One of the great sticking points in the peace process in Israel/Palestine is the issue of the “right of return.” The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 (what the Palestinians call the “Nakba,” or disaster) resulted in over…
Is USA Today emerging as an idealistic voice? It broke the big story on wiretapping citizens. Now Jimmy Carter, once again distinguishing himself as a moral voice, says that Israeli Prime Minister Olmert’s plans for fences deep inside the occupied…
Florida Rabbi Bruce Warshal takes on Jewish neocons in the St. Louis Jewish Light, in an article accepting the truth of much of Mearsheimer-Walt’s Israel lobby paper. Here’s the money quote: 400 rabbis, including myself, signed a letter sponsored by…
What if George Bush were to say tomorrow that our motivation for going into Iraq was to secure oil wealth for the west and to protect Israel—might that reverse his slide in the polls? A splendid post on Syria Comment,…
When Brandeis shut down an exhibit of Palestinian art last week, the organizer promptly found a new home for it across town at MIT. Then this week a group of Brandeis faculty started a petition drive to have the exhibit…
Some commenters have gathered on my Juan Cole post to slag Cole. I need to defend him. One thing they’re angry about is that Cole is being considered for a top job at Yale. They say that he doesn’t have…
I love Professor Juan Cole’s site. He’s been a leading voice against the Iraq war, he knows what he’s talking about and he writes with sympathy for the Arab world from the standpoint of an international American who cherishes America’s…
Maybe you haven’t followed the on-line feud over whether rightwing columnist Christopher Hitchens’s alleged alcoholism led him to publish on Slate a statement by the influential scholar Juan Cole that Cole believed to be confidential. Cole had made the statement…
Yesterday when I asked Brandeis troublemaker Lior Halperin whether she was Jewish, she said, “Yes. I’m what people call a self-hating Jew.” I said, “I love you, Lior. Me too.” I’m not a good Jew. I’m probably a bad Jew….