Richard Silverstein Fresh off his anti-Semitic barnstorming spree in Florida, in which he called his Israeli-American audience “brutal killers,” Pres. Trump is trying to make it up to us. He’s tied up a nice holiday package in bows and ribbons and left it on the doorstep of Kenneth Marcus, head of the Education Department’s civil…
Stuart Lyle Although the US has offered unwavering support for Israel, there is a pattern to Israel’s external economic and political relations that is clearly not in the interests of the US. A recent article in the Intercept details Israel’s complex relationship with Putin’s Russia, including supplying drone technology used to help in Russia’s drive…
Richard Silverstein 2018 was a terrible year for the Middle East. Months of massacres in Gaza, tensions between Israel and Hezbollah on its northern border, Qatar under siege from its Sunni neighbours, 85,000 children starved to death in Yemen, and a Sunni alliance rattling sabres against Iran. Though Bashar al-Assad appears to have secured his…
In Steven Spielberg’s film Shindler’s List there is a horrifying scene of a Nazi concentration camp where the camp commander wakes up in the morning and walks out to his balcony overlooking the camp. He brings along a sniper rifle and then starts shooting Jewish prisoners at random who are walking in the camp grounds…
W.J. Astore How about a contrary perspective on the Middle East, courtesy of my old globe? It dates from the early 1920s, just after World War I but before Russia became the Soviet Union. Taking a close look at the Middle East (a geographic term that I use loosely), you’ll notice more than a few…
W.J. Astore When I was a kid, I was a big admirer of Israel. I saw Israel as being surrounded by implacable enemies bent on its destruction. Israel was the plucky underdog, David against Goliath, with Goliath being Arab countries like Egypt and Syria, having militaries trained and equipped by the Soviet Union, sworn enemy…
The Contrary Perspective 