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Middle East

Hezbollah Complicates Israel’s Border Dispute With Lebanon

Hezbollah, the pro-Iranian Lebanese militia, has been embroiled in a low-intensity war with Israel in support of Hamas since October 8, the day after some 3,000 Hamas terrorists broke through Israel’s fortified border fence and ransacked communities in southern Israel, killing 1,200 Israelis and foreigners and kidnapping 240 civilians and soldiers. Its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, […]

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Commentary

Mexico Poised To Elect Its First Jewish President

With Mexico poised to elect its first Jewish president, Vincente Fox has shamelessly exploited his position as its former president to sow antisemitism. The target of his vile attacks, Claudia Sheinbaum, is the 61-year-old former mayor of Mexico City — the first Jewish woman to hold this post. Sheinbaum, a member of the left-of-center National […]

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Commentary

South Africa’s Baseless Accusation

The International Court of Justice in The Hague should categorically reject a baseless claim by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The South African government of President Cyril Ramaphosa submitted a case to the court on December 29, alleging that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza is “genocidal in character” […]

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Books

Emerging Heroes

Akira Kitade tells two interlocking stories in Emerging Heroes: World War II-Era Diplomats, Jewish Refugees, And Escape To Japan, published by Academic Studies Press. First, he introduces readers to Tatsuo Osaka, an official in the Japan Tourist Bureau —  later known as the Japan National Tourist Organization — who helped Jewish refugees travel from the […]

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Books

Without Permission

You’ve probably never heard of Henry Mandel. Neither had I until I read Without Permission: Conversations, Letters, And Memoirs Of  Henry Mandel, published by Cherry Orchard Books, distributed by Academic Studies Press, and edited by Mandel’s grandson, Samuel Flaks. A machinist who died in New York City in 2015, Mandel was an ardent American Zionist […]

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Middle East

Erdogan’s Desecration Of Reality

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has a nasty habit of comparing Israel to Nazi Germany when he’s in a foul anti-Israel mood. Since the outbreak of the current war in the Gaza Strip, which was triggered by Hamas’ slaughter of 1,200 Israelis and foreigners in southern Israel on October 7, Erdogan has repeatedly denounced Israel […]

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Middle East

A Long War Ahead In Gaza

No one should be blinded by the illusion that the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip can be wound up soon. If anything, it will be a long and bitter struggle. U.S. officials from Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin to President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, have urged Israel to complete the main […]

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Books

Germany 1923

Exactly a century ago, Germany was on the edge of the precipice, muddling through a year that could easily be classified as annus horribilis. Still struggling from its ignominious defeat in World War I, Germany was reaping its whirlwind. France and Belgium, having lost patience with Germany’s failure to honor its crushing reparation commitments, invaded […]

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Film

Maestro — An Animated Biopic Of Leonard Bernstein

Rising to stardom in the early 1940s, Leonard Bernstein fulfilled his ambition of becoming the first great American conductor of a major symphony orchestra. He filled these big shoes in 1943, when, in a last-minute switch, he replaced the revered Bruno Walter as conductor of the New York Philharmonic in Carnegie Hall. He was only […]

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Commentary

Masha Gessen’s Glib And Shameful Comparison

The New Yorker recently published an article by staff writer Masha Gessen in which she erroneously compared the Gaza Strip to Nazi ghettos in Eastern Europe. Understandably enough, her shameful comparison embarrassed the Heinrich Boll Foundation, which had awarded Gessen the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought. Having deplored her thesis as “unacceptable,” the foundation withdraw […]