From the category archives:

Editorials

Terrorism is like advertising — it short-circuits the rational mind

September 1, 2010

Update below
If there’s just one lesson we can draw from the last decade it is this: utter the word “terrorism” and thought grinds to a halt, perceptions become blinkered and the power of human intelligence is suddenly put on hold.
Consider the attack near Hebron in the West Bank yesterday in which four Israelis were gunned [...]

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The Israeli consensus: Palestinians are inferior

August 31, 2010

Update below
Israelis might argue about whether the settlements are going to destroy Zionism or help it survive; they differ much less when it comes to their views about Palestinians.
Gadi Taub is ringing the now familiar alarm bell that without a swift end to the occupation, Zionism itself will be in jeopardy. Salvation depends on partition.
The [...]

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The 9/11 hijackers now defending Ground Zero

August 27, 2010

The opponents of Park51, the so-called “Ground Zero mosque,” have decided that the litmus test for identifying “good Muslims” is to ask them whether they regard Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Andy McCarthy, one of the lead knights in the crusade to stop “the Islamization of America,” strikes the latest blow — this time against a [...]

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Wikileaks — short on intelligence

August 26, 2010

Maybe Wikileaks has come to the cynical conclusion that in the contemporary media environment the headline is more important than the story.
CIA Red Cell Memorandum on United States “exporting terrorism”
That sounds like damning material. Plans to insert US-trained terrorists into Iran or Venezuela perhaps? Is Wikileaks exposing yet more dirty secrets from the CIA’s ugly [...]

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CIA wants to cover up US war crimes in Yemen

August 25, 2010

A missile strike on December 17 in Yemen last year that killed 41 people including 21 children and 14 women was most likely the result of a US cruise missile strike — an opening shot in a US military campaign that began without notice and has never been officially confirmed.
Amnesty International says it has obtained [...]

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How Pakistan shut down Afghan-Taliban peace talks

August 25, 2010

In the New York Times, Dexter Filkins reports:
When American and Pakistani agents captured Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s operational commander, in the chaotic port city of Karachi last January, both countries hailed the arrest as a breakthrough in their often difficult partnership in fighting terrorism.
But the arrest of Mr. Baradar, the second-ranking Taliban leader after [...]

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Iran enhances its capacity to shut down the global oil supply

August 23, 2010

The lesson of the famous Millennium 2002 Challenge was that a cumbersome military machine that over-invests in high tech weaponry is vulnerable to swarming attacks. In the $250 million war game such an attack resulted in most of the US fleet being sunk within hours.
With the development of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — the [...]

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The perception-management trap: confusing appearances with reality

August 23, 2010

The charismatic American Muslim cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, who now lives in hiding in Yemen and is a target for assassination by the CIA, has predicted: “The West will eventually turn against its Muslim citizens!”
His prediction appears to be coming true.
In the current climate of escalating rhetoric through which hostility towards Muslims is now being unleashed [...]

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The Ground Zero mosque that was there before Ground Zero

August 22, 2010

Masjid Manhattan wants to keep a low profile — which is understandable. At the top of their home page is a bold disclaimer:
Please be advised that we are by no means affiliated with any other organization trying to build anything new in the area of downtown Manhattan.
That blanket disclaimer is their way of distancing themselves [...]

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Israeli attack on Iran not imminent

August 20, 2010

If there was a ministry of information it would release reports like this: “US Assures Israel That Iran Threat Is Not Imminent.” But why would Washington need to create such an agency when the New York Times so gladly provides the service?
In a report transparently written as a quasi-official response to Jeffrey Goldberg’s “The Point [...]

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The 9/11 holocaust and the ground zero mosque

August 19, 2010

Another way of saying “sacred” is to say “off-limits.”
Something can be sanctified by placing a barrier around it constructed from rigid taboos. The most extreme among those taboos dictates not only silence but also exclusion.
In such a way, for many Americans, 9/11 has been sanctified. The sacred idea occupies a sacred space and only those [...]

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Goldberg willing to bet on a “better” chance that Israel will strike Iran

August 17, 2010

Fox News reports:
Israel has until the weekend to launch a military strike on Iran’s first nuclear plant before the humanitarian risk of an attack becomes too great, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said Tuesday.
A Russian company is expected to help Iran start loading nuclear fuel into its plant starting on [...]

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Do most Israeli Jews consider non-Jews to be sub-human?

August 17, 2010

The question I pose here is prompted by a post by the Israeli blogger, Yossi Gurvitz.
After the blogosphere lit up yesterday in reaction to photographs of a young Israeli soldier, Second Lieutenant Eden Aberjeel, posing alongside Palestinian prisoners, Gurvitz wrote:
There is nothing out of the ordinary about Aberjeel, who refused to speak with several bloggers [...]

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