Foreign affairs analyst Christiane Amanpour stumbled into a minefield by comparing Kristallnacht, the Nazi pogrom in Germany, to the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, was orchestrated by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime. A moment of infamy, it erupted on November 9, 1938. The nation-wide violence lasted for two days […]
Israel and Lebanon have been locked in an official state of war since 1948, but in the past month they have engaged in three rounds of maritime border talks that may well defuse regional tensions. The talks are likely to be difficult. As a Lebanese spokesman said, the opening round was the “first step in […]
I watched Papillon, Michael Noer’s usually gripping 2017 film, on Netflix the other night. It’s based on an international bestseller published in the late 1960s. The author, a petty thief from Paris named Henri Charriere, was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1931. For the next 14 years, he languished in a remote and hellish prison in […]
Romain Gary’s novel, The Life Before Us, has been converted into a warm-hearted feature film, The Life Ahead. Now available on the Netflix streaming network, it stars the legendary Italian actress Sophia Loren, and is directed by her son, Edoardo Ponti. Loren, 86, plays Madame Rosa, a Holocaust survivor and former prostitute who earns a living babysitting […]
The mainstream Palestinian leadership heaved a sigh of relief after Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the November 3 presidential election. Under Trump’s presidency, the United States’ bilateral relationship with the Palestinian Authority sank to a new low, prompting the Palestinians to invest their hopes in a Biden presidency. Although Trump has so far refused […]
The grassroots revolts that erupted in the Arab world from 2010 onwards, widely known as the Arab Spring, held out the tantalizing promise of positive transformation in the Middle East. “For the first time, mass movements of ordinary people sought to take their political fate into their own hands and shape a better future for […]
Dan Friedkin’s The Last Vermeer unfolds in Amsterdam after World War II as liberated Holland comes to terms with the legacy of the brutal five-year German occupation. Based on a true story heightened by astonishing twists and turns, this vivid drama grapples with a maze of interrelated issues ranging from Nazi-looted art to Holland’s conduct under […]
Two years have passed since a neo-Nazi thug burst into the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and killed 11 congregants in the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history. Eighty three minutes elapsed from the moment Robert Bowers entered the shul until he was apprehended by the police on that cloudy Saturday morning on October […]
U.S. President Donald Trump was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s best friend in Washington, a generous benefactor who bestowed gifts on Israel until the November 3 presidential election. Like the vast majority of Israelis, Netanyahu hoped that Trump, the Republican incumbent, would prevail over Joe Biden, the Democratic challenger. With Biden’s victory, Netanyahu will need […]
The United States was on the cusp of a new era on November 7 after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the contentious U.S. presidential election. Having triumphed in Pennsylvania, his home state, and having increased his lead in Nevada, Arizona and Georgia, Biden and his vice-presidential running mate, Kamala Harris, the first woman […]