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Middle East

United States Mending Relations With Egypt

As predicted by Egypt’s newly-elected president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, the United States has begun mending its bilateral relationship with Egypt, one of its most important allies in the Arab world. Less than a year after Washington imposed punitive measures on Egypt after the military-backed Egyptian government ousted the duly elected Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, and killed […]

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Guest Voices

A Sunni State In The Fertile Crescent?

The various Sunni jihadist groups, in particular the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), who are battling the Shia regimes in Iraq and Syria, are attempting to carve out a Sunni state in parts of both countries (and possibly also in Jordan). But this should come as little surprise. These countries are all artificial […]

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Arts

The Films of Satyajit Ray From TIFF

Satyajit Ray (1921-1992), one of the masters of the Indian cinema, is coming t0 Toronto through the medium of a retrospective of his prolific body of work. The Sun and the Moon: The Films of Satyajit Ray runs from July 3 to Aug. 17 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.   A sampler: Aparajito (Friday, July […]

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Jewish Affairs

Private Property Issue Looms Over Polish-Jewish Relations

Poland marked an historic anniversary on June 23. At a “Polish Freedom Gala” banquet, held at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto under the patronage of  President Bronislaw Komorowski, Poland hailed its return to the western democratic fold. Twenty five years ago this month, the Solidarity trade union movement staged a peaceful revolution that […]

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Middle East

Crisis In Iraq Replay Of Religious Animosities

The current crisis in Iraq is yet another replay of the historic power struggle and thinly-veiled animosities between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in the Middle East. When the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — an extremist Sunni group known as ISIS — invaded western and northern Iraq earlier this month, it enunciated its intentions […]

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Guest Voices

Turkey’s Prime Minister Gains Upper Hand Over The Military

This past week we saw something unprecedented in Turkey: In a landmark decision meant to curb the power of the country’s massive military establishment, a court sentenced two top former generals, army chief Kenan Evren and air force head Tahsin Sahinkaya, to life imprisonment for leading a 1980 coup that resulted in widespread torture, arrests […]

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Jewish Affairs

Roosevelt And The Jews

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal administration coincided with the emergence of state-sponsored antisemitism in Germany and the mass murder of  Jews during the Holocaust. How did Roosevelt respond to these shattering events? Ambivalently, conclude American University historians Richard Breitman and Allan Lichtman in their important and cogent book, FDR and the Jews, published by Harvard […]

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Arts

The Promised Land Is Lush And Theatrical

Andrzej Wajda’s The Promised Land, screened on June 17 by the Toronto International Film Festival and part of its ongoing retrospective on contemporary Polish cinema, transports us back to early 20th century Lodz, a multi-ethnic city in central Poland that brings the uglier aspects of the industrial revolution up close and personal. Based on a novel by […]

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Guest Voices

Amid Violence In Iraq, Will Kurds Opt For Sovereignty ?

Iraq is imploding. The Sunni jihadis of the group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria have moved to within sight of Baghdad, while the Shi’ite government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki becomes more dependent than ever on Iran. More and more, even Americans — who suffered tens of thousands of soldiers killed […]

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Jewish Affairs

Golden Dawn Is Capitalizing On Hard Times In Greece

Shortly after posting a stunning victory in last month’s European Parliament election, Marine Le Pen, the French politician who leads the National Front, said she hoped to form a far right-wing alliance of like-minded parties in Europe. Tellingly enough, she ruled out joining forces with an ultra nationalist Greek party that, she believes, has embraced […]