Maria Altmann, a Viennese Jew hounded out of Austria following its annexation by Germany in 1938, was a fighter. Determined to settle an historic injustice, she sued the Austrian government to regain five invaluable paintings by Gustav Klimt that had been commissioned by her late uncle, a wealthy art connoisseur and collector. Simon Curtis’ solid […]
Should an antisemite be considered for sainthood by the Roman Catholic church? That’s the burning question now that a British bishop is in the process of considering canonization for G.K. Chesterton, the late British novelist and journalist. Five years ago, the bishop of Northampton, Peter Doyle, commissioned an investigation to ascertain whether Chesterton, a convert […]
Syria and Iraq, two of the most important countries in the Arab world, have fallen into an abyss of unbridled strife and violence. The American-Anglo invasion of Iraq in 2003, resulting in the ouster of its president, Saddam Hussein, touched off a deadly Sunni insurgency that was successively taken over by Al Qaeda and Islamic […]
Just weeks after ferociously labelling Israel “a malignant cancer” that must “be removed and eradicated,” Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, dialed down his rhetoric. In a series of recent tweets from his official website, he wrote that Israel’s protracted struggle with the Palestinians should be resolved peacefully rather than through war. “To define Palestine’s […]
Visiting Israel this week, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz minced no words in fully accepting Austria’s responsibility for its role in the Holocaust. For decades after World War II, Austria basked in the blithe, blissful belief that it was a victim of German Nazism rather than an active collaborator in Germany’s crimes against humanity. But in […]
In the spring of 1933, a Los Angeles Police Department captain submitted a report indicating that “considerable quantities” of antisemitic literature had been found littering the streets of the city’s downtown core. A new group, Friends of the New Germany, was believed to be behind this sudden burst of Nazi propaganda. An undercover detective was […]
For about the past two months, the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip have turned to a new yet primitive weapon, incendiary kites, to harass and harm neighboring Israel. Comparatively small in size, cobbled together with transparent plastic wrapping and carrying flammable materials, they set fire to nearby agricultural fields, grasslands, and nature reserves. By Israeli Defence Minister […]
Hard on the heels of the United States’ withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Germany, France and Britain this week in an attempt to persuade them to pull out of the landmark accord. Acknowledging that Iran had complied with the agreement, but complaining that Tehran had violated its […]
Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian Studies and comparative literature at Columbia University in New York City, has placed himself beyond the pale by having written a problematic Facebook post and a scurrilous tweet, both of which have been rightly condemned by students and faculty alike. In a Facebook post last month, which he has […]
Alexander Gauland, the co-leader and a founder of the far right-wing Alternative for Germany Party (AFD), has trivialized the Nazi interregnum in his country. “Yes, we plead guilty to those 12 years,” he said of the Nazi era. “But we have a glorious history and one, my friends, that lasted a lot longer than those […]