Benjamin Netanyahu is laboring under a grand delusion. Having failed to form yet another right-wing government, he cannot come to grips with the “sacrilegious” notion that a rival, namely Naftali Bennett of the far right-wing Yamina Party, may soon replace him. Netanyahu is so delusional and so self-centred that he cannot imagine Bennett, or anyone […]
As colonial secretary in British Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s government from 1919 to 1922, Winston Churchill exerted considerable influence in moulding the Middle East. He was instrumental in laying the foundations of Iraq and Transjordan, the future Hashemite kingdom of Jordan. And in line with the seminal 1917 Balfour Declaration, he supported the establishment […]
Dror Moreh’s intensely engaging documentary, The Human Factor, bores into the decade-long period from 1990 until 2000, when the possibility of a peace agreement between Israel and its Arab neighbors seemed attainable. In his 108 minute film, which will be available on VOD platforms later this year, he focuses on Israel’s negotiations with the Palestinians […]
Benjamin Netanyahu’s unprecedented 15-year reign as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister is ending. On June 2, Netanyahu’s adversaries informed President Reuven Rivlin they had agreed to form a new coalition to supplant his right-wing government. The two leading figures in the so-called “change bloc” are Yair Lapid, 57, the leader of the centrist Yesh Atid Party, […]
Michael Igor Peschkowsky, a young Jewish immigrant from Nazi Germany, transformed himself into Mike Nichols in the United States. He became a struggling actor, an acclaimed standup comedian and a celebrated movie, theater and television director. Mark Harris, in his thorough biography, Mike Nichols: A life (Penguin Press), traces the trajectory of his luminous career. Born […]
It all started in an elevator in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on May 31, 1921. On that fateful day a century ago, a local newspaper published an unsubstantiated story claiming that a black man had attacked a white woman in an elevator. In short order, a white mob ransacked Greenwood, the city’s African American neighborhood, in a […]
Much to its discredit, Rutgers University — New Jersey’s flagship public university — stands accused of having swept antisemitism under the rug, as if it is a benign and harmless phenomenon of no concern to anyone. In what can only be described as an ominous sign of the times, Rutgers took this step recently in response to […]
The Human Rights Council, a United Nations body that has proven to be notoriously anti-Israel over the years, plans to appoint a commission of inquiry to investigate Israel’s conduct in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. Its mandate is to determine whether Israel committed war crimes during the recent Gaza war and whether […]
Francois Ozon’s languorous coming-of-age French movie, Summer of ’85, has a very familiar ring to it. In every respect, it resembles Call Me By Your Name, released a few years ago. If I were to go one step further, I would say it could be classified as a credible knockoff of Call Me By Your […]
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman from the U.S. state of Georgia, has been mouthing her usual nonsense again. Last week, she stirred understandable outrage when she likened public health regulations enacted since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic to the Nazi treatment of European Jews during the Holocaust. Several months ago, shortly after being […]