The Bible as Blank Slate
In an ongoing, multi-part series called Blogging the Bible on Slate, David Plotz offers comments on his first reading of large parts of the Hebrew Bible. At his best he is superb. He is selling...
View ArticleHow the IAEA Encourages Proliferation
The International Atomic Energy Agency is, as Jonathan noted, deeply disturbed by its latest findings on Iran. It is also deeply disturbed by its latest findings on Syria, which it detailed in another...
View ArticleRE: Abbas Still Says No
The new preconditions for negotiations that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas posed this week are, as Jonathan noted, equivalent to refusing to negotiate until there’s nothing left to...
View ArticleThe Irony of “Never Again”
In his important post on the necessity of doing more than simply saying “Never Again,” Jonathan noted that Iran “ironically denies the Holocaust while plotting a new one.” But it is not ironic — it is...
View ArticleHow the West’s Silence Undermines Its Mideast Policy
Kudos to Britain’s Zionist Federation for launching a campaign this week against the ludicrous decision by the country’s Advertising Standards Authority to ban an Israeli tourism ad featuring a picture...
View ArticleOxymorons
The New York Times yesterday (as Jonathan noted) published an article about disagreements among American Jews about Israel. The article was centered on a synagogue in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. A...
View ArticleIran’s Game of Negotiations
One unanswered question about the nuclear-swap deal: who provides the 120 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium fuel rods to Iran? Because that is what swapping means — Iran gives Turkey 1,200...
View ArticleRE: Western Inaction on Lebanon
Kudos to Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) — who, as Jonathan noted, used her post as head of the House appropriations subcommittee on foreign aid today to put a hold on $100 million in American assistance to the...
View Article“Never Helpful”
That’s how Obama described Israel’s continued building in its own capital. As Jonathan observed, while reaching out to Muslims in Indonesia, Obama scolded Israel, which, darn it, isn’t listening to him...
View ArticleRE: Palestinians’ UN Gambit Puts Both Israel and Obama on the Spot
The Associated Press has published excerpts from the Palestinians’ draft resolution; it seeks a declaration that Israeli settlements are “illegal” and a “major obstacle” to peace, and demands that...
View ArticleThe Cynicism and Intellectual Corruption of the Left
You would have to be living on another planet not to be aware of the effort by some on the left and in the media to blame conservatives for creating a “climate of hate” that encouraged a suspect, Jared...
View ArticleJewish Groups Denounce Anti–Glenn Beck Letter
Last week, Jewish Funds for Justice published an open letter in the Wall Street Journal calling on Fox News to sanction Glenn Beck for his “use of Holocaust and Nazi images.” But now the JTA is...
View Article
