Israel is a flourishing democracy, a nation usually governed by the rule of law. I add the caveat “usually” because perfection is not a quality that can be ascribed to any country, including Israel, in this very imperfect world. Case in point: Sixty eight years ago, as the first Arab-Israeli war raged, the Palestinian residents […]
The summer Olympic Games of 1936 in Berlin set a precedent for future Olympics. In terms of packaging and presentation, they would be a vehicle for slick propaganda — a projection of German national pride and glory. Daniel Kontur’s 44-minute documentary, Hitler’s Olympics, which is now available on the Netflix streaming service, deftly explores this […]
Ever since he entered the race to become the Republican candidate for president, Donald Trump has been accused of being a bigot, a racist, an antisemite, a xenophobe, a nativist, a right-wing populist, and a fascist. He has been compared to, among others, Benito Mussolini, Silvio Berlusconi, Juan Peron, Vladimir Putin, even Adolf Hitler. David […]
On Sunday, March 1, 1953, Joseph Stalin’s longtime maid, Matryona Petrovna, found him lying on the floor in his library. He was unconscious and his night clothes were drenched in urine. The supreme leader of the Soviet Union had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and was at death’s door. Petrovna quickly alerted his guards, who promptly […]
Terrorism is the scourge of our times. We live in a dangerous and uncertain epoch, when jihadists rake restaurants with gunfire, suicide bombers detonate explosive vests and terrorists plant bombs aboard airplanes. Since the horrific events of September 11, 2001, when 19 Arabs commandeered three American commercial airliners and ruthlessly crashed them into the World Trade […]
In his prime, from the late 1960s to the opening years of the 21st century, Seymour (Sy) Hersh was one of the great investigative reporters of our times. A dogged journalist with a nose for news, he uncovered the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, which earned him the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, […]
Politicians tend to be very mindful and careful in public settings. Being on their best behavior, they strive for political correctness, avoiding comments or gestures that might be deemed offensive or inappropriate. Germany’s vice chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, a Social Democrat, dispensed with these weighty calculations during a recent election campaign event in Lower Saxony as about […]
Weimar, a pleasant city in the eastern state of Thuringia, is where the tangled and irreconcilable strands of Germany’s history meet abruptly. Although Weimar was the birthplace of the short-lived Weimar Republic, Thuringia was a bastion of the Nazi movement, having been the first state in Germany where two Nazi officials, Wilhelm Frick and Fritz […]
Islamic State, the jihadist organization which has cut a swath of death and destruction across the Middle East and Europe, fully exploits social media to recruit new recruits. Thousands of Muslims and Muslim converts from around the world have been brainwashed by its postings on the Internet. Having been seduced by its radical Islamic message, they’ve […]
I was disappointed, though not really surprised, by the news that the 19th century villa of Yechezkel Sasson, in central Baghdad, was recently demolished. Sasson, who was usually known as Sir Sassoon Eskell, was the scion of a distinguished Iraqi Jewish family and one of the founders of modern Iraq. Along with T.E. Lawrence, Gertrude […]