As my field of research and teaching is in comparative politics, I have kept files on virtually every country in the world for decades. They consist mainly of magazine and newspaper articles, and students find them handy when researching term papers. My filing cabinets would soon have no room for new pieces if I didn’t […]
We have been there before. For the third time in five years, Israel and Hamas are fighting a cross-border war, with no end in sight. Now entering its fifth day, it may yet turn into a lengthy and bloody conflict, since both sides are hell-bent on attaining certain objectives and are certainly in no mood […]
Have you ever heard of a movie that took 12 years to finish? The very idea seems ridiculous, if not downright silly. Why should an actor or a director commit to such an interminable project? And what about the issue of continuity? What if an actor dropped out in mid-course? Or died? What then? These […]
Now, more than ever, the Middle East occupies front and center in the daily news cycle. Israel is waging war against one of its arch enemies, Hamas, and an Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, Hamas’ stronghold, remains a possibility. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a more extreme version of Al Qaeda, […]
Polish Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter draws on his horrific experiences during World War II to try to tear down walls of racial hatred and build a better world. In speeches inside and outside Canada, he preaches the virtues of tolerance and warns that genocide can repeat itself if its causes are allowed to fester. Now a […]
Yemen, the poorest Arab state, with a gross domestic product per capita of little more than $1,400 a year, remains a country in political crisis. Located at the south-western edge of the Arabian peninsula, the present-day Yemeni state was formed in 1990, when the north, an ancient Arab kingdom and then a republic, united with […]
At this year’s World Cup soccer tournament in Brazil, which ends on July 13, players have held aloft banners inscribed with the words “Say no to racism.” It’s a worthy, long overdue slogan because racism has been a persistent and ugly feature of professional soccer, particularly in Europe. The “Say no to racism” campaign is […]
Israel’s invariably tense and uneasy relations with the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have hit a new low of late. The collapse of U.S.-brokered peace talks in April, ending nine months of negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority, engendered mutual acrimony, mistrust and bitterness — the toxic ingredients […]
Jan Grabowski’s measured but powerful book, Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland (Indiana University Press), caused something of a sensation when it was originally published in Poland in 2011. One can understand why it stirred such intense debate. Grabowski, a professor of history at the University of Ottawa, writes about the […]
They died recently, leaving a legacy of achievement… Gerald Edelman, 84, co-winner of the 1972 Nobel Prize in medicine, explained the process by which antibodies in the immune system defend the body against infection and disease. He launched his research at Rockefeller University. Gary Becker, 83, won the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics, illuminating people’s […]