“Can’t jump over your own shadow” is one of my favorite sayings. Like you, perhaps, I recall testing out its truth when I was a child. More usefully, it speaks to a number of higher order syndromes that go under…
#Israel
You can’t jump over your Nir Rosen
Posted in International Relations Tagged with: Arab Middle East, Israel, Lara Logan, Media, Nir Rosen
On avoiding writing about Israel
Philip Weiss flags a post by Conor Friedersdorf under the title “Why bloggers avoid writing about Israel.” Friedersdorf describes having passed on a link regarding Rand Paul’s proposal to put U.S. aid to Israel on the proverbial table. The link…
Posted in Miscellany Tagged with: anti-semitism, Blogs, Conor Friedersdorf, Israel, Philip Giraldi, Rand Paul
Field Studies in Zionism vs. Messianism
The key sentences from the Open Letter to President Barack Obama by Middle East/Foreign Policy academics could be the following: There is another lesson from this crisis, a lesson not for the Egyptian government but for our own. In order…
Unsettling Israel
Gadi Taub – In Israel, Settling For Less – NYTimes.com: The religious settlement movement is not just secular Zionism’s ideological adversary, it is a danger to its very existence. Terrorism is a hazard, but it cannot destroy Herzl’s Zionist vision.…
Terrorists and Hawks together again…
As Rex noted in an e-mail, we again see conservative hawks and radical Islamists on the same side of an issue. They both want a war with Iran. Bruce Riedel – “Al Qaeda Plans for War With Israel” – channels…
Real and Unreal Threats from Iran
Yesterday’s headline topics included unusually “blunt” remarks by U.S. Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba of the United Arab Emirates on U.S. intervention against Iran’s nuclear program: I think it’s a cost-benefit analysis. I think despite the large amount of trade we do with…
Flamesem & Japesem (All-Contentions Edition)
[T]he leaking of this memo and the notion that it represents the opinions of many in the Pentagon ought to scare Israelis and leave them less willing than ever to make the sorts of concessions Washington believes can strengthen the…
Posted in Miscellany Tagged with: Afghanistan, Israel, Jonathan Tobin, Noah Pollak, Petraeus, Zionism
The other obvious
From Shelby Steele in the Wall Street Journal – “Israel and the Surrender of the West” – comes a highly articulate rendition of a familiar conservative stance. Ideological from first word to last, such work can add to pre-existing understandings…
The cost of Islamophobia
I’ve struggled to explain why I think the anti-Islamism/Islamophobia of Pamela Geller, Bruce Bawer, Andy McCarthy, and others is counterproductive, where not also despicable, by addressing it on its own terms, but a couple of recent articles by much more…
Posted in International Relations, Religion Tagged with: Anti-Islamism, Green Movement, Ground Zero Mosque, Iran, Israel, Pamela Geller, Turkey, Turkey, Walter Russell Mead
“Why Israel and not other, far more egregious examples?”
I find a 1,000-to-1 fatality rule generally applies: Each person killed by the Israel Defense Forces warrants about as much international attention as 1,000 people killed by Africans, Russians, Indians, Chinese, or Arabs. That’s Victor Davis Hanson’s estimate, and, to…