RSSArchive for April, 2006
As the Rebbe Goes, So Goes Hamas
Satmar Hasidim bury Rabbi Teitelbaum
in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
The Hamas-led Palestinian government is facing all manner of economic and political sanctions because of its refusal to “recognize” Israel’s right to exist. (There’s an absurd quality to this discussion, both because Hamas obviously recognizes Israel’s existence as a reality that it has no means of reversing — [...]
Does the New York Times Know Who Rules Iran?
Iran, as Condi often notes, is run by unelected clerics. President Ahmedinajad is not one of them
The election of President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad in Iran was the best thing that ever happened to the “real men go to Tehran” crowd in Washington. Here was a real live Iranian leader with the title of President who rattled [...]
What We Learn from Adidas
Zidane has a word with his player-coach
I caugt Adidas’s hilarious new World Cup “equipo” ad (click here to view as MPG), whose conceit involves two ten-year-old boys in an unnamed Latin American country picking imaginary teams to play each other in a game of soccer, and then the players appear.
The ad shows the unevenness of [...]
You, Too, Can Invade Iran
If you see this man, kill him, quickly and quietly…
This from Assault on Iran, one of the latest offerings from Kumawar.com, an online gaming company that offers live-action missions that allow you to solve all of today’s geopolitical problems in a hail of bullets:
“Your mission is to infiltrate the Natanz nuclear facility in [...]
Iran, Not Iraq, Fuels the ‘Rumsfeld Rebellion’
Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld in theirFord Administration days
The retired generals (presumably, as is typical in U.S. public life, speaking on behalf of those still on active duty, since they can’t speak for themselves) who have — in a political sense — dumped Donald Rumsfeld’s body on the White House lawn, are not men prone [...]
Osama, the Gunners and Me
Why Argentina? Yet another OBL photoshop
job found on the Web
Note to CIA Bin Laden trackers: If you want to catch OBL on Wednesday April 19, find a pub anywhere in Waziristan that has ESPN access, or conversely, do a sweep of all ESPN-enabled satellite TV accounts in the area. (Update: The same is true for [...]
Toasting God’s Terrorism and Other Passover Themes
1. Passover is About Liberation; Not Simply About Jews
In that hungry eternity of singing and praying in an alien tongue that spanned from your first taste of haroset on matzoh to the arrival of the matzoh ball soup, you could sometimes get to thinking about the meanings of the passover in universal context rather [...]
Win-Win Solution on Immigration and Empire
Rather than British ground troops, Britain relied on
an 80-percent Indian force to police Iraq. And when that
couldn’t do the trick, the Royal Air Force pioneered the
art of dropping bombs on population-centers
Far be it from me to tell America how to run its immigration policy or police its empire, it does [...]
Why Germany Won’t Win the World Cup
Mourinho’s white flag: Robert Huth
1. They’re too home-based
Most of the world’s best footballers earn their living in one of three domestic leagues: Spain’s La Liga; Italy’s Seria A; and the English Premiership. In other words, Germany’s Bundesliga is not one of them. Today you don’t expect the likes of Bayern Munich or Borussia Dortmund or [...]
Ten Reasons Why Oslo Failed
I recently found this piece I wrote for TIME.com in October of 2000, trying to come to grips with the reasons for the failure of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. This was two months after Camp David, just as the Israelis were cranking up the spin machine to pump out the line that it failed [...]
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Glancing Headers
World Cup 2010
For a variety of reasons, I ended up watching the World Cup Final on a TV tied to a tree at the soccer fields in the Red Hook section of BrooklynRebellion Into Money
How Slovenia Wins the World CupGuest Columns
How I Overcame My Jewish-Evangelical Upbringing and Learned to Love Christmas, Anyway
Guest Column: Gavin Evans Back in the day, when Gavin and I were young activists trying to change the world, the doorbell rang at our Observatory student house. I opened it to see a tall and handsome man in the silky purple shirt and dog collar of an Anglican Bishop. "You must be Tony," said Bis...Featured Analysis
Does Obama Have a Mideast Plan B?
It's hardly surprising that President Barack Obama chose to schedule a White House visit by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the dead of night on Monday, because right now Obama has little to show for his 10-month effort to revive a Middle East peace process. The Israeli leader's refu...Unholy War
Who Lost Fatah?
‘Who lost China?” was the battle cry of a witch-hunt conducted in the US State Department following the 1949 victory of Mao Zedong’s communists. The department’s “China hands”, critics charged, had been woefully ignorant of the dynamics at work on the ground in China after the Second W...A Skeptical Read
More Iran Hysteria from the NY Times
The surest sign that another neocon bill of goods is being hawked in respect of the Iran "nuclear peril" is the revival of Rumsfeld-esque "unknowable unknowns", a la Iraq WMD panic circa late 2002. In the real world, of course, solid progress is being made towards a plausible diplomatic deal to ...99c Blogging
The 'Metrics' of Obama's Vietnam
Why is the Administration conducting a "test run" for its metrics of success in Afghanistan? Because the metrics used will be those that provide the desired verdictHear! Hear!
Helena Cobban Explains FatahIf I Was a Blogger...
More Dennis Ross Dissembling
Obama's Iran point man can't seem to get his head around the reasons for Israeli emigrationA Wondering Jew
Obama, Foxman and Israel's Purpose
Having spent decades drumming home the idea that Israel is rooted squarely in the Holocaust experience, and should be viewed by the world as the state of the survivors, Israelis and some of their most fervent backers in the U.S. are suddenly insisting that this is a misleading, even hostile idea.Annals of Globalization
The Shebab, the Shahids and the Champion's League Final
The Shebab gunman on the left appears to be a Gunner, i.e. an Arsenal fan... In honor of today's Champion's League final, I republish my op ed that ran in the National a year ago. What was most fascinating about the photograph of the Somali gunman who was part of the crowd dragging the body...The Whole World's Africa
Congo's Not Africa's WWI, It's Worse Than That
If there is a European analogy to be applied in the Congo, it would be the brutal Thirty Year War in Germany that ended in 1648Shameless Cronyism
Embedded with the Jihadis
My crazy friend Nir Rosen goes on embed with the Taliban, and finds out just why the U.S. can't win in AfghanistanCould Die Laughing
Whatever Became of that Nice Mr. Blair...
The problem with a global conversation between Muslims and Christians refereed by Tony Blair? Two words: Tony Blair.The 51st State
A Teachable Moment in Basra
It should come as no surprise that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's disastrous offensive against the Mahdi Army of Moqtada Sadr in Basra has had the exact opposite effect of that intended -- strengthening rather than weakening Sadr, and making clear that he, and the Iranians, have far greater in...Futures Market
Will Russia Partition Kosovo?
Why my tea-leaf reading suggests that Moscow has a nasty surprise in store for Washington in the BalkansCuisine
Yummy yummy Umami
Why a leftover lamb bone turned a bean stew into an ecstatic eventHousekeeping
'Lost' Entries on Rootless Cosmopolitan
Previous entries that now register as "not available" are ones that got left behind in a server migration. We're working on retrieving themNew York Moments
The Debka Made ‘Em Do ItFrom Tony's Archive
A Playground Lesson for Bush
How a spontaneous alliance of jocks, do-gooders and lesser bullies against the biggest bully at the school changed the balance of power at Milnerton Primary
