Stay Away from the Arabs!
This is refreshing, right? About 10 days ago, a fish merchant in Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda outdoor market noticed a young man with sidelocks and a skullcap trying to determine which of the stalls employ Arabs. The merchant, Saleh, called the police, who detained the man for questioning on suspicion that he was planning a … Read more
Why Has the Egyptian Revolution Stalled?
In addition to the regular reading list, I am offering a pretty good selection on Egypt. I am crazy behind this week and have not really had time to comment on all I want to, including many issues that are covered in these readings. Unsurprisingly, the main constant through all of these pieces is the … Read more
The End of the PA, Oslo and the Two State Dream
Well this bill doesn’t have that many implications, right? Danny Danon is offering a bill to the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament) that would support the official annexation of the West Bank and the complete break of ties between Israel and the PA. Nice: JERUSALEM (JTA) – The Knesset will vote on a bill calling for full Israeli annexation … Read more
On the Attack on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, Part II
My reaction to the attack on the Israeli embassy was pretty straight forward: the refusal of SCAF to protect the embassy was unforgivable and a poor attempt to deflect the council’s own shortcomings, but the anger that fueled the attack was certainly provoked in part by the murder of five Egyptian police by Israel – … Read more
Quote of the Day: The Injustice Behind Aliyah
Aliyah is, of course, the right of any Jew to move to Israel and to receive Israeli citizenship simply because they are Jewish. In fact, the right to settle in Israel is expanded to a “child and a grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew … Read more
Walt:The US Will Lose in Iraq
Piggy-Backing on my last post about the American decision to invade Iraq and the long-term consequences of doing so, I present Stephen Walt: Specifically: invading Iraq was never necessary, because Saddam Hussein had no genuine links to al Qaeda and no WMD, and because he could not have used any WMD that he might one … Read more
Is There a Link Between the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and the Arab Spring?
Abe Greenwald certainly thinks so. As Matt Duss points out, Greenwald’s piece in Commentary is just another effort to create a false conclusion about the war. From Greenwald: It was the Freedom Agenda of the George W. Bush administration—delineated and formulated as a conscious alternative to jihadism—that showed the way. Indeed, the costly American nation-building in … Read more
The Iranian-Saudi Testing Ground (aka Syria)
Joseph Bahout has an interview in Le Journal de dimanche in which he expands on the competing interests of Iran and Saudi Arabia (and Turkey as well,) noting that the recent isolation of Syria has left Assad with only Iranian support. Bahout calls the fall of the Assad regime a ‘red line’ and says … Read more
Syrian Bloodshed Could Start Regional War, Part II
Haaretz recently offered some empty speculation concerning the rumors of a Turkish intervention in Syria should Assad not end the violence against the Syrian people: Turkey sends troops to Syria, and Iran retaliates by sending troops to Bahrain. It seems unlikely that Turkey would send its military into Syria and there is nothing to … Read more
The Islamist/Secular Dichotomy in Egypt
In Egypt, they warn, the Muslim Brotherhood will overtake the young secular activists who bravely brought down dictator Hosni Mubarak. In Syria, they have claimed, Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship may be brutal, but it is a lesser evil than a Sunni majority that will oppress Christians, Shiites, and women. Such anxiety plays perfectly into the ruling rationale of the region’s secular sultans, … Read more
Chris Keeler
Chris Whitman
