Cuba

UNION CITY, N.J.—In his 30-plus years as a player in New Jersey politics, Senator Robert Menen  read more »

UNION CITY, N.J.—In his 30-plus years as a player in New Jersey politics, Senator Robert Menendez  read more »

On July 4, 1821, John Quincy Adams declared that the United States “goes not abroad, in search  read more »

On July 4, 1821, John Quincy Adams declared that the United States “goes not abroad, in search of  read more »

The intellectual challenge of the Walt-Mearsheimer paper on the power of the Israel lobby is whether Americans are capable of debating the ideas in it without freaking out. So far the answer is: No.

The paper was rejected by the Atlantic, as too hot for this country to hear. And while it has been favorably received in Israel and England, it continues to be smeared in this country in the Washington Post and the Boston Globe. The latest attack is from Eliot A. Cohen, a Hopkins professor, in the Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/04/AR2006040401282.html

Cohen says the professors are guilty of antisemitism, bigotry and of trading in ideas from the "sewer" in broaching their belief: that the Israel lobby is too powerful.

This is, once again, a fearful response from the rightwing Jewish community, fearful that if the issue is even discussed, Jews in this country will be persecuted. It reminds me of my own relative's comment after 9/11, They're going to blame the Jews. This anxiety has controlled the response to the powerful Harvard paper: If we even discuss it, Jews will be blamed. As for the ideas? Cohen's claim that the lobby is not powerful is based on such weak arguments as, the Cuba lobby is powerful, too, or, People who don't like Israel also supported the war in Iraq. Of course these things are true. They in no way invalidate Walt-Mearsheimer's assertions, that the Israel lobby has had a stranglehold on our policy in the Middle East (which is not to be confused with Cuba) and that it played a central role in the (disastrous) Iraq war planning.

These assertions are important and deserve to be discussed on their merits, without fearful slurring and name-calling.

It’s not often that an experienced critic finds himself confronting the work of an “unknown” p  read more »

It’s not often that an experienced critic finds himself confronting the work of an “unkn  read more »

It’s not often that an experienced critic finds himself confronting the work of an “unknown” p  read more »

A ponderous medieval thriller may not exactly be what everyone's been hoping for as a welcome antido  read more »

Dancing with Cuba: A Memoir of the Revolution , by Alma Guillermoprieto.  read more »

Long declared to be mere footnotes to history, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara are riding high in the A  read more »

"World music," a term for music made by everybody who doesn't happen to look or sound like us, is a  read more »

My wife is a lawyer.  read more »

Despite his blustering and joking during his recent trip across Europe and Russia, George W.  read more »

All over Havana, touts want you to buy black-market cigars at a fraction of the government price, an  read more »

The title of Peruvian singer Susana Baca's excellent new album, Eco de Sombras ( Echo of Shadows ),  read more »

Some winter days are so bleak I feel as if I am the groundhog's shadow willing itself to be visible.  read more »

HAVANA–To be in Cuba during the uproar over the plight of Élian González is to understand exactl  read more »

For a moment, when I sat down to dinner the other night at Asia de Cuba, I felt that I was back in b  read more »

Duke Ellington liked to introduce his 1970 extended work, Afro-Euroasian Eclipse , by saying, "The w  read more »

Martin Scorsese's Kundun needs no hype from me; a month after it opened, the lines still stretch aro  read more »