. This commentary first appeared in the Algemeiner on January 11. The last time I wrote about President Obama’s then only rumored selection of Chuck Hagel I said two things I knew I would wish to revise. The first, rhetorically, was the question: “What was he thinking?” The second was a quotation from Gil Troy’s generally very good writing […]
When Is an Open-Air Prison a Terrorist Camp?
. (This post originally appeared in the Algemeiner on December 11, 2012.) It is a term we hear a lot in the twenty-first century anti-Israel propaganda storm, flung wildly against the truth – that Gaza is an “open-air” prison. We hear it not only from Arab and Muslim anti-Semites and the committed anti-Israel ideologues, but […]
Is this the Arab Spring? “The Holocaust is a lie”
According to a Washington Times interview, of which is there is corroborating audio: A leader of Egypt’s top secular party says the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were “made in the USA,” the Holocaust is “a lie” and Anne Frank’s memoir is “a fake” — comments sure to roil the post-revolution political debate in the […]
Egyptics
Among the many approaches to the study of literature are varied considerations of structure, form, and language, including archetypologies, symbologies, and rhetorical and verbal analysis. These differing hermeneutics can be brought to bear on the interpretation of more than just literature, as almost anything can be argued to show intention, in the sense of indications […]
Thinking about Egypt
We were thinking about it yesterday in more theoretical terms, about what makes a revolution and the act of rebellion legitimate and humane – true to the liberating spirit that animates it – and how revolutions betray themselves. To think about Egypt more practically is to recognize the social factors in Egypt that make the […]