Election 2012 has been four (or more) years in the making, but we’re about to, mercifully, call it history. It’s not wrong to say that it has mostly been a referendum on President Obama. But this election, perhaps more than usual, has also been a referendum on democracy. What have we learned? (More…)
One of the first things I did when I arrived in Germany as an exchange student in 1986 was to walk into a bookstore and buy a collection of Bertolt Brecht’s plays. I spoke almost no German. And the only Brecht I had been aware of back in the states was his libretto for the Kurt Weill “song-play” The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (More…)
Following Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement that he was forming a joint list for the upcoming election with Avigdor Lieberman’s fascist Yisrael Beiteinu party, there was no shortage of analyses of what this would mean. Indeed, there had been plenty of projections and polls, even more so than usual, in recent weeks. (More…)
Every so often, I write a column, and have to immediately update it. This was what happened last week, so I decided to revisit its topics: the Protestant churches’ letter to Congress about US military aid to Israel, and the scandal over anti-Semitism in the Free Gaza Movement. I’ll start by admitting I was wrong about Greta Berlin. (More…)
Six years ago, I met with Kenneth Stern, the director of the American Jewish Committee’s program on anti-Semitism. Stern was one of the main figures in the creation of the framework which was called “the new anti-Semitism,” a paradigm which has since blurred the line between anti-Jewish hate and legitimate criticism of Israel. (More…)
In the pogrom-like atmosphere gathering apace in Pakistan, the religious majority – Sunni Muslims – do not perceive that what is at stake is not an ‘altruistic’ concern for weak, insignificant minorities. The market, and its partner nationalism, make us think that ‘conscience’ is reserved for exceptional moments of humanitarianism, rather than being part of everyday life. (More…)
It’s been a week of political theater. In the US, Mitt Romney revived hopes for his campaign by trouncing a surprisingly ineffective Barack Obama in the first of three debates. But in Israel, a much more intricate play was being performed. The stars, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, played at fighting, in order to try to garner political points. The final act doesn’t bode well for Israelis, or the Middle East in general. (More…)
I was an IDF reservist stationed in the south of Israel. My base had received a new contingent of AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, and was testing them prior to deployment. Helicopters would ascend to 100 meters, hover for hours, and do instrument checks. A constant drone permeated our encampment. (More…)
During every presidential election in the United States, the same argument is made, mostly on the left, but also on the extreme right. The candidates don’t represent your views, so you vote for a third party candidate, or don’t vote at all. After all, the argument goes, how are we ever going to get candidates who do what we want them to do if we keep sending the same mainstream politicians to Washington? (More…)
It goes without saying that the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi is a crime that no offense can excuse. Yet those who perpetrated the killings (purportedly jihadists, who planned the killings in advance) probably number in the dozens, and felt plenty justified. (More…)
Barring a surprise turnaround in America’s leadership contest, Barack Obama is going to enter his second term in the Oval Office. Tellingly, his campaign has not focused on foreign policy. Yet, when Obama has discussed it, it has been to trump his record against challenger Mitt Romney. Yet, there have been no hints as to what his foreign policy will look like in a second term. (More…)
The 2012 Presidential election in the United States was supposed to ignore foreign policy. The economic disaster of 2008 is still being felt deeply by millions of Americans. That was supposed to be the arena for incumbent President Barack Obama, and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney. (More…)