“Zionism has never been and is not one thing.”
Middle East
Pamela Paul: “it would be better if the A.H.A. as an institution never weighed in on political conflicts”
Yesterday we called your attention to the American Historical Association’s resolution on “scholasticide” in Gaza. Get up to speed here. Today, New York Times columnist Pamela Paul, who attended the AHA business meeting where the resolution was approved, weighs in. […]
The American Historical Association votes to condemn “scholasticide” in Gaza
From the AHA website: Whereas the US government has underwritten the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) campaign in Gaza with over $12.5 billion in military aid between October 2023 and June 2024; Whereas that campaign, beyond causing massive death and injury […]
Zack Beauchamp: “It’s time to take back the Israel-Palestine debate from the radicals on both sides”
Here Beauchamp at VOX: You may have heard of Shai Davidai, the Israeli professor at Columbia University who has launched a crusade against the school’s pro-Palestinian protestors. He’s rocketed to fame by calling students terrorists, comparing himself to Jewish victims of Nazi Germany, and demanding the […]
Why are so many Israelis silent about Palestinian suffering?
Oded Na’aman, a philosophy professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, provides the numbers: Around 1,200 Israelis were killed on October 7, of them around 370 soldiers and 800 civilians; 242 Israeli soldiers have been killed since Israel’s offensive began; 239 […]
Gaza in maps
I found this BBC story, complete with maps, helpful for understanding what is happening in Gaza right now.
U.S. intelligence doubts that Iran was directly involved in the Hamas attack on Israel, but a full conclusion on the matter is pending
CNN is reporting: The United States has collected specific intelligence that casts doubt on the idea that Iran was directly involved in the planning, resourcing or approving of Saturday’s bloody attack on Israel by Hamas, according to several sources familiar with the intelligence. Still, […]
Palestinian Christian journalist: It’s time for the U.S. to recognize a Palestinian state
Daoud Kuttab is a Palestinian Christian and award-winning journalist who was the first Palestinian to interview former Israeli prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. He has spent much of his career fighting for a free media in Palestine under […]
Michael Oren: Don’t compare the current Israel-Hamas war to the Yom Kippur War of 1973
Since war broke out in Israel and the Gaza strip over the weekend, writers and journalists are comparing it to the 1973 Yom Kippur War. (For those unfamiliar with the Yom Kippur War of 1973, get up to speed here.) […]
What is happening in Israel and the Gaza Strip?
The BBC answers all of your questions, including: Read more here.
The men who may have sabotaged Jimmy Carter’s re-election
In 1980 former Texas governor and presidential candidate John B. Connally, and former Texas lieutenant governor Ben Barnes, traveled to Middle Eastern capitals urging the region’s leaders to tell Iran not to release the American hostages until after that year’s […]
Rothkopf: “Biden deserves credit, not blame for Afghanistan”
David Rothkopf‘s piece at The Atlantic is helpful. He argues that “Americans should feel proud of what the U.S. government and military have accomplished in these past two weeks.” A taste: They all conveniently forgot that they were responsible for […]
Who is ISIS-K?
Like most Americans, I had never heard of ISIS-K before it claimed responsibility for yesterday’s attack at the Kabul airport. Amira Jadoon of West Point and Andrew Mines of George Washington University gets us up to speed in their recent […]
Biden speaks to the nation on Afghanistan
I appreciate Biden’s defense of the withdrawal last night. This is a very presidential speech. The buck stops with Biden and he comes across as a leader of conviction. As Current writer and historian John Haas wrote yesterday on my […]
“Processing ten years of denial in ten hours is rough”
I am still processing everything that happened in Afghanistan over the course of the last several days. At the moment, I am asking the same question everyone else is asking: Why didn’t Biden do a better job evacuating Americans and […]