Categories
Middle East

Managing The Conflict With Hamas

It’s a truism that Hamas is a thorn in Israel’s side. Hamas, an implacable enemy that rejects Israel’s very existence, has fought three wars and countless skirmishes with the Jewish state in the past decade, causing untold hardship to Israelis living near the border and misery to the Palestinian inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. Israel, […]

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Books

Hitler’s American Friends

Three months before Japan attacked the U.S. fleet in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Charles Lindbergh addressed a crowd in Des Moines, Iowa, to rail against the prospect of American intervention in World War II. Speaking as a member of the American First Committee, a non-profit isolationist organization that was officially incorporated in September […]

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Commentary

Ban Iran From Judo Competitions

At the World Judo Championship in Tokyo last week, a competitor from Iran, Saeid Mollaei, the defending world champion, was coerced by the Iranian government to throw his semi-final match against Belgium’s Matthias Casse so that he would not have to face Israel’s Sagi Muki in the final. Mollaei, who has been accused of intentionally […]

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Books

Israel’s Great Debate

The Six Day War, Israel’s greatest military victory over its Arab foes, opened up a can of worms, to put it in the vernacular. Israel’s conquest of the Golan Heights, Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip and West Bank in 1967 ignited a passionate debate about the future of the occupied territories. Today, with Israel having withdrawn […]

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Film

Life-Threatening Adventure In The Amazon

Yossi Ghinsberg’s vivid memoir, Back To Tuichi: The Harrowing Life-And-Death Story Of Survival In The Amazon Rainforest, is by far one of the most memorable books I have had the pleasure of reading. Published by Random House in 1993, it recounts the author’s near fatal trek into the jungles of Bolivia in 1981. An Israeli […]

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Middle East

Trump-Rouhani Meeting Seems Unlikely

U.S. President Donald Trump announced this week that, if “the circumstances were correct,” he would “certainly agree” to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani within weeks. Disclosing he would seek a “very simple” deal focusing on Iran’s nuclear weapons program and its stockpile of ballistic missiles, Trump said his administration is “not looking for regime change in […]

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Middle East

Israel Opens A New Front In Iraq

Israel has reportedly opened a new front in its concerted campaign to thwart Iran’s military buildup in the Middle East. It would seem that the long arm of the Israeli armed forces has reached Iraq. This is the first time in nearly four decades that Iraq has been targeted by Israel. In 1981, Israeli aircraft […]

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Film

Dunkirk: A Gripping Movie

Disaster was barely averted when Britain evacuated some 300,000 British, French and Belgium troops trapped in the French port of Dunkirk in the spring of 1940. Britain’s prime minister, Winston Churchill, hailed the evacuation as a “miracle.” Germany, having recently conquered France in a blitzkrieg, could have picked them off on the beaches of Dunkirk. […]

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Jewish Affairs

Sears Nailed For Promoting Hate

One summer day three years ago, I found Your Ward News, a thin tabloid published quarterly in Toronto, stuffed into my mailbox. As I flipped through its pages, I was horrified and disgusted. It was filled with crude antisemitic articles and drawings. I complained to the postman, realizing he was not responsible for its contents and […]

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Commentary

Trump Imperils Bipartisan Support For Israel

The Republican president of the United States, Donald Trump, is playing a very selfish, self-serving and ultimately dangerous game. He is imperilling the bipartisan nature of U.S. support for Israel for personal political gain and creating an environment in which antisemitism could flourish. In the past few days, Trump has crossed all red lines by […]