The guns have finally fallen silent in the Gaza Strip. After a 29-day war, the fourth pitting Israel against Hamas in eight years, Israel has unilaterally withdrawn from Gaza and repositioned its army along the border in case of a flareup. Both sides are observing a 72-hour truce and have sent delegations to Cairo in […]
Robert Ames, a Central Intelligence Agency operative, conducted the first clandestine talks between the United States and the Palestine Liberation Organization, the representative body of the Palestinians. By opening this secret back channel, writes Kai Bird in The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames (Crown Publishers), he “planted the seeds” of a […]
If nothing else, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is consistent. On Aug. 3, in his latest anti-Israel rant since the war in the Gaza Strip erupted, he compared Israel to Hitler and accused Israel of deliberately killing Palestinian mothers. Speaking to supporters at a rally in Istanbul about a week before the Aug. 10 […]
Spanish movie stars Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem may be fine actors, but their understanding of current events in the Middle East is nothing short of abysmal. Recently, they added their names to a vitriolic open letter, signed by dozens of artists in Spain, denouncing Israel’s just military campaign in the Gaza Strip. Calling the […]
Movie director Robert Altman (1925-2006) was an original. Casting an astute and acerbic eye on American society, he was the antithesis of the conventional Hollywood filmmaker. The Toronto International Film Festival’s Bell Lightbox is presenting a retrospective on this fairly prolific auteur. Company Man: The Best of Robert Altman will run from Aug. 7-31. Ron […]
A few hours before a 72-hour humanitarian truce in the Gaza war was supposed to start, followed immediately by talks in Cairo with the aim of achieving a more durable ceasefire, White House spokesman Josh Earnest scolded Israel. An Israeli artillery strike that had mistakenly hit a United Nations school in Gaza, causing 15 fatalities, […]
Woody Allen bores into the mystery of the occult and revels in the passion of love in his latest film, Magic in the Moonlight, set mainly on the French Riviera in 1928. A romantic comedy enlivened by scenic backdrops, opulent sets, imaginative costume design, magical tricks, chicanery galore and a great musical score, it’s one […]
More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the current war between Israel and Hamas, the third in six years. As the Canadian branch of Amnesty International notes, Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip have borne the brunt of the fighting. While innocent Palestinians die needlessly, their homes and businesses pulverized, Hamas leaders and […]
Amid the acrimonious charges and counter-charges they’ve hurled at each other since the war in the Gaza Strip erupted 19 days ago, Israel and its arch enemy, Hamas, concur on one salient point: Neither side wants to return to the status quo ante that prevailed before Israel launched Operation Protective Edge on July 8. What […]
Shimon Peres, one of the last members of Israel’s founding generation, vacated his position as Israeli president on July 24 after an illustrious six-decade career as a politician, statesman and civil servant. He stepped down as Israel continued to wage its third war against Hamas in six years. Typically, he was in the thick […]