Tom Ripley, the cunning villain in Patricia Highsmith’s novel, is the quintessential con artist, always poised to pounce on his latest victim. Matt Damon portrayed him with aplomb in The Talented Mr. Ripley in 1999. Andrew Scott plays him with crafty coolness in Ripley, which currently unfolds in eight episodes on the Netflix streaming platform. […]
Palestinians returning to their homes in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, following Israel’s abrupt withdrawal from it on April 7, found a landscape of utter devastation. Much of it was unrecognizable, with some returnees comparing it to cities in Germany that had been pulverized by Allied aircraft raids during World War II. […]
How loyal are Israeli Arabs to Israel? It’s a compelling question that has yet to be settled conclusively because this is a devilishly complicated issue. Since the Muslim and Christian Arab citizens of Israel are essentially Palestinians, the descendants of the 160,000 Palestinian Arabs who remained in the country after Israel’s War of Independence in […]
Six months since the eruption of the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, Israel is still coping with an overwhelming sense of grief, trauma, loss and uncertainty. October 7, the day some 3,000 Hamas terrorists stormed into Israel in the darkest day in its history and the deadliest single rampage against Jews since the Holocaust, […]
It was a tense telephone conversation marking what may well be a turning point in Israel’s conduct of the war in the Gaza Strip and in its relationship with its key ally, the United States. U.S. President Joe Biden, in a half-hour call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on April 4, issued what amounted […]
Strength of character, resilience and courage were often the hallmarks of Holocaust survivors. These were the vital qualities that enabled them to overcome daunting disadvantages and challenges. Oziac Fromm was one such survivor. Left to fend for himself at the tender age of twelve, following the murder of his parents and sister, he survived for […]
Israel’s undeclared shadow war with Iran intensified on April 1 when it struck the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus, the capital of Syria. The air strike, carried out by a pair of F-35 stealth fighter jets, levelled what Iran claimed was its consulate. The blast killed 13 people, among whom were three Iranian generals from […]
A hospital is a protected area under international law, but it automatically loses that status when it is converted into a military facility. This is precisely what happened when Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical facility in the Gaza Strip, was cynically repurposed into a command center and operational hub by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. By […]
Nearly six months into the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, Israel’s strategic ties with the United States, its chief ally and benefactor, have come under increasing strain, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s relationship with President Joe Biden has been buffeted by strong turbulence. These tensions have flared amid a pronounced shift in U.S. public […]
Beverly Hills, a bucolic suburb of Los Angeles, is synonymous with ostentatious wealth and materialism. Multimillionaires, billionaires and celebrities are at home here. The luxurious mansions in which they live are beyond the reach of 99 percent of Americans. They are reserved for the super-rich, the pampered and self-centred individuals who are blithely immune to […]