“If you think I’m a racist, then Israel is a racist state.” These were the words of the embattled mayor of the Israeli, predominantly Jewish, town of Upper Nazareth, or Natzrat Ilit, in Hebrew. The mayor, Shimon Gafsou (wrongly translated as Gapso) is running for re-election on an anti-Arab platform, and his words bear a very close examination. (More…)
Non-fiction is too narrow. That is, if you believe that the only narrative for progressive publishing is investigative journalism. Emphasize the first person, or adopt a memoir-like approach, and you become untouchable, the stuff of trade publishing, and public radio confessionals. Literary non-fiction? Too bourgeois. Poetry? It’s feminist, right? (More…)
The 9/11 attacks confirmed what many of America’s critics suspected. They were a sign of decline. With the economy contracting, and no clear adversary in sight following the fall of the USSR, Washington was at a loss to define itself as the impregnable power everyone once feared. Indeed, there was something unprecedented about it all. (More…)
The slogan sounds so good that it’s hard, at first, to register its strangeness: “We are all Edward Snowden.” Consider how many people had access to the same information he did, whether at the NSA or the private contractor where he was employed. But only he made it public. (More…)
The consensus is clear. Middle Eastern equals conservative. So Westerners have come to assume after decades of politically over-determined news coverage, and militaristic foreign policy posturing, by the United States and its allies following the Iranian Revolution. The assumption is universal. Even Israel is subject to this distortion, albeit for different reasons, stemming from its conflict with the Palestinians. (More…)
You may have seen these posters plastered all over Germany. ‘Operation Last Chance’ is a witch hunt calling for all those who were Nazis and have yet gone unpunished. To be imprisoned and to rot. The organisation behind it says they have never met a Nazi who showed any remorse. This begs many questions. Is this true? (More…)
Given the eminent place of Detroit in the history of the United States, the announcement that it had filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection last week did not make the splash that some expected. With debts estimated to be in excess of $18 billion (no one knows the real number for certain,) the city that had once been the heart of American industrial power had been a dead man walking for years. (More…)
My patience was wearing thin. After two hours of sampling the new releases at one listening station after another, I was starting to wonder whether I’d ever find something that sounded fresh. And then an album caught my eye. Everything about it was out of sync with its surroundings: the bright, neo-psychedelic colors; the pedestrian sans-serif font; and, most of all, the name it spelled out: Bosnian Rainbows. (More…)
For the fifth year in a row, the Philly Punx Picnic brought a week’s worth of noise, party, and way too much beer to an appreciative local scene. Featuring seven shows in just under six days, a softball tournament, and a bike race, the festival drew visitors from around the country and all the way from Japan and Australia. (More…)
The numbers add up. Pakistan needs a new operating system. 49% of the population lives in poverty. Of 146 countries surveyed for gender inequality, Pakistan scores 115. Lights go out for at least ten hours daily in cities, and up to twenty-two in rural areas. The leaked Abbottabad Commission report merely adds to these indicators by illuminating wider dysfunctions. The status quo can’t hold. The question is what’s going to replace it. (More…)
Making a mockery of John Kerry’s peace efforts is an obsession of the Israeli right. This week, it was the Likud Transportation Minister, Yisrael Katz, who got into the act, announcing a plan for massive railroad construction in both Israel and the West Bank. This, however, could also present opportunities for proponents of both one-state and two-state resolutions of this conflict, if they can find ways to take advantage of it. (More…)
The criticisms were familiar. If you didn’t know the article was published in Der Spiegel, you’d have thought it was The Economist. All the same themes were present: Italy is approaching failed state status. Government policies are mired in the past. Businesses are eschewing manufacturing for services. Corruption is rampant. Mario Monti is the country’s only hope. (More…)