Earlier this week, suicide bombers were responsible for the deaths of at least 34 people in the southern Russian city of Volgograd, in attacks on a railway station and a trolley bus. In October, a woman from Dagestan killed seven people in a suicide bus blast in the city. The bombings raise fears of further […]
The historical relationship between Jews and other Canadians, particularly with French Canadians, is not merely fundamentally important, it is also quite controversial. Phyllis Senese wrote in 1977 that “the history of antisemitism in Quebec remains to be written” and that, further, “a great deal of superficial and shallow writing on antisemitism in Quebec is in […]
Earlier this month, the 5,000-member American Studies Association (ASA) voted by a ratio of more than two to one to endorse a scholarly boycott against Israeli universities. It asked its members to refuse to “enter formal collaboration with Israeli academic institutions or with scholars who are expressly serving as representatives or ambassadors of those institutions, or on […]
Nelson Mandela has died, at the age 95. Although he left office in 1999, after serving five years as South Africa’s first democratically elected president, he remained the conscience of the country and a man beloved throughout the world. He was a unifying symbol of the “rainbow” nation. How will South Africa fare now that […]
Israel today is a paradox: A country faced by unprecedented threats and challenges, yet safer and more full of promise than at any time in its history. On the one hand, the Middle East has entered a period of turmoil and chronic instability which is challenging the fundamental underpinnings of our strategic environment. Add to […]
The independence of the Republic of Lithuania was restored in 1990 in large part because the people of the country demanded a restoration of their right to live as an independent nation. This meant that the injustices of the past should be recognized and rectified, a determination expressed in the million-strong “Hands across the Baltic” […]
In 2010, Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda since 2000 and candidate of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), won a second term with 93 percent of the vote, in an election marred by repression, murder, and lack of credible competition. Some potential opponents were disqualified or failed to enter the race, because they would have […]
The “Charter of Values,” or Bill 60, is being presented to the public by the present Quebec government as a “social project, “ essentially like that of the Charter of the French Language, or Bill 101 . Therefore, we must consider it in this light. In the case of the predominance of the French language […]
The so-called negotiations that the United States and the major world powers conducted with Iran in Geneva in the past few days were farcical. The entire initiative was clearly designed to remove any deterrence of Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon. I say “so called” because a negotiation in which only one side gives meaningful […]
On Nov. 7, the Quebec government tabled Bill 60, the so-called Charter of Quebec Values, in the province’s National Assembly. The law would forbid all public employees from wearing “overt and conspicuous” religious symbols and headgear, including Muslim face veils, Jewish yarmulkes, Sikh turbans, or large crucifixes. The regulations would apply only to publicly-paid […]