Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
President Obama missed a major opportunity last week: to become repressed Shiites’ patron and steal Iran’s thunder. The crackdown in Bahrain, more than any other Arab country, offer a stupendous opening to US foreign policy and the regional balance of power. The United States should consider an aggressive policy against the Bahraini monarchy, solicit the…
There is nothing new under the sun. Nothing Barack Obama said is dramatic. But Benjamin Netanyahu is making it seem so. “He doesn’t get it,” said one Netanyahu aide: Referring to the US president’s Mideast policy speech, a Netanyahu associate said: “He (Obama) didn’t deliver the goods…Obama apparently does not understand the reality in the…
Scanning the headlines from Barack Obama’s speech about the Middle East, it is compelling the way different newspapers and online sources decided to interpret his words. You don’t need to read the Arabic to see Arab papers are putting words in Barack Obama’s mouth. Thus far, there is no wide division in the analysis. Barack…
Mahmoud Abbas claimed today Israel was solely responsible for the Palestinian exodus of 1948. That is not what he has said in the past. As if Mahmoud Abbas were looking for more ways to risk Palestinian public relations after the coalition deal with Hamas, Abbas remarked today in his editorial for the New York Times…
Nakba Day this Year Saw Unprecedented Violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Above, Palestinians in a well organized breach of the Israeli-Syrian border on the Golan Heights. Recognizing the nakba at this juncture would be a timid response to a day whose events were inspired as much by either the Arab Spring or prodding from a…
The American Jewish World Service exists to help out the under-privileged around the world. Is that a model for Jewish intervention in foreign conflicts? Israel is noticeably absent from the operations in Libya. It has been quiet about suppression in other countries. It does not send peacekeepers to conflicts around the world. It keeps a…
The famed Exodus is stopped trying to bring European refugees to the British Mandate for Palestine: the Holocaust did not justify the establishment of the State of Israel, but it made the founding much more dramatic. The Holocaust is not itself the justification of the State of Israel, rather the vindication of the argument that…
I have gotten my bachelor’s and started my master’s degrees in the era where Iranian nuclear proliferation has supposedly shaped the strategic map of the Middle East. It, coupled with Iranian influence, has apparently pushed Israel and its authoritarian Arab neighbors to be less than veiled about their relationship (and willingness to work together) to…
Palestinian Girls Ignore Israeli Memorial Siren at Hebrew University last week for Holocaust Memorial Day (picture taken by the author) It is difficult to word this correctly, but for all the patience I have in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the rejection and denial of the Holocaust irritates more than anything. Palestinian leaders repeatedly reject major events…
Turkey is now paying the price for its coziness with Iran and Syria. What was probably an inevitable pitfall of its decision to orient itself toward regimes in direct opposition to Israel, Turkey may soon feel the anger of a revolutionary Syrian population eager to cut off ties with Turkey. It would be a satisfying…
Netanyahu Looking Like a Wreck This has dragged out too long. Just shut down the settlement expansion. I have to admit, I am a Religious Zionist. Not all RZs support settlements, but most do . . . and but I do. The settlements actualize the imperative to settle the country. If the land is bought…
Not Actual Photo This September, the Palestinian Authority will attempt to gain recognition as an independent state via a vote in the United Nations’ General Assembly. It is taking a a page out of the playbook of the Zionist movement and the leadership of what would become Israel. This time, the Arabs will support a…
Surveying the headlines in Turkish papers (in Turkish or English), you will not see the name Goldstone anywhere. Goldstone’s words would force the Turkish government to say something substantial, which would increase the pressure for it to mend fences with Israel. There is little that can be done to ensure the Turks take into account…
Beginning in 2006, I began the process of converting to Judaism – orthodox style. I came from a mixed family (and my Mom eveven converted via Conservative Judaism!), and for me it was probably inevitable after so many years of searching out the Jews. I lived in a pretty goyische town and grew up with…
In Lod yesterday, Israeli Arabs and liberal Israelis demonstrated in commemoration of Land Day – an Israeli Arab and Palestinian day to protest the seizure of private Arab land by the Israeli state. But it has taken on more significance this year. That is not because of the protetss sweeping the Arab world, but regardingthis…