    BDS and the New Anti-Semitism

    In celebrations of July 4 throughout the country, it was appropriate and meaningful to welcome the song "God Bless America," now almost a second U.S. national anthem, written by a Russian-born Jew who came to the U.S. at the age of five....

  • July 2, 2018

    France Honors Simone Veil, a Woman for All Seasons

    At a moment when some American women, public officials and private citizens, have displayed astonishing disrespect and incivility towards those they abhor for political reasons,  it is refreshing to witness and welcome the nationwide tribute in ...

  • June 21, 2018

    The Need for Political Diversity

    The political inquiry into FBI bias during the 2016 presidential election comes at a time when the U.S. is concerned with related issues of equality under the law and appropriate diversity in social organizations.  Diversity has become a cent...

  • June 17, 2018

    In Search of Justice

    There is an optimistic forecast there'll be a change in the weather, a change in the sea of justice, in Britain and in the international community. The rising temperature may drain the swamp of anti-Semitism and calls for the liquidation of the S...

  • June 13, 2018

    Considering Sainthood for GK Chesterton

    We would all like to be, or to be considered, saints. Since saints are so few it's best to string along with good people who have faults. This is pertinent to a new case of possible canonization, the first British candidate for centuries, th...

  • June 11, 2018

    Truth, Veritas, and Knowledge of History in the U.S.

    Did you say Americans, some adults as well as many snowflakes, have got a lot to learn? Many studies have made us aware of the civic ignorance, and the historical amnesia of citizens in the U.S.  Though Thomas Jefferson is often incorrectly quot...

  • June 9, 2018

    On the Road to Singapore

    Meetings of ambitious leaders go back a long way.  Perhaps the most extravagant was the Field of the Cloth of Gold, near Calais, in June 1520, where Henry VIII met French King François I in a luxurious setting attended by hundre...

  • June 7, 2018

    Should Anti-Semitism Be Considered 'Free Speech'?

    To alter a Wilde witticism, a true lady is never unintentionally rude.  A number of women – perhaps not ladies, though experienced public entertainers – in both the U.S. and Britain may be considered examples of Oscar's mot....

  • June 4, 2018

    The Question of Genocide

    Winston Churchill delivered some of the most stirring and inspiring speeches in history, yet occasionally even he was at a loss for words.  In a BBC broadcast on August 24, 1941, referring to Nazi brutalities in Europe, he remarked, "W...

  • June 3, 2018

    Harmony and Discord in Italy

    Volare, oh, oh, away from the maddening crowds, we can leave the confusion and all disillusion behind!  Such has often been the chant of Italians in search of the elusive political rainbow.  "Così Cosà"...

  • June 1, 2018

    Dancing Bears and Snowflakes in Academia

    Snowflakes keep falling on campus heads; nothing seems to fit.  Snowflakes are light and blow with the wind, but they become potent if they form a blizzard.  They already have produced a storm in U.S. and British universities, whe...

  • May 30, 2018

    Crime and Punishment: The Palestinian Image

    The strategy is famed. If you can't beat your opponents on the military field, or with facts, beat them with the law. The strategy is an axiom of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.).  Having finished the commemoration of the nakba (catastr...

  • May 25, 2018

    Not Eyeless in Gaza

    It's still the same old story, a fight for semantic glory. This time the fight is to define "proportionate." More familiar is the buzzword "disproportionate," frequently and automatically uttered in meetings of United Nations ...

  • May 21, 2018

    How Guilty Were Ordinary Citizens in Germany?

    "Don't let's be beastly to the Germans. Their Bach is really far worse than their bite," sang Noel Coward in his song written in war-torn Britain in 1943. His parody, a personal favorite of Winston Churchill, was directed against th...

  • May 17, 2018

    Albert Einstein Travels to Palestine and the Far East

    It is rewarding to think continually of those who were truly great.  All the world is aware of and esteems the unique man with a distinctive mass of hair, unlit pipe in his mouth, the playful, sometimes absent-minded, personality who loved ...

  • May 14, 2018

    Deconstructing Iran

    Perhaps it was Heraclitus around 500 B.C. who first expressed the idea, but it was Oscar Wilde who has a character in his play An Ideal Husband say, "To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect."  Those ...

  • May 11, 2018

    Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Putin

    Are the tsars out tonight?  High in the sky, the tsars climb.  For policymakers in Washington, it is useful to compare two individuals who have risen in the Russian sky. On May 7, 2018 the 65-year-old Vladimir V. Puti...

  • May 9, 2018

    Franklin Roosevelt and the Jews

    Saviors of the Jewish people appear from time to time.  Purim is a holiday celebrating the saving of Jews from annihilation in the Persian Empire.  The villain Haman, the royal vizier, wanted to destroy all the Jews in the empire ...

  • May 4, 2018

    Trump and the Koreas: A Nobel Cause?

    Mark Antony, with rhetorical virtuosity and shrewd in the means of persuading people, orated over the corpse of Brutus, who had just been killed by his army, alleging that Brutus was the noblest Roman of them all.  It is unlikely that he wo...

  • May 2, 2018

    You Must Remember This: A Leak Is Still a Leak

    When I use a word, said the Washington, D.C. lawyer and former official, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.  Consider: what's in a name?  What we call a "leak" does not smell as sweet as t...

  • April 29, 2018

    Never Again Should Mean Never Again

    Say it over and over again. Never stop saying anti-Semitism is a nauseating disease that must be eliminated.  The things they're saying fill my heart with fear.  Proposals for that elimination were not on the agenda of the mee...

  • April 24, 2018

    The Truth about Hitler's Death

    Some people like to posit conspiracy theories: Elvis is still alive; Princess Diana was murdered by British intelligence; the Moon landing was a hoax; Protocols of the Elders of Zion is genuine, not a tsarist forgery.  And Adolf Hitler did ...

  • April 23, 2018

    Emmanuel Macron and French Anti-Semitism

    Fairy tales can come true, it has happened to those who are young at heart. That may help explain why a new generation is arising in European politics, if not the surfacing of a comprehensive cult of youth. The 31-year-old Sebastian Kurz is prime min...

  • April 16, 2018

    No Time for a Cold or Hot War

    Nations prefer the temperature low, but we're having a heat wave because of Russian defiance of international norms. As patrons of fashionable steak restaurants know, for over a year sophisticated chefs, for economic and other reasons, have creat...

  • April 13, 2018

    The Truth about Fake News

    Say it isn't so – you can't stop people from talking and writing, but say it isn't so.  It is a matter of grave concern that the U.S. is confronting a serious and growing problem related to the prevalence of fake news that...

  • April 9, 2018

    Islam and Secularism in France

    Throughout history the relationship between religion and politics has vacillated with ongoing disputes about the power and influence of religious institutions in secular, political, and social affairs, and with encroachment of religion in the everyda...

  • April 4, 2018

    Migrants on the March

    Caravans were once romantic.  Duke Ellington informed us musically about the night and stars above that shine so bright and the mystery of their fading light that shines upon our caravan.  Neither the United States, where a carava...

  • April 2, 2018

    Hamas Seeks the Elimination of the State of Israel

    On March 30, 2018 Hamas called on Gazans to demonstrate in a "March to Return." Palestinian protestors, variously estimated but probably 30,000, massed along the Israeli border, burning tires, throwing stones and fire bombs at Israeli soldi...

  • March 31, 2018

    No More Cheating: Time to Apply the Rules of the Game to Politics

    In his brilliant film, La Règle du Jeu, often considered one of the greatest ever made, the director, Jean Renoir, discusses the mores that specify proper behavior.  Each clique in the world has its own customs, mores, and langu...

  • March 30, 2018

    The United States Must Leave the UN Human Rights Council

    By now, it is clear that the U.N. Human Rights Council, created in 2006 with noble intentions on the basis of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is one of the international organizations that has little interest in the real violations of...

  • March 27, 2018

    The March of Time, Washington and Paris

    "Everywhere I hear the sound of marchin', charging feet, cause summer's here and the time is right for fighting in the street."  The words were written in 1968 by Mick Jagger, who said he wrote them after an antiwar rally ...

  • March 26, 2018

    France and Election Campaign Funding

    Was the presidential election swayed by the use of illegal funding for campaigns or by outside influence? In the United States the issue is arguable and remains a moot question. Now the issue has become potentially politically explosive in France. We...

  • March 24, 2018

    The British Left Must Get It Right on Russia

    British prime minister Theresa May and members of her government have declared that Moscow is culpable for the poisoning of the Russian former spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury on March 4, 2018.  Among other actions, ...

  • March 20, 2018

    The State of Israel: Normal or Unique?

    Ecclesiastes warns, "Of making many books there is no end."  Certainly, the output on Jews and the State of Israel continues in full flood.  The latest work is In Search of Israel: The History of an Idea (Princeton ...

  • March 17, 2018

    British Prime Minister Theresa May Spies Strangers

    One of the quaint traditions in the British House of Commons was a device for the chamber to go into private session.  A member says, "I spy strangers," a phrase used until recently to refer to anyone present in the chamber who is...

  • March 12, 2018

    Silence, Blacks, and Louis Farrakhan

    Silence may be the perfect herald of joy but sometimes has unfortunate consequences. Sir Thomas More, 16th-century lawyer and Lord High Chancellor of England in 1532, refused to approve the decision of King Henry VIII to divorce his wife, Catherine o...

  • March 9, 2018

    Russia, Britain, and Assassination

    We know that the streets in London, and some other British towns, are not paved with stars but are the locales of international intrigue and suspicious deaths, or attempts to kill political opponents, alleged to have been arranged by Russians. ...

  • March 6, 2018

    When Italy Gets Blue

    What is there to say, and what is there to do?  Can we help but rejoice that a land such as Italy came to be?  Its treasures, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Giuseppe Verdi, have given infinite pleasure.  By contras...

  • March 4, 2018

    Prince of the British Fringe Right

    The well known 19th-century French epigram states that "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" (the more things change, the more they stay the same).  It is disquieting that some individuals in political groups...

  • February 28, 2018

    Kurdish Women Are Shining

    There'll be some changes in part of Syria from now on.  In his brilliant new book, The Opinion of Mankind, discussing, among other things, theories of the state and how we should think about politics today, Paul Sagar contends that alth...

  • February 26, 2018

    Spies and Disinformation in the Internet Age

    Please put on some speed and have someone watch over new technological developments.  Almost 170 years ago in the 1840s, Countess Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron and a brilliant mathematician, pioneered and worked on a mechanical gener...

  • February 24, 2018

    Peace Negotiations in the Middle East Should Not Be a Little Late This Year

    The saga has ended, but the malady lingers on.  In his address on February 20, 2018 at the U.N. Security Council meeting on the Middle East, Mahmoud Abbas, at 82 now in the thirteenth year of his four-year term as president of the Palestini...

  • February 20, 2018

    The United States and Syria

    The country has been warned on two occasions in February 2018 by Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence, of various threats to the United States. China and Russia, great powers, both seek spheres of influence and endeavor to check U.S. appeal t...

  • February 18, 2018

    Beware of the Real Russian Threat

    One of the memorable anecdotes of Hollywood concerns the film noir The Big Sleep, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, because of its complex story.  It is a puzzling story, almost incoherent, with its convoluted plot and m...

  • February 14, 2018

    Finger-Pointing Oxfam Now Embroiled in Sex Scandal

    One might breathe a sigh of sadness but more probably will relish the deflation of self-claimed virtuous organizations and individuals.  It is gratifying rather than poignant when the sanctimonious mighty are accused of misconduct rather th...

  • February 12, 2018

    Washington Mishears the Lullaby of Moscow

    The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming.  Every night, you'll hear a Russian lullaby.  Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif), the ranking member of the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has been engaged for ...

  • February 7, 2018

    Will a Franco-British Agreement be a Little Late this Year?

    Speak low if you speak camaraderie. Diplomatic gifts date back to the ancient world, and have symbolized friendship, peace, appreciation, or anticipation by the donor. Sometimes the gifts have been unusual, even bizarre. In 1824, the Marquis de Lafay...

  • February 4, 2018

    We Must Never Forget

    The often-quoted phrase, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing," paraphrasing a passage from Edmund Burke, is pertinent to the problem of the persistence of anti-Semitism. Sinning by silence, a cowa...

  • February 1, 2018

    Failing Support for Israel among U.S. Democrats

    Imagine all the people living life in peace, a brotherhood of man. A world without barriers, religious, or national divisions was the dream of John Lennon in his highly successful solo song, “Imagine.” Yet, just as it is difficult to...

  • January 27, 2018

    The Russians and Washington Political Theater

    The ongoing, long-running drama in political theater in the U.S. Congress depicting the story and fantasies of alleged relations and collusion between the presidential campaign team of Donald Trump and unnamed Russians bids fair to outlast any commer...

  • January 24, 2018

    Donald Trump Meets Davos Man and Woman

    A major argument for the corporate tax cuts by the Trump administration that went into effect on January 1, 2018 is that they will lead to greater business investment.  So far, they have propelled a rapid increase in the stock market as wel...

  • January 20, 2018

    In Search of Justice in France

    In one of his, essays Henry James remarked that "[l]ife is, in fact, a battle.  Evil is insolent and strong ... goodness very apt to be weak."  Recognizing that this is not illusion, it is heartening that individual...

  • January 16, 2018

    Celebrity and the Presidential Dream

    Political ambition in the United States should be made of sterner stuff than that possessed by successful performers who can manipulate and are increasingly manipulating their celebrity for material or political advantage.  We know from Ham...

  • January 12, 2018

    Israel Tries Its Hand at a Travel Ban

    Commenting on President Woodrow Wilson's "long overdue " decision to enter World War I, Winston Churchill wrote that if the president had acted earlier, it would have meant abridgement of the slaughter, sparing of the agony, and prevent...

  • January 9, 2018

    Swinging on a Star in Washington

    "And by the way, if you hate to go to school you may grow up to be a mule."  In the compelling if sometimes soap opera-ish British TV series The Crown, Season 1, Episode 7, the young Queen Elizabeth, who has been taking priva...

  • January 1, 2018

    A Royal Resurgence in Britain

    Perhaps once there was a way to get back homeward in British society and to end the role of the British monarchy.  But royalty and enthusiasm for it are going forward with two developments: the reappearance of a new Fab Four and the award of a k...

  • December 27, 2017

    The United Nations Blocks Reality on Jerusalem

    The most moving and eloquent words spoken in the UN General Assembly, the assembly of hypocrisy, incitement, and lies, were articulated by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, after the UNGA on November 10, 1975 passed the inf...

  • December 17, 2017

    Trump's Reality Therapy on Jerusalem

    President Donald Trump broke free of the self-absorbed fantasies of the "international community." He spoke truth to it with his acknowledgment that it "was time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel" and adop...

  • December 15, 2017

    Homage to a French Literary Giant

    The Chinese have a character for "double happiness." The French would benefit from a similar character of "double sadness" for the events of December 2017, when two giants of French culture, dissimilar in every way, died on succes...

  • December 12, 2017

    Death Takes a Hallyday in Paris

    He and the song are gone, but the melody lingers. Outside France, he was the greatest rock singer you never heard of.  Yet on December 9, 2017, a large police convoy escorted his white coffin from the Paris suburb of Marnes-La-Coquette...

  • December 9, 2017

    Sexual Hypocrisy in Politics: 1963, 1998, and Today

    Some lies have consequences; others do not.  No real political consequence resulted from the declaration of a well known politician on TV on January 26, 1998, that "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky.  I n...

  • December 7, 2017

    What Will a Few More Years of Muslim Immigration Do to Europe?

    On December 3, 2017, members of the Trump administration, including Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., and secretary of state Rex Tillerson announced that United States would no longer take part in the Global Compact on migration.  That c...

  • December 1, 2017

    Rutgers University Must Deal with Anti-Semitism

    On the banks of the old Raritan stands Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, with its 30 schools and colleges making it one of the top 25 public universities in the United States. Committed to academic inquiry and scholarship, it is dedicated ...

  • November 29, 2017

    A New Saudi Arabia -- a New Middle East?

    I've been convinced after thinking it through that the best thing for Saudi Arabia would be Israel. The figures on the chessboard of politics are forever changing with regard to each other. It is an agreeable surprise that for the first time a yo...

  • November 24, 2017

    Is It Goodbye to Good Friday in Northern Ireland?

    All or nothing at all -- three-quarters of a country never appealed to him, nor did the idea of a political entity called Northern Ireland that was created in 1920, comprising the six northeastern counties of Ireland in the province of Ulster. G...

  • November 19, 2017

    Snowflakes and the Great William Gladstone

    The meaningful, if unstated, question is whether the Beatles, the enormously successful rock band formed in Liverpool, northern England, in 1960 can save William Gladstone, the British politician and leader of the Liberal Party who served as pri...

  • November 16, 2017

    Hedy Lamarr and E Phones

    That face, that face, that wonderful face. It shines, it glows, all over the place. Who would have thought that this face was the countenance of a Hollywood siren who was also a brilliant scientist whose invention helped pave the way for present day ...

  • November 12, 2017

    La Donna Brazile Sings, on and off Key

    One of the most popular arias in the opera catalogue, sung by the licentious Duke of Mantua in Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto, is the tenor song "La donna a mobile."  Its opening, "qual piuma al vento" (woman is fic...

  • November 9, 2017

    France Takes Away Its Oscar from Harvey Weinstein

    Hollywood, the celestial universe with stars that are cloudy rather than bright and are far from being angels until recently suffered from an Ostrich effect, oblivious or inattentive to reprehensible  behavior, something akin to playin...

  • November 6, 2017

    The Balfour Declaration and Left-wing Anti-Semitism

    Why can't the English, a pensive people of philosophical joys, meditation, and contemplation, learn to set a good example by ending left-wing anti-Semitism? The question has arisen in vivid form on the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration...

  • November 4, 2017

    Al-Qaeda Terrorism and Shakespeare

      Cole Porter would have been perplexed by the petition in October 2017 to the English Department at Cambridge University to "decolonize the curriculum," but he had the foresight to call on people to brush up on your Shakespeare, st...

  • November 1, 2017

    George Washington Taken from the Heights

    By Jove, by Jing, by George is the thing!  Can we say it isn't so?  We thought we knew Washington.  As the proverb says, a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.  It's taken some time for the truth to be revea...

  • October 29, 2017

    The Canon Misfires at Cambridge University

    Shakespeare knew the realities of political life: who loses and who wins, who's in and who's out.  No one wants to be viewed by others as some untutored youth, unlearned in the world's false subtleties.  Certainly, this issue is...

  • October 26, 2017

    The Political Center and the Populists in Austria

    Political policies, like fairy tales, can come true even if they go to extremes with impossible schemes if the leaders are young at heart and in age. Public opinion surveys suggest a decline in the participation of young citizens in democratic countr...

  • October 25, 2017

    Can the Political Center Hold in Europe?

    The tension between political demands for self-determination on one hand and maintaining the sovereignty, the unity of a state, on the other is a historically recognizable aspect of political life.  Yet surprisingly, politics in Europe today are...

  • October 14, 2017

    The United States Withdraws from UNESCO

    I get along without you very well, was the message sent on October 12, 2017 by the United States to the international agency UNESCO. The U.S. announced it will withdraw from the UN's educational, scientific and cultural agency. The rationale...

  • October 12, 2017

    France and Israel: They'll Be Together Again

    On April 13, 2010, when chestnuts were in blossom amid the charm of spring, the Israeli politician Shimon Peres, accompanied by the Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, unveiled the David Ben-Gurion Promenade in the 7th arrondissement of Paris in front ...

  • October 8, 2017

    The United States Must Meet the North Korean Threat

    On October 6, 2017, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize of 2017 to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).  The text of the award stated, "We live in a world where the risk of nuclear weapons be...

  • October 7, 2017

    Courageous American Feminist: Phyllis Chesler

    Anything men can do women can do as well, maybe better was the declaration of the British writer Mary Wollstonecraft, whose "Vindication of the Rights of Women" was published in 1792.  She denied the prevailing attitude that ...

  • October 3, 2017

    Homage to Catalonia

    In a context of scenes of violence and disproportionate use of force by National police against citizens asserting their right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, the country of Spain is divided between a national government calling for r...

  • September 23, 2017

    Hamas Looking for Friends

    Personal rivalries in political organizations sometimes are akin to civil war. The story is told of the vicious remark by the prominent British Labour Party politiciam Ernest Bevin of his fellow politician Aneurin Bevan, creator of the British Nation...

  • September 20, 2017

    The Threat Is Still Iran

    During his speech to the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, September 19, 2017, President Donald Trump might as well have been muttering to himself, "Is it for all time or simply a lark, is it a deal not worth thinking of, or is it at...

  • September 14, 2017

    Steering the Ship of State in Russia

    One of the best known moments in the great Greek mythological legends is the story of the decision by the Greek hero Odysseus on how to sail his ship safely without considerable loss of life between two hazards, the equally dangerous sea monsters Scy...

  • September 11, 2017

    Moral Icons and Hypocrisy: The Case of Aung San Suu Kyi

    Putting power above principle is a customary occurrence in the political world. So is the emergence of the lost leader, who as Robert Browning wrote in criticism of Wordsworth's change of political views after accepting a public office, "jus...

  • September 10, 2017

    Who Handles Controversial Statues Better: Russia or the USA?

    In his unfinished book The Last Tycoon, F. Scott Fitzgerald made the acerbic remark that there are no second acts in American life.  The remark was falsified by his own career, particularly after the success of The Great Gatsby.  ...

  • September 2, 2017

    Russia, NATO, and the United States

    We’re having a political heat wave, it isn’t surprising the temperature’s rising with the escalation of tensions, diplomaticall and politically with even a threat of military issues between the United States and Russia. In...

  • September 1, 2017

    Hamas Turning Over a New Leaf?

    On August 30, 2017 U.N. secretary-general António Guterres visited the Gaza Strip and expressed the need for humanitarian aid to the area.  He did not point out that about three quarters of the Gaza population is dependent on in...

  • August 28, 2017

    Make-Up for Him and Mission for Her in Paris

    That face, that beautiful face, is now a center of amusement in Paris. For centuries, that city has been the world center for style and elegance for women.  It's about time that men, especially politicians, displayed an attractive public ima...

  • August 25, 2017

    Destruction of Monuments Is Playing with Fire

    Once more unto the breach, once more, to seek political sanity concerning statuary and other symbols that some find offensive, to prevent the facsimile of another Civil War, and to stop erasing the nation’s history. If it is time to heal the wo...

  • August 24, 2017

    Christopher Columbus Gets the Sledgehammer

    Every schoolchild knows that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492.  He and his men sailed in the Pinta, the Niña, and the Santa Maria.  The U.S. federal government in 1971 made Columbus Day a national holiday in October, with Colum...

  • August 22, 2017

    Are Sanctions on Russia Desirable?

    One of history’s most diverting misunderstandings that long stood uncorrected is the alleged remark in 1972 by Chinese Prime Minister Chou Enlai to President Richard Nixon. Asked what he thought about the 1789 French Revolution, Chou is sa...

  • August 20, 2017

    The Failure of the Communist God

    In a recent friendly telephone conversation, Russian president Vladimir Putin may well have exclaimed to U.S. President Donald Trump, "Darn that dream I dream each night, but it haunts me and it won't come true."  It would be a tim...

  • August 19, 2017

    Statues in the United States and in South Korea

    To everything there is a season, a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together.  The wisdom of Ecclesiastes is being illustrated in different forms in the United States and in South Korea.  In one country, it is a time to ...

  • August 12, 2017

    Trump's Is Not the Only Wall

    Songwriters and poets have depicted their dislike of barriers.  In his only cowboy song, Cole Porter in 1934 proclaimed, "Don't fence me in ... give me land, lots of land."  Robert Frost told us, "Something there is that ...

  • August 10, 2017

    How to Confront North Korea

    Life is not just a bowl of cherries, nor is life necessarily a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury.  However, both life and politics can benefit from advice and warnings provided by tales and fiction.  This is certainly relevant t...

  • August 9, 2017

    Honoring a Righteous Irishman, Hubert Butler

    Perhaps, as the Irish writer Jonathan Swift asserted, it’s useless to attempt to reason people out of a thing they weren’t reasoned into. Yet, in the current midst of manifestations of the bad and the ugly in Germany and Britain, it is a ...

  • July 30, 2017

    Britain Must Eliminate the Virus of Anti-Semitism

    The heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, spoke in June 2013 of prejudice and discrimination in his country.  Britain was suffering, he remarked, from "an apparent rise" in anti-Semitism, along with "other poisonous and debi...

  • July 27, 2017

    Religion and Violence at the Mosque in Jerusalem

    On September 1, 1967, shortly after the Six Day War, the Khartoum Declaration was issued by eight Arab states with its "framework of the main principles by which the Arab states abide." It listed the combative three NOs: no peace with Israe...

  • July 25, 2017

    Justice for Holocaust Victims at Last?

    The quality of justice is sometimes strained and sometimes delayed. On July 21, 2017, some form of justice occurred when the heirs of a prominent German Jewish banking family, the Bleichroder family, recovered a 16th-century painting that had been st...

  • July 22, 2017

    Making Changes to Erase History: Righteous or Wrong-Headed?

    Let's talk of court news: who loses and who wins, who's in and who's out.  Sometimes this is hazardous.  In the Soviet Union, when ruled by Josef Stalin, truth was determined from one dictator's edicts to the next.  One...

  • July 20, 2017

    Truth in France on Past Persecution of Jews

    "We cannot build pride upon a lie," was uttered by French President Emmanuel Macron at a ceremony on July 16, 2017, commemorating the 75th anniversary of one of the darkest days in French history under the wartime Vichy regime. On that day,...

  • July 16, 2017

    Trump and Macron: A Beautiful Friendship?

    "Emmanuel," President Donald Trump must have said to French President Emmanuel Macron as he and his entourage got into Air Force One in Paris, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."  Trump had been the gue...

  • July 13, 2017

    Globalization and the Arena of Politics

    These are the times that try human understanding. How to explain the latest political demonstrations, three consecutive nights of rioting in July 2017 by large numbers in Hamburg, Germany during and after the end of the meeting of the Group of 20, le...

  • July 9, 2017

    The Palestinian Glib and Oily Art against Israel

    It is gratifying to know that some individuals, scholars, and artists can keep their heads while all about them are losing theirs.  On June 14, 2017, members of the Modern Language Association voted by 1,954 to 885 to refrain from endorsing the ...

  • July 7, 2017

    India and Israel: A New Harmony

    Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who took office in May 2014, received an enthusiastic grandiose response and warm embrace from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when they met at Ben-Gurion International Airport on July 4, 2017. Afte...

  • July 2, 2017

    Hands Cross the Ocean: Trump and Macron

    According to Casablanca, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh, but is a handshake just a handshake? Or is there a correlation between a handshake and character? Does a handshake tell you anything about the personality, political attitude, or ...

  • June 29, 2017

    Art and Justice

    One of the great misfortunes of history is that a young, unemployed, mediocre realistic painter of buildings and landscapes named Adolf Hitler was denied admission to the Vienna Academy of Fine Art. If he had been admitted the world, would have been ...

  • June 27, 2017

    Wonder Woman Should Go to Paris

    The new film, Wonder Woman, a blockbuster extravaganza, is the latest in the superhero genre, but several aspects of it are worth noting. First is the conception of Wonder Woman herself. Even strict feminists will have difficulty with Irving Berli...

  • June 26, 2017

    Rift in the Gulf: Saudi Arabia and Qatar

    Just friends, lovers, and partners no more is the situation in the Middle East after an extraordinary series of demands made on June 22, 2017 by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council against Qatar.  In this world of ordinary people, some...

  • June 18, 2017

    Academics Reject BDS

    There is a tide in academic and political matters that may lead to tolerance and respect for civilized behavior.  That surge, if not a torrent, may occur as the result of a decision on June 14, 2017 by members of the Modern Language Association....

  • June 16, 2017

    The Blindness of the United Nations

    British Queen Elizabeth I had a motto, semper eaden (always the same). Four centuries later, the United Nations and its various bodies are funny that way in repeating the obvious, and need someone to watch over them. They might be reminded that their...

  • June 14, 2017

    Thespians Delve into Politics, Destroy Discourse

    The insightful 18th-century French political philosopher Montesquieu informed us that "there are bad examples which are worse than crimes; more states have perished by the violations of their moral customs than by the violation of their laws....

  • June 10, 2017

    Britain and Israel: A Bridge to Maintain

    A hundred years ago, in the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, the British Government in a letter from Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, viewed “with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish...

  • June 5, 2017

    Enough is Enough: London Bridge and the Fight against Terrorism

    The iconic London Bridge is not falling and must not fall down, my fair lady. The attack on innocent people in the area on June 4, 2017 makes it a symbol of the need for the struggle of civilization against Islamic barbarism to continue. That struggl...

  • June 3, 2017

    In Memory of Bartley Crum, Fighter for Jewish Rights

    "I shall be telling this with a sigh," wrote Robert Frost about the road less travelled by. The same emotion can be experienced about the story of Bartley Crum, a fascinating, charming figure, an honorable man , a Roman Catholic who fought ...

  • May 31, 2017

    Charles de Gaulle and Donald J. Trump

    In his amusing play The Odd Couple, Neil Simon depicted a bizarre pair, the slovenly and easygoing Oscar and the tidy, neurotic Felix.  By chance, recent events have presented the opportunity to comment on an incongruous political duo, with...

  • May 28, 2017

    Sharing the NATO Arrangement

    No one is ever likely to mistake Donald J. Trump for a lyric soprano at the New York Metropolitan Opera.  Yet Trump, the political performer, resembles a musical performer in his capacity to express himself, colla voce, freely taking the le...

  • May 26, 2017

    Here’s to the Winners in the Fight against Terrorism

    Niccolo Machiavelli writing in 1513 did his best to warn Donald J. Trump. In Chapter VI of The Prince he wrote, "nothing is more difficult to set up ...than a new system of government, because the bringer of the new system will make enemies of e...

  • May 21, 2017

    Two Presidents: Emmanuel Macron and Donald Trump

    The new presidents, Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron, so different in personality, behavior, career, and background, share in common a designation as political “outsiders.” Certainly, the life experience of the two men is unusual. The 70-...

  • May 19, 2017

    Trump and the Western Wall

    Don’t send in the clowns. No one from rocket scientist to a barely educated person is likely to deny that China has a connection to the Great Wall of China, or that Egypt has a connection with the Pyramids. Yet UNESCO is funny that way. On Octo...

  • May 16, 2017

    Trump's 14 Points for Israel and the Palestinians

    On January 8, 1918 President Woodrow Wilson delivered his speech to the U.S. Congress outlining his 14 Points, a statement of war aims and peace terms for World War I, the only explicit statement of war aims by any country fighting the war. The speec...

  • May 14, 2017

    Shakespearean Politics in Britain

    Brush up your Shakespeare if you really want to understand politics, especially possible future events in Britain. The imminent retirement at the age of 95 of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, from public engagements has drawn attention to the inhere...

  • May 13, 2017

    Putin and Russian History

    In the United States, the arts and humanities in the main are flourishing, but one art seems to have disappeared, the political art of losing gracefully. Instead, there is the frenetic search for scapegoats to blame for unexpected and embarrassing de...

  • May 7, 2017

    Two Cheers for Monarchy

    Uneasy lies the head that does not wear a crown. According to the constitution of the French Fifth Republic of 1958, France is “an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic.” However, in reality there are strong differences on ...

  • May 5, 2017

    The Hamas Leopard Tries to Change Its Spots

    Life is full of puzzles and wishful thinking.  As the great philosopher Chico Marx said in the film Duck Soup, "Who are you going to believe: me or your lying eyes?"  For many years, countless people have reported sights of the no...

  • May 3, 2017

    How Should the US Deal with North Korea?

    The international political and economic system is more likely to remain stable when a particular state is the dominant power, or hegemon, able to dominate the rules of both politics and economics.  There has to be, as the economist Charles Kind...

  • April 29, 2017

    French voters have rejected their establishment

    French electors have sent a message to traditional political parties: we can get along very well without you. Instead, the country in the second round of voting on May 7, 2017 for president of France has a choice between two outsiders, one a Europhil...

  • April 28, 2017

    The Golden Key to Social Mobility

    On February 7, 2017 Betsy DeVos was confirmed as U.S. Secretary of Education by a vote of 51-50 with Vice President Mike Pence breaking the tie vote. She made history because she was the first Cabinet nominee to be confirmed in this way. The question...

  • April 23, 2017

    Britain's Theresa May Takes the Lead

    Perhaps the most disagreeable trait in Machiavelli's controversial writings were his misogynistic comments on women.  In The Prince , published in 1532 but written earlier, he wrote, "Fortune is a woman.  And if you wish to ke...

  • April 20, 2017

    Mired Yet Again in the Swamp of Afghanistan

    Ever since Alexander the Great in 330 B.C. tried to subdue the area of Afghanistan and encountered resistance, the area has been either the graveyard of empires or the highway of conquest.  Britain fought three wars there in the 19th and early 2...

  • April 17, 2017

    Chemical Weapons and U.S. National Interest

    Perhaps the most moving poem with imagery evoking the horror of the first World War is "Dulce et Decorum Est" written in October 1917 by Wilfred Owen, the British writer who was killed in action a year later, aged 25. His condemnation ...

  • April 14, 2017

    Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: The Alarming Comedian

    Some compulsive, some repulsive comedy this week. First there was the Syrian denial it had used poison gas on April 4, 2017 that killed many civilians. Then then was the statement, for which on April 11 he apologized profusely, by Sean Spicer U....

  • April 11, 2017

    Marine Le Pen and the French Role in Roundups of Jews

    It is bewildering that on the eve of Passover, the story of Jewish liberation from slavery, the far-right candidate for the French presidency should have reopened old wounds concerning the treatment of Jews in France in World War II. It raises the qu...

  • April 9, 2017

    Who Speaks the Language of Moliere?

    In the history of France, politics and language have often been intertwined. In the past few months, the political use of language has been shown in a new form. A number of French regions, including Paris, have passed rules obliging workers on pub...

  • April 7, 2017

    Hizb’allah: Danger Ahead

    President Donald Trump has been accused of many dire acts and devious intentions. The latest, and one of the most absurd, comes from Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the terrorist Hizb’allah organization, in a television interview in his bunker in...

  • April 6, 2017

    A Defense of the Arts

    Why should the U.S. federal government subsidize the arts?  Does it or should it divert public funds from military or security concerns to support ballet?  Art and culture are not universal tastes or necessities, as are health care and educ...

  • April 2, 2017

    Eddie Izzard the Comedian Confronts Palestinian Discrimination

    A saying attributed to the great boxer, the Brown Bomber Joe Louis, about to fight Billy Conn in June 1941, is “You can run but you can’t hide.” Conn did not hide and did well until he was knocked out in the 13th round. In March 201...

  • March 31, 2017

    Fighting Anti-Israeli Bias at the UN

    British Prime Minister Theresa May is making history from which there is no turning back in the effort to restore what she called “our national self-determination” after 44 years of British membership first of the EEC, the Common Market,...

  • March 28, 2017

    Terrorism on Westminster Bridge

    The 2500-year-old Chinese code of conduct handed down from Confucius includes the advice to three monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Amazingly, this counsel has sometimes been misapplied in cases of Islamist terrorism in European coun...

  • March 24, 2017

    France and Populism

    “It underscores the need for tighter border controls in Europe,” was the predictable response of Martine Le Pen, leader of the French National Front (FN) and presidential candidate to the brutal Islamic terrorist attack on March 22, 2017 ...

  • March 23, 2017

    The Irish Model for Peace in the Middle East

    On March 21, 2017, Martin McGuinness, the former chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army and street fighter turned peacemaker and politician, died of amyloidosis, a rare genetic disease, at the age of 66, a few months after he had resigned from h...

  • March 22, 2017

    Tiptoeing through the Tulips in the Netherlands

    The wise sage from Boston, Tip O'Neill, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, contributed to statecraft that “all politics is local.” The result of the parliamentary election in the Netherlands on March 16, 2017, while incon...

  • March 19, 2017

    Understanding Russia

    Russia is an easy country to enter.  Procedures at Moscow's airport including passport control allow passengers a speedy departure from the airport, and the hour-long journey to the center of the city and hotel passes quickly along the six-l...

  • March 11, 2017

    North Korea Is a Danger

    When a man knows he is to be hanged, said Dr. Samuel Johnson, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. When North Korea on March 6, 2017 simultaneously and successfully fired four missiles, the mind of the president of the U.S. as well as the eyes of th...

  • March 9, 2017

    How to Make Decisions (or Not) in Israel

    On Monday, March 6, 2017, President Donald Trump signed a revised executive order suspending his refugee program and entry into the U.S. from six countries.  This suspension of entries for 120 days was explained as eliminating vulnerabilities th...

  • March 6, 2017

    Is Russia Still an Enigma?

    In his BBC broadcast of October 1, 1939, Winston Churchill spoke of Russia as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."  His words have often been quoted, but the remaining words of his sentence are less familiar.  Churchi...

  • February 26, 2017

    The Regulation Law and Peace in the Middle East

    Critics of Israel persist in the contention that the existence of Israeli settlements is a core, even the main, impediment to peace and to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.  Once again, in the U.N. Security Council's R...

  • February 26, 2017

    Does Natalie Portman Have a Long Nose?

    Donald Trump is now commander-in-chief in the U.S. and has begun issuing his commands. On Feb. 21, 2017, he issued one of them: "Antisemitism is horrible, and it's going to stop and has to stop."  Though more well-intentioned than ...

  • February 21, 2017

    Donald Trump Is Not a Zionist Racist

    Donald J. Trump is not easy to define with exact unadorned precision. Like Shakespeare’s Cassius, he is fresh of spirit and resolve, to meet all perils very constantly. His universe is not a paradise of inner tranquility, but one of active deci...

  • February 19, 2017

    Coming Home to Israel

    Everyone is familiar with the continuing search for a comprehensive and fair settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.  For seventy years, discussion of and proposals for a solution have emerged from both acknowledged partisans and well-me...

  • February 18, 2017

    Globalization and President Trump

    One may be forgiven for believing that Hollywood has moved to Washington, D.C.  Instead of James Bond, the political scene is full of heroes and villains; allegations of international spies; contacts of officials of the Trump administration with...

  • February 15, 2017

    Scrolls Tell the Truth in the Middle East

    From the moment absurdity is recognized, wrote Albert Camus, it becomes a passion, the most harrowing of all. In politics the extent and irrationality of that passion has often been exhibited, and none more so than in attitudes to the Jewish people a...

  • February 12, 2017

    Indiscretions and Scandals in French Politics

    Commenting on the 2016 U.S. presidential election, French President Francois Hollande opined that “Trump’s victory opens a period of uncertainty.” One can agree that the U.S. election campaign was unusually bitter, with candidates w...

  • February 10, 2017

    Vladimir Putin and the Return of the KGB

    Things have come to a pretty pass, and we don't know where we're at concerning Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin.  But we can't call the whole thing off.  We can legitimately differ on whether Putin is a "killer...

  • February 6, 2017

    Is There a Better Candidate for Sanctions than Iran?

    If Islamist terrorism is the major issue threatening the world, the Islamic Republic of Iran comes a close second.  Its geopolitical prominence, economic and military resources, and extreme ideology make it rife for international mischief. Ec...

  • February 4, 2017

    Beware of Anti-Semitism in Germany

    Paris did not burn during World War II.  Whether it is fact or myth, General Dietrich von Cholitz, German military governor of Paris,  is said to have disobeyed Adolf Hitler's orders in August 1944 to destroy the French capital and inst...

  • February 1, 2017

    French Court Rejects Palestinian Demands

    A new sheriff arrived in town with the appointment of Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina, as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. In her first speech, she indicated the disproportionate contribution by the United States -- 22% of the UN...

  • January 29, 2017

    The US and Britain: We'll Be Together Again

    No tears, no fears, today or tomorrow. It was pleasing irony that British prime minister Theresa May on January 26, 2017, speaking in the city where the American colonies declared their independence from the mother country, heralded the opportunity t...

  • January 25, 2017

    Making Britain Great Again

    The winds of political change are blowing in the UK as they are in the United States. In both countries, the kaleidoscope of the political world is shifting as two issues, political sovereignty and control over immigration, have taken center sta...

  • January 19, 2017

    Ending the Biased United Nations Resolutions against Israel

    Another opening, another show. International politics has taken its cue from Cole Porter. Not far from Broadway, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) met on January 18, 2017 to reiterate its favorite topic, condemnation of the State of Israel....

  • January 14, 2017

    Another Israel-Palestinian Conference, Another Exercise in Futility

    It's déjà vu all over again.  Another peace conference is being held in Paris on January 15, 2017 to stress and reaffirm international support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  It will be atten...

  • January 9, 2017

    Enough Already: Move the US Embassy to Jerusalem

    Since 1993, residents of New York City have had a sister city in Israel named Jerusalem.  On December 5, 1949, the Israeli government declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, and on January 23, 1950, the Knesset, Israel's parliament, procla...

  • January 7, 2017

    Donald Trump Must Not Join the Jackals

    In his biting article in Commentary on February 1, 1981, Daniel P. Moynihan, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, 1975-76, was critical of his successor, Donald F. McHenry, for not voting against a U.N. Security Council resolution ...

  • January 5, 2017

    Russia: A Look at the Bear Obama Is Poking

    It would be much too unkind to say President Barack Obama is a self-made man who worships his creator.  Yet it is true that he seems always to back into the limelight, a feat not likely to diminish.  After leaving the office of the presiden...

  • December 28, 2016

    Anti-Semitism in British Universities

    It is sad to learn the truth about anti-Semitism being exhibited at British universities these days. This prejudice of course was always present among some British intellectuals, if expressed in discreet and prudent form. Isaiah Berlin refe...

  • December 24, 2016

    The Pros and Cons of the Electoral College

    Politics is a game, in some ways akin to football.  A win depends on how many points are on the official scoreboard, not on how many yards have been covered. For a stable society to exist or a game to be successful, certain rules must be foll...

  • December 20, 2016

    Britain Starting to Punish Anti-Semitism

    What singular disgraceful theme unites advocates of the far right, the far left, and Islamic fundamentalists?  In spite of the different ideologies and priorities of these groups, all share attitudes of intolerance, prejudice, and hatred towards...

  • December 15, 2016

    Donald Should Trump Hezb'allah

    In an interview on September 3, 2015, presidential candidate Donald Trump confessed he could not identify the leaders of major militant groups in the Middle East.  More pertinently, he added that he would know the difference between Hamas and He...

  • December 12, 2016

    The Kurds and President Trump

    What is the largest ethnic group that wants but does not have a nation-state of its own?  No, it's not the "Palestinian people," but rather the Kurds, who number between 30 and 35 million.  Living in areas of Turkey, Iraq, Syr...

  • December 8, 2016

    China and Donald Trump

    Rarely in history has a ten-minute phone call, like that on Friday December 2, 2016, been credited with raising fears of new tensions in international politics. According to the New York Times on December 4, 2016, the “protocol shattering...

  • December 6, 2016

    The Center Is Not Holding

    It is a hyperbolic overstatement to say that the center cannot hold and mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, but it is fair to recognize that the tectonic plates of European politics are shifting. In one week in November-December 2016 this actualit...

  • December 4, 2016

    Vicious Palestinian Politics

    The mills of democratic politics in Palestinian organizations grind slowly, if they ever grind at all. This was borne out once again at the 7th General Congress of the Fatah section of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) held in Ramallah, the...

  • November 30, 2016

    A Transatlantic Holy Alliance?

    The result of recent elections in the United States and in France raises the possibility of a new Holy Alliance, a loose alliance of the two countries to uphold the principles and values of Western civilization by changing the present system. The ...

  • November 28, 2016

    Turkey at Thanksgiving Is Enough

    President M. Nixon is not generally admired as a fountain of profundity.  But attention should be paid by sore political losers to this pithy remark: "You've got to learn to survive a defeat.  That's when you develop character....

  • November 25, 2016

    Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen

    A spectre is haunting Europe and the United States, the spectre of populism. The mainstream media in those countries, led by the New York Times and George Soros, have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre, but two questions are pertin...

  • November 18, 2016

    They Do Protest Too Much, Methinks

    The ongoing protests, now in their eighth day, against the election of Donald Trump as President of the U.S. can be seen in benign fashion as democracy in action, illustrations of the exercise of the right of free speech. Some of the protestors ...

  • November 16, 2016

    Why Honor Yasser Arafat?

    We can never know the whole truth, but we do know some of it.  We know for sure that Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hononlulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961.  We know that, although New York Times reporter Nate Cohen confessed in his...

  • November 10, 2016

    Don't Blame the West

    Everyone except barbaric jihadists will greet with delight the news that Iraqi military forces, helped by U.S. training, and allies are approaching to liberate the city of Mosul, the largest Sunni center in Iraq, that had been captured by a few thous...

  • November 9, 2016

    Honoring The Balfour Declaration

    Harassed as she is by the constitutional and economic problems of Brexit, British prime minister Theresa May, like Margaret Thatcher a generation ago, is a lady not for turning.  She is fully capable of stiffening the sinews and summoning up the...

  • November 4, 2016

    Jewish Salonica: A Great Sephardic Community

    Much of the writing on Jewish history has focused on the complex experience of Ashkenazi Jews, their achievements as well as the discrimination and persecution mounted against them. For generations, Ashkenazi Jews constituted about three-quarters of ...

  • September 22, 2016

    Ireland Will Not Bite the Apple

    Rarely in history has an offer of 13 billion euros been refused by a state or organization.  Yet the government of Ireland entered the book of records on September 2, 2016 by not taking the offered gift.  Instead, it decided to appeal again...

  • September 20, 2016

    Don’t Say You Haven’t Been Warned about Terror

    Few are likely to mistake New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for the fount of political wisdom. Even those few must have been astonished by his response to the first of the two incidents in his city on September 17, 2016. In his mode of political cor...

  • September 17, 2016

    The Increasing Veil over Europe

    Catholic religious leaders have been making unusually strong statements about Islamist terrorists. Pope Frances, in a ceremony on September 14, 2016, honoring the priest Fr. Jacques Hamel who had been murdered by two Islamist terrorists in his church...

  • September 15, 2016

    Two Real Deplorables

    American citizens must have been startled and shocked when a prominent politician, who should know better, informed them with passionate intensity of the existence of "deplorables" in their ranks.  No doubt some citizens would like the...

  • September 12, 2016

    The Necessary Fight against Terrorism

    The opening in London of a new British film, Anthropoid, dealing with the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich on May 27, 1942 is a reminder of one of the world's most evil individuals.  At the same time, it provides an opportunity to reflect ...

  • September 10, 2016

    Islamist Terrorism Must Be Punished

    Shakespeare told us that the quality of mercy is not strained, but he did not tell us that the quality of justice in the United States and in Britain regarding Islamic terrorism is not flawless.  In both countries, recent verdicts of the courts ...

  • September 8, 2016

    Israeli Settlements Are Not the Obstacle to Peace

    Why are United Nations officials so oblivious to their own documents, let alone to the truth? This appears to be the case with Nicolay Mladenov, the Bulgaria-born UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. He appears to be unaware of t...

  • September 7, 2016

    Israel, Terrorism, and United States Law

    “If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, “the law is an ass, an idiot.” He could have been referring to U.S. court decisions that have allowed instigators or abettors of Palestinian t...

  • August 30, 2016

    Swimsuits on Trial in France

    In 1871, Karl Marx published a pamphlet, "The Civil War in France," discussing the fight between the radical Commune radical group that had ruled Paris for a few months and the national government that resulted in more than 20,000 casu...

  • August 28, 2016

    Two Problems for the Next President of the United States

    For the next president of the United States, it is important to take account of two pressing issues: the continuing war in Afghanistan and the political and strategic intentions of Russian president Vladimir Putin. At a moment when there is contro...

  • August 26, 2016

    Britain and Islamic Extremists

    The official attitude, political and legal, of Britain to Islamic terrorists, jihadists, and their supporters has and continues to be ambivalent. It used to be indecisive: now it’s not so sure. If not imitating the action of the tiger, Bri...

  • August 25, 2016

    Should Destruction of Cultural Heritage Be Considered a War Crime?

    It is welcome news when perpetrators of evil are brought to justice.  The civilized world will delight in the fact that in the last month, two Islamist terrorists, one repentant, the other defiant, have been prosecuted and convicted for their in...

  • August 23, 2016

    Ransom, the Law, and the Obama Administration

    Fairy tales can come true, it could happen to those who are lucky and politically naïve at heart. Unfortunately, the Obama administration in its relations with Iran has gone to extremes with impossible schemes and tales that fly in the face of o...

  • August 21, 2016

    Rising to the Height in Presidential Voting

    Predictions are always perilous, especially about the future. Pollsters, either professional organizers or on behalf of their candidates, are understandingly often imperfect in explaining how and why individuals vote the way they do and the reasons f...

  • August 19, 2016

    A Closer Look at the 'Jewish Conspiracy'

    Conspiracy theories never end.  People love them and have a compulsion to believe falsities, whether for personal or ideological reasons.  We are told that Elvis Presley, who is rumored to have died in Memphis on August 16, 1977 is still al...

  • August 17, 2016

    France Addresses Muslim Women

    On August 12, 2016, Syrian Democratic Forces and Arab and Kurdish fighters liberated the Syrian city of Manbij, near the Turkish border.  This stronghold that ISIS had held since early 2014 fell to the liberating forces after two months of heavy...

  • August 16, 2016

    East of the Sun for the United Nations

    Why is the headquarters of the United Nations still in New York?  If it is removed, Sudanese President Omar al Bashir, who canceled plans to attend in 2013, can attend meetings of the U.N. General Assembly.  So far he has been denied a U.S....

  • August 14, 2016

    Syria Must Be Settled

    In order to form a more perfect understanding of politics in the Middle East and to provide a prescription for American foreign policy concerning the morass in Syria, it is important to appreciate the complexities raised by the civil war in that coun...

  • August 12, 2016

    Radical Islam: Wahhabism and Salafism

    In one of the great speeches of the 20th century, General Charles de Gaulle on BBC Radio on June 18,1940 spoke to the French people after the government of France had capitulated to Nazi Germany.  Optimistically, he argued that France would be a...

  • August 1, 2016

    A Tale of Two Donalds

    Neither film goers nor political commentators might see much in common between Walt Disney’s colorful and noisy character Donald Duck who has delighted audiences for 70 years and the colorful and noisy personality Donald Trump who is starring...

  • July 29, 2016

    Israel’s Optimistic Outlook

    The brilliant historian Davis S. Landes was perceptive about the correct attitude in life. The optimists rather than the pessimists have it, he wrote, not because they are always right, but because they are positive. The need is to keep trying: no mi...

  • July 27, 2016

    The Barbarians Must Be Stopped

    Everyone admires the intriguing puzzles and solutions in the stories of Sherlock Holmes.  In The Adventures of Silver Blaze, the curious incident of the dog that did nothing – did not bark – in the night was the clue toward solving t...

  • July 20, 2016

    Melania Trump's plagiarism

    Originality in any form does not come easily.  Few politicians can claim the mantle of Demosthenes, the 4th-century B.C. perfect orator of ancient Greece, or Cicero, his later Roman counterpart, or Winston Churchill in our own times, for his utt...

  • July 19, 2016

    France Must Survive

    On August 7, 2014, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a French television program transmitted a timely warning to his French audience. The fight against terrorism he said was not “Israel’s battle… It’s your battle, ...

  • July 16, 2016

    Does Boris Have a Twin in the US?

    Born in New York, he is a provocative maverick with whom the political establishment is ill at ease. He is a colorful, charismatic, undiplomatic, burly individual with a shock of blond seemingly uncontrollable hair, who has difficulty in keeping his ...

  • July 13, 2016

    The UK's New Prime Minister Will Deal with Anti-Semitism

    Today, Theresa May, the present home secretary, became the new leader of the ruling British Conservative Party and the U.K.'s prime minister.  Naturally, her main task is to redefine the role of Britain in the world after the Brexit vote to ...

  • July 10, 2016

    Hillary and Tony: Can They Be Compared?

    To lose one email on a personal server may be regarded as a misfortune: to lose several thousand work related emails looks like carelessness. Certainly, FBI Director James B. Comey on July 5, 2016 thought that the handling of very sensitive, highly-c...

  • July 9, 2016

    Exit and Voice in Europe

    As a result of the narrow victory, 51.8 per cent to 48.11 per cent, at the referendum on June 23, 2016 for the UK to leave membership of the European Union the British system is in internal political turmoil and uncertain about future relationships w...

  • July 6, 2016

    Immigration Is the Key

    The Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin once said, “There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen.” He might have been talking of the UK in June 2016 with the events connected with the referendum on June 23, 201...

  • July 4, 2016

    Should Nazi Memorabilia Be Sold at Auction?

    Some people get their kicks from champagne.  Others get them from selling and buying relics of Nazi Germany, or from remembrance and celebration of things from that evil regime.  The ongoing present puzzle is the mentality and the motivatio...

  • June 25, 2016

    What a Cast of Characters in Political Affairs!

    In 1648, the Swedish politician and diplomat Count Axel Oxenstierna wrote to his son, "Do you not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?"  Recent events in the United States and elsewhere amply justify the aphorism...

  • June 21, 2016

    Obama Administration's Terror Delusions

    It would be too unkind to say that the Obama administration resembles The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight, the appellation given by the novelist Jimmy Breslin to a story about Brooklyn Mafiosi.  Yet even loyal supporters of the administrat...

  • June 21, 2016

    Putin and Trump on NATO

    The recent consensus by the German foreign minister, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and presidential candidate Donald Trump on the problem and activity of NATO has come as an unexpected surprise. First came the statement on June 17, 2016 by the...

  • June 19, 2016

    No More Orlandos

    The next President of the United States must consider acting on the basis of what activists in Northern Ireland used to call “the politics of the last atrocity.” The CIA Director John Brennan on June 16, 2016 provided official confirmatio...

  • June 17, 2016

    The Challenge of Radical Islam

    Though the 22nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution forbids it, Barack Obama seems to be running for a third term as President of the United States. In his address on June 14, 2016 the president concentrated more on a fiery attack on Donald Trump than...

  • June 11, 2016

    The Palestinian Community must Abandon Terror

    On June 8, 2016 two young Palestinians from the town of Yatta, near Hebron in the West Bank entered Israel illegally and attacked a popular shopping center in Tel Aviv, close to Israel’s military headquarters, killing four civilians and serious...

  • June 9, 2016

    NATO Must Fight the Real Enemy

      Russia is now back on the international scene, a significant geopolitical player.  President Vladimir Putin, who reminds the world that during World War II the Soviet Union suffered the largest number of casualties, estimated at between ...

  • June 6, 2016

    Spinning and Spinning: The Ceiling Fan State Department

    Have the Obama White House, the U.S. State Department, and part of the Washington media, press, and TV been engaged in a vast left-wing conspiracy to lie to and deceive the American public about the nuclear deal with Iran?  One might think so, s...

  • June 5, 2016

    Bernard Lewis and Islam

    A saying attributed to Emperor Napoleon while in exile is “What a novel my life has been.” Today, an equally fascinating “novel” could be written based on the life of an intellectual emperor, Bernard Lewis, the world’s g...

  • June 3, 2016

    Why is the UN Human Rights Council Not Concerned About Slavery?

    Commentators may debate whether the United Nations Human Rights Council is or is the world’s most ludicrous international organization, but all will agree it is the most misnamed. Human rights, with one exception, is foreign territory to it. Th...

  • June 2, 2016

    The White House Spin, J Street, and Iran

    In an astonishingly arrogant remark, Ben Rhodes, the spin doctor of the White House, confessed to misleading the American people, media, and nongovernmental organizations about the seven-nation negotiations with Iran in 2015 purportedly to stop Iran...

  • May 29, 2016

    Islamic Discrimination Against Women

    If a thing goes without saying it goes even better if it is said. It has long been clear that Islamic Sharia law was incompatible with conventions on human rights regarding the place of women in the legal order and in all spheres of private and publi...

  • May 24, 2016

    The Far Right in Austria Did Not Have a Rendezvous with History

    Danger signals are being displayed in Europe warning that their countries are politically polarized and may be sliding to politically far-right authoritarian political systems. The torchlight in May 2016 was on Austria, the birthplace of Adolf Hitler...

  • May 22, 2016

    The United States, NATO, and Russia

    Will Cold War II begin because of bananas? The Obama administration has made it clear, “Yes, we have no bananas, we have no bananas today.” Nevertheless, the distinguished Russian champion figure skater and now politician Irina Rodni...

  • May 19, 2016

    An objective 'Palestinian Museum'? Nice try.

    High among the corrupted currents in the world of international affairs is the myth of a Palestinian history of unilateral suffering.  The fallacious Palestinian Narrative of Victimhood may hold the gold standard in spinning about the story of t...

  • May 17, 2016

    The silly political season in Washington and Europe

    Life is changing.  The summer winds came blowing in a little early this year.  For many years, summer or late summer has been regarded as the silly season for politics.  The French knew this time was morte-saison (dead or dull season),...

  • May 14, 2016

    Mazel tov, Israel

    All countries have imperfect records, both historically and in contemporary times. All at some point have been engaged in internal and external conflict and encountered enmity and violence. The State of Israel is no different in this respect, and has...

  • May 13, 2016

    UNESCO's Collapse of Credibility

    Lying and spinning history are becoming an international disease.  On May 3, 2016, the world learned that the White House had deliberately falsified information about Obama administration's relations with Iran.  A month earlier, the spi...

  • May 11, 2016

    When the White House Lies to the Media, and Laughs Doing It

    What a surprise!  It was revealed from the highest level that the Obama White House has been downright deceptive and had lied to the American public and media about the nuclear deal with Iran, as well as carrying on secret bilateral negotiations...

  • May 9, 2016

    Jews confront Radical Evil

    Ken Livingstone, the former Labour Party Mayor of London, is one of the most, perhaps the very most, nauseating figures in British politics. It is welcome news that he has been suspended from the party for his ongoing disgraceful and ignorant remarks...

  • May 8, 2016

    Jews Remembered in Venice

    Though his sonnet was on Westminster Bridge, London, William Wordsworth might have used the same words to describe Venice, “a sight so touching in its majesty.” Everyone is enchanted by its incomparable beauty, admires the splendor and ma...

  • May 7, 2016

    Will the Next American President Be Friends with Saudi Arabia?

    Just friends, but not like before just about sums up the present relationship between the Obama administration and Saudi Arabia.  It is not a divorce, but rather an estrangement or separation in a less than happy marriage.  In happier, days...

  • May 3, 2016

    The Love Affair Between the British Labour Party and Adolf Hitler

    Did you know that the Jewish victims of the Holocaust were partners of Adolf Hitler, who was a Zionist? Members of the British Labour Party have told us that this was the case. This is the most recent manifestation of the anti-Semitism that has reare...

  • April 28, 2016

    Irish Eyes Are Smiling on Britain

    In his great speech in 1775 on Conciliation with America, Edmund Burke concluded that the best way to change the stubborn spirit that was generating trouble was to remove the causes.  It is a welcome sign that this has been the basis for reconci...

  • April 26, 2016

    The European Union, Migrants, and Refugees

    Since the world is commemorating the 400th anniversary of the birth of Shakespeare, it was not surprising that Frans Timmermans, vice-president of the European Commission, should on April 23, 2016, quote the Bard of Avon. Timmermans, together with Ge...

  • April 24, 2016

    Awake, British Students!

    What a sad coincidence that on the very week that the story of Passover, the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery and evil, is celebrated, particularly disturbing events occurred in a meeting of leaders of student bodies in Britain. T...

  • April 22, 2016

    Joe Biden, Terrorism, and Israel

    Yes, once again Vice-President Joe Biden, as the Sondheim song, “Send in the Clowns”, might put it, made his entrance with his usual flair. This time on April 18, 2016 Biden, speaking to a friendly and appreciative J-Street (the dovish Je...

  • April 20, 2016

    Germany and Turkey: No More Appeasement

    No one interested in political affairs is likely to forget the nature and the consequences of the appeasement policy in 1938 of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, a policy of making political concession to Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany in or...

  • April 18, 2016

    Is Bernie Burning His Bridges?

    No, Bernie Sanders is not a self-hating Jew.  Nor are members of the organization J Street, because its leader, Jeremy Ben-Ami, has told us as much.  Yet it remains a puzzlement that these self-proclaimed supporters of Israel – indeed...

  • April 17, 2016

    Nicholas Winton: Fighter for Good over Evil

    At a moment when American presidential politics is saturated with disingenuous rhetoric and vacuous platitudes it is not only a relief but a real pleasure and indeed an inspiring honor to read the story of Sir Nicholas Winton, a wonderful and ri...

  • April 16, 2016

    The PEN Festival and Bigotry Against Israel

    It is troubling that almost anything still goes. Good authors who once knew better have again succumbed to bigotry of Palestinian pressure groups against Israel. A number of them are now endorsing attempts by those groups to prevent better words emer...

  • April 13, 2016

    Time for Power, Religious and Political, to Speak the Truth

    At last voices of sanity, whether genuinely sincere or uttered for political reasons, are being heard in Britain. They may not be voices of turtledoves, but they address in sharp tones the problem of anti-Semitism in the British Labour Party. The vir...

  • April 10, 2016

    Albert Einstein, Critic of American Foreign Policy

    Albert Einstein, the pipe-smoking individual with unkempt hair and rumpled clothes, the violin player who loved Mozart’s music, the resident in a very modest house on Mercer Street in Princeton, New Jersey, is universally regarded as one o...

  • April 7, 2016

    Time for the US to Deal with the Iran Deal?

    In his 1936 song "I've Got You under My Skin," in a complicated melody with repeated notes, Cole Porter advised, "Use your mentality; wake up to reality."  In view of a number of recent international events, that advice a...

  • April 5, 2016

    Shame on the British Left

    The world has been horrified by the rapid growth of the mosquito-borne virus Zika that has spread through all of South American and has threatened the United States. The virus may cause birth defects in children and neurological problems in adults....

  • April 4, 2016

    Did ISIS Just Reveal Its Plans?

    The first task of the Obama administration should be to fight and eliminate Islamist terrorism.  A document just issued by ISIS is perplexing because it is unclear whether the terrorist caliphate is helping the U.S. administration in this task o...

  • April 2, 2016

    Donald Trump and NATO

    Whatever else can be said about Donald Trump, everyone can agree he is a provocateur who, intentionally or not, stirs controversy on subjects to which little political attention has been focused.  He has injected a new issue in the presidential ...

  • April 1, 2016

    Conspiracy Theories by Palestinians and Others

    The world is full of noises and sounds. Some are sweet airs that give delight and do not hurt. Others are hurtful and pernicious and are deliberate distortions of documented truth, simple but false explanations of existing problems and of those ...

  • March 30, 2016

    The Danger of Islamist Terrorism: Be Not Afraid

    No good deed goes unpunished. The campaign by the U.S., Western countries, Kurds, and Russia against ISIS has succeeded up to a point. ISIS, the self-created Islamic Caliphate is shrinking. It has lost about 40 per cent of the territory it held ...

  • March 20, 2016

    Putin: Historical Commentator

    This has been a winter of discontent with both the past and the present, and the two have merged. An improbable person, Russian President Vladimir Putin, has offered a stimulating comment on the issue, especially helpful for present-day demonstrators...

  • March 17, 2016

    BDS: Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Against Anti-Semitism

    It is a welcome happening that the virus, the incubus of anti-Semitism, is receiving critical attention in a global way, and in some parts of the European political mainstream. It is equally welcoming, and sadly necessary, that democratic countries i...

  • March 14, 2016

    Obama on Foreign Policy Apocalypse: Don't Blame Me

    At the 18th Communist Party Congress on March 10, 1939, Josef Stalin warned that the Soviet Union would be cautious and "not allow our country to be drawn into conflicts of war-mongers who are accustomed to have others pull chestnuts out of the ...

  • March 12, 2016

    Is Turkey Blackmailing Europe?

    At this moment the people and politicians of Britain are involved in the complicated, controversial debate over the advantages and disadvantages of remaining in or exiting from the European Union. The decision has now become even more complicate...

  • March 10, 2016

    Ignorant Bigots Running Universities Now

    The spread of bigoted racism and displays of abysmal ignorance at what are supposed to be centers of learning in the United States and Britain is saddening and appears to be out of control.  In recent days, displays of that inverted racism and b...

  • March 7, 2016

    Marx comes to the American Presidential Elections

    No one could have expected that the current presidential campaign would feature not one but two candidates who resemble in some ways and might be considered Marxists, one of a traditional kind, the other a more modern version. The traditional one,...

  • March 6, 2016

    Anti-Semitism at Oberlin 1 -- College President Caves to Progressive Bigotry

    See also: Anti-Semitism at Oberlin 2 – the Trustee Speaks Up   Everyone, especially those in the academic world and the leaders of the African-American community in the United States, must stop tolerating the intolerable. Those leaders...

  • March 5, 2016

    Anti-Semitic Bigots at Oxford and Elsewhere

    Every ranking of the world’s higher educational institutions puts Oxford University at or near the top. This internationally renowned institution is the oldest university in the English-speaking world, existing in some form since 1096.  ...

  • March 4, 2016

    Brexit: Stormy Weather for Britain

    A hundred and fifty years ago, British Prime Minister Lord Derby praised Benjamin Disraeli, Leader of the House of Commons, for taking a “leap in the dark” in 1867 by introducing the Second Reform Act, a positive measure that extended the...

  • February 29, 2016

    Will Britain Finally Wave Goodbye to the European Union?

    In 1930, the British Daily Mirror issued a weather report, "Fog in the Channel, Continent is isolated."  Britain is an island nation, with no borders except the sea.  It has not been invaded by foreign troops on the ground since 1...

  • February 26, 2016

    The Need for Honest Discussion at American Colleges

    It's really very difficult to understand what goes on in Poughkeepsie, New York.  Few people could comprehend the point of the question asked by Gene Hackman in the film The French Connection: "Did you ever pick your feet in Poughkeepsi...

  • February 24, 2016

    A Model for Israeli-Palestinian Peace

    At a moment when Turkey is involved in a host of problems -- its fight against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in southeast Turkey, friction with Russia, uncertain involvement in the war against ISIS, and purported secret negotiations with Is...

  • February 23, 2016

    Bernie Sanders: He’s Not Just a Class Warrior

    It has come as a surprise not only to Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party but to the whole country that thinks of him as a single idea presidential candidate, that Senator Bernie Sanders apparently thinks he has an unparalleled mastery of foreig...

  • February 22, 2016

    Dealing with Lunatic Politics

    In his provocative article in the Wall Street Journal of February 17, 2016, Joseph Epstein, referring to current presidential candidates, ridiculed the "lunatic politics" of people with only one idea and one idea only, a phrase he took from...

  • February 20, 2016

    Courage and its Costs in the French Resistance

    In the good old days of Hollywood cowboy movies the truth was always obvious, the good guys wore white hats, and the villains wore black ones. In the real world, judgments of people and of their behavior are not that simple. A particular example of t...

  • February 18, 2016

    The United States and Russia must not Sleepwalk

    At this moment of history when the United States and European democratic countries are confronted by pressing problems, especially Islamist terrorism and a gigantic migration crisis, U.S. foreign policy should be based more on appraisal of prese...

  • February 14, 2016

    Light at the End of the Tunnels

    On July 8, 2014 the Israeli air force began to deal with rocket fire coming from Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip. In the preceding three weeks, Hamas had fired 250 rockets capable of reaching Israeli population centers. Many of those rockets were ...

  • February 13, 2016

    ISIS Is the New Imperialism

    One of life's imponderable problems is to decide whether the glass of water we've been drinking is half full or half empty.  The same problem arises in deciding on the present condition of ISIS – whether it is declining or remainin...

  • February 12, 2016

    The United States Must Help Solve the Syrian Problem

    There are two major political problems in the Middle East; the belligerence of ISIS and its threat to the civilized world; and the Syrian civil war that has killed more than 250,000 and led to the displacement of millions. The international community...

  • February 11, 2016

    What a New Poll Says about Muslims and American Politics

    Almost every day, pundits inform us about the voting intentions and habits of various groups in elections in the United States.  Almost by decimal points they have identified the intentions of blacks, Jews, evangelicals, Presbyterians, seniors, ...

  • February 9, 2016

    On Immigration, Time for the West to Be Realistic

    In September 2015, the photo of a three-year-old Syrian child lying dead on a Turkish beach next to his mother and five-year-old brother, who had all drowned, as had over 2,000 others, was a poignant picture.  Everyone recognizes the need for hu...

  • February 7, 2016

    France Proposes Problematic Peace Plan for the Middle East

    In recent years, the government of France has tried to play a role in Middle Eastern affairs and in the struggle against Islamist terrorism.  It has been particularly eager to resolve the conflict between Israel and Palestinians.  In Decemb...

  • February 6, 2016

    Realism about Immigration

    The September, 2015 photo of a three-year-old Syrian child lying dead on a Turkish beach next to his mother and five-year-old brother who had all drowned, as had over 2,000 others, was a poignant picture. Everyone recognizes the need for humanitarian...

  • February 2, 2016

    Greece, Cyprus, and Israel Bearing Gifts

    Some developments in international affairs occasion no surprise.  The announcement on January 28, 2016 by the military wing of the terrorist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza strip, that seven of its members were killed when a tunnel, which t...

  • January 31, 2016

    The Obsession with Israel That Is Not Magnificent

    The UN’s obsession with the State of Israel was fully illustrated on January 26, 2016 at the quarterly meeting of the 15-member UN Security Council on Middle East affairs. It was particularly troubling that the meeting coincided in the same ...

  • January 29, 2016

    Magic and Politics

    Everybody loves card tricks and the sleight of hand of professional magicians. People simultaneously admire and are baffled by the trickery and the skill of the magician, the illusion, and the magic. Almost always, they enjoy, even when deluded,...

  • January 23, 2016

    Iran gets the Oscar for Chutzpah

    In his amusing book The Joy of Yiddish, Leo Rosten defines the word “Chutzpah” as “gall, brazen nerve, effrontery.” The word is perfectly applicable to the Islamic state of Iran and its leaders with their extraordinary mockery...

  • January 22, 2016

    Speaking Truth to the European Union

    On October 10, 2015, a bill was introduced in the U.S. Congress to counter the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.  By the U.S.-Israel Trade and Commercial Enhancement Act, U.S. trade negotiators are instructed to d...

  • January 22, 2016

    An End to Evil Thoughts and Deeds against Israel

    Sometimes I wonder why I spend my lonely nights wondering about the mindset of petulant people and groups who wallow in animosity and hatred towards those with whom they disagree. Above all, the haters of Israel and the prejudiced, sometimes anti-Sem...

  • January 19, 2016

    Jews in France Face a Dilemma

    To wear or not to wear a kippa – that is the question for Jews in France today. France in recent months has been the venue for a number of indiscriminate jihadist attacks against innocent civilians, but the favorite targets of Islamists are ...

  • January 17, 2016

    The State of the Unions

    In his address to Congress on January 12, 2016, President Barack Obama asserted he was confident that “the State of our Union is strong.” He was of course referring to the Union of the United States. But by a curious coincidence the state...

  • January 13, 2016

    Muslim Women Must Be Emancipated

    In the mid-19th century an early British feminist, Caroline Norton, involved in a law case resulting from her disastrous marriage, wrote that the law must be changed. Women, she held, were not appealing for an exceptional law in their favor; on the c...

  • January 10, 2016

    Israel: Innovation and Development

    On  January 10-12, 2016, Carlos Moedas, the European Union Commissioner for Research, Science, and Innovation, visited Jerusalem and Ramallah. His visit is intended to strengthen the cooperation between the EU and local research organi...

  • January 8, 2016

    The Obama Administration and the New Cold War

    The Cold War has returned in a new form, not between the United States and Russia, but between the two countries, Saudi Arabia and Iran, now epitomizing the historic rift between Sunni and Shia Islam. They are engaged in a struggle for geopoliti...

  • January 7, 2016

    Cooking Turkey's Goose

    A cardinal maxim of political speech is, don’t make comparisons to dogs and don’t use the image of Adolf Hitler as a reference point. On December 31, 2015, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey, was unwise enough to ignore this and to...

  • January 6, 2016

    Iran vs. Saudi Arabia: What a Pity Only One Side Can Lose

    Who will be the dominant power in the Middle East: Sunni Saudi Arabia or Shia Iran?  The theological divide between the two versions of Islam, now 1,400 years old, is unbridgeable.  About 85 percent of the world's Muslims are Sunnis. ...

  • December 31, 2015

    Outing Villains and other Undesirables in France and Britain

    The millstones of justice do grind exceedingly slow but grind exceedingly fine. News of the grinding was especially welcome with the announcement on December 27, 2015 that the French government will release the records of 200,000 persons who were tho...

  • December 27, 2015

    No One Wants To Be Called a Racist

    Once again university administrators and faculty in the United States and elsewhere are confronted by the problem of how to address actions and utterances that are held to be past wrongs. The wider underlying problem is whether pressure on them preve...

  • December 26, 2015

    Making Sense of the Mess in Yemen

    In August 2014 the U.S. State Department ordered all nonessential U.S. personnel to leave the capital of Yemen for fear of terrorist attacks. A month later, on September 10, 2014, President Barack Obama declared that Yemen was a success story in the ...

  • December 22, 2015

    Israel and the Problem of Multiculturalism

    In early December 2015 Time magazine announced that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was its Person of the Year. Among her many accomplishments was that Germany had led in welcoming Middle Eastern immigrants and was committed to accepting 800,000 this...

  • December 20, 2015

    The EU Should Act against Anti-Semitism

    The old proverb is still compelling: if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.  It has clearly penetrated the halls of the European Union. On December 16-17, 2015 the 9th EU- Israel Seminar on Combatting Racism, Xenophobia and A...

  • December 18, 2015

    Putin Confronts Turkey

    The nature and significance of Russian president Vladimir Putin is on display when he walks.  He does not swing his right arm; all the movement is on the left side of the body. He may not be a gunslinger on the model of John Wayne, but almost ce...

  • December 15, 2015

    Sweden Must Get on the Right Track

    Once upon a time Sweden produced both charm and righteousness. It graced the world with Garbo, Ingrid Bergman, Ingmar Bergman with his Smiles of a Summer Night, ABBA, the pop group, and the courageous Raoul Wallenberg who as a diplomat saved thousand...

  • December 12, 2015

    Condemning the Islamist Attack on Democratic Values

    Former President Jimmy Carter is not renowned as being one of Israel’s best and dearest friends. Indeed, he has been a severe critic of Israel and a supporter of boycotts of Israel. But, though he has not yet made any public statement on the is...

  • December 9, 2015

    And No Birds in the Obama Administration Sing the Right Song

    To say that Ezra Pound is not the favorite poet of rational people is a striking understatement. Pound, fascist and anti-Semite, broadcast anti-American messages on the radio in Rome during World War II and was consequently indicted for treason ...

  • December 8, 2015

    Lord Weidenfeld and Help for Christians

    In his moving book, Se questo e un uomo (If this be a man; or Survival in Auschwitz), the Italian Primo Levi wrote that attitudes towards the Jews during the Holocaust mostly ranged from indifference to hostility. In a world of total moral collapse, ...

  • December 7, 2015

    The British Hilary: A Real Profile in Courage

    On December 2, 2015, Mr. Hilary Benn, the 62-year-old British Labour Party shadow (opposition) foreign minister, delivered an extraordinary, impassioned, and moving speech in the House of Commons supporting the extension of British air strikes agains...

  • December 5, 2015

    We Won't Always Have Brussels

    Belgium has made great contributions to civilization and world culture. We know that the potato dish unfairly called “French fries” really originated in Belgium. This small country has given us Herge’s Adventures of Tintin, Moules-f...

  • December 2, 2015

    Why Try to Change Woodrow Wilson Now?

    Time and again I’ve longed for diversity, something to make my brain beat the faster. Searching for true diversity in U.S. colleges is quite an adventure. Some students at U.S. privileged colleges, especially Princeton University and Amherst...

  • November 28, 2015

    The United Nations General Assembly: Prejudice without Pride

    The UN General Assembly has the tiresome habit of almost always being wrong. No one expected the 193-member international organization to be the pinnacle of political wisdom, but few had thought it would become base clay. It showed its habitual la...

  • November 26, 2015

    What's More Important to the EU: Terrorism or Bananas?

    Brussels, the capital of Belgium, has been on alert for several days because of fear of serious and imminent Islamist terrorist attacks on various places in the city.  Schools and universities, many workplaces, and the subway system for a time h...

  • November 24, 2015

    Giving Hypocrisy a Bad Name

    How horrible is it to be a mischievous and malignant hypocrite. In recent days in November 2015, religious and American academic groups have unabashedly illustrated that false face hides what the false heart knows. On this seventieth annivers...

  • November 23, 2015

    France Gets Its Priorities Right in the War against Islamist Terrorism

    The terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015 have called for strong, decisive action in response to the real threat facing Western Europe, the U.S., and Russia.  The correct choice should be made.  The priority in the Middle East sho...

  • November 18, 2015

    Confronting the Real Enemy to Civilization

    Only minutes after the horrible massacres in Paris on November 13, 2015 French President Francois Hollande made it plain. The attacks in Paris by ISIS and its supporters were an act of war waged by a terrorist army, a jihadist army, the Islamic State...

  • November 14, 2015

    EU Priorities: How to Label Israeli Cucumbers

    Forty years ago, on November 10, 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 3379 by a vote of 72 to 35, with 32 abstentions, determining that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.”  The resolution c...

  • November 13, 2015

    France Speaks Truth on BDS

    The Middle East is the worst region in the world for freedom of expression. The group, Reporters without Borders, founded in France in 1985 to monitor the state of freedom of information worldwide, made this clear in its 2015 report on the issue. Of ...

  • November 12, 2015

    What to Do About Hitler?

    The great thinkers of the past have tried to teach us how to behave in civilized and open societies. The English philosopher John Stuart Mill proclaimed that freedom of thought and expression are essential for both individuals and society as a whole....

  • November 7, 2015

    Rock, Rap, Hip Hop and All That U.S. Jazz Diplomacy

    Arabs and their friends seem very fond of rocks. On July 3, 2000 Edward Said, the University Professor of English at Columbia University, illustrated that fondness when he, unaware his actions were being photographed, joined the familiar chorus of th...

  • November 6, 2015

    The Enemy is ISIS

    A specter that has taken material form is haunting the world, the specter of Islamic terrorism, embodied by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS or Daesh in Arabic). The countries of the world, all rational political entities, groups, and i...

  • November 3, 2015

    Obama Foreign Policy: Too Little and Too Late

    Now is the autumn of American political discontent and confusion over foreign policy. Winston Churchill once called Russia a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. His quip may well apply to current American policy. Is the United State...

  • October 25, 2015

    Murderous Religious Intolerance in the Middle East

    On October 22, 2015, Secretary of State John Kerry, in the context of Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and the Israeli response to them, spoke of the need to end the incitement to violence and to lower the level of tension so t...

  • October 24, 2015

    Netanyahu and Violence against Jews

    The New York Times is overjoyed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, strained in the tension of the Arab stabbing of Jews in Jerusalem and other places, “misspoke” in remarks on October 20, 2015, when he said that Muslim Grand ...

  • October 22, 2015

    The Cult of Violence and the Yellow Badge for Jews

    The wave of violence started by Palestinians youths,the stabbing of Israeli civilians and the Israeli response, that has resulted in the deaths of 43 Palestinians, 10 Israelis, and a Eritrean migrant worker continues. The terrorist attacks have large...

  • October 19, 2015

    Obama Must Dispute Iran's Incitement to Terrorism

    What is baffling in international affairs is the massive reality denial, by the international community including President Barack Obama and his administration, of the increasing threat of Islamic terrorism and of the ultimate responsibility of Iran ...

  • October 16, 2015

    Humanitarianism in Action in Israel

    Since October 3, 2015 dozens of Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli citizens have occurred, killing seven people and injuring more than 100. More deaths would have occurred if it had not been for the speedy action of the Israeli...

  • October 15, 2015

    Are the Palestinians Starting a Religious War?

    The upsurge of Palestinian violence against Israeli citizens – by young people, female as well as male – the resumption of rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, the insistence on using Islamic holy places as an excuse for violence, the conti...

  • October 13, 2015

    End the Sound of Silence on Palestinian Terrorism

    Hello darkness. The whole world, except perhaps the venerable Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the author Alice Walker, and the UN Human Rights Council, recognize that the State of Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. No further evidence of this ...

  • October 12, 2015

    Will Obama respond to Russia in Syria?

    Once upon a time, or more precisely September 10, 2014, President Barack Obama spoke of the core principle of his presidency, to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). Today, the core has become ...

  • October 6, 2015

    All or nothing at all: US foreign policy

    The world of international politics took a dramatic turn on September 30, 2015 with the military action of Russia in Syria, the first operation beyond the boundaries of the former Soviet Union since the end of the Cold War.  It coincided with th...

  • October 6, 2015

    Hate, Terror, and the Holy Places in Jerusalem

    We all know that from the time they emerged as a political group claiming a separate identity from other Arabs, the Palestinians have never lost an opportunity to lose an opportunity. Now, they’re ignoring the valuable political wisdom that whe...

  • October 3, 2015

    The Tender Trap: Palestinians and the Truth

    We have the truth on the highest authority. Fawzi Barhoum, spokesperson for Hamas, in denying in May 2015 that his organization was engaged in “secret talks” with Israel, called Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, a lia...

  • October 3, 2015

    No Room for Indifference on anti-Semitism

    Actions speak louder than words, but nevertheless it is a welcome sign of change that the European Commission is holding its first annual Fundamental Rights Colloquium on October 1-2, 2015 in Brussels. Its theme is tolerance and respect, preventing a...

  • September 30, 2015

    Left and Right in the U.S. and the U.K.

    Now is the autumn of our political discontent. Three politicians, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in the United States and Jeremy Corbyn in Britain, are following the footsteps of the great Marxist, Groucho, in proclaiming that “Whatever it is,...

  • September 29, 2015

    Obama Must Join Putin On ISIS

    In his testimony before the U.S. Senate on September 22, 2015, former General David H. Petraeus speaking truth to power remarked that the crises of the Middle East pose a threat not just to regional stability but also to global stability and to vit...

  • September 28, 2015

    End Antisemitism in Football

    Anti-Semitism is a foul disease seemingly incurable, whose virus makes those infected lack any moral sensibility or civilized behavior. Hatred of Jews, the most global form of intolerance, has now been spreading in the turf of English Football. Vi...

  • September 11, 2015

    US Foreign Policy Should Change

    All reasonable people are troubled by the continuing tragic migration crisis in Europe and the apparent suffering of so many thousands of people.  The drip has become a flood.  The United States and European countries have a moral obligatio...

  • September 8, 2015

    Wales, Israel, and Soccer

    Sport provides a unique opportunity to bring people with different opinions and life-styles together. However, since the game of football, incorrectly termed soccer in the United States, emerged in its present form from the British elite schools in t...

  • September 5, 2015

    A Message from Ireland on Violence and Peace

    Ireland is not one of the more supportive countries of the State of Israel, but discussion of an important moment in its 20th-century history may be useful for casting a light on the Arab-Israeli dispute and providing a valuable, if not complete, par...

  • September 4, 2015

    The Iran Deal Will Bring Danger

    By September 17, 2015, the United States Senate must vote on a "resolution of disapproval" of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear arrangement with Iran.  It is appropriate that the senators discuss whether the...

  • September 2, 2015

    A Solution to the Migration Crisis

    The stories and photographs of migrants attempting to enter Europe is a human tragedy, heartbreaking as people die trying to cross the Mediterranean. On August 27, 2015, over 50 migrants were found dead inside an abandoned truck, a Hungarian reg...

  • August 31, 2015

    France Is Aware of Real Fascist Evil

    On May 8, 2015, French president François Hollande spoke at the Elysée Palace at a ceremony at which prizes were awarded to middle and high school students for the best essays in memory of the Resistance and Deportation.  It was ex...

  • August 28, 2015

    The Senate Should Vote on the Real Iran

    The immortal Marx -- Groucho not Karl -- was in Tehran, Iran on August 23, 2015 when he heard the Foreign Minister of Iran Mohammed Javed Zarif say to British Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond, “Who are you going to believe, me or you...

  • August 27, 2015

    The Holocaust Is Still with Us

    On August 21, 2015, the Israeli-born actress Natalie Portman, who won an Oscar in 2011 for her role as an obsessed ballerina in the film Black Swan, made a controversial debut on the political stage. She commented that the Holocaust has been the focu...

  • August 25, 2015

    Can Immigration be Trumped?

    Donald Trump is not the first person to bring up the subject of immigration.  That subject has been and increasingly remains an issue of contentious debate and a major political problem not only in the United States but also in Europe.  The...

  • July 30, 2015

    France Is Severe on Holocaust Denial

    France is a country officially based on its form of laïcité, essentially the absence of religious involvement in governmental affairs.  It is welcoming that it has taken to heart a passage from the biblical Proverbs: it is joy to the...

  • July 26, 2015

    How Insensitive: John Kerry on Israel

    Though the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) endorsed by unanimity the nuclear arms agreement of July 14, 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 powers, the United States Congress is expected to vote on it by September 17.  The UNSC agreed to ...

  • July 22, 2015

    The European Union Does Not Win the Yellow Jersey Prize

    In the Tour de France, the annual multiple bicycle race, riders are classified according to their performance in the various categories of the race.  The overall winner gains the coveted yellow jersey.  The last rider to finish is affection...

  • July 20, 2015

    When Sunni Gets Blue

    On July 17, 2015 the Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir met President Barack Obama in the White House to discuss security in the Middle East and specifically the nuclear agreement signed three days earlier with Iran. On the same day, King ...

  • July 17, 2015

    China Confronts Islamist Terrorism

    The attention of the world has been focused on the Middle East and on the nuclear agreement with Iran that almost certainly will lead to that country becoming a nuclear power. Less attention has been paid to the link between a Muslim ethnic group in ...

  • July 13, 2015

    Bernard Lewis -- the Intellectual Giant and the Grasshoppers

    It is a truth universally acknowledged except by reviewers in the New York Times of books concerning the Middle East, that Bernard Lewis is the most important and distinguished scholar on the history of the area and of the Islamic and Arab past. Ther...

  • July 11, 2015

    The End of a Beautiful Friendship: Obama and Netanyahu

    Michael Oren has had an honorable career, growing up in New Jersey, a baseball fan who got his doctorate at Princeton, a distinguished historian, and Israeli ambassador to Washington from 2009 to 2013. His new book Ally is a valuable and sober dissec...

  • July 10, 2015

    Greece and its Jewish Problem

    Greece is the historical land of myths that have influenced literature and life. No myth is more compelling than the series of heroic tasks performed by Hercules. Of these, the most enticing is his obtaining the golden apples of Hesperides. T...

  • July 7, 2015

    The Nightmare of the Islamic State

    The nightmare generated by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (IS) is causing turmoil in the Middle East. Everyone affected is now pondering, “Am I awake or is this just a dream?” The new advances by IS in June 2015 have led to the exodu...

  • July 6, 2015

    The U.S. Must Help Egyptian President Sisi

    The silence was truly deafening. Not a sound from Archbishop Desmond Tutu or Alice Walker or the eager boycotters of Israel or the United Nations Human Rights Council about the brutal massacre of more than 70, perhaps 100, Egyptian soldiers and civil...

  • July 3, 2015

    The U.S. and NATO on the Wrong Road

    Two roads diverge and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) cannot travel both. Unfortunately, instead of taking the right road, the path to overcoming Islamist terrorism, NATO is instead choosing to defend itself against supposed danger from...

  • July 1, 2015

    Should Israel Help the Syrian Druze?

    “Well, that’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into,” said Oliver Hardy to Stan Laurel in many of their comedy films.  Less humorously, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be saying that to Sheikh Muafak Tarif...

  • June 29, 2015

    The Lesson From Pope Francis and Queen Elizabeth II

    During the last year, Pope Francis has spoken out on a number of controversial political issues, including poverty, the environment, immigration, the fate of Christian communities in Arab countries, and the need for peace in the world.  He has i...

  • June 28, 2015

    France Opposes Anti-Semitism

    The 5th Global Forum for Combatting Antisemitism was held in Jerusalem in mid-May 2015. The meeting there was not deterred by the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court held on June 8, 2015 that United States citizens could not list Israel as their birthpl...

  • June 27, 2015

    Israel Not Getting Boycotted Where It Counts

    It is always a moment of amusement to read the latest fulmination of the venerable archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu.  On June 17, 2015, he beguiled us again with his message to his dear sisters and brothers in the United Church of Christ, which ...

  • June 25, 2015

    Somebody Stole My Shoe

    Conspiracy theories never stop. We have been told the earth is flat, that World War II was staged, that secret societies control the world, that Michael Jackson was killed by Iran, that the CIA created the HIV virus, that George H.W. Bush was a ...

  • June 24, 2015

    France Advocates Peace in the Middle East

    French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on June 21, 2015 at meetings in Jerusalem and Ramallah revealed plans to help revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process that broke down in April 2014. The proposal would entail a United Nations Security Counc...

  • June 23, 2015

    Preventing Islamist Terrorism

    The time has come to discuss, and considering implementing, the argument made by Karl Popper that we should claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. How do we stop young men and women from becoming jihadist terrorist...

  • June 20, 2015

    Terrorism and Refugees in the Middle East

    The international community, especially the United Nations Human Rights Council, must wake up and deal with contemporary reality, the increase in terrorism and in the number of refugees caused by the surge in violence. It is high time for them to giv...

  • June 18, 2015

    Nancy Pelosi: the Lost Leader

    Did Karl Marx have the last word on Nancy Pelosi? In his article “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”, written in 1852, Karl Marx paraphrases Hegel’s aphorism that all facts and personages of great importance in world his...

  • June 17, 2015

    Hamas War Crimes in Gaza

    It is a cause of wonder, though not surprising, that the international community has not indicted the terrorist group Hamas on charges of war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and violations of international law, for its actions against innocent c...

  • June 16, 2015

    UNRWA in the Gaza Strip is Counterproductive

    It must have come as a great shock to the so-called international community that in June 2015 the so-called refugees, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip protested that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near Ea...

  • June 15, 2015

    France Deals with Terrorism

    On June 8, 2015, the trial began in a Paris court of 15 members of the banned terrorist group Forsane Alizza (Knights of Pride), who are accused of preparing and planning terrorist attacks on French Jews and businesses, and other targets. French p...

  • June 14, 2015

    Beware of the Islamist Threat in Libya

    In the early 1980s, the Jeane Kirkpatrick doctrine presented a dilemma facing Western democratic systems: a choice between preferring authoritarian systems and dictatorships, which were pro-Western, and totalitarian systems that were anti-Western....

  • June 13, 2015

    James Madison and Alexander Hamilton discuss President Barack Obama

    James Madison: Good morning, Alexander. I just read that that the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Zivotofsky v. Secretary of State Kerry, has decided that the U.S. President, now Barack Obama, has the exclusive right to recognize formally a fo...

  • June 10, 2015

    Beware of the Color Orange

    The war against the State of Israel never ceases. At one moment in May 2015 it is the attempt of the deputy secretary of Fatah and head of the Palestinian Football Association to get the corrupt FIFA to suspend or expel Israel from international foot...

  • June 9, 2015

    Jerusalem is in Israel

    International differences over territory and legitimacy of states are neither rare nor obscure, but the unparalleled number of religious, ethnic, symbolic, political, national, and legal factors concerning Jerusalem make it the most controversial and...

  • June 8, 2015

    Obama Must Join Putin in the Fight Against Islamist Terrorism

    Western concern with Russia in the last few years has largely been about actions in Ukraine. Important though that issue may be, the more significant issue and the greatest threat to world peace is Islamist terrorism.  It is this issue that requ...

  • May 31, 2015

    Foul Play in Soccer

    Soccer is a great sport and the international football competition hosted by the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), located in Zurich, every four years is the most watched sporting event in the world. The soccer world has now be...

  • May 27, 2015

    Anti-Israeli Protestors Should Come with Clean Hands

    Hypocrisy took the center stage inside and outside a theater in London in May 2015. A number of British theatrical people, actors, writers and directors, calling themselves Artists for Palestine, condemned those individuals who had protested the perf...

  • May 24, 2015

    Pope Francis and the Palestinians

    All reports are clear that Pope Francis on meeting Mahmoud Abbas, now in the 10 th year of his four term as President of the Palestinian Authority, in the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican on May 17, 2015 gave Abbas a bronze medallion, a gift that the ...

  • May 15, 2015

    Netanyahu faces the Future

    From time immemorial, Jews have disagreed about how to deal with their problems. Differences were expressed strongly when the Israelites who had just left Pharaoh’s Egypt complained to Moses that he had taken them away to die in the wilderness....

  • May 10, 2015

    Did Palestinians poison Yasser Arafat?

    In his musical-comedy film, The Court Jester, Danny Kaye amused us with the tongue twisting line, “the pellet with the poison is in the vessel with the pestle.” The long-running non-musical Palestinian theater of the absurd about who e...

  • May 9, 2015

    French President Hollande Shows Obama the Way

    The invitation to and the visit of French President François Hollande to attend the summit meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council on May 4-5, 2015 was both a meaningful symbol and a signal to the United States, the historic ally of the Gulf c...

  • May 5, 2015

    Physicians heal Thyself and End Your Anti-Israeli Hysteria

    Dr. Seuss, the world’s favorite physician, once explained “I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells.” Unfortunately, their own nonsensical behavior did not  awaken a number of doctors and medical practitioners, mostly in ...

  • May 2, 2015

    The United Nations on Hamas War Crimes

    On April 27, 2015, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon transmitted to the U.N. Security Council his public summary of a 207-page report, which apparently is not to be made public, of the Board of Inquiry regarding the incidents in Gaza between July 8 ...

  • April 29, 2015

    Poisoning the Free Speech Well

    Political correctness and intellectual prejudice have poisoned the principle of free speech. Six writers, among the more than 60 other scheduled hosts, withdrew from the ceremony of the PEN American Center on May 5, 2015 at which the Freedom of Expre...

  • April 27, 2015

    Is Amnesty International Anti-Semitic?

    In the roster of organizations whose well-meaning objectives have been distorted by bias and prejudicial resolutions, Amnesty International (AI) stands high.  For those concerned with human rights, AI is now part of the problem, not part of the ...

  • April 26, 2015

    The Clintons and American National Security

    Bob Dylan in 1964 told us the times they are a-changin. He also urged senators, congressmen, to please to heed the call. That call has been proclaimed by the New York Times and the Washington Post that have become part of the vast right-wing con...

  • April 22, 2015

    The United States Congress on the Path to Glory

    On March 9, 2015, an open letter, drafted by United States Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and signed by 47 senators, was sent to the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran.  It sought to enlighten the Iranians about two features of the United Stat...

  • April 20, 2015

    Idiot's Delight in Holocaust Denial

    Everyone except the idiots of the world knows the truth about Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the Nazi death camps, and the one where an estimated 1.3 million were murdered. It is preserved as it was in January 1945 when the camp was liberated. Th...

  • April 19, 2015

    Silence is not Golden: the case of Gunter Grass

    The death on April 23, 2015 at age 87 of Günter Grass, the prominent German novelist who was long silent about his own past in Nazi Germany, presents an opportunity to question the combination in his personal behavior of forthrightness, truth an...

  • April 18, 2015

    I Sing of Arms and Iran

    Casey Stengel, sometimes reputed as the greatest 20th-century American philosopher, is reported to have asked a simple but critical question: “Can’t anybody here play this game?”  He was apparently referring not to the Obama ad...

  • April 14, 2015

    The French Paradox and the Jews

    The death in Paris on April 8, 2015 of Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac, historian and member of the French resistance in World War II, has reawakened the controversy of what has been termed “the French paradox.” Although 76,000 Jews we...

  • April 11, 2015

    The Threat of Islamist Terrorism in Yarmouk

    Horrors and chaos in the Arab world never cease. The continuing catastrophe of the brutal civil war in Syria has so far led to 210,000 deaths and 11 million driven from their homes. The latest horror is the siege and battle between Islamic groups tak...

  • April 9, 2015

    The State of the Islamic State

    It’s clear, as British Home Secretary Theresa May said on March 23, 2015, that the most serious and widespread form of extremism the democratic world faces is Islamist extremism. If the West does not necessarily envisage the issue as a clash of...

  • April 4, 2015

    The White House Loses Face

    The Obama administration has shown a lack of historic understanding concerning its policy towards China’s proposal to establish the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). The White House must understand that its policy lacks judgment when...

  • April 3, 2015

    France Takes the Lead on the Middle East

    A political vacuum exists in the Middle East, and it is significant that France has stepped in to fill it in a principled way.  It is a rebuke to the current Obama administration “reassessing” its options regarding Israel, and lackin...

  • March 29, 2015

    No International Amnesty for the Palestinians

    A senior White House official, who had perhaps recently seen the film The Godfather, was heard to remark "It's not personal; it's strictly business" when commenting on the attitude of the U.S. administration toward the Isr...

  • March 28, 2015

    Friends of Iran in the United States

    On February 19, 2015, a full-page ad was published in the New York Times by the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) opposing the invitation given to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before Congress.  It asked the...

  • March 21, 2015

    Netanyahu's Victory and Obama's Response

    A saying attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt is that small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, and great minds discuss ideas. This is not applicable to all commentators on public affairs but sadly rather true about the remarks made by the...

  • March 16, 2015

    Keeping Kosher

    In the week of deadly attacks by Islamic terrorists in Paris, a heavily-armed 32-year-old Frenchman born of Malian descent, Amedy Coulibaly, on January 9, 2015 stormed the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket store near the Porte de Vincennes in eastern P...

  • March 13, 2015

    British Academics Betray Israel

    “Our age” wrote Julien Benda in 1927 in La Trahison des clercs “is indeed the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds.”  The newest example of this organized hatred is the Conference to be held in the UK...

  • March 10, 2015

    Islamist Barbarism At The Gate

    The barbarism of Islamist terrorists grows every day. They are committing war crimes by systematically destroying the cradle of Western civilization and erasing the history of the region.   The world has become familiar with Islamist actions: ...

  • March 6, 2015

    Queen Esther and Netanyahu

    Queen Esther, the heroine of the Biblical story of Purim when the Jewish people was saved from annihilation at the hands of the Persian villain, got a thunderous standing ovation when her name was mentioned in the Halls of Congress on March 3, 2015. ...

  • March 4, 2015

    Women on the March to Islamism

    Women, if in relatively small numbers, have become as radicalized and militant as males of their own age on behalf of Islamic terrorist organizations. According to recent studies by British research groups, gender is largely irrelevant in likelihood ...

  • March 1, 2015

    The Palestine Authority Does Not Have Clean Hands

    On January 16, 2015, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, a Gambian lawyer, opened a “preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine.” Her decision quickly followed the accession of the Palest...

  • February 26, 2015

    Islamist Threats to the North American Economy and to Jews

    On February 21, 2015, one of the lesser known groups of those competing for the Oscar for the greatest global threat of Islamic terrorism made an appearance in the modern form of a video broadcast.  The organization calling itself al-Shabaab (Th...

  • February 24, 2015

    The Case of the Dishonorable Roland Dumas

    To offend one group of people may be regarded as carelessness; to offend two at the same time looks like self-inflicted misfortune. The 92 year-old French Socialist politician and lawyer, Roland Dumas, managed to offend two groups on February 16, 201...

  • February 23, 2015

    Purim in Persia and Iran

    During his visit to the White House on March 5, 2012, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave President Barack Obama a copy of the Book of Esther (the Megillah), the biblical story of the plan by the chief minister of the great Persian Empire ...

  • February 18, 2015

    Saudi Arabia Must Help End Islamist Terrorism

    In recent days, the dark ideology of Islamic terrorism has been implemented, among other places, by massacres in a kosher deli in Paris, in Belgium towns, outside a synagogue in Copenhagen, and in Libya where dozens of Christian Copts have ...

  • February 17, 2015

    Respect must be shown to Netanyahu

    It is painful that members of the Obama Administration, a number of Congressional Democrats, and left-wing political activists are showing such disrespect for the political leader of an allied country, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and disrespec...

  • February 12, 2015

    France Protecting its Culture from Islamists

    In a by-election runoff on February 8, 2015 in the district of Le Doubs in Eastern France, the Socialist candidate won with 51.4% of the vote. The disquieting element of the vote was that the candidate of the National Front (FN) got only 800 votes le...

  • February 7, 2015

    When is a Boycott of Israel not a Boycott?

    There has been much talk lately about whether “no-go zones” exist in areas that are totally occupied or dominated by Muslim inhabitants in France and Britain. While these zones are not officially forbidden to non-Muslims, they, like the z...

  • January 31, 2015

    Iran is a Real Threat

    On January 16, 2015 President Barack Obama condoned a gross breach of diplomatic protocol. He allowed visiting British Prime Minister David Cameron to appeal directly to a number of U.S. Senators to reconsider their support for a bill imposing new to...

  • January 30, 2015

    An End to Anti-Semitism

    The earth may not have shaken, but it was a delightful surprise that at an informal meeting of the plenary of the United Nations General Assembly, held on January 22, 2015, representatives of 37 nations convened to register their disapproval of anti-...

  • January 26, 2015

    Let's Talk Turkey

    The famous economist John Maynard Keynes once remarked, “When my information changes I alter my conclusion.” It is time that the international community should alter its previous conclusions after noticing the startling contrast between a...

  • January 25, 2015

    France without Jews Is Not France

    In his book, Considerations on the Government of Poland, written in 1772, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote that Moses “conceived and executed the astonishing project of creating a nation out of a swarm of wretched fugitives[.] …Out of th...

  • January 20, 2015

    We'll Always Have the March in Paris

    On Sunday, January 11, 2014, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), was in the front line of millions in the anti-terrorist march in Paris in protest against the brutal attacks that had occurred in the city three days earlier. ...

  • January 18, 2015

    Muslims and Free Speech

    Should there be limits to free speech and expression?  The issue is now on the front burner for intellectual discussion and political decision in Western societies.  This was inevitable following the events after the cold-blooded massacres ...

  • January 17, 2015

    Islamic Violence Must Be Ended

    On Sunday, January 11, 2014, Paris became the capital of the world as the setting of a unique historical demonstration: more than 40 international political leaders marched in the city ahead of two to three million people who had rallied against the ...

  • January 10, 2015

    Charlie Hebdo Defends Western Civilization

    It is appropriate and gratifying that the Islamic terrorists who, armed with military Kalashnikov weapons in a well-planned attack, murdered 12 people, the chief editor and his staff,  in the office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo...

  • January 9, 2015

    The Peters Principle on the Middle East Conflict

    Few writers on the Arab-Israeli dispute have had as striking an impact as did Joan Peters, who died on January 5, 2015.  Her book, From Time Immemorial, published in 1984, has been controversial, but by its challenge to false history, myths...

  • January 8, 2015

    Je Suis Charlie

    Islamic terrorists once again have shown their savage cruelty to those critical of the religion of Islam and its founder the Prophet Muhammad. In broad daylight on Wednesday January7, 2015 three masked and hooded gunmen armed with Kalashnikovs and ro...

  • January 6, 2015

    Palestinians May Face Charges of War Crimes

    In March 2013 Representative Ron DeSantis (R – FL) introduced, in the House of Representatives, the Palestinian Accountability Act, HR 1337, to withhold U.S. foreign aid from the Palestinian Authority. His essential argument was that the U.S. m...

  • January 5, 2015

    Maps Should Include Israel

    How much sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a feckless publisher.  The firm of Harper, formerly known as Harper & Rowe and now as Harper Collins, has had a long and distinguished career as a publisher.  Personally, I am ...

  • December 25, 2014

    I'm Dreaming of a UNHRC Solution

    I was tired of reading about unpleasant events and situations: the slavery in Mauritania; the more than 90,000 Sahrawi refugees living in Algeria and unable to return to their homes in West Sahara; the unending violence in the Congo; the slaughter of...

  • December 24, 2014

    Whatever Happened to the International Jewish Conspiracy?

    All too often critics of the State of Israel have been obsessed believers of what they regard as the truth or been guilty of bad faith or dishonesty.  Some have propounded lunatic conspiracy theories of Jews in the world and Israelis today as ru...

  • December 22, 2014

    A European Court Is Wrong about France

    Since the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operetta The Pirates of Penzance, the world has been conscious of menace on the high seas.  The operetta is delightfully playful and amusing.  In contrast, the scenario about and the decision on Dec...

  • December 20, 2014

    Hamas Benefits from Absurd Judicial Decision

    In Oliver Twist, published in 1838, Charles Dickens has one of his characters, Mr. Bumble, declare, “If the law supposes that, the law is an ass, an idiot.”  One hundred and seventy-six years later Mr. Bumble would have used the same...

  • December 18, 2014

    Amnesty International Should Listen to Mrs. Arafat

    What can explain the distressing ailment of tone deafness on Middle Eastern affairs suffered by Amnesty International and well-meaning Human Rights Groups and Charity Organizations? Except for rabid anti-Semites and those zealous bigots who reject...

  • December 16, 2014

    A Christian Priest Speaks Truth on Israel

    In the British political system members of the royal family are not supposed to utter political or controversial remarks on political issues. It was therefore very meaningful that on November 4, 2014 British Prince Charles in a recorded video broadca...

  • December 12, 2014

    France Takes the High Road for Jewish Survivors

    Once again, France has illuminated what Abraham Lincoln called “the moral lights around us.” On December 8, 2014 in Washington, D.C. the French Human Rights ambassador, Patrizianna Sparacino-Thiellay, signed an agreement with Stuart Eizen...

  • December 11, 2014

    Russia: A Pipeline against the Islamist Threat

    Is it possible that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a closet Zionist?  We know that in the past he has taken a strong stand against anti-Semitism.  In his presidential address in the Hall of the Kremlin on December 4, 2014, Putin called...

  • December 7, 2014

    A Righteous Christian Zionist

    On November 18, 2014, two Palestinians carrying butcher knives, axes, and guns stormed a synagogue in West Jerusalem during morning prayers.  They killed five people, four of them rabbis, and injured a number of other worshipers.  Praise fo...

  • November 13, 2014

    Oils Well for American Energy Independence

    A pressing question lies in determining what effects considerable cuts in the price of oil, the glut in oil supplies, and the remarkable growth of the U.S. oil industry, has and will have on international politics as well as on the global e...

  • November 11, 2014

    Jerusalem in Israel

    In 1003 B.C., King David proclaimed Jerusalem the capital of Israel.  He reigned there for 33 years.  The city is mentioned by name more than 500 times in the Bible.  It is never mentioned in the Koran.  Nor did Jerusalem ever bec...

  • November 9, 2014

    Christians Are Disappearing in the Middle East

    On August 22, 1939, Adolf Hitler, explaining his decision to invade Poland, asked, “Who after all speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" On the centennial of the massacre of the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, it is pertin...

  • November 2, 2014

    President Putin's Mirage of Russian Empire

    In a speech at West Point on December 5, 1962, the former U.S. secretary of state Dean Acheson candidly remarked, “Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role.  The attempt to play a separate power role … is about ...

  • October 30, 2014

    The Danger of Islamist Terrorists in Libya

    Libya, with its oil wealth and natural resources, could be an affluent and successful country. Instead, it is today a dangerous place and a chaotic society with continual fighting among Islamist terrorists, Arab nationalists, and a host of regional m...

  • October 29, 2014

    Beware of Homegrown Terrorists

    In his recent book about the origins of the World War I, The Sleepwalkers, Hpw Europe went to War in 1914, Christopher Clark describes the major protagonists in 1914 as sleepwalkers, watchful but unseeing, stumbling into the catastrophe of the Great ...

  • October 24, 2014

    Russia and Israel: A Beautiful Friendship?

    When Bob Dylan sang “For the times they are a-changin’” he was not referring to relations between Israel and Russia, but his lyrics might just fit at the present time. No one can speak of a Russian tropical heat wave towards Israel ...

  • October 20, 2014

    Cold Turkey

    College students should be able to answer some simple questions. Which country in the Middle East has been declared guilty of “ethnic cleansing?” Which country in the area has prevented the return of refugees to their homes and forme...

  • October 17, 2014

    History Repeating Itself in the White House

    Karl Marx was not as funny as Groucho, but he made at least one amusing quip. It occurs in his critical comparison of Louis Bonaparte, the French ruler in 1848, with his uncle Emperor Napoleon. In his essay, "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Nap...

  • October 16, 2014

    The European Left Turns Back the Peace Process

    All well-meaning people hope that the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors can be settled peacefully, if not ending in a paradise of inner tranquility.  Regrettably, leftist political groups in European countries are damaging that hope...

  • October 7, 2014

    Why is the Left so wrong on Israel?

    This piece is written more in sorrow than in anger. Why is the left so often wrog about Israel? Israel is a great country that has its problems, as do all countries and organizations, and sometimes, in the words of President Barack Obama, does ...

  • October 4, 2014

    Muslims who Saved the Lives of Jews

    The horrors committed by evil people during the Holocaust are well known and documented. Less well known are the merciful deeds performed by good people during the years of World War II. Among the least known of these decent individual are the Muslim...

  • October 1, 2014

    Prince Turki of Saudi Arabia should speak to the Knesset

    It used to be true of relationships between countries in the Middle East, as Harry Truman once said of politics in Washington, D.C., that if you need a friend get a dog. However, no one can be unaware of the bewildering changes in those relationships...

  • September 30, 2014

    The Secret Revelations of President Abbas

    In October 1522, Machiavelli gave some valuable advice to a colleague about to become ambassador to Spain. He suggested that if it sometimes becomes necessary to conceal facts with words then it should be done in such a manner that no one becomes awa...

  • September 28, 2014

    The Fight against Islamist Terrorism must be Unconditional

    We all know that Derek Jeter is no longer at shortstop. It is more difficult to know what Islamist terrorist group is on first base. Everyone thought the group was named al-Qaeda, then from July 2014 it was ISIS or ISIL (now the Islamic State), and t...

  • September 24, 2014

    The Islamic State is Not a Paper Tiger

    It is gratifying that five Arab Middle Eastern countries have seen the enemy and acknowledge its danger. They now know what is this thing called the Islamic State (IS), formerly ISIS or ISIL, and have participated in or provided some kind of support ...

  • September 20, 2014

    Obama and the Coalition of Nations

    What the world needs now may be love, but more urgently it needs the end of Islamist jihadism, the greatest danger to Western civilization and values. The arrest on September 18, 2014 in Sydney, Australia of 15 alleged jihadists, local Islamic S...

  • September 17, 2014

    President Obama, This Is the Islamic State

    The great American philosopher Casey Stengel, dispirited by the failures of the New York Mets he was managing in 1962, uttered the immortal words, “Can’t anybody here play this game?”  He might have been complaining of the disc...

  • September 12, 2014

    Qatar Must Stop Funding Hamas

    In his speech of September 10, 2014, President Barack Obama finally followed the wisdom of the State of Israel in calling for and preparing “targeted action” to stop the advances of an Islamic terrorist organization and political structur...

  • September 11, 2014

    Prevailing over the Islamic State

    What’s in a name?  That which we call ISIS by any other name would smell as foul. It is puzzling that President Barack Obama has preferred the appellation "ISIL."  It does make a difference.  The variously named terr...

  • September 7, 2014

    Controlling Home-Grown Western Islamic Terrorists

    Theresa May, the home secretary in the British Conservative government, in a speech in the House of Commons on September 3, 2014, spoke of ISIS as a “group of murderous psychopaths.”  The videos of the two American journalist hostage...

  • September 3, 2014

    King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia Speaks Truth to the Powers

    No one has ever suggested that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of the British Intelligence Service and now Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge University, have much in common. Nevertheless, it is startling that u...

  • September 2, 2014

    The Hamas Lion that did not Roar

    On September 13, 1939 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth narrowly avoided death when Nazi German bombs landed on part of Buckingham Palace when they were there. The royal couple, by staying in London throughout World War II, were determined to show t...

  • September 1, 2014

    Comparing Arab Crimes against Humanity: Hamas and ISIS

    In his heart-wrenching book Survival in Auschwitz, the Italian writer Primo Levi recounts a dramatic anecdote of sheer evil.  The Nazi guard snatched away the icicle with which Levi was trying to quench his four-day thirst.  When asked...

  • August 31, 2014

    Arab War Crimes Must be Punished

    An astonishing exposition of the horrors of Arab behavior was issued on August 13, 2014 and published on August 27, by a most unlikely source -- a committee established by the UN Human Rights Council. The committee, headed by the Brazilian diploma...

  • August 28, 2014

    A Global Epiphany on ISIS

    It took only a moment for the whole world to become aware of the savagery and the delight in the slaughter of human beings by Islamist extreme groups.  That moment was the display of a skilled video of a masked jihadist in black clothes apparent...

  • August 26, 2014

    Hamas is a Danger to World Peace

    Again the question comes to the fore, who is the most benign terrorist of them all? Khaled Meshaal, the political leader of Hamas, in an interview on August 22, 2014 in his gated unmarked office in Doha, Qatar, far from the madding crowd of Gaza, cla...

  • August 24, 2014

    Obama Must Resist ISIS and Hamas

    As a result of the videotaped brutal beheading of the American journalist James Foley by the terrorist group ISIS or ISIL, the political leaders of the Western world are beginning to see the light through the glass, if darkly.  All responsible l...

  • August 20, 2014

    Resisting the Islamist Threat

    British diplomats are not accustomed to brooding over philosophical questions of life and death.  Yet the report in August 2014 of Sir John Jenkins, U.K. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, to Prime Minister David Cameron suggests he might have been rea...

  • August 18, 2014

    In Praise of Political Rallies

    Peaceful protests can have a significant effect on decisions. On August 15, 2014 the Tricycle Theater, located in an ethnically diverse area in London, withdrew its objections to the funding arrangements for the UK Jewish Film Festival (UKJFF). The a...

  • August 16, 2014

    The European Union Shows Bias Against Israel

    To adapt a saying of the British politician David Lloyd George, the European Union (EU) has sat on the fence so long on issues regarding Israel that the iron has entered its soul. It showed this once again in its one-sided approach in a new policy st...

  • August 15, 2014

    Obama Foreign Policy: A Ship without a Sail

    Much ink has been spilled in attempts to construe the meaning and significance, the sincerity or political opportunism, of the remarks made by Hillary Clinton about American foreign policy in her interview with Jeffrey Goldberg in Atlantic magazine. ...

  • August 14, 2014

    Israel in the Face of Aggression

    At the outset the obvious should be stated, as Abraham Lincoln stated it in his Second Inaugural Address on March 4, 1865. There was no moral equivalence between the two sides in the Civil War. One side would make war rather than let the nation ...

  • August 11, 2014

    The Show Should Go On in London

    In a popular Sherlock Holmes story, the solution to the mystery hinges on the curious incident of the dog that did not bark.  No mystery hinges on the reality that Europe did not bark about the committing of crimes against humanity and war crime...

  • August 10, 2014

    Hamas Tells the Truth about Itself

    The truth about Hamas sometimes emerges from the hidden tunnels in which the terrorist group has concealed it.  After numerous appearances by Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal on CNN television denying that Hamas uses people as human shields...

  • August 5, 2014

    Hamas Activities Understood on the Basis of Law

    To paraphrase the line in a Richard Rodgers ballad, I do not know a day when I did not behold Hamas rockets attacking Israeli civilians. Calculations suggest that more than 13,000 missiles have been fired by Hamas in Gaza against those civilians. Dur...

  • August 1, 2014

    No More Spanish Historic Mistakes about Jews

    My Fair Lady has told us that the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.  She might now tell us of the outbursts, if not yet a tempest, of vicious antisemitic noises and the danger of tempestuous thunder showering the country with irresponsibl...

  • July 31, 2014

    French Christian Decency and Hamas Evil

    Goodness and mercy coexist with evil in the world. At a moment when the Hamas terrorists in Gaza have horrified the world with the extent of their evil in using Palestinian children as slave labor to build underground tunnels in Sinai and as human sh...

  • July 27, 2014

    Speaking Truth on Gaza to the International Community

    France has had the courage to speak truth to the international community. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on July 13, 2014 berated the pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the Barbès area of northern Paris and in Sarcelles, a suburb of Paris, f...

  • July 27, 2014

    Indicting Hamas for War Crimes

    Hamas must be indicted in the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes. Evidence of Hamas’s crimes in the Gaza Strip has been visible for a decade to anyone not blinded by an obsessive commitment to an anti-Israel...

  • July 18, 2014

    Hamas is Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity

    In an interview on Palestinian TV on July 14, 2014, Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, addressed a question to Hamas. “What” he asked “are you trying to achieve by sending rockets (against Israel)? We prefer to f...

  • July 15, 2014

    Spies Like U.S.

    The most delightfully lighthearted and ironic scene in the film Casablanca is when Claude Rains, as the seemingly easygoing corrupt police chief, says to Humphrey Bogart, the enigmatic night club owner, “I’m shocked, shocked to ...

  • July 13, 2014

    France Speaks the Truth about Hamas and Israel

    Israel is not yet the land of croissants, camembert, and châteauneuf du pape.  Nevertheless, the strongest, unequivocal support it has received in the current fighting with Hamas has come from French President François Hollande....

  • July 12, 2014

    The Disgraceful Book of Adolf Hitler

    What poorly written and turgid 700-page book has sold more than 15 million copies in the past and has recently become a bestseller in Croatia, India, Turkey, Russia, and Qatar?  As a result of a recent decision in Bavaria, Germany, even a school...

  • July 10, 2014

    Visions of Peace or Fantasies in the Middle East

    Let us be generous and assume that Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority, is sincere in his advocacy of a negotiated two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict with Israel. In his article in Haaretz of July 7, 2014 he writes that P...

  • July 9, 2014

    Israeli Settlements Are Not Illegal

    Seventeen nations of the European union did not listen to or remember the remarks of Julie Bishop, foreign minister of Australia, made on January 21, 2014. She asserted that the international community should refrain from calling Israeli settlements ...

  • July 7, 2014

    President Barack Obama and Napoleon Bonaparte

    How many pens does President Barack Obama have and how many phones does he use to exercise unilateral executive power? The United States Supreme Court did not answer these questions but it did examine whether he has acted in an unconstitutional ...

  • July 5, 2014

    French and British Heroes Fight Radical Evil

    The late actor Steve McQueen, the “king of cool” -- relaxed, detached, self-confident -- is best remembered for his frenetic car chase through the streets of San Francisco as Bullitt, a detective in pursuit of Mafia villains. The recent r...

  • July 2, 2014

    Tall Tales from the Vienna Courts on Jews

    One of the notable achievements of Austria since its defeat in World War II has been success in its public-relations activities.  They have persuaded many in the world that Ludwig Beethoven, born in Bonn, Germany, was Austrian, and that Adolf Hi...

  • June 29, 2014

    Fouad Ajami: Honest Commentator on the Middle East

    The world of forthright and honest commentary on the societies and politics of the Middle East suffered a sad loss with the death of Fouad Ajami of cancer at the early age of 68. Born of a Shiite family in a small village in southern Lebanon, he came...

  • June 28, 2014

    French Ironies and Jews

    Can France be considered an anti-Semitic country when Alain Finkielkraut, a French Jew of Polish origin, has just been elected to become one of France’s Forty Immortals in the Académie Française (French Academy)? The paradox ...

  • June 25, 2014

    Controlling the Islamic Threat to the West

    A greater effort must be made to control the threat of Islamic terrorism. Indifference to the threat, let alone acquiescence, is not an option for Western survival. An official British report published in mid-June 2014 illustrates the need for action...

  • June 23, 2014

    The Murder of Klinghoffer

    Leon Klinghoffer did not “die.” He was murdered because he was a Jew. That stark fact is the unstated reality in the controversy over the New York Metropolitan Opera production of the opera The Death Of Klinghoffer, composed by John Adams...

  • June 22, 2014

    Will the British Academic Bigots Report on Segregation in Gaza?

    The anti-Israeli bigots never stop.  In June 2014, the University and College Union (UCU), which claims to represent 107,000 teaching and related staff in universities and colleges in the U.K., announced that it was planning to send a delegation...

  • June 18, 2014

    Righteous Christians Speak Out on Israel

    At a moment when the 221st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) is holding its meeting in Detroit, a group of Christians on June 13, 2014 has courageously issued an open pastoral letter that criticized the focus and tone of the present a...

  • June 17, 2014

    Israel Grasps the Basketball Crown

    Who would have thought Israel would dream the impossible dream, fight and beat the undefeatable foe not only in the fields of science, startup companies, art, or culture, but in those of sport? Its barely imaginable world victory was registered on Ma...

  • June 15, 2014

    Beware the Islamic Caliphate in the Middle East

    In his poem "The Geography of the House," W.H. Auden advised, “[L]eave the dead concerns of yesterday behind us: face with all our courage what is now to be.”  A major contribution would be made towards peace in the Middle ...

  • June 14, 2014

    Israel does not need Elvis Costello or Roger Waters to Rock

    Sir Elton John has never claimed to be the outstanding political commentator of our time. Yet on June 17, 2010, during his concert performance in the Ramat Gan Tel Aviv stadium, he rebuked the hypocrisy, sanctimoniousness and bigotry of the boycotter...

  • May 31, 2014

    Honoring Pope John XXIII, a Righteous Man

    On April 27, 2014, two remarkable individuals, Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II, were canonized as saints by Pope Francis I who at the event called them “men of courage.” The day was deeply meaningful as a ceremony in honor of  ...

  • May 27, 2014

    Pope Francis and his Invitation for Peace

    To try successfully to separate religion and politics in the Middle East is an illusion. You can’t have one without the other. The brief three-day visit of Pope Francis I to the Holy Land in May 2014 is the latest example of the inevitable inte...

  • May 25, 2014

    The Heartless Boycotters of Israel

    Life does imitate art.  The recent announcement that the Soros Fund Management (SFM), the family office of the billionaire George Soros, bought shares of SodaStream International Ltd., the maker of home soda machines, could have been taken from ...

  • May 22, 2014

    The Need for an Eastern European Federation

    A month after Nazi Germany invaded Poland and the subsequent declarations of war on Germany by the United Kingdom and France, Winston Churchill, who had just become First Lord of the Admiralty, delivered on October 1, 1939 a broadcast over the BBC. H...

  • May 20, 2014

    The Perils of J Street

    In 1955, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations was founded to serve as the collective voice of organized Jewry in the United States.  It included diverse segments of views within the Jewish community.  Its mission is to...

  • May 17, 2014

    Liberals Must Refute the Leftist Bigots on Campus

    Tis the season of Commencement discontent. Let me count in alphabetical order the number of universities affected by the growing intolerance of bigots on campuses in North America.  Among them are Azusa Pacific, Brandeis, Brown, California, Conc...

  • May 16, 2014

    A New Mission for Europe

    The Western world is not anticipating the revival of the Cold War or nor does it have an appetite to remain obsessed with Russia. Nevertheless, the consequences of Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula and its apparent support of pro-Rus...

  • May 13, 2014

    A Real Red Line in Syria

    On March 19, 2013 and in April 2013 the forces of President Bashar Assad used nerve gas, the toxic chemical sarin, against the rebel forces attempting to overthrow him. Again on August 21, 2013, the sarin nerve agent was used and hundreds were k...

  • May 11, 2014

    A Female Role Model of Humanity in Israel

    A startling contrast presently exists in the world between the extraordinary educational and cultural success of a woman of minority origin in Israel and the denial of education for females by a brutal, fanatical Islamist group in Nigeria.  I...

  • May 10, 2014

    Brussels Fights Against Anti-Semitism

    The city of Brussels, Belgium, may be short of water, but on May 4, 2014 the police in the city used water cannons to disperse a crowd of about 400 who had gathered to attend a rally proclaiming the virtues of the virus of anti-Semitism and to mouth ...

  • May 6, 2014

    Unconscious Racism against Black Women?

    Recent events suggest that some inherent if unconscious racism still exists among some faculty and students at American universities. It is certainly noticeable that two courageous black women should have been slighted by two major universities both ...

  • May 3, 2014

    Free Press Challenged in the Middle East and in Washington, D.C.

    On May 1, 2014 Freedom House issued its latest Freedom of the Press report of 2013, assessing the degree of media freedom in 197 countries and territories in the calendar year. By chance, a few days earlier on April 29, 2014 a previously undisclosed ...

  • May 2, 2014

    The World Must Deal with Arab Apartheid

    We all now know that Secretary of State John Kerry “misspoke” when, at a private, closed meeting in April 2014, he said that the State of Israel was at risk of becoming an “apartheid” state if it did not accept a two-state sol...

  • April 30, 2014

    Will Spain Repudiate Anti-Semitism?

    In a little Spanish town a forthcoming election night will be like no other. The issue of anti-Semitism has rarely been a subject for mirth. But whatever its outcome, the bizarre election to be held on May 25, 2014 in Castrillo Matajudios, a small vi...

  • April 29, 2014

    Israel: Trailblazer in Research Ventures

    The “scholarly” boycotters of Israel, so anxious to express their solidarity with the “Palestinian people”, are totally unaware of the harm they are causing the very people they pretend to be helping. These scholars, in f...

  • April 26, 2014

    Telling the Truth about Terrorism and Islamic Charities

    The link between “charity” groups and terrorist organizations is frequently not recognized or is ignored. The chairman of the British Charity Commission, William Shawcross, on April 20, 2014 expressed his concern about charities being use...

  • April 24, 2014

    Palestinian Prisoners of Israel: Heroes or Cowardly Lions?

    It is difficult to believe that the Palestinians really want peace with Israel. One excuse after another is given for their refusal to enter into or to continue peace negotiations. The latest excuse has come a result of Palestinian unilateral action ...

  • April 21, 2014

    Did the Boycotters Hear The Good News about Israel?

    In his message of April 17, 2014, Rev. Dr. Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, surprisingly forgot to send Passover greetings to his many Jewish friends in Jerusalem, but he did issue a Palestinian Prisoners Day Call...

  • April 20, 2014

    A Modest Proposal for a Swift Middle East Peace

    The 18th century Anglo-Irish satirist, Jonathan Swift, is famous and best known for his book Gulliver’s Travels. Equally imaginative and ingenious is his essay A Modest Proposal written in 1729.  In this essay he addresses his concern with...

  • April 16, 2014

    Let's Invite Abbas to a Seder

    The Passover Seder is an occasion when Jewish people around the world remember their history. That complex past, embracing both suffering and happiness, is symbolized in the Seder service by the mixture of bitter horseradish with sweet parsley, repre...

  • April 13, 2014

    Is Brandeis University Biased against Israel?

    Brandeis University has violated its own academic principles by withdrawing the honorary degree that was to be conferred on Ayaan Hirsi Ali during its Commencement exercises in May 2014. The reason given by University President Frederick Lawrence, an...

  • April 11, 2014

    Releasing Palestinian Prisoners should not be a Condition for Peace Talks

    Secretary of State John Kerry, awakening to the fact that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process needs a “reality check,” must now face the dilemma he has ignored. This is the result of the aggressive unilateral move by Palestinian Preside...

  • April 8, 2014

    French Railroad Should be on the Track to Reconciliation

    The American Thinker article published on April 2, 2014 and titled “The French Trains were on the Wrong Track” occasioned some comments from readers interested in complete historical accuracy that deserve a reply. The article did not...

  • April 6, 2014

    Truth and Misinformation: Yasser Arafat and the CIA

    What is there in common between the CIA and Michael J. Morell, its former acting director, and the late Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)? Very little, except that both were involved in misunderstandings about or ma...

  • April 4, 2014

    The Bad Faith of Mahmoud Abbas

    Has Mahmoud Abbas, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the unelected president of the Palestinian Authority, really been influenced by the films of Danny Kaye?  In the 1956 film The Court Jester, Kaye wreaks havoc with...

  • April 2, 2014

    The French Trains were on the Wrong Track

    Memory can be painful, even extremely painful. The death on March 8, 2014 of 93-year-old Leo Bretholz has evoked memories of a still painful and controversial issue in wartime France. His small role in history and in current lawsuits in Maryland...

  • April 1, 2014

    UN Bias Against Israel Continues

    There’s an old Russian proverb, “Terminate what can’t be repaired.” Everyone interested in a just and lasting peace between Arabs and the State of Israel should apply this proverb to that absurd organization, the United Nation...

  • March 30, 2014

    Are the Boycotters of Israel Violating International Law?

    The world is now aware of the bias and bigotry of Oxfam International in objecting to Scarlett Johansson’s decision to become a spokesperson for the Israeli company SodaStream because of the company’s factory in an Israeli settlement town...

  • March 28, 2014

    Anti-Semitism Gets the Boot

    The fight against and the rejection of the virus of anti-Semitism and racism is gathering steam in unexpected quarters. The latest groups to reveal this are prominent football associations, the English Football Association, and UEFA (Union of Eu...

  • March 27, 2014

    Why are Feminists not Standing up for Israel?

    T.S. Eliot was wrong. March, not April, is the cruelest month. Certainly it is at New York University.  In the early days of the month a conference took place there on “Circuits of Influence: United State, Israel, and Palestine.”...

  • March 20, 2014

    Naming the Bigots

    The biased bigots are out again with their attack on Israel during “the apartheid week” in the month of March. What is perpetually amazing is that people and organizations supposedly devoted to the ideals of humanism and humanitarianism s...

  • March 18, 2014

    Are All Boycotters of Israel Anti-Semitic?

    It is regrettable but now necessary to ask two questions.  The first: are all those individuals, whatever their religious origin, political beliefs, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or nationality, who are in favor of some form of boycott of Israe...

  • March 16, 2014

    Fighting back against Biased Boycotters of Israel

    When W.H. Auden wrote his long poem, “The Orators,”  it was years before biased and bigoted groups and individuals including anti-Semites had begun advocating a boycott of some kind against the State of Israel. But his lines “P...

  • March 15, 2014

    Israeli and Chinese Academics Meet

    An old Chinese proverb says, “Every step leaves its print.”  One recent small step forward has been taken by SIGNAL, a non-governmental, independent non-profit Israeli organization.  This advance, aimed at increasing academic re...

  • March 9, 2014

    Israeli Concern and Arab Apathy

    The contrast could hardly be greater.  Israel has helped to alleviate the suffering of Syrians, while the rest of the world speaks about that suffering but does little to relieve it. On February 18, 2014, Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of...

  • March 8, 2014

    French Profiles in Courage

    This 100-year anniversary of the start of World War I reminds us of the human errors and the nationalist sentiments that were responsible for that great tragedy. It is also an opportunity to remember the contribution to humane values and the fate of ...

  • March 4, 2014

    The Russian Bear Roars

    There’s an old Jewish saying: “A good time to keep your mouth shut is when you’re in deep trouble.”  President Barack Obama and his foreign policy advisers would have profited if they had been aware of this.  Instead...

  • March 2, 2014

    Amnesty International Has No Charity for Israel

    We all thought Oxfam was the most bigoted international charity organization but along has came Amnesty International to displace it from the pinnacle of shame. What is it about these supposedly good will international organizations that makes them s...

  • February 26, 2014

    What Went Right for Israel?

    In his book published in 2002, Bernard Lewis asked "what went wrong" in the Islamic world, which had itself become conscious, by comparison with the West, that all was not well in its own society.  As a corollary, it is timely to ask, "What...

  • February 23, 2014

    France and the BDS Movement

    Over the last year, France has displayed courage and initiative in dealing with the threat of Islamic fundamentalism in African countries.  Now it is taking the lead in using legal means to counter and punish not only racists, but also thos...

  • February 19, 2014

    Yes, Mr. Erekat, Jesus was a Jew

    The kindest thing one can say about Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian "negotiator," is that he suffers, or pretends to suffer, from delusions or fantasies.  How else can one explain his statement on January 31, 2014 at a conference in Muni...

  • February 17, 2014

    Water for Israelis and Palestinians

    One sadly takes for granted the ignorance and the biased perspective of critics of the policies of the State of Israel, such as Oxfam, Amnesty International, the World Council of Churches, the Near East Council of Churches, and the other supporters o...

  • February 12, 2014

    How International Conventions Jeopardize National Security

    A visit to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry evokes some reservations about and challenges about the accusations and charges of war crimes against Israel for violating the international Geneva Conventions, 1929 and 1949. The Museum feature...

  • February 11, 2014

    On Israeli Humanitarian Aid to Syrians

    An extraordinary story has been unfolding in Israel.  If the Jewish State cannot fully implement the biblical injunction in Leviticus, "The stranger that dwells with you shall be unto you as one born among you," it is fulfilling its moral i...

  • February 9, 2014

    The Radical Left Is Never Right about Israel

    On April 30, 2013, Julia Gillard, then Australian prime minister and leader of the Labor Party, denounced the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as "not serving the cause of peace and diplomacy for agreement on a two state solution" of...

  • February 6, 2014

    Who is the Nicest Terrorist of Them All?

    Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the nicest terrorist of them all (or the worst)?  The world is witnessing the riveting spectacle of terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq feuding and grading each other in terms of their brutality, lack of co...

  • February 5, 2014

    John Kerry in Troubled Waters

    Great oaks from little acorns grow, and pivotal ruptures develop from misunderstandings. The present misunderstanding between Secretary of State John Kerry and the State of Israel should be clarified before it deteriorates into adversity. It is regre...

  • February 2, 2014

    Israel: The Innovative Nation

    It has long been obvious that Israel punches far above its weight in contributions to innovations in science, research, and general culture.  For some time, Tel Aviv and its surroundings have been second only to Silicon Valley in scientific...

  • February 1, 2014

    Oxfam is Wrong on Israel

    On January 29, 2014 the 29-year-old actress Scarlett Johansson announced she was quitting her role as an ambassador of Oxfam, the international charity organization, whose mission is to help alleviate poverty, because of "fundamental differences" bet...

  • January 27, 2014

    Sex, Politics, Scarlett Johansson, and the Middle East

    Ever since the torrid romance between Anthony and Cleopatra in 41 B.C. sex and politics have been intertwined in Middle East affairs. A less romantic link has now appeared in the relationship between the actress Scarlett Johansson voted this year, fo...

  • January 26, 2014

    The Need for Dutch Courage on Israel

    The story of Anne Frank, who died in the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen in March 1945, is one of the most moving and well-known events in recent history. Less well known is the fact that the number of Dutch Jews, 105,000 or 75% of the Jewish com...

  • January 23, 2014

    France Recognizes the Islamic Threat

    In little more than a year, France has intervened twice with military missions to counter Islamic violence in its former colonies in Africa. In January 2013 French forces were successful in beating back well-trained Islamist forces and al-Qaeda extre...

  • January 17, 2014

    Moshe Yaalon and Kerry's Obsession

    One of the more delightful witticisms of Oscar Wilde is "A friend is someone who stabs you in the front." No one can say that Moshe Yaalon, Israeli Minister of Defense since March 2013, lacks courage to deliver frontally his version of the truth abou...

  • January 15, 2014

    Sharon and Unilateral Disengagement

    "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." Ariel Sharon was not born great in February 1928 in the cooperative farming village of Kfar Malal. But he had achieved greatness by the time he died on January 1...

  • January 13, 2014

    France Combats Anti-Semitism

    Among the most constructive political and military events over the last year have been the actions of France in efforts to control the aggression and advance of Islamic terrorism in the world.  France has done the right thing in sending tro...

  • January 9, 2014

    Israel Looks Beyond the Blue EU Horizon

    For many years it has been obvious that the European Union (EU) does not wear Israel in its heart's core or enfold it in its arms. If its members have not totally subscribed to the Palestinian Narrative of Victimhood, they have been sufficiently sway...

  • January 7, 2014

    The Right of Return to Manhattan and Other Places

    We'll have Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island too. In 1626, so the legend goes, a group of Indians, Munsees, possibly members of the Lenni Lenape tribe, sold the island of Manhattan to Peter Minuit, governor of New Netherlands, for goods worth 6...

  • January 5, 2014

    The Palestinians Want to Dance at Two Weddings

    There's an old Jewish saying that no one can dance at two weddings at the same time. Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, is not Jewish, even if he claims some of his best friends are Jews. Nevertheless, living as he does in his nei...

  • January 2, 2014

    An End to Discrimination against Women in the Middle East

    If something goes without saying, it goes even better for being said. A valuable survey of the second-class condition of women in Arab countries appears in the NGO Monitor Report that was issued on December 20, 2013. It makes the important point that...

  • January 1, 2014

    Persecution and Death: Legal Punishment in Islamic Societies

    Capital punishment continues to be one of the most controversial and heated issues in American public life on several levels -- political, religious, intellectual, and legal.  The controversy comes to a head particularly when the practice i...

  • December 29, 2013

    Bigotry at the Arab University of Al-Quds

    In light of the recent demonstrations of ignorance, bigotry, and possibly anti-Semitism exhibited by the members of the two academic bodies -- the Association of Asian American Studies in April 2013 and the American Studies Association in December 20...

  • December 29, 2013

    Israel Integrates Ethnic Groups

    These are the times, as Thomas Paine might have said, that try the minds of the ignorant members of the American Studies Association who, in calling for a boycott of Israeli institutions, shrink from the service of academic freedom. Fortunately, thes...

  • December 28, 2013

    Arab Discrimination against Christians Must Stop

    Now is the winter of Christian discontent in Arab Middle Eastern countries. In all those countries, Christians have been suffering a sad fate: killings; torture; rape; abduction; forced conversion to Islam; seizure of homes and property; and bombings...

  • December 22, 2013

    Academic Subservience to the Palestinians

    The disgraceful resolution of the American Studies Association (ASA) on December 15, 2013 honoring the call from "Palestinian civil society" to support the academic boycott of Israel has brought to the forefront a problem that ought to disturb all co...

  • December 16, 2013

    ObamaCare Should Take Lessons from Israel

    Speaking in Jerusalem on December 8, 2013, Angel Gurria, Secretary-General of the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) congratulated Israel on its economic growth and stated that, "given the state of affairs in the world, Isr...

  • December 15, 2013

    The European Union Is Paying Palestinians for Not Working

    The European Union (EU) has not hesitated in making known its criticisms of the State of Israel and its suggestions for boycotts against some Israeli products.  Recently, the EU agency for combating racism has been unable to define the term...

  • December 11, 2013

    Never the Twain

    Will educated and progressive Americans ever start to recognize that the Islamic concept of a global caliphate is fueling thousands of Islamist terrorists, all of whom have explosives and some of whom have nuclear weapons? This stark reminder that ma...

  • December 8, 2013

    No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Israel and the Bedouins

    Some of the usual suspects in the politically correct British company of Israel-bashers are at it again.  This time, fifty public figures signed a letter in The Guardian on November 29, 2013 demanding that the British government p...

  • December 4, 2013

    An End to Academic Prejudice against Israel

    Alas, the question has to be repeated over and over again. Will the politically ignorant American academics in our midst, so eager to attack Israel, ever accept the principle that truth is transmitted by academic freedom? Will those academics at coll...

  • November 30, 2013

    No More Honor-Killings of Women in the Middle East

    There are some very active women's organizations and international units attempting to curb abuse of and violence against women.  They work to bring awareness to the cultural, and sometimes religious, norms, laws, and practices that have cr...

  • November 29, 2013

    Should Obama take Lessons from Putin?

    It is difficult to believe that President Barack Obama considers that the agreement between six countries and Iran on November 21, 2013 to limit temporarily some part of Iran's nuclear weapon and to allow Iran to continue enriching uranium up to 5% i...

  • November 26, 2013

    Desperately Seeking Obama

    For months the problems of ObamaCare have dominated politics in Washington. The botched rollout of the individual mandate part of the law, the loss by millions who have had their policies cancelled, the inability of the main web site to function prop...

  • November 25, 2013

    France Invests in Israel

    It is dispiriting that the temperature of the Obama Administration towards Israel appears to be lukewarm, if not cold. By contrast, it is heartening that the relationship between France and Israel is warm and growing stronger, not only politically bu...

  • November 23, 2013

    Vive la France!

    The greatest threat facing the world today is Islamic terrorism. If this is not always be appreciated by the White House it is fully comprehended by French President François Hollande. He has demonstrated this by his action in Mali in January 2013 wh...

  • November 20, 2013

    The Ignorant Advocates of the Boycott of Israel

    Brooklyn, New York, was once famous for its Dodgers. Now it is infamous for the Political Science Department of Brooklyn College that has sponsored or cosponsored symposiums, in February 2013 and in November 2013, confined to speakers who support boy...

  • November 17, 2013

    Saudi Arabia Enters the Theater of the Absurd

    Saudi Arabia may not be an enigma, but its opaque diplomacy is a "puzzlement," with seemingly contradictory relationships with two units of the international community: the United Nations Security Council and the United Nations Human Rights Council....

  • November 16, 2013

    The United States Must not Cease to be Vigilant about Iran

    It is a truth that should be acknowledged by the United States and all democratic countries that a nuclear Iran will mean the destruction of the State of Israel and a threat to the rest of the world. No doubt it is a desirable principle to attempt to...

  • November 13, 2013

    For a United Nations Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Jewish People

    On November 25, 2013 the United Nations will not be discussing the most urgent current international problem, preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Instead, it will be observing the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian Peo...

  • November 11, 2013

    Anti-Semitism Must be Overcome

    An alarming survey of the perception by 5,847 self-identified Jews in 8 European countries of the extent and nature of anti-Semitism they have experienced in their lives was issued on November 8, 2013 by the Fundamental Rights Agency of the European ...

  • November 10, 2013

    The State Department should Leave the Istanbul Process

    It is no accident that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states, "Congress shall make no law ...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." It is also no accident that there is no such absolute provision in the Arab and Islamic worl...

  • November 8, 2013

    The UnChristian Behavior of the World Council of Churches

    The World Council of Churches (WCC), the inter-Christian organization of mainstream Protestant churches, is at it again in its continuing campaign against Israel. In 2013, one of its units, the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum (PIEF), invited WCC me...

  • November 5, 2013

    The Gender Gap Is Worst in the Arab Middle East

    Why can't an Arab woman in the Middle East be treated like a man?  It isn't a line from the song in My Fair Lady, but it could have been.  The answer is not provided in the "Report on the Global Gender Gap in 2013,"...

  • November 3, 2013

    Anti-Semitism in the Ukraine and Elsewhere in Europe

    On the centenary of the infamous Beilis trial, an international conference on anti-Semitism was held on October 15-16, 2013 in Kiev, Ukraine, the city where the trial took place.  The trial is probably the best known of those based on blood...

  • November 2, 2013

    The Release of Palestinian Prisoners Will Not Bring Peace

    Prime ministers in democratic countries frequently have the occupational hazard of having to make difficult and unpleasant decisions.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has for over a year been confronted by the dilemma of making su...

  • October 30, 2013

    The Vatican and Israel

    On October 15, 2013 the Vatican took a decisive, unambiguous action against Nazi Germany. It refused to grant Erich Priebke, an SS Nazi war criminal, a church funeral in Rome where he had died aged 100. In a sense it was compensating for the fact tha...

  • October 29, 2013

    Blood-Libel Anti-Semitism in Hungary, Past and Present

    Recent surveys have shown that anti-Semitism in Hungary has increased to such an extent that it is almost at the highest level of any European country.  The country appears to have forgotten that 565,000 Hungarian Jews, over half of the Jew...

  • October 27, 2013

    The Palestinian Ideology Ignores Reality

    Among ideology, a fundamental belief system, and recognition of reality, there has always been a huge intellectual gap.  History is full of instances when all too many people have refused to recognize the disastrous consequences of adhering...

  • October 25, 2013

    Slavery in the World Today

    An astonishing document, the Global Slavery Index 2013, has been published this month. It disposes of the generally accepted view that slavery was abolished throughout the world in the 19th century. The survey in the Index ranks 162 countries and hol...

  • October 22, 2013

    Can Israel Become a Member of the European Union?

    It is a welcome sign of changing times in the Middle East that a mission of 65 industry associations and representatives from 17 member states of the European Union is visiting Israel for two days in late October on a "mission for growth." The missio...

  • October 20, 2013

    The Danger of Populism in France and Elsewhere

    Brignoles is a small town in the department of Var, in south-east France, previously known mostly if at all for its dried prunes.  It has now become better known as a result of the result of the surprising political upheaval in a local council e...

  • October 19, 2013

    The Blue and White Badge of Courage

    Examples of courage, the willingness to stand up and speak or act against maliciousness bigotry and venomous prejudice, are all too rare in contemporary society. It was therefore heartening and gratifying to see a dramatic exhibition of it shown on O...

  • October 17, 2013

    The Unsurprising Corruption of Palestinian Authorities

    Recent publications in the international mainstream media of reckless and dishonest management by Palestinian authorities of their economic affairs and their scandalized response to it recall the eye-opening surprise of the corrupt chief of police in...

  • October 12, 2013

    UNESCO and Bias Against Israel

    On October 4, 2013 the animus by an international body against Israel was once again displayed by six resolutions condemning Israel at the 192nd session in Paris of the 56-member executive board of UNESCO. The resolutions were promoted by the Arab an...

  • October 8, 2013

    A Call for Alliance Between Israel and Arab Nations

    Everyone recognizes that the countries in what is called the Arab world are in turmoil. This reality presents the occasion to consider reshaping relations between Israel and that "Arab world," especially since now the two sides are confronted by the ...

  • October 7, 2013

    Demonizing Israel More Important Than Defending Persecuted Christians?

    It continues to be a source of amazement that the mainstream Christian churches in the West and in the Middle East pay so little, if any, attention to the plight of Christians and the destruction of their churches in Arab and Muslim countries. ...

  • October 5, 2013

    Islamic Tolerance: Myth and Reality

    The world today is confronted by the continuing violence by and threats from Islamists seeking to overturn existing political systems and rule on the basis of Sharia law. Some Islamists have made no secret of their ultimate objectives. Osama bin Lade...

  • October 3, 2013

    No Appeasement of Iran

    The democratic countries of the world today may be heading towards a possible recurrence of a policy of appeasement, concessions made to an enemy or potential enemy in order to avoid a conflict or a resort to hostilities. The image of the supine pess...

  • September 30, 2013

    Empty Handshakes

    The world was agog with the anticipation of a handshake that was supposed to take place in New York on September 24, 2013 and perhaps be the start of international rapprochement between Iran and the United States after the breakage of relations in 19...

  • September 29, 2013

    The Palestinian Use of Propaganda

    The use of propaganda has a long history, going back to the Persians in 6th century B.C. The word itself can be traced back to at least the early 17th century when in January, 1622, Pope Gregory XV set up the Congregation for the Propagation of the F...

  • September 24, 2013

    Why is there no Palestinian Nelson Mandela?

    Nelson Mandela stands high in the pantheon of modern figures who have played a significant role on the stage of history on behalf of justice and equality such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. His call for mutual respect and trust between ...

  • September 21, 2013

    Edward Snowden must not Disgrace Andrei Sakharov

    Edward Snowden, the former U.S. computer specialist who was employed by the CIA and as a contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA), and who leaked top secrets of U.S. and British surveillance programs, especially the PRISM monitoring program,...

  • September 19, 2013

    President Barack Obama and All That Jazz

    At the heart of jazz is improvisation, whether it involves musical variations on chord progression, modal harmony, scales, rhythmic meters, or atonal expression.  The giants of jazz, such as Coleman Hawkins, Miles Davis, Stan Getz, and John Colt...

  • September 17, 2013

    Why is the New York Times Always Wrong on Israel?

    The New York Times is at it again in its continuing presentation of inaccurate statements and misleading assertions concerning the State of Israel. First was the headline in an article of September 10, 2013 that "The 1967 border is a source of strain...

  • September 11, 2013

    Russia Picks Up Kerry's Fumble

    Is the world today experiencing a reversal of the history of the international behavior of the Great Powers preceding World War II? On August 23, 1939 Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop, foreign ministers of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germa...

  • August 2, 2013

    India Turns to Israel

    At the Maccabiah games held in Israel during July 2013, a contingent of 28 Indian Jews competed with 9000 Jewish athletes from more than 70 countries in the 38 sports contested. The members of the contingent won no medals but their team did beat the ...

  • July 30, 2013

    Vanessa Redgrave sees the Light

    Not too long ago the mainstream media in western countries hailed Recep Tayyip Erdogan , prime minister of Turkey, as an Islamic moderate , the model leader of a Muslin democratic state. He was lauded as responsible for the substantial Turkish econom...

  • July 28, 2013

    The Association of the Gulf States with Israel

    Calls for a BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) against Israel continue to be voiced among mainstream churches, mainstream media, celebrities like Alice Walker, teachers' unions such as that in Ireland, anti-Israeli politicians, and the narrow-m...

  • July 27, 2013

    The Arab Spring Is Still a Little Late This Year

    Whatever happened to the Arab Spring that was supposed to usher in forms of modernity in the Arab world?  Remember the expectations of peaceful change, justice, reduction of poverty, democratic institutions? Surprisingly, small incidents in Ar...

  • July 19, 2013

    Persecution of Christian Copts in Egypt after Morsi

    The continuing dramatic struggle for power and friction in Egypt continues between two groups: the Muslim Brotherhood and the supporters of Mohamed Morsi on one side, and the combination of forces, mainly secular but divided, opposed to radical Islam...

  • July 11, 2013

    A Tale of Two Choices in Syria

    In June 2013 a resolution of the UN Security Council expressing "grave concerns" about the military offensive in the town of Qusayr by the Syrian regime of Bashar al Assad against rebel forces failed to pass because of the opposition of China and Rus...

  • July 9, 2013

    When will Irish Eyes be Smiling on Israel?

    Jews have been present in the area of Ireland since at least 1079, the first record of them. Today there are fewer than 2,000 Jews living in the Republic of Ireland which has a population of 4.5 million. In Dublin, which has a population of 1.2 milli...

  • July 6, 2013

    Tribalism and the War in Syria

    Some thirty years ago at a conference in Princeton, Tahseen Bashir, the witty and urbane Egyptian diplomat and presidential spokesman, commented on Arab Middle East politics in a pithy sentence. "Egypt" he said "is the only nation-state in the Arab w...

  • July 4, 2013

    The World Council of Churches has a Naïve Attitude on Syria

    In its statement on May 29, 2013 following an international and ecumenical conference in Beirut, the World Council of Churches (WCC) did not deal in any specific way with the violence in Syria but simply made a perfunctory reference to the "dire huma...

  • June 30, 2013

    For Jews in Europe, is the glass half-full or half-empty?

    The question of whether the glass is half-full or half-empty is sometimes regarded as a philosophical issue of some significance.  Whatever the scholarly answer in abstract terms, the question can be usefully posed to consider the situation of J...

  • June 30, 2013

    Christianity in Peril in Turkish Cyprus

    Violence against Christians has become all too frequent in recent years, with attacks on them in a wide variety of countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.  Repression and intolerance have been displayed against the Christian community in...

  • June 24, 2013

    Druze Escape from Syria to Israel

    By present accounts about 1.6 million people have fled from Syria to neighboring Arab countries to escape from the brutal civil and increasingly international war there. Now, unexpectedly, has come a startling request by leaders of the Druze communit...

  • June 24, 2013

    The European Union vs. Turkey

    In an uncharacteristic action on June 13, 2013, the European Union belatedly earned its credentials for the Nobel Peace Prize it had been surprisingly awarded on December 10, 2012. The European Parliament (EP) passed a non-binding Resolution on the s...

  • June 23, 2013

    Islamist Terrorists Threaten Sinai

    The Sinai Peninsula, located between the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Aqaba, an area of about 23,000 square miles, is the site of both historically biblical significance and of constant warfare. Sinai is where Moses received the Ten Commandments, an...

  • June 19, 2013

    Israel, UNIFIL, and the Blue Line

    The world has become familiar with the Green Line, and the Red Line, supposedly a game-changing demarcation.  Now it is likely to become acquainted with the Blue Line, the line devised by the United Nations on June 7, 2000 that demarcates the Is...

  • June 16, 2013

    Israel and the Golan Heights

    On June 11, 2013 Austria began withdrawing some of its 377-member contingent of the five-country United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) from the demilitarized zone on the cease-fire line between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights. The...

  • June 13, 2013

    Confronting the Syrian Quandary

    The fighting in Syria provides a good example of the law of unintended consequences.  The conflict between President Bashar al Assad and rebel forces has led to more than 80,000 deaths and to an estimated 1.5 million refugees, two thirds of whom...

  • June 10, 2013

    The Turks Draw a Line

    At a United Nations Forum in Vienna on February 27, 2013, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed the view that Zionism was "a crime against humanity." It is perhaps too strong to assert that the violent behavior of police and security ...

  • June 9, 2013

    Attacking Israel and Christian Zionism

    For millennia, historians and analysts have disagreed on the manner in which to present accounts of the past and the present. Some have sought to arouse sympathy or pity or empathy for the sufferings or difficulties of the peoples they are discussing...

  • June 4, 2013

    Moses Finally Vindicated by Israeli Oil

    Ever since Moses took the Israelites out of Egypt critics have grumbled he took the wrong road by going through Sinai on the way to the Promised Land and thus missing the petrochemicals and oil fields in the area. Since its establishment, Israel has ...

  • June 3, 2013

    Russia up in the Air over Syria

    On May 15, 2013 a UN General Assembly Resolution, cosponsored by Arab countries, strongly condemning the ongoing violence and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Syria and calling for the end of hostilities was adopted by a vote of 107 for, 1...

  • June 2, 2013

    Who Cares what Alice Walker or Elvis Costello say about Israel?

    In recent days media sources have been spreading the happy news regarding the actors Meg Ryan and Bruce Willis. It is good to know that neither of them has ever participated in a boycott of Israel or ever cancelled any scheduled visit to Israel. Othe...

  • June 1, 2013

    Bring Back the Ottoman Empire

    Like Europe five or six centuries ago, the Middle East today is the scene of shifting alliances among states, political groups, and warring armies, in a struggle for supremacy or hegemony in the area.  By contrast, the Ottoman Empire from its es...

  • May 30, 2013

    American Democrats and Israel

    In his negotiations last week with the Israelis and Palestinians, Secretary of State John Kerry must have reminded them that it has long been clear that the sympathies of the American public are more favorable to Israel than to their adversaries in t...

  • May 26, 2013

    Israel and Its Health Services

    The campaign against Israel, with fustian rhetoric and military assaults, continues by and on behalf of Syria, a country displaying its concern for human rights and civil discourse by slaughtering an estimated 80,000 of its own population. It is no...

  • May 24, 2013

    The Legality of Israeli Settlements

    As a result of criticism, the Church of Scotland has agreed to change its controversial report of its committee which called for political action, including boycotts and disinvestment in Israel, because of "illegal settlements in the occupied territo...

  • May 18, 2013

    Qatar, the New Player in the Middle East

    A surprising and ambitious newcomer on the international scene and in the politics of the Middle East is the Persian Gulf Emirate of Qatar, a country that became independent in 1971 when Britain ended its protectorate there.  This small country,...

  • May 16, 2013

    The Church of Scotland vs. Israel

    The Church of Scotland is a large organization that claims a membership of 500,000. Its congregants are served by 1200 ministers in parishes and chaplaincies, most of which are in Scotland but some of which are in other countries. An important body w...

  • May 15, 2013

    The Palestinian Narrative Captures Stephen Hawking

    Since 2008 an Israeli Presidential Conference has been held annually in Jerusalem. This year the Fifth Conference, organized by President Shimon Peres and entitled "Face Tomorrow," is to be held on June 18-20, 2013. The objective of the conferences i...

  • May 10, 2013

    The Question of Evil and Hannah Arendt

    Hannah Arendt, a film focused on the trial of Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann, has already shown in Germany, Paris and in Israel, is due to be released on May 29, 2013 in New York. The film by the prominent German director Margarethe von Trott...

  • May 5, 2013

    The Boston Tragedy and Global Terrorism

    The inquiry into the Marathon Day bombings by the Tsarnaev brothers in Boston on April 15, 2013, which bombing injured more than 260 people, is seeking explanations as to the motives of the perpetrators.  What were the fundamental reasons for th...

  • May 1, 2013

    Punch Drunk with Obama

    The rhetorical use of metaphors by President Barack Obama for political purposes, particularly the "red lines" concerning Iran and Syria, is now well documented. An amusing commentary presented in the Danish Television show "Detektor" of March 2012 h...

  • April 30, 2013

    Obama and the Red Line

    Political metaphors may simplify or symbolize actual or anticipated events but take a toll on political responsibility and sincerity. Throughout history, including the "line in the dirt" challenge of Colonel William Travis in March 1836 at the Alamo,...

  • April 28, 2013

    British Archives Dispose of the Palestinian Narrative

    The release by the British National Archives in London in April 2013 of the records, previously secret files, of the British Mandate Administration in Palestine are revealing and invaluable for an understanding of contemporary attitudes towards Israe...

  • April 21, 2013

    Can the Arab League Be Trusted?

    Rarely has a short letter influenced the course of history so much as the one known as the Balfour Declaration.  Written by Lord Balfour, the British foreign secretary, on November 2, 1917 to Lord Rothschild, the letter "viewed with favour the e...

  • April 20, 2013

    UNESCO Fails to Condemn Hamas

    All objective observers of Middle Eastern affairs understand that Hamas is determined to eliminate the State of Israel. They should also understand that by its behavior in March and April 2013 Hamas, is prepared to eliminate the non-Arab or pre-...

  • April 9, 2013

    Speaking of Apologies...

    In 1077 Pope Gregory VII excommunicated Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV. For three days Henry stood outside the gates of the castle of Canossa, barefoot in the snow according to legend, to apologize to the Pope for his actions and to beg forgiveness. Sin...

  • April 7, 2013

    Rectifying the Palestinian Narrative

    The mainstream media in the United States and in Western Europe have often been uncritically receptive of the Palestinian narrative. Media rarely question it, but instead disseminate its distortions of history and its deliberate misrepresentation of ...

  • April 2, 2013

    Speaking Truth to the Media on Israel: The Masharawi Case

    In his essay in 1921 on the primary role of a newspaper, C.P. Scott, the famous longtime editor of the Manchester Guardian, wrote, "[C]omment is free, but facts are sacred."  He held that not in what a paper gives, "nor in what it does no...

  • March 30, 2013

    Justice and the Islamist Terrorist: The Burlesque in Britain

    Commitment to the principle of human rights is now in collision with the ability of Western democratic countries to deal with and protect themselves from Islamic terrorists. On March 27, 2013, by decision of a senior judicial panel, the British gov...

  • March 26, 2013

    The European Union Must Act on Hezb'allah

    During his visit to Israel in March 2013, President Obama made clear his opinion on a crucial issue which went relatively unnoticed.  In Jerusalem on March 21, 2013, implicitly speaking to the European Union (EU), he said, "Every country that va...

  • March 24, 2013

    Twitter and Antisemitism

    On October 10, 2012 hundreds of Twitter messages appeared in France consisting of antisemitic remarks reminiscent of Nazi propaganda.  They were accompanied by photographs of concentration camp victims together with unpleasant facetious referenc...

  • March 17, 2013

    British Politicians and Their Jewish Conspiracy

    According to rational optimists, no one now could believe in the allegation of a "Jewish conspiracy" to control the world, or at least the American State Department.  This fabrication had disappeared into the dustbin of history, even if the viru...

  • March 16, 2013

    The Syrian Yarmouk Brigades: A New Islamic Threat to the West?

    On March 6, 2013, a little-known group of Syrian rebels calling themselves Martyrs of the Yarmouk Brigades, fighting against the Bashar Assad regime, took 21 Filipino members of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) as hostages....

  • March 10, 2013

    Brussels: European Capital or Islamic Center?

    Brussels as the headquarters of the European Union is the nominal "capital of Europe."  One would expect the city to be the center of enlightenment -- the exemplification of political and social tolerance and freedom of speech, assembly, and rel...

  • March 5, 2013

    Reprimanding Erdogan

    By his remarks on February 27, 2013 at a conference under the auspices of the United Nations, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, founder of the partly Islamist and partly secular, Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in 2001 and Prime Minister of Turkey since...

  • February 26, 2013

    Fourteen Points for the Palestinians

    In almost all the rhetoric directed against the State of Israel and its citizens for their alleged oppression of Palestinians, there is rarely, if ever, more than token perfunctory concern for the welfare of those Palestinians or any real interest in...

  • February 26, 2013

    Hezb'allah is a Terrorist Organization

    Two current issues, on different continents, are concerned with the same political problem. One is the nomination of John Brennan to be head of the CIA. The other is the trial in Limassol, Cyprus in February 2013 of a 24-year-old Lebanese man alleged...

  • February 24, 2013

    Pinkwashing: Sexual Assault on Israel

    The relentless anti-Israeli warriors can never take yes for an answer. By every index the State of Israel can be proud of its record on sexual issues, especially on the question of gay rights. It is self-evident that these rights are enjoyed, as...

  • February 17, 2013

    A Homecoming in Israel

    Critics of Israel who slander it as an apartheid state could not have been happy about the joyous special ceremony at Ben Gurion airport on January 17, 2013. They would have been bedazzled, bothered, and bewildered when an 18-year old girl,...

  • February 16, 2013

    Islamists Eliminating History

    A new form of warfare by Islamists is being waged.  This new offensive is not only a military campaign for jihad and for the creation of Islamic states ruled by sharia law; rather it is explicitly for the elimination of the non-Islamist past -- ...

  • February 11, 2013

    Israel Reflects

    The Turkel Commission Report is a unique and important legal report, 470 pages along with 500 pages of appendices, submitted in February 2013 to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It is not bedside reading but is a comprehensive and rigorous ...

  • February 7, 2013

    Judicial Bias against Israel

    There are never any surprises in the reports and declarations of United Nations organizations concerning the State of Israel. The most recent example of the UN's inherent bias is the report made public on January 31, 2013 of the six-month long inquir...

  • February 5, 2013

    Halting the Islamist Threat

    Western democracies are no longer facing a shadowy enemy. Now that jihadist militants, many of whom are al Qaeda linked terrorists, have for more than a year have launched successful aggressive action against both Africans and Westerners in Mali and ...

  • January 31, 2013

    The End of Neo-colonialism

    Outmoded political categories are prone to linger beyond their relevance to ongoing reality. One of these is the concept of "neo-colonialism," a term coined in 1965 by Kwame Nkrumah, who became president of newly independent Ghana. For him, formulati...

  • January 20, 2013

    Let's Buy President Mahmoud Abbas a Chair

    When the French philosopher Blaise Pascal in the mid 17th century wrote his Pensées on the human condition could he have been thinking about the Palestinians? His famous adage, "All of man's misfortunes come from one thing which is not being able to ...

  • January 20, 2013

    Will the real Moderate Palestinians Please Stand Up?

    The Western media has been eager to proclaim that Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, and Saeb Erekat, the chief negotiator of the PLO, can be regarded as Palestinian moderates and believe in genuine peace with Israel. Indeed, Erek...

  • January 19, 2013

    Women: Israel vs. the Arab World

    The recent Islamist ascendency in the Middle East has drawn attention to the inferior role and status of women in the Arab and Muslim countries as compared to their counterparts in the state of Israel. Precise comparative analysis presents certain di...

  • January 3, 2013

    Where Does the Buck Stop in the Benghazi Situation?

    An important political, if not constitutional, question has arisen over the meaning of the statement by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on October 15, 2012 that "I take responsibility" for the actions or non-action of the State Department over the...

  • October 30, 2012

    The Arab Spring and Israel

    The song of the Arab Spring has ended, but the malady lingers on.  Even the most well-intentioned optimist has to acknowledge that the events in the Middle East over the last two years have not succeeded in introducing anything resembling...

  • September 2, 2012

    The Palestinians Reveal the Ties of Jews to Palestine

    The Palestinians have inadvertently contributed to the truth of the historic relationship of Jews with the land of Israel. How?  By asking the World Heritage Committee (WHC) of UNESCO to recognize Battir, a village about 5 miles west of Bethlehe...

  • August 28, 2012

    Secretary-General Ban Goes to Tehran

    On February 17, 2012 the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 66/175 on the "Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran."  It expressed deep concern at the ongoing and recurring human rights violations in Iran relate...

  • August 26, 2012

    Wagner in Israel: Promoting Anti-Semitism or Fighting Censorship?

    Should the music of Wagner be played in Israel? There is, in fact, an Israeli Wagnerian Society, but attempts to play the music -- by Zubin Mehta in 1981, by Daniel Barenboim in 2001, and most recently in June 2012 at Tel Aviv University -- have been...

  • January 29, 2012

    The Palestinian Narrative of Victimhood

    A debatable aspect of modern thought is the thesis that the full truth is unknowable and that the interpretation of historical events and present behavior is a "narrative" reflecting the interests of the group that creates it.  Nowhere is this m...

  • January 22, 2012

    Eyeless in Gaza

    It is saddening that leaders of mainstream churches, Catholic and Protestant, unlike most Evangelicals, have expressed such little concern about the fate of Christians in the Middle East, let alone registered any support for Israel in its efforts to ...

  • January 15, 2012

    The Devil's Advocate and Free Speech

    In October 2011, anti-Israeli activists attempted to get a warrant issued for the arrest of Tzipi Livni, former Israeli foreign minister and leader of the Kadima party, who was visiting London to meet with William Hague, the British foreign minister,...

  • January 1, 2012

    Will the Animosity against Israelis ever End?

    On October 6, 2011 Tzipi Livni, former Israeli foreign minister and leader of the Kadima party, met in London with British foreign secretary William Hague. Her previous attempt to attend a conference in Britain in December 2009 was prevented because ...

  • December 25, 2011

    The Sad Plight of Christians in the Middle East

    At this time of uncertainty and political vacuum in the Arab and Muslim countries in the Middle East, more light should be shined on the disturbing and deteriorating situation of Christians in those countries.  It is unfortunate that the U.S. Co...

  • December 14, 2011

    Palestinians are an Invented People

    The statement by Newt Gingrich that the Palestinians are an "invented people" has been criticized by political opponents as indicating a lack of sobriety and stability on his part. Yet, whatever one's views of the sagacity or judgment of Mr. Gingrich...

  • September 18, 2011

    The Durban Follies in New York

    On September 21, 2011, the Durban III Conference is to be held as a special session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.  The decision to do so and thus commemorate the tenth anniversary of Durban 1 was made by the UNGA in ...

  • September 4, 2011

    The Palestinian Refugee Issue: Origins and Solution

    Whether or not a Palestinian state is unilaterally declared in the future, crucial differences between Israel and any Palestinian authority remain.  The most controversial of these is the refugee question, which has political and legal as well a...

  • August 28, 2011

    A Fence for Defense

    The terrorist attack initiated by the Popular Assistances Committees of Hamas against southern Israel on August 18, 2011 is a pressing reminder of the unrelenting assaults by Palestinians on Israeli citizens.  Its complex military nature reinfor...

  • August 7, 2011

    Is a Palestinian State Viable Today?

    Beyond the issue of bad faith and irresponsibility of Palestinian authorities in calling for a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state is the question of whether such a state is politically and economically viable.  Politically, would it m...

  • August 7, 2011

    The Bizarre Alliance Against Israel

    The Arab Spring has lengthened into Summer.  Hoped for political changes and reforms have faltered with the result that the fundamental political, economic and social dysfunction of Arab countries in the Middle East remains.  The most commi...

  • July 30, 2011

    Multiculturalism Revisited

    The brutal murders in and around Oslo on July 22, 2011 by Anders Behring Breivik, the self-declared commander for the Knights Templar of Europe, are to be rightfully condemned, and due punishment must be accorded for his horrible crime.  But his...

  • July 24, 2011

    Negotiations, not Unilateral Declarations

    The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians can be resolved only by negotiations between the parties, not through unilateral declarations by one side.  A unilateral declaration of a state would mean renouncing the many attempts made in many...

  • June 5, 2011

    The Coming UN Crisis

      President Obama has spoken in recent weeks of his aim to encourage Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation.  That aim will be hindered and perhaps permanently derailed in September 2011, if the United Nations General Assembly passes the Palest...

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