More blood has been spilled, American and other, in Benghazi, Cairo, Tunis and elsewhere in the so-called Arab and Muslim “worlds” in recent days. (I say so-called because, as others have pointed out, to speak off-handedly, especially to Americans, of an “Arab world” or a “Muslim world” is to dangerously conflate nations and societies whose […]

Coming in the middle of the American campaign season and timed to coincide with eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the violence now shaking the Middle East has inevitably turned into a US domestic issue. I’ll write about that as the situation unfolds, but at the moment it seems most important to think about what […]

My attention was riveted by a story in The Jerusalem Report of September 10, 2012, because it dealt with a topic that has fascinated me since my childhood (for a reason I will briefly mention momentarily). The story reports on a move to revive the Aramaic language in a Christian Arab village in Israel. Aramaic, […]

The anniversary of September 11, 2001, with all its remembrances and commemorative exhibits, seems like a fitting time to examine the intricate relationship between contemporary art and politics. Is art supposed to deal with politics? If it doesn’t, should it be forced to? Or is art, in any form, a political activity? There are at […]

In his speech accepting the Republican nomination for president, Mitt Romney vowed to take a hard line in dealing with Russia. “Under my administration,” he said, “our friends will see more loyalty, and Mr. Putin will see a little less flexibility and more backbone.” Earlier in the campaign, Romney had cited Russia as “our number […]

The blue social model is eating its young with the active help of President Obama’s Department of Education. More specifically, two generations of student debtors are being hounded and harassed by President Obama’s hired debt collectors because a bad federal program and a dysfunctional higher ed machine (with an assist in many cases from poor […]

Following American presidential elections intelligently is a tricky thing to do. No spectacle anywhere in the world gets as much attention as the world’s longest and most grueling marathon. After all, the US president is the most powerful office holder in the world, commander in chief of the greatest military forces ever assembled, and the […]

The European Central Bank has crossed a new frontier. Judging by the events of the last two days, it isn’t just independent. It’s sovereign.It is certainly more sovereign than countries like Spain, Portugal and Greece. These countries will now stay afloat if their economic policies meet the approval of a majority of the members of […]

In Russian, the name “Vladivostok” means “Lord of the East,” and imperial ambition has never been far from the minds of Russian rulers when they contemplate their most important Pacific port. This weekend, Russia hosts the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Meeting for the first time, and it has chosen to do so in what was […]