Here’s the joke: A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a … Continue reading →
Richard Landes of Second Draft and Augean Stables has written what just might be the definitive answer to those who–like Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder–accuse Israel of heinous crimes and intents based (among other things) on the accusers’ complete misunderstanding of … Continue reading →
It’s been said before in parts of the Arab world, by Hezbollah leader Nasrallah and others: “We are going to win because [the Israelis] love life and we love death.” Loving death: what an amazing thing to brag about. It’s … Continue reading →
A piece by Israeli journalist Yossi Klein Halevi entitled “Israel’s Broken Heart,” in the current New Republic (subscription only), places the blame squarely on the Olmert administration for mishandling the opportunities of the last month. Israeli public opinion was united … Continue reading →
Below, we have Goya’s famous etching”The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters.” It came to mind while I was reading Melanie Phillips, who is presently writing some of the finest analysis of the British (and, by extrapolation, general Western European) reaction … Continue reading →
The casualties at Qana are horrific. The visuals are heartrending, and the details sorrowful–especially the predominance of women and children among the dead. We are biologically predisposed to want to protect children–to love them, to smile when we see them. … Continue reading →
If you look at the wide variety of opinions in the highlighted articles at Real Clear Politics as to how the current Mideast conflict is going to play out, you realize how much disagreement and confusion there is. In truth, … Continue reading →
There’s an old saying, rendered variously as: When elephants fight, it’s the mice who must tremble. When elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers. The applicability to the current situation in the Middle East? When Hezbollah goads Israel from its … Continue reading →
In line with the theme of some of my other posts today, we have this, about Hezbollah’s tactics in the current conflict in Lebanon: Hizbollah hid many of the rockets in private homes, and had teams that launched the rockets … Continue reading →
Richard Fernandez of Belmont Club applies his thoughtful and complex mind to the question of the pace of attitude change in the Arab world. Fernandez offers evidence that one of the side-effects of the Iraqi war–and have no doubt of … Continue reading →
Conspiracy theories are widespread and exceedingly popular. They appeal to the all-too-human need to make order out of chaos, and to assign blame to a convenient and/or strategic scapegoat. They arise spontaneously, or they can be manipulated for political and … Continue reading →
Christopher Hitchens (previously no special friend of Israel’s) deconstructs Juan Cole’s Dowdification of Ahmadinejad’s threats to Israel in this Slate article (via Austin Bay) entitled “The Cole Report: when it comes to Iran, he distorts, you decide.” Hitchens’s contention is … Continue reading →