Petra was on my mind. This fantastical archaeological site in southwest Jordan, set amid a remote, desolate and brooding sandstone mountain range 900 meters above sea level, had captured my imagination. I had read about Petra in history books, watched documentaries about it, and seen tantalizing glimpses of it in Steven Spielberg’s adventure movie, Indiana Jones […]
James Fields Jr., 22, is a murderer who richly deserves to pay the penalty for his crime. Two years ago in August, during a white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, he deliberately drove his car into a crowd of racially diverse counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal, and injuring many other […]
The American Library Association passed a commendable but long overdue resolution at its convention in Washington, D.C. last week by voting to remove Melvil Dewey’s name from its most prestigious professional award, the Melvil Dewey Medal. It is given to a recipient who has demonstrated “creative leadership of a high order” in fields ranging from library […]
Imagine a wedding without a bride or a bridegroom. The two-day “Peace to Prosperity” workshop in Bahrain, which took place in Manama from June 25-26, pretty much conformed to this scenario. Designed to promote the economic benefits of a peace agreement between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, […]
In an unprecedented tripartite summit, the national security advisors of Israel, the United States and Russia — Meir Ben-Shabbat, John Bolton and Nikolai Patrushev — conferred in Jerusalem on June 25 to discuss some of the key problems that afflict the Middle East today and roil their respective bilateral relations. Topping the agenda were a […]
The glory that was ancient Greece and Rome reveals itself in the ruins of Jerash, the largest Greco-Roman archeological site in Jordan. Forty eight kilometres north of Amman, Jordan’s capital, Jerash was founded as a Greek city by Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC and was conquered by the Romans in 63 BC. […]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the U.S. Congress, should accept an invitation from Holocaust survivor Edward Mosberg to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau, the former Nazi concentration camp in Poland. Mosberg, the honorary president of the Holocaust commemoration group From the Depths, issued the invitation on June 21, several days after Ocasio-Cortez falsely compared U.S. detention centres holding […]
What if a landlord in Toronto, New York City or Paris refused to rent or sell a condo to a Jewish person? Pundits and bloggers would vent their indignation. Politicians would denounce the racism. In short, the outrage would be heard around the globe, especially from Jews and their supporters. Several days ago, the mayor […]
During his confirmation hearing in the U.S. Senate two and a half years ago, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the post of ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, vowed to refrain from making partisan comments while on duty. “Partisan rhetoric is rarely, if ever, appropriate for achieving diplomatic progress, especially in a sensitive and strife-torn region […]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is speaking from both sides of his mouth. A few days ago, after newly-appointed Justice Minister Amir Ohana claimed the government is not necessarily obliged to respect Supreme Court verdicts, Netanyahu slapped him down. On his Twitter account, he wrote, “Court decisions are binding on everyone.” But since the inconclusive […]