April 22, 2024

How Columbia and America have changed

For me, Columbia University was always an oasis of green trees and marble columns in the heart of New York. Now, it’s really dark and scary—midnight at the oasis. The usually relaxed green zone where students loved to throw frisbees or...

March 21, 2024

Following Biden’s Lead?

Should Israel follow the advice of Joe Biden and Anthony Blinken on Gaza? The right answer is simple but not easy. It has nothing to do with partisan politics. It has to do with results.  A country should pick its advisors and its strate...

November 24, 2023

Taking Pride in Murder

There is a great word in Yiddish that sums up the warm and fuzzy feeling you get when you or one of your family does something really great, something noteworthy, something memorable. Nakhas.  Accent on the first syllable. It really i...

November 16, 2023

Why Palestine Fails

Before creating another “Palestinian state,” let’s consider its chance of success. We’ve had several different Arab states in and around Palestine. All failed, some disastrously.  Will yet another Palestinian state ...

November 9, 2023

Remaking Gaza: A Harsh And Necessary Road Map

Gaza is a knife aimed at Israel. Just look at the map. It’s not an accident. The Gaza Strip was created by Arab states who attacked and lost to Israel in the first Arab-Israeli war of 1947-48. It became a narrow festering laboratory where hu...

November 2, 2023

Life as a horror movie

Can the average English-speaker understand HAMAS, ISIS, Al-Qaeda and other Islamist terror groups? Yes -- just go to the movies. For Hamas, all you really need to see is Invasion of the Body Snatchers, because Hamas’s tactical approach is...

October 21, 2023

Naming Names in the Middle East

If Shakespeare had grown up in Gaza or Jerusalem, he would never have written “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” because names In the Mideast cast their own reality and even change reality. To understand the Mideast, don...

April 24, 2023

Appointment in Chicago -- Democrats and Destiny

We, destiny, and the Democrats have an appointment in Chicago for a presidential convention. Writer John O’Hara recalled a preordained encounter with the Angel of Death in Appointment in Samarra, but this is different.  The Democrats se...

March 30, 2023

Israel’s Judicial Coup

Israel’s recent “judicial reform crisis” has deep roots going back decades. Not surprisingly, they originate within the Israeli Left. Israel is teaching us all a new lesson in modern western democracy as checks and balances are t...

May 23, 2022

A new Black Sox Scandal?

The Chicago White Sox were once a great team that got involved in a scandal a century ago — the so-called "BlackSox" betting scandal, in which some Sox players were implicated in throwing games. Because of the scandal, the World Se...

April 13, 2020

An obituary for The New York Times

When prominent people die, the press publishes "obituaries," reports of their deaths and a summary of their lives.  I recently read a New York Times obituary that accidentally summarized the last years of The New Yo...

February 5, 2020

The Democrat Data App

We were waiting for it—the Big One. Election 2020s preview.  All eyes were on Iowa. So what happened? Just ask Bernie Sanders as he celebrates Ground Hog Day all over again. The Democrats’ Iowa caucus results failed “due ...

July 17, 2019

The Exceptional Trump

Donald Trump, unlike Barack Obama &Company, loves talking about America’s “exceptional” qualities, but we tend to overlook the importance of the exceptional qualities of Trump himself. No, this will not be a suck-up exercise ...

November 9, 2018

Reporters and good questions

Reporters are supposed to hunt for facts, to search for the truth, and their best tool is a good question. Knowing a good question and knowing how and when to ask it are skills prized by the wisest members of society from Talmudic times in Judea t...

October 15, 2018

Democrats vs. democrats

To be a Democrat is not the same as to be a “democrat.” To be a Democrat means belonging to a party ruled by mood-swings and slogans: “I’m with her,” “Yes we can,” and “Me, too.” To be a dem...

January 7, 2017

Obama's Last Chance

President Barack Obama is wrapping things up at the White House, and he naturally wants to cram-in last minute achievements, leave his mark, and ensure a policy legacy. All presidents do that, but President Obama is making some terrible errors in ...

October 30, 2016

America’s Cartoon Election

America must choose between two political parties that are really cartoons. The Democrats are the party of the smartass, the smooth-talking donkey in Shrek, while Republicans are Dumbo, the clumsy elephant that may or may not fly. Yes, it...

September 23, 2016

Trump and the Anti-Elite ‘Intellectual’ Moment

If people call you an “intellectual,” you might not be so smart. You may be an impostor, a two-legged adjective posing as a deep thinker.  A true person of intellect is a thinker of thoughts, who uses his or her head -- not as ...

January 17, 2016

Obama’s Islamophilia

If Barack Obama is right, there is no Islamic terror wave today, just a few “incidents.” Likewise, progressive politicians in Germany, Britain, Sweden and other parts of Europe say much the same thing: no need to worry -- only isolated...

September 6, 2014

Islamism: The Allure and the Cure

From the jails of America, Britain, and France to the plains of Syria and Iraq and the jungles of Africa and Southeast Asia, a violent brand of Islam is on the march, coercing and cajoling converts and winning territory. It is led by The Musl...

August 6, 2014

Understanding Gaza: The Knife and the Bomb

Maps show Gaza is built like a dagger, but a closer look reveals a ticking bomb. It is a patchwork of labyrinthine alleys lined with booby-trapped buildings and smugglers' tunnels built under the main streets laced with enough explosives to th...

July 13, 2014

Naming and Fighting Terror

Westerners often flail away at dangerous enemies or situations because they cannot describe or name them accurately, especially Arab-Islamic terror groups. Here are some words to remove from usage or to save for very special occasions. Militant...

July 5, 2014

Making Sense of 'Senseless' Terror

President Barack Obama thinks terror is "senseless," but the terrorists disagree.  Terrorists think terror works, that it makes perfect sense.  As President Obama has droned on that terror has been defeated or that terror ...

June 17, 2014

Obama's Magical Symbolism

Barack Obama constantly takes himself prisoner and then magically wins his own release. Like Osama Bin-Laden, Barack Obama lives in a symbolic universe, thinking he is its center. It is a place where symbols and slogans trounce the messy detail...

May 8, 2014

National Security Dudes and Dudettes

When a man or woman is mugged on the street or afflicted by disease, the right response is never to pretend everything is fine and nothing has happened. But if you're a really cool guy like the president of the United States or one of his...

March 20, 2014

Prophetic Leaders and Pathetic Leaders

All leaders are human, and they all make mistakes, but really good leaders study the errors of others and admit and learn from their own mistakes. President John F. Kennedy was weakened by the calamitous 1961 Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba, and two...

February 10, 2014

Barack Obama's Transformational Moment

President Barack Obama said he did not want just to be president but a "transformational president," and as he starts his sixth year in office, one must acknowledge how he has transformed both the presidency and America itself. Under Obama, the exec...

December 1, 2013

ObamaCare for Iran?

There are several clear parallels between Barack Obama's health care program and the deal the president made with Iran about its nuclear program. First, let us reinterpret what President Barack H. Obama said to Iran: "Let me be clear: if you like...

August 28, 2013

Staying Home or Getting Involved

President Obama's dithering actions and non-response to events in the Middle East show the US is slipping back into the deep foreign policy chasm -- between those who want the US to play a world role and those who want to stay home -- that crosses pa...

August 7, 2013

Obama's 'Victory' Over Terror

"Al-Qaeda is on the run, and Osama Bin-Laden is dead," declared President Barack Obama  (in almost identical language) at more than a dozen campaign appearances and major policy speeches in the last year. But when America closes embassies in m...

July 18, 2013

Hawks, Doves -- and Ostriches

Power politics is not about the good, the bad and the ugly. It is about hawks, doves, and ostriches. Hawks and doves can be good or bad, depending on the circumstances. Ostriches are always ugly. Hawks are assertive and even aggressive, while doves ...

May 31, 2013

Barack Obama, George Orwell, and Terror

George Orwell would have disliked Barack Obama's big speech on terror, because Orwell hated when politicians used words to hide ugly truths. In 1984, Orwell coined the term "double-speak." He foresaw how men of state would misstate and mislead to st...

December 6, 2012

Europe Prays to Paper Peace, Paper God

Cavemen prayed to stones and talismans, but Europeans worship paper gods. Europeans have a bad habit of holding up paper agreements as if they guarantee peace, progress, prosperity. It used to be the price agreement on farm products-from butter to...

November 21, 2012

Blood and Tribalism

A recent picture taken in Gaza reveals more than all the sanctimonious speeches calling on Israel to be "humane" or "proportional" in fighting the Islamic terror state in Gaza that has made life a living hell for thousands in Israel. The I...

October 29, 2012

Presidential decisions - right and wrong

US Presidents make a lot of decisions, and, not surprisingly, a lot of mistakes. In this, it does not matter if you are a Republican or a Democrat. Being President of the US, therefore, is not like being a college football coach or a baseball pitcher...

September 29, 2012

Killing the Messenger, Obama's Way

What do CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Bibi Netanyahu, a Lebanese website, and Mitt Romney all have in common? They told some truths inconvenient for President Barack Obama.  They are now enemies of hope, enemies of change.  They are a big p...

September 1, 2012

Introducing the UJR - The United Jihadi Republic

Cairo and Damascus -- always at the heart of Arab politics -- are again starring in the real-life drama of Arab turmoil that the media's idiot-savants called the "Arab Spring."  Somehow, the "Arab Spring" does not look so rosy. Egypt may be the ...

August 2, 2012

Obama's Body Count

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton feel that Osama bin Laden's death and the drone attacks show that they have mastered national security and foreign policy.  They are wrong. Counting bodies and sorties proves little.  As Einstein said, "[n]o...

July 13, 2012

Far-Reaching Changes Threaten Israel And Western Interests in Mediterranean

There are dramatic changes in the security picture on Israel's southern border, but you would not know it by reading, listening to, or watching most of the American press or listening to press briefings at the White House or the State Department....

May 20, 2012

Losing Egypt, Losing the Mid-East

While the world debates the threat of Iranian weapons and their  long-term effects on Israel and the Persian Gulf area, events may soon reach  a critical mass in the most central and important Arab country,  Egypt, in ways that endange...

May 5, 2012

National Security Is No Place For Double Standards

 The Obama Administration says it wants to create a special new spy agency in the Pentagon which will focus on emerging threats and needs. "The Pentagon is revamping its spy operations to focus on high-priority targets like Iran and China," wrot...

February 13, 2012

CNN Tilts East, Fires 4 Jewish Journalists in Jerusalem

CNN has reportedly fired most of the Jews in its Jerusalem bureau, cutting half the bureau but leaving Arab workers and reviving charges of CNN's pro-Arab slant. CNN denies the charges, claiming a budgetary downsizing, but two producers in the CNN Je...

May 18, 2011

Bibi, Barack and Tom

Reading a Tom Friedman column on Bibi and Barack is to take a step into a virtual reality show, where the director, Tom Friedman, says there will be no connection to any real facts or any real history.  Rather the director, Tom Friedman, will su...