Drawing on his infinite wisdom, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad claims that antisemitism is nothing more than an artificial construct. Interviewed by the Associated Press the other day, he said, “There is one race that cannot be criticized. If you are antisemitic, it seems almost as if you are a criminal. Antisemitic is a term […]
One can only hope that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was sincere when he claimed that the outrageous detention and questioning of Peter Beinart at Ben-Gution Airport on August 13 had been an “administrative mistake.” Beinart, a liberal American Jewish journalist who opposes Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its policies toward the Palestinians, was […]
When the Israeli journalist Anshel Pfeffer was researching his now-published biography of Benjamin Netanyahu, he requested interviews with him. All his requests, formal and informal, were ignored. But when Pfeffer — the Israel correspondent of The Economist — and senior editors of the British magazine met Netanyahu in his office one day, the Israeli prime minister turned […]
The much-vaunted Unite the Right demonstration in Washington, D.C. on August 12 was a bust, a pale imitation of last year’s Charlottesville rally, which emboldened the American far-right. Only a few dozen members of the alt-right — a creepy amalgam of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and racists — showed up, and a late-summer thunderstorm probably deterred […]
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was right to stand up to Saudi Arabia following its petulant decision several days ago to downgrade bilateral relations with Canada across the board. Furious over Canada’s perfectly legitimate criticism of its execrable human rights record, the Saudis went ballistic, dismissing the critique as an unjustified intervention in their internal […]
Pablo Solarz’s absorbing multilingual feature film, The Last Suit, is coming to Toronto’s Cineplex Empress Walk Cinemas on August 17 for a one-week engagement and to Quebec on August 24. Unfolding in Spanish, German, Polish and Yiddish, this feel-good movie is set in five countries — Argentina, Spain, France, Germany and Poland. Abraham Burszstein (Miguel Angel Sola), […]
Can the nearly four-decade-long enmity between the United States and Iran be eased? That’s the big question following U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent announcement of his willingness to confer with Iran’s leaders. “I would certainly meet with Iran if they’re ready to meet,” he said during a White House press conference at the end of […]
The Israeli movie director Nadav Lapid will be in the spotlight when the Toronto International Film Festival’s Cinematheque presents two of his feature films, Policeman and The Kindergarten Teacher, and a selection of his short films, on August 16, 17 and 18 respectively at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. I sampled his work by watching Policeman (2011). […]
Iran is constantly in the news, yet it remains opaque and enigmatic. Thomas Erdbrink, one of the last foreign journalists reporting from Iran, rips off the veil, to some extent at least, and explores it in Our Man in Tehran, a two-part, four-hour documentary to be broadcast by the PBS network on August 13 and […]
Iran’s brash and threatening attempt to establish a military foothold in Syria, its most important Arab ally, has concentrated minds in world capitals. In recent weeks, this topic has topped the agenda in high-level talks between Israel and Russia, Iran and Russia and the United States and Russia. It’s clearly one of the most important unresolved […]