At first glance, the Germans clambering over the Berlin Wall were a welcome sight. Finally, the DDR had imploded, and the countdown to reunification had begun. But, the Cold War wasn’t over just yet, and my distrust of the coverage made me wonder about the darkness that might yet follow the protestors West. (More…)
He might as well have been possessed. Screaming and shouting, flapping his arms, Beppe Grillo’s eyes repeatedly rolled to the back of his head, like there was a demon inside him. (More…)
“God is great,” exclaimed the cab driver. “Erdogan is Allah’s messenger.”
To my Middle Eastern trained ears, it might as well have been Istanbul. But, as populists would have it, this was Berlin.
Neukölln, to be precise, cruising down the revolutionary Karl-Marx-Straße en route to the veterinarian with my Welsh Terrier.
“I’m not so sure about his democratic inclinations,” I responded. “Erdogan’s growing concentration of power in the executive is frightening.” (More…)
“Heil Hitler,” the shout rang out as we disembarked from the train. The largely Arab passengers were taken aback, immediately scanning the platform. Several hijab-clad women with young children made eye contact to see if I was the offending European party. (More…)
Two-thirds of the way through Freelancer on the Front Lines, Jesse Rosenfeld is filmed packing his flack jacket, as he prepares to return home to Beirut. (More…)
I thought they were Arabs. “Where are you guys from?” I asked in Hebrew, as we waited to get off the plane. “Non parla Ebraico,” the oldest of the group replied in Italian. Switching to English, I apologised and carefully said, “You’d easily pass for Israeli.” (More…)
“Muslims are the enemy,” the cab driver told me. “My parents grew up in Iraq. They learned firsthand that their middle name is jihad.” “When did your parents make Aliyah,” I asked him. “In the 1950s, as kids,” he answered. (More…)
“The Holocaust is so popular we had to commemorate it twice,” my father quipped, as we attended a Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Day) event in Jerusalem with relatives visiting from the United States. One of them stared at my father with a look of shock and horror. (More…)
Early this morning, US-led forces struck targets in Syria associated with the government’s chemical weapons program. The objective was to degrade its offensive capability in light of the alleged attack carried out by the Syrian Arab Army in Douma last week, in which scores of civilians were killed. The French government claims to have evidence chlorine was used in the assault. (More…)
Year end lists aren’t what they used to be. Once a staple of newspaper writing, particularly alternative weeklies in the US, they’ve since faded in importance. Not only because the publications they once featured in have largely disappeared. More importantly, because popular culture no longer holds the same importance it had for young people until the War on Terror. (More…)
He never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. So went the Abba Eban-penned 1973 slogan used to describe the late PLO chief, Yasser Arafat, who was routinely blamed for failing to secure peace with Israel. (More…)
It was as though the Apocalypse was at hand. The big attack, or so it seemed, had finally arrived, ritually choreographed, within shouting distance of the 1972 Munich massacre, in which 11 Israeli athletes died, at the hands of Palestinian terrorists, aided by Neo-Nazis. (More…)