To its Palestinian inhabitants, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is a source of anger and humiliation. Israeli checkpoints curtail their freedom of movement and Israel’s settlements, military camps and roads divide the West Bank into archipelagos of isolated enclaves, rendering the prospect of a contiguous Palestinian state all but impossible. Farah Nablusi’s film, The […]
Efforts to revive the dormant 2015 Iran nuclear agreement are currently underway, even as Israel and Iran, its arch enemy, clash periodically in a shadow war that has escalated of late. The agreement’s signatories — Iran, the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — convened in Vienna on April 6 to breathe new […]
Shortly after Germany’s conquest of France in 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill instructed his intelligence services to send spies behind enemy lines. In a departure from past practices, women were recruited, supposedly because they were more inconspicuous than men. A Call To Spy, a thriller now available on the Netflix streaming network, tells their […]
More than ten days have elapsed since the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was shaken by allegations that King Abdullah II’s estranged half brother, Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, was involved in a plot to undermine the government. In the hours after this news rocked Jordan, a beacon of stability in the Middle East for the past […]
Israel’s education minister, Yoav Gallant, stumbled badly when he temporarily blocked a distinguished Israeli scientist from receiving the Israel Prize — the country’s most prestigious award — over his supposedly unacceptable political views. Gallant, a member of the ruling right-wing Likud Party, is withholding the prize due to his belief that Oded Goldreich — a […]
During the dying days of Donald Trump’s turbulent four-year presidency, hundreds of his supporters stormed Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. in a brazen attempt to stop Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory. A disturbing proportion of the demonstrators who participated in this unprecedented event on January 6, 2021 were far-right extremists who belonged […]
EcoPeace Middle East, a unique regional organization, is trying to create what its Israeli co-founder describes as a “coalition of the willing.” Gidon Bromberg, whose project-oriented, non-governmental organization brings together Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian environmentalists, seeks to advance sustainable regional development to advance lasting peace between Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. “We’re using the environment […]
Nearly 60 years after his suicide, the American novelist, short story writer and journalist Ernest Hemingway is still a formidable, even legendary, figure. Hemingway, a three-part PBS biopic by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, explores his life and legacy through forceful words and evocative photographs and newsreels. This absorbing documentary, narrated by the actor Peter […]
Helmut Oberlander’s Canadian citizenship has been revoked no less than four times by the government of Canada, yet the last known Nazi war criminal is still here, reminding us all that something is terribly amiss. Most recently, the Federal Court of Canada convened a hearing on his motion to end all deportation proceedings against him. […]
Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi Arabian foreign minister, recently reminded Israelis that the tantalizing prospect of Arab normalization with Israel has been on the table for nearly two decades now. As he suggested on April 2, Arab states offered Israel full normalization of relations at an Arab League summit in Beirut in March 2002. […]