Hamas

Lessons from Brooklyn College BDS, Barghouti, and Butler

February 25, 2013

. This commentary originally appeared in the Algemeiner on February 22, 2013. Reader and correspondent David Lurie has directed me to some not well-publicized revelations about the Brooklyn College BDS event. To begin, the campus BDS chapter defended itselfagainst various accusations of selective and prejudicial admission to the event and other claims, including the discriminatory eviction [...]

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Reflections on the Spirit of Resistance

November 22, 2012

. Paul Newman’s 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, the apex of journeyman Stuart Rosenberg’s directorial career, imbued popular culture with many iconic scenes and memorable lines. (“What we have here – is failure to communicate.” “Sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand.”) Among the famous scenes is that of the prison camp boxing match [...]

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Not So Random Questions, Facts, & Observations about Gaza & Israel

November 17, 2012

. If forces in Mexico – drug cartels, for instance – were firing rockets and missiles into an area roughly covering 25% of the United States this is what it would look like. If the U.S. equivalent of one million Israelis were under threat of this bombardment on a daily basis, running for cover, hiding [...]

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Glenn Greenwald criticizes Bibi AND Obama’s “policies” of intentionally killing innocent Muslims

November 16, 2012

. Cross posted from Cif Watch by its managing editor, Adam Levick. “Every person has their own definition of terrorism.” -Glenn Greenwald. Glenn Greenwald makes characteristically hysterical claims about Israel and the US in his latest ‘Comment is Free’ piece titled Obama’s kill list policy compels US support for Israeli attacks on Gaza‘: Here are the most [...]

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Los Angeles Times Slants Coverage of Israel-Gaza Conflict

November 15, 2012

. Years from now – How long, O Lord? – when the historical studies are done of yet another period of profound human and political failing, the evidence of even journalistic prejudice against Israel and Jews in the first part of the twenty-first century will be too bountiful for the whole to be encompassed. Yesterday, [...]

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The Israeli-Palestinian Enthymeme

October 22, 2012

. This commentary first appeared in the Algemeiner on on October 18, 2012. In rhetoric, an enthymeme is an argument that contains an unarticulated premise. Commonly this is because the conversation is among a group of people with shared values, among whom one or more of those values — premises to an argument — it is assumed, [...]

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Said the Sad Red Earth

May 21, 2012

. I’ve been lying low, collecting evidence… Brought to mind by recent events for David W. Blight And Allison Scharfstein in their Op-Ed at the New York Times, the little known proposal by Martin Luther King, Jr. to President Kennedy in May 1962 to issue another Emancipation Proclamation, to end segregation. Kennedy took it under advisement and [...]

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Dear Nicholas Kristof, You Are a Fool

October 7, 2011

. Let’s begin with the title of that ejaculation of tendentious nonsense you and The New York Times have passed off as thoughtful commentary by a serious commentator on international affairs. “Is Israel Its Own Worst Enemy?” Really, you mean that? You haven’t heard that spoken around the block a time or two. It’s your [...]

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The State Solution: Yes, for South Sudan; No, for Israel

July 19, 2011

Hedar Sela has an incisive piece at The Propagandist that sharply zeroes in on the true nature of the so-called “one-state solution.” (H/T CiFWatch). Readers of political commentary on the Middle East will frequently see reference to the ‘one-state solution’ in relation to the Arab-Israeli conflict. What perhaps is often not sufficiently clear is what [...]

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Framing Israel

July 20, 2010

It is inevitably so that when two parties are in protracted conflict, neither will be faultless in conduct. Wrongs will be committed, misbehavior will be rationalized, and the sense of one’s own righteousness will excuse even long-term, strategic misdirections in course. The first two of those categories are why political settlements of disputes cannot come [...]

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Quotes of the Day

July 9, 2010

Glenn Greenwald: CNN yesterday ended the 20-year career of Octavia Nasr, its Atlanta-based Senior Middle East News Editor, because of a now-deleted tweet she wrote on Sunday upon learning of the death of one of the Shiite world’s most beloved religious figures. Glenn Greenwald: And Nasr herself wrote a moving explanation after the controversy over her tweet [...]

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The Hypocrisy and Bullshit of Glenn Greenwald: II

July 8, 2010

What follows is the transcript of Hugh Hewitt’s January 2009 radio show interview of Glen Greenwald, taken from Hewitt’s blog. It is of some length, so if you want to save time, you can scan for the bold highlights I have made and my commentary broken out along the way. I recommend reading the full [...]

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Politics as a Continuation of War by Other Means (Update)

June 9, 2010

Apropos of my post of earlier today, Normblog, offers one of his periodically superb guest posts from Eve Garrard: Israel, human decency, common humanity. Garrard scores writers Fintan O’Toole and Iain Banks for their own indecent attacks on Israel by running through the litany of human and national indecencies that enemies of Israel purposefully ignore. [...]

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Hamas Must End the Blockade of Gaza Now

June 1, 2010

The Hamas apologists showing up in such great numbers over the past thirty-six hours must contend with what Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad Malki said just days ago in Buenos Aires. They are running an authoritarian, fascist system and it’s for this reason that leaders of Hamas know they are losing the support of the [...]

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The Mystery of Judgment

May 24, 2010

Too often, it can be hard to figure how some people can be so wrong. That’s why we have political parties, so we can put all the wrong people in the other party. That way we don’t have to put bells on them to know when they’re coming. As Graham Greene wrote in The Quiet [...]

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Mind Games IV: Cause and Defect

February 15, 2010

Remember all those soul searching headlines? Why Do They Hate Us? Question: who is “they” and who is “us”? And do we mean I-want-to-cut-your-head-off hate or how-do-I-get-a-green-card hate? The Pew Research Center’s latest polling results, “Mixed Views of Hamas and Hezbollah in Largely Muslim Nations: Little Enthusiasm for Many Muslim Leaders,” supports some compelling perspectives. [...]

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Hamas and War Crimes

September 1, 2009

We approach a more complete understanding of the Hamas definition of a war crime. One wonders if the U.N. will accede to Hamas wishes, and what conclusions one would then have to draw about the U.N. It’s worth wondering too, as many consider the hardships of life in Gaza with purported compassion and complaint, whether [...]

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The World’s a Funny Place

April 20, 2009

Yaacov Lozowick points out that today is both Holocaust Commemoration Day in Israel and Adolf Hitler’s birthday. It is also the first day of the incipiently anti-Semitic U.N anti-racism Conference, informally known as Durban II, follow up to the notoriously anti-Semitic Durban I. The world is nothing if not an ironic jokester. Lozowick also provides [...]

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