I knew that Andrew Sullivan’s abandonment of the hard right position on Israel was driving his old buds at the New Republic crazy. And today the magazine refers to Sullivan’s “venomous hostility toward Israel and Jews” Another anti-semite! Andrew was once TNR’s wunderkind, the youngest editor in its history. Smart, hunky, and a gentile Zionist. Read More »
Huffington Post 
Marshall Fine: HuffPost Review: Ajami
An Oscar nominee as best foreign-language film, Israel’s Ajami is a reminder that things can always – always – be worse. Set in the predominantly-Arab neighborhood of Tel Aviv known as Ajami, the film looks at the lives of an intersecting group of Israeli Arabs. Read More »
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach: Haitian Apocalypse and a Bold New World
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI — Nothing can prepare you for Port-Au-Prince. Not watching the devastation on CNN for a week. Not viewing a Time magazine photo montage of blue-tinged bodies in rigor mortis. Nothing. Read More »
Charlotte Dennett: Tony Blair’s Great Game: Toying With the Chilcot Investigation
One of the most remarkable things about England’s ongoing “Iraq War Inquiry” is how little has been written about it in the U.S. Read More »
William K. Black: Open letter to BofA Chairman: Racist Bank Adviser in Germany Must Go
From William K. Black, Associate Professor of Economics and Law, University of Missouri – Kansas City Re: Hans-Olaf Henkel, Bank of America’s Senior Advisor in Germany Dear Dr. Massey, I am writing in my individual capacity. It came to my attention yesterday that Bank of America’s “senior advisor” in Germany is Hans-Olaf Henkel. Read More »
Jesse Kornbluth: Mail? In ‘The Postmistress’ The Attraction Is A Young American Woman Working For
At dinner parties in New York this week, I anticipate three hot topics. The policy wonks will spend a few minutes debating our government’s announcement that it has the right to kill Americans abroad, without any formal presentation of evidence, if they’re suspected of conspiring with terrorists. Read More »
Karen Stabiner: The Philip Roth Reader: Both Of The Great American Pasttimes
Who are the great baseball writers? Roger Angell , Bill James , George Will, whose politics we will ignore because being a lifetime Chicago Cubs fan has to count for something. Oh yeah – and Philip Roth in Portnoy’s Complaint . Read More »
Lea Lane: Has America Finally Jumped the Shark?
“Jumping the shark” is a popular phrase around Hollywood. It refers to the old tv series Happy Days , when the previously cool character Arthur Fonzerelli, “The Fonz,” resorts to water-skiing over a shark to prove his bravery. Although the series continued another seven years after that absurd episode, it never recovered. Read More »
Khamenei Vows To Deliver ‘Punch In The Mouth’ To Opposition
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s supreme leader vowed Monday to deliver a “punch in the mouth” to the country’s enemies if the opposition goes ahead with major new protests planned for this week, as a senior pro-reform figure was sentenced to six years in prison over postelection unrest. Read More »
Lysandra Ohrstrom: The New York Times’ coverage of Israel-Palestine was Biased Before Bureau …
This week the editors of The New York Times’s sprang to the defense of Jerusalem Bureau Chief Ethan Bronner following weeks of controversy over his son’s service in the Israeli Defense Forces. Read More »
Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater: Defending New Israel Fund
Dissent is at the root of all healthy democracies, for without dissent, without the ability to speak up and express one’s opinion in opposition to those in power, democracy quickly dissolves. It might appear to remain a democracy for a time, but it won’t survive very long. These past few weeks in Israel we have witnessed a dangerous descent. Read More »
Ken Levine: Super Bowl XXLVIIXXLVVI
Has there been a more satisfying Super Bowl ever? What a great night for the city of New Orleans! 31-17 the final over the Colts. The celebration in the French Quarter should start winding down in June. Wish I were there to vomit in the street with the rest of you. Some random thoughts on the game and the telecast. Read More »
Sharmine Narwani: Israel Coming Unhinged? A Loose Cannon in a Volatile Region
Since the Jewish state’s military attack on Lebanon in 2006, it has been itching for a “do-over.” Why? Because for the first time in its history, Israel did not win a war — an intolerable outcome by the standards of the Israel Defense Forces. Read More »
Stephen Herrington: No One Will Ever Be Happy Again
Polls show spiking anxiety in America, mistrust and frustration. Headlines on Eurozone defaults declare the fears of an anxious world. Equity markets gyrate between fight for or flight from government economic interventions. Jobs and the economy worry us to a razor edge of anger and the splintering of political parties. Read More »
Gordon Adams: Gays in the Military: The Debate is Over
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was never a good policy. There is no evidence that sexual orientation has any bearing on the ability or willingness of men and women to serve as soldiers or to perform their duties as ordered and required. Read More »
Heather Robinson: Will $40 million U.S. Tax Dollars Subsidize U.N. Agency That Tolerates Teaching
Last week the United States announced an initial contribution of $40 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN agency dedicated to providing food, jobs and education in the Palestinian territories. According to a U.S. Read More »
MJ Rosenberg: Senate Passes AIPAC’s Iran Sanctions Bill In 5 Minutes
Anyone who has followed the Senate’s handling of health care reform can’t help but be impressed (or depressed) by the glacial pace at which things move in that place. In fact, it appears that Senate sloth contributed mightily to the failure of reform (by comparison, the House is a model of streamlined efficiency). Read More »
Nathan Gardels: Cyberwar With China: Former Intelligence Chief Says It is Aiming at America’s “Soft
Google and the National Security Agency are engaging in a cooperative investigation to determine who exactly from China was trolling through Google’s proprietary networks, including e-mail exchanges of Chinese dissidents. Read More »
Netanyahu: Israel Open To Peace Talks With Syria
JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister attempted to end a war of words with Syria on Sunday, saying his country is open to peace talks with its longtime enemy. Israeli and Syrian officials have traded threats over the past week, raising concerns of an escalation between two countries that have officially been at war for more than 60 years. Read More »
Ginny Dougary: Lord Browne: ‘I’m much happier now than I’ve ever been’
From The Times, February 06, 2010 – Ginny Dougary He was a world-renowned industrialist whose secret life as a gay man led to his downfall. Read More »
David Harris: Rank Hypocrisy and Transparent Double Standards
I know I shouldn’t be surprised any longer, but I still can’t help it. In a recent edition of The New York Times, after seeing 25 column inches on p. A4 devoted to an article entitled “Israel Rebukes 2 in Attack on U.N. Complex,” I read a short news item two pages later. Read More »
Mumps Outbreak Strikes 300 In Jewish Communities In New York
MONSEY, N.Y. — More than 300 people have been diagnosed with the mumps in suburban New York as the nation’s largest outbreak of the disease in years spreads. A health official says 303 people in the Rockland County towns of Monsey and New Square have been diagnosed with the highly infectious disease. Almost all the cases are among Orthodox Jews. Read More »
Saul Friedman: Gray Matters–Bye Bye Health Care as Obama Moves to the Passionless Center
When it’s useful, we pundits are fond of quoting the most famous aphorism of philosopher-poet George Santayana: “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” It’s chiseled in stone at the Federal Trade Commission. Read More »
Meir Javedanfar: Crunch Time for Iran’s Supreme Leader
Unless Iran’s supreme leader changes course in his internal policies, the domestic stability of his regime in 2010 is going to be more fragile than in 2009. “Tishe be reeshe zadan” is a famous expression in Persian. It literally means hitting the roots with an ax. Read More »
Magda Abu-Fadil: Wadi Abou Jamil: Stories About the Jews of Beirut
Riveting is an understatement. The beautifully recounted stories about Beirut’s Jews are enlightening, but beg for details about community members who decided to leave their Lebanese homes and lives, mostly unannounced, without having been persecuted, tortured, or killed as in the Holocaust. Read More »
Ami Kaufman: The Other Israeli Siege
Next week, Bibi Netanyahu will be celebrating his first (and may it be the last) anniversary of his February 10 election victory. After one year in office, Bibi’s got reasons to be fairly pleased with himself. Security-wise, 2009 was the quietest year in the past decade. Read More »
Stephen Zunes: Obama’s State of the Union: Little Focus on the World Beyond Our Borders
For eight years, I wrote annotated critiques of the foreign policy segments of George W. Bush’s State of the Union speeches. Despite two ongoing wars, it was striking that Obama focused so little in his first State of the Union speech on the world outside our borders, other than the call to be competitive in the global economy. Read More »
Christopher Herbert and Victoria Kataoka Rebuffet: Foreign Affairs Roundup
This Week’s Top Stories in Foreign Affairs: Peace Prevails in Ireland A last minute peace deal is reached in Northern Ireland to peacefully devolve London control of Northern Ireland’s police and judicial system to Belfast while changing the oversight of loyalist militias and parades. Read More »
William K. Black: Herr Henkel’s Hall of Shame
Hans-Olaf Henkel was one of the primary German architects of the global financial crisis in his capacity as leader of the association that lobbied on behalf of Germany’s large businesses. He has written recently that a number of the CEOs running those businesses should be placed in a “Halle der Schande” (Hall of Shame). Read More »
Julia Lira, Preteen Carnival Drum Corps Queen, Stirs Controversy
RIO DE JANEIRO — She is the Shirley Temple of samba, a 7-year-old named to a coveted Carnival role normally reserved for barely clad models who have undergone more plastic surgeries than little Julia Lira has seen birthdays. Read More »