Archive for December, 2007

Notes on the Post-Bush Mideast

Should auld aquaintance be forgot…
A year from now, the Bush Administration will be emptying its desks into cardboard boxes and preparing to hand over to its successor. And, it’s a relatively safe bet that the menu of foreign policy crises and challenges it will leave in the in-trays of its successors will be largely unchanged [...]


Hillary’s ‘Southern Strategy’: Muslim-Baiting

So this is the big secret that Hillary’s campaign is trying to warn us will crop up like some old floozie of Bill’s to wreck the Dems chances if they nominate Obama? Hillary surrogate Senator Bob Kerrey casually tossed out this little bon mot on Sunday: “It’s probably not something that appeals to him, but [...]


An Inconvenient Truth for Israel

Uri Avnery argues that the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran is a catastrophic blow to the Israeli leadership, which has been using the “Iran threat” as a political organizing principle at home and abroad.


Constructing Hanukkah

Guest Column: David Shasha, the founder and director of the Center for Sephardic Heritage in Brooklyn, New York, is one of my favorite weekly email reads. (You can subscribe, too, by contacting him directly.) He offers a fascinating, and very scholarly, take on matters of Jewish theology, philosophy, identity and politics, all from [...]


The Latest
  • A Skeptical Read
    Rosner, Haaretz's Itchy Beard
    The right-wing nationalist blogger always seemed a little out of step with his paper's editorial line. Now, Carter's visit has provoked him to growl menacingly at the editors
  • A Wondering Jew
    Healing Israel's Birth Scar
    With the 60th anniversary of Israel's birth -- and of the Palestinian Nakbah (catastrophe) -- which are, of course the same event, almost upon us, I was reminded this week that April 9 was also the 60th anniversary of an event that has long epitomized the connection between the creation of an et...
  • 99c Blogging
    All Hat, No Cattle #7682
    President Bush loves playing the Bad Cop, but anyone vaguely familiar with the routine knows not to take the Bad Cop seriously.
  • 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 Balkans
  • Guest Columns
    Iraq and U.S. Faith in Violence
    Guest Column: Alastair Crooke warns of a dangerous fantasy that persists in Western capitals in which the West faces an "onslaught" from "radical Islam." The problem is that this intersects all too tragically with a the persistent belief in Washington and elsewhere that by applying its overwhel...
  • Cuisine
    Yummy yummy Umami
    Why a leftover lamb bone turned a bean stew into an ecstatic event
  • Glancing Headers
    Spare Us More 'Globalization & Football'
    The claim that Egypt's Cup of Nations win "proves" that stronger domestic leagues make stronger international sides is not born out by football's bigger picture. In fact, the teams that do best internationally are those with weaker domestic leagues
  • Shameless Cronyism
    Is Israel-Iran Enmity Irreversible?
    No, it isn't. Two of my favorite commentators, Daniel Levy and Trita Parsi, explain why
  • Housekeeping
    '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 them
  • Unholy War
    U.S. Pours Gasoline on Gaza Fires
    Once upon a time, Israelis and Palestinians looked to the U.S. to intervene at moments of heightened confrontation to mediate between the two sides and contain the damage. The Bush Administration, however, has proved entirely incapable of playing this role, because its own interventions are hidebou...
  • The Whole World's Africa
    South Africa's Racist Present
    Guest Column: Sean Jacobs. What to make of the racist torture incident at a South African campus
  • Featured Analysis
    Obama and the 'Jewish Vote'
    The problem with Obama, for the Zionist establishment, is that they can't be sure he hates the Palestinians enough. The deeper problem for the Zionist establishment, of course, is that Jewish Americans are flocking to Obama despite their coded warnings
  • Annals of Globalization
    Honey, I Shrank the Superpower
    In a snide reference to Bill Clinton's 1992 promise to "build a bridge into the 21st century," Barack Obama recently quipped that what Hillary Clinton really offers is a bridge back into the 20th century. Yet, a bridge back into the last century may be what all the major candidates are offering when...
  • Could Die Laughing
    Mearsheimer, Walt and the Erudite Hysteria of David Remnick
  • New York Moments
    The Debka Made ‘Em Do It
  • From Tony's Archive
    A Playground Lesson for Bush
  • Rebellion Into Money
    The Rebel Grace of Patti Smith
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