The “troubles” in Northern Ireland, which for decades violently pitted Protestants against Catholics, were finally resolved when their respective leaders, Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness, agreed to form a national coalition government. The manner in which these hardened politicians created the conditions for this historic rapprochement unfolds in Nick Hamm’s absorbing film, The Journey, which […]
One of the most serious assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler’s life took place on November 8, 1939, when a time bomb assembled by Georg Elser exploded in a fabled beer hall in Munich, just two months after the outbreak of World War II. Elser, a factory worker and carpenter from southern Germany, was a Communist sympathizer […]
Far from the bustle of Israel’s congested coastal plain is a serene place in the upper Galilee that soothes the soul. The Mount Meron Nature Reserve, two and a half hours away by car from Tel Aviv and a 10-minute drive from Safed, is one of the most picturesque rural areas in the country, tailor-made […]
Three years ago, on July 4, Abu Bakr el-Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State, ascended a pulpit in Mosul’s historic Al Nuri Grand Mosque and proclaimed himself ruler of its self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria. “I do not promise you, as the kings and rulers promise their followers and congregations, luxury, security and relaxation,” […]
Has Benjamin Netanyahu no principles? This would appear to be the case following his spineless decision on June 25 to freeze a plan to create a non-Orthodox prayer section at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Finalized a year-and-a-half ago by the Israeli government, the Jewish Agency, the Reform and Conservative movements and the Women of […]
What could have possessed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a level-headed politician, to characterize Miklos Horthy, Hungary’s supreme leader from 1920 to 1944, as one of its “exceptional statesmen?” All the more surprising, Orban lauded Horthy only hours before he was to host the president of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder, in Parliament. Horthy, […]
Intent on laying the groundwork for a resumption of bilateral peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, U.S. President Donald Trump sent his top Mideast negotiators, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, to Jerusalem and Ramallah last week. Three years after the last round of American-sponsored negotiations broke down in a welter of mutual recriminations, […]
George Orwell, the great British essayist, famously wrote, “Who controls the present, controls the past.” Orwell’s penetratingly wise credo came to mind after I read a Canadian Press news story, dated June 20, about a ongoing Polish campaign to discredit a respected Canadian academic. Jan Grabowski, a University of Ottawa historian specializing in the Holocaust […]
Shortly after Muslim suicide bomber Salman Abedi blew himself to smithereens at a concert in Manchester, taking down 22 people with him, British Prime Minister Theresa May advised internet providers that they were duty-bound to monitor and stop the spread of jihadist propaganda. “We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed,” […]
The Muslim Brotherhood, the most organized and cohesive political force in Egypt following the collapse of Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian government in 2011, ruled the country from 2012 to 2013. During this interim period, Mohammed Morsi was at Egypt’s helm as its first democratically elected president. Morsi squandered the opportunity the electorate had handed him, catalyzing […]