Steven Erlanger wrote a great piece for the Times last week about a study by Peace Now showing the staggering percentage of stolen Arab land being built upon by Israelis (facts on the ground!). The story ran off the front…
12
Monthly Archives: November 2006
American and Israeli Interests Diverge on Talking to Syria
Public broadcasting stars Terry Gross and Judy Woodruff have both now paddled Jimmy Carter for the “provocative” title of his book, Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid. In each case the gentlemanly grandfatherly prez bore up beautifully under the treatment, stuck to…
I Am Wrong Again, Re: Birthright Israel
Matt Dorf of Rabinowitz/Dorf communications informs me I got the #s wrong on how many young Jews go to Israel free every year. Your piece on Ali Abunimah’s talk includes a mention of our client birthright israel: “Indeed, he said,…
A Japanese Filmmaker’s Desolating View of Palestinian Life
Toshikuni Doi is a 50-ish Japanese journalist now visiting the U.S. after spending years in the Occupied Territories with a camcorder. The other day at Columbia he had his first American audience, for a documentary about a family in a…
The Tongan Peace Corps Murder, Now in Fiction
Having spent months in Tonga, I’m not entirely surprised by the latest videos of Nuku’alofa in flames. It’s a sleepy South Pacific capital, and there’s always a lot of feeling rumbling underneath the placidity. My main Tonga interest is the…
A Brief Encounter With Robert Altman
Ten days before he died, I met Robert Altman at a party in New York for his friend Gore Vidal’s new book. I was on a couch and he was in an armchair when a friend started telling him how…
Ali Abunimah on One State in Israel/Palestine
I caught Ali Abunimah, the Palestinian/American activist and author of a new book calling for a single Arab and Jewish state in Palestine, at Columbia the other night. Abunimah made a few interesting points: 1. Having been to Northern Ireland,…
How Republicans Define Jewishness
Jennifer Siegel of the Forward has turned in another fine piece of reporting, this on the fact that Republicans count their Jewish vote in the recent election at 26 percent, while the Associated Press puts it at half that, 13…
The Two Narratives About the Israel Lobby: Will They Ever Meet?
The idea that there are two narratives about Israel/Palestine in this country, and never the twain shall meet, was reinforced last week by the Times’ two-parter on the special relationship of Israel and the U.S., titled “Anatomy of an Alliance.”…
The News From Nuku’alofa
Those of us who love a tiny Polynesian nation in the South Pacific are distressed by the reports out of Tonga of anti-royalist riots that have left at least six dead and destroyed the downtown of Nuku’alofa, the capital of…
Advice Column: Two Weeks of Bliss, and Confession
This morning I overheard my wife giving relationship advice to a friend on the phone: “This is the rule. In the beginning of a relationship, those first two or three golden weeks, you can confess anything. You get permission to…
The New Yorker Uses the G-Word
Janet Malcolm is one of my idols, I’d read her shopping lists if someone would print them. Her book The Journalist and the Murderer is a cultural landmark, it changed the relationship of journalists and their sources, giving more power…
Re: Comments ‘Signed’ by Me
Some readers are abusing this site by leaving comments “signed” by Phil Weiss. I didn’t write these comments, I’m going to start taking them down when I get a minute; they’re misrepresentations. If you want to go after me, fine,…
Scott Ritter on ‘My Good Friend,’ Israel
Last night at Columbia’s school of international affairs, Scott Ritter, the former weapons inspector, and former Marine, opened a speech about Iran bracingly, by speaking not of Iran but about the “elephant in the room”: Israel. He said that Israel…
Harry Reid Calls for Talking to Syria
Senator Reid just now said a smart thing on the floor of the Senate: the way out of the Iraq mess involves talking to Syria. “Even talking to Syria.” The grieving David Grossman told Israel the same thing last week….
The Times Says the Israel Lobby Doesn’t Go Back to Truman. What About Wilson?
Today the Times at last quotes Steve Walt fairly, in an article by Steve Erlanger and David Sanger about why Israel and the U.S. are joined in a war on terror from Gaza to Baghdad, and maybe on to Tehran….
Sacha Baron Cohen, Guilty of Minstrelsy
My commenters below are right: the prejudices that Sacha Baron Cohen stokes in Borat are conventional ones, and the film is a form of Red-State blackface. All the juice in his journey happens between the coasts. When he’s on the…
Joe Lieberman Is a Great Politician, and Intellectually Dishonest
I caught Lieberman on Meet the Press today. The guy is an amazing politician. He’s always been a great politician, this time he outdid himself. He knows how to talk to people, he knows how to build a coalition, he…
“Israel Is in Serious Decline,” Says a Progressive Jew
Antony Loewenstein is saying just what I’m saying about Israel’s crisis, but in Australia. The author of the book, My Israel Question, Loewenstein writes in The Age: Israel is a nation in serious decline. Israel’s long-term future lies not with…
Borat’s Coded Message: Pogroms Could Happen Here
The movie Borat is a lot of things, a comic triumph, mean, weirdly Tocquevillian. It is filled with anti-semitic humor, and I admit I laughed. But there is also something really scary about the film, and that seems to me…
Israel Is In Crisis. Or, How Violence Shapes Identity in the Middle East
Last night in a conference room at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, 20 students gathered to hear a young Palestinian woman and a former Israeli soldier, sitting side by side under the auspices of the peace organization One…
Prediction: Bush Will Now Emulate His Father Re Israel/Palestine
The Gates appointment to replace Don Rumsfeld is important: I think it might signal a shift in George Bush’s thinking (I know, that’s an oxymoron) re Israel/Palestine. Consider a few facts: Former Sec’y of State James Baker is now of…
More Fingerpointing at Rove
If Rumsfeld’s resignation was in the playbook, presumably under Hail Mary Pass, then why didn’t they call the play two weeks back when it could actually have done some good politically and maybe saved Lincoln Chafee et al? Paralysis at…
Time to Point Fingers: Karl Rove in Pennsylvania!?
I can’t wait for the Republican fingerpointing to begin. I can’t wait so much I want to start it myself! My Monday-morning questions for Karl Rove: Why didn’t you sacrifice everything else to try and hold the Senate? Howard Dean…
Memo to the Left
You are not disenfranchised. Stop talking about voter fraud (perennial) and computerized voting (inevitable). Start talking about ideas about real policy. Bring progressive vision to the so-called clash of civilizations.