DAMASCUS, Syria, Feb. 13—I first met Nash a little over two years ago, in the crowded courtyard of a Damascus high school that was being used as a voting center for Iraqi refugees participating in their country’s first free elections. He wore an Atlanta Braves baseball cap at a jaunty angle, and he practically bounced Read More
Doni Remba, a peace activist, disputes my claim that the progressive voice in Jewish life has been marginalized by the neocons. He has some evidence: he says he's getting traction in the Jewish press for his view that there has to be a progressive lobby, to push for a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine. His post Read More
Should the United States attack Iran, which side would the Iraqi government support? The answer to that simple question is far from clear, despite the thousands of lives and the billions of dollars we have sacrificed to support the ruling coalition in Baghdad. While the Bush administration seeks to isolate and even overthrow the Iranian Read More
With the Democrats now in control of Congress, Dennis Kucinich, one of Washington's most committed opponents to the war in Iraq, plans to unveil sometime over the next few days what he calls a "comprehensive plan" to withdraw American troops and bring an immediate end to the war. The Ohio congressman, who is mounting Read More
I don’t know how the poet Horace managed to get an advance copy of the report of the Iraq Study Group—everyone expects leaks, but 2,000 years ahead of time?—yet he seems to have managed it: “Mountains will be in labor, the birth will be a single laughable mouse.” James Baker is an intelligent man, so Read More
I don’t know how the poet Horace managed to get an advance copy of the report of the Iraq Study Group—everyone expects leaks, but 2,000 years ahead of time?—yet he seems to have managed it: “Mountains will be in labor, the birth will be a single laughable mouse.”
James Baker is an intelligent man, so Read More
As someone who has never displayed any great aptitude with words, President George W. Bush shouldn’t become preoccupied with the proper terminology to describe the ferocious communal violence in Iraq. Whether the chaotic situation that he and his government have created in that country is or is not called a “civil war” by newspapers and Read More
As someone who has never displayed any great aptitude with words, President George W. Bush shouldn’t become preoccupied with the proper terminology to describe the ferocious communal violence in Iraq. Whether the chaotic situation that he and his government have created in that country is or is not called a “civil war” by newspapers and Read More
A lot of people have had trouble posting comments. I apologize, we're trying to work out the bugs. If you're ticked about it, email me and I'll get it on the blog. Here is something that Richard Silverstein, whose progressive Jewish blog I recommend (Tikun Olam, http://www.richardsilverstein.com) tried to say about the question of Israel Read More
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 his guns. I chose the title deliberately, Carter said, because Americans don't understand the situation Read More
The midterm election was decisive—the election of 1874, that is. The Republicans went from a 111-seat lead over the Democrats in the House of Representatives to a 79-seat deficit. The Democrats also picked up numerous governorships and state legislatures. President Ulysses Grant still had two years to go in his second term, and the Senate Read More
I left Israel last summer with the awareness that the people there live in misery. I was moved by a friend's grim summary of the situation: "The Arabs don't want us here, they just don't. So we have to accept that there will be one war after another." One war after another? That's misery. David Read More
On Friday, the Nation magazine hosted Yizhar Be'er, who directs a media monitoring organization in Israel called Keshev. (The group's president is David Grossman, the writer, who lost his son, a tank commander, in Lebanon last month.) The theme of Be'er's comments was the danger of unilateralism—the policy of going it alone in Read More
JERUSALEM, Israel, DATETK?--Fresh from the battlefield in southern Lebanon, disgruntled soldiers from reservist battalion 8101 camped out across the street from the prime minister’s office in a small park and trained their sights on Ehud Olmert. They were there to demand resignations from Mr. Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Army Chief of Staff Dan Read More
DAMASCUS, Syria, July 18—The road to Damascus was bombed again early this morning, the seventh day of fighting between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite militia, Hezbollah. And though it is still possible to get from Beirut to Damascus along secondary mountain roads, the perils of the journey have pushed the price of the trip up Read More
