Most people do not realize that Christians, for centuries following the introduction of Islam in the Middle East, still constituted the majority of the population. From Greece to Egypt, this was the eastern half of Christendom. When the first Islamic armies arrived from the Arabian Peninsula during the seventh century, the Assyrian Church of the […]
Seeking to expand trade with Asian nations, Israel has been seeking closer economic ties with countries like China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam. It’s been a quarter century since Israel established diplomatic relations with Vietnam, which has a fast growing economy and is looking for economic projects that will allow it to offer work […]
At a conference I attended in Washington in late June, I heard another speaker refer to “remote” Alaska. That it certainly is — it’s five times zones west of Prince Edward Island, where I live. A week later, we travelled to Juneau, the capital, to attend the 50th year reunion of my wife Pat’s high […]
I worked as a journalist in Washington, D.C. during the 1980s, but until I spoke at a conference here toward the end of June, I hadn’t been back since 1993. In his recently published book, War Beyond Words: Languages of Remembrance from the Great War to the Present, Yale University historian Jay Winter makes the […]
The bilateral relationship between Moscow and Tehran has been converted into a growing strategic partnership. Since President Donald Trump took office in 2017, Moscow and Tehran have shared increasingly common bonds: growing tensions with Washington and a quest to expand spheres of influence in the Middle East. The deepening ties were reflected when Russian President […]
Bernard Lewis, the eminent scholar of Middle East politics and religion, died on May 19. He was, for some 80 years, a towering scholar of Islam, and informed scholarly, governmental and popular audiences alike. The outlines of his long career are well known. Born to Jewish parents in London in 1916, Lewis received his Ph.D. […]
The parliamentary election in Lebanon on May 6 produced, as always, a confusing array of winners and losers. But one thing is crystal clear: the militant Shia Muslim group Hezbollah is in the driver’s seat. Lebanon’s 128-seat parliament allocates 64 seats each to the country’s Christian and Muslim faiths. They are then further subdivided between […]
The British-made satirical film, The Death of Stalin, released last year, made fun of the absurdity of Soviet “justice” in the years when the dictator ruled his empire like an Oriental satrap. Accusations against people could come out of thin air. Trials, preceded by torture to extract confessions, took minutes. A bullet in the head […]
So much has been written about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, which began 75 years ago on April 19, 1943, the eve of Passover. And yet we continue to write, because of the determination and heroism of the participants. It was the first popular uprising in a Nazi-occupied city in Europe, and, against incredible odds, lasted […]
In North America, too little is known about the eastern front in World War II, including the tragic fate of Poland, caught between Nazi Germany and the Communist Soviet Union. When Poland was conquered and partitioned in September 1939, many Polish military personnel escaped, and would join the Allied forces in Great Britain. In the […]