The View from Europe

And it ain’t good

It’s refreshing to spend time in a place where everyone isn’t obsessed with the Occupant of the White House, but it’s also now strange to be in Berlin, a place where the United States was once so relevant -- and is now so irrelevant. A colleague from Croatia told me kindly that America ...
Read More
Placeholder

Dear Rep. Omar: Can We Talk About Anti-Semitism?

Her words enter a public sphere that is already populated with ideas and agendas and history

Over the past two weeks my newsfeed has been taken over by Ilhan Omar stories. And just as it has divided the left of the political spectrum, it has also divided my carefully curated cohort of lefty friends. But something about the back and forth has felt very off to ...
Read More
Dear Rep. Omar: Can We Talk About Anti-Semitism?

In Defense of Ilhan Omar, Again

Did the House pass such a full-throated Resolution about anti-Semitism after Charlottesville, or after the recent Pittsburgh synagogue massacre?

Ilhan Omar is again at the center of controversy, this time for remarks she made last week at a panel discussion at Busboys and Poets, a Washington, D.C. bookstore and restaurant. Omar’s “offending” comment was a reference to “the political influence in this country that says that it’s ok for ...
Read More
In Defense of Ilhan Omar, Again

Democracy in Israel/Palestine Today

Ethnic Democracy or Ethnocracy?

During a roundtable debate on Israeli television in the last election cycle, the major candidates, excluding the two major parties Likud and Labor (as is the custom), offered final word after a vigorous exchange of ideas. Centrist Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid (“There is a Future”) party began his ...
Read More
Placeholder

50 Years of Occupation

When will the Israel-Palestine conflict end?

It is now over 50 years since Israel seized Gaza and the West Bank during the war of June 1967, with no end in sight for the military occupation and colonization enforced upon the Palestinians since then. At the same time, it has been some four years since Mahmoud Abbas, ...
Read More
50 Years of Occupation

The Quest for an Honest Broker

Are we nearing the end of the US-led peace process as we know it?

Much has been said and written on President Donald Trump’s controversial statement on Jerusalem on December 6, 2017. But there was one sentence in the speech that everyone -- the conflicting parties and the international community -- could agree on: “It would be folly to assume that repeating the exact ...
Read More
The Quest for an Honest Broker

The Israeli Embassy, Tom Wolfe, and Sports Gambling

Past Present Episode 131

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: President Trump officially moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and violence in Gaza ensued. Neil wrote about Trump’s stance in his Huffington Post column this week. Natalia recommended this Tablet article breaking down the context for the violence in Gaza. “New Journalism” pioneer Tom Wolfe ...
Read More
The Israeli Embassy, Tom Wolfe, and Sports Gambling

Consonance, Dissonance, Harmony

Itinerary of some thoughts on thinking politically

"I merely took the energy it takes to pout, and I wrote some blues." -Duke Ellington This is my fourteenth “Blue Monday” column. In but a few weeks, I have already written over forty thousand words in this virtual space. It’s not as if I don’t have a life. The column is not ...
Read More
Consonance, Dissonance, Harmony

Rally in DC for Palestine

Jerusalem is the demand. No embassy on stolen land.

Roughly two thousand people gathered on the southwest corner of the Ellipse to demand that the US not move its embassy to Jerusalem. In the shadow of the National Christmas Tree and the National Menorah, they said Jerusalem was the capital of Palestine, not Israel. While most participants stood around the platform, ...
Read More
Rally in DC for Palestine

In this Uncontainable Night

Notes from Jerusalem and the Occupied West Bank

This is the beginning of my tenth year thinking about and witnessing the impact of occupation on Israeli and Palestinian families and, to some extent, on those of us living further away. And a question hovers that I cannot avoid: What lingers? What lingers are the “uncontainable nights”[1] of incursion and ...
Read More
In this Uncontainable Night

When will the Barred Owl of Minerva Fly?

Time is running out for Israel-Palestine

On a cold, dreary November morning in the Berkshires, Massachusetts, I finally understood why owls are seen as wise, why in the ancient world they represented Athena and Minerva, the goddesses of wisdom. On my way from an academic symposium in Great Barrington ...

...

Read More
When will the Barred Owl of Minerva Fly?