Driving Blind: Let Them Eat Amazon Coins!
Derek Thompson outlines the striking disparity between finance and labor coming out of the 2008 collapse. He explores three possible explanations for why.
Tagged: Israel
A Theoretical Case for a Romney Presidency From a Foreign Policy PoV.
Over at Blinded Trials the esteemed Dr. Saunders has a post up about how W. Mitt Romney, much like John McCain before him, has managed to alienate potential voters with his mendacity and pandering to the...
News Comes in Threes, Israeli Edition
The past three days have seen three important events in Israeli politics, which, taken together, will have ramifications for American policy and the region as a whole. On Tuesday—as the title of my prior,...
A Mentsch Trakht, un Got Lakht
I was as surprised as anyone to wake up this morning and discover that Kadima had agreed to enter Netanyahu’s governing coalition. This, in case you missed it, broadens its reach to 94 of...
Stray Thoughts on This Week’s Peter Beinart To-Do
1) I don’t know why I’m writing about this tonight and not Dr. McCoy’s technophobia. Probably because I’m a masochist at heart. 2) I haven’t read The Crisis of Zionism. Neither the university nor...
Iran, Israel, And Wannabe Masters Of War
There’s a long and honorable legacy in the Jewish tradition of universalism, humanity, pacifism, and a generally forward-thinking, enlightened worldview. Of this legacy, Philip Klein of The Washington Examiner is not an heir; and...
How to Build a State
My posts on the Israel-Palestine question two weeks ago led to requests for a primer on the Palestinian Authority’s plan to request U.N. recognition in September. This article (from Haaretz) provides just that, for those interested....
Only Nixon Could Go to China
In my previous post on this topic, I concluded with a warning that, if the UN recognizes Palestinian statehood, it needs to make this recognition contingent on Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist—saying,...
Past, Present, Future: 1948 and 2011
“This is not a conflict about 1967 but about 1948, when the State of Israel was established,” said Netanyahu. “The Palestinians call this a day of catastrophe, but their catastrophe is that their leadership...
The IDF’s “mystique”
Below, J. L. notes that Operation Cast Lead was partly a response to the perceived loss of IDF prestige following the 2006 Lebanon incursion. I guess this is right, but I feel like every...
Israel in 2008 and America in 2011
In the summer of 2006, Israel sent forces into Lebanon. The strike, while tactically successful, failed on two terms: on the diplomatic level, where Israel began to turn a number of lukewarm friends into...
Live from the J Street National Conference
by Max Socol Last weekend, more than 2400 activists converged on my current home of Washington, DC for a weekend of discussion, learning, and debate at J Street’s second national conference. At four days...
This Month’s Cato Unbound
This month’s Cato Unbound is on one of those counterintuitive topics that I’ve taken a great deal of interest in lately. By the numbers, the world is increasingly at peace. Most people probably wouldn’t...
Observations on the “Palestine Papers”*
The most important—and, perhaps, the only—aspect to the Israel-Palestine peace process that the “Palestine Papers” have revealed is not that Palestinian negotiators offered more than most had previously believed, but that neither party during...
Profiling, Political Correctness, and Airport Security
I must take issue with Erik’s recent post on airport security in which he argued for abolishing the TSA, replacing it with privatized airport security, and adopting an Israeli “profiling” approach to airport security. ...
Helen Thomas is really, really old
John Cole posts this video (an expanded version of the one stirring up all this controversy) of Helen Thomas answering some questions about Israel and journalism: Well, it’s not exactly the most sensitive thing...
Bolton on Bombing
John Bolton writing in the Wall Street Journal: We therefore face a stark, unattractive reality. There are only two options: Iran gets nuclear weapons, or someone uses pre-emptive military force to break Iran’s nuclear...
How Do You Say Patriot Missile in Hebrew?
Andrew Tabler has an important (if possibly a little too alarmist) piece in Foreign Policy on the current machinations of Syria, Hezbollah, and Israel. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak sent officials in Damascus and...
One State to Rule Them All?
In the comments to my earlier post on Israel/Palestine, North and Michael Drew got into a very intelligent (and spirited) back and forth. Michael eventually wrote the following (way down in the thread of...
The Analytical Rigor of Racists
On the fringes of the internet, you often hear that the science of hereditary racial differences is settled, that racial equality is a convenient fiction that doesn’t stand up to real scrutiny. So you’ll...
