The biggest misconception of the present-day Middle East is a distinction between “good guy” liberal democrats and “bad guy” Islamists. There is no such distinction because there are no such democrats, at least in the tumultuous fertile crescent of Syria and Iraq. What we’re seeing in these two countries is a death struggle between Islamists, mainly […]
I was raised on Polish food with a Jewish accent, but after my first trip to Israel in the summer of 1967, I became hopelessly hooked on Middle Eastern/Mediterranean cuisine, finding it fresh, flavourful and healthy. In Israel, I discovered the wonders of falafel, hummus, baba ghanoush, tabbouleh, lamb, beef and chicken skewers, roasted peppers, […]
Tel Aviv, Israel’s lively city set along the shores of the balmy Mediterranean Sea, tends to be architecturally drab. On closer inspection, it leaves a far more positive impression. Founded 105 years ago as a garden suburb of adjacent Jaffa, and now Israel’s cultural and commercial capital, Tel Aviv has the distinction of possessing one […]
Two Middle East powers upgraded their bilateral relations this week as Iran’s president visited Turkey. The president of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, declared that Hassan Rouhani’s visit marked a “new era” in Turkey’s sometimes fraught relationship with Iran. Rouhani, a self-styled reformer who has made it his mission to improve Iran’s foreign relations, was the first […]
Last weekend in Paris, Jean-Marie Le Pen insulted some celebrities who had criticized the National Front’s success in the recent elections to the European parliament. When he came to the French Jewish actor and pop singer Patrick Bruel, Le Pen said “We will organize an oven for him next time.” Le Pen used the […]
Since the outbreak of civil war in Syria three years ago, critics have claimed, not without reason, that the United States has done far too little to arm non-jihadist rebels seeking to topple President Bashar Assad’s Baathist regime. A few days ago, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, officially confirmed this accusation. In […]
We have just commemorated the 70th anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1944, when the liberation of France began. But four years earlier, a defeated France had effectively become a fascist state — and it’s amazing how quick was the transformation. Within a few weeks of the country’s invasion by Nazi Germany on May 10, 1940, the […]
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s accession to Egypt’s presidency is yet another stunning blow to the already battered Muslim Brotherhood. Sisi, previously chief of staff of the armed forces and defence minister, defeated his only credible opponent, Hamdeen Sabahi, a disciple of the late Abdel Gamal Nasser, by a whopping margin in last month’s election. Sisi, who […]
Jody Shapiro’s bracing documentary on Burt Shavitz, the reclusive Jewish hippie who co-founded the Burt’s Bees personal care empire in the backwoods of Maine 30 years ago, paints a vivid portrait of a loner, curmudgeon and reluctant entrepreneur whose rags-to-riches story is a template of the possibilities of American capitalism. Burt’s Buzz, which opens in […]
Nearly six months before the United States declared war on Japan following its attack on Pearl Harbor, the syndicated columnist Stewart Alsop, writing in the Atlantic Monthly, warned, “To fight the war we will be sooner or later called upon to fight we need a crusading faith, the kind that inspired the soldiers of 1917.” […]