War & Peace
AIPAC and the Politics of ReaffirmationTuesday, March 13, 2012 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Politics is a matter of emotions as much as intellect, and rituals and ceremonies are central. The annual AIPAC policy conference in Washington, D.C. is, perhaps above all, a ceremony of reaffirmation of the relationships among American Jews, non-Jewish Americans, the American state, and Israel.
What Would Ariel Sharon Do?Monday, March 5, 2012 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Biographies of father by sons are an uncertain genre. Closeness necessarily entails distortion, positive or negative. But at a time when the vast majority of Israeli and world leaders seem strikingly small, it is worth considering the portrait of Ariel Sharon provided by his youngest son.
BDS SecretsFriday, February 24, 2012 by Ran Baratz | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Ubiquitous anti-Israel activist Norman Finkelstein stirred up the blogosphere last week. In a YouTube interview with pro-Palestinian advocate Frank Barat, Finkelstein said that members of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) care less for human rights than they do for Israel's destruction.
Rose-Colored GlassesMonday, February 20, 2012 by Allan Arkush | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Jacqueline Rose, a noted professor of English in the United Kingdom and the author of many works of literary criticism, has stepped beyond the academic precincts where she first made her name to produce, over the past decade or so, a substantial opus dealing with Zionism and Israel.
The Anatomy of Life and DeathThursday, February 16, 2012 by Armin Rosen | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
In 2010 the New York Review of Books published a now-famous essay by former New Republic editor Peter Beinart, who argued that liberal Zionism was on the decline in Israel and that the "American Jewish establishment" was partly to blame.
The Signal-to-Noise WarWednesday, February 15, 2012 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
A "signal-to-noise" ratio compares the power of a transmitted signal to that of the accompanying background noise. In the war of words between Israel and Iran the noise-to-signal ratio is so high that it is an almost overwhelming task to decipher what's going on.
Hear, O Friends of IsraelThursday, February 2, 2012 by Daniel Johnson | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
In 1987, exactly a quarter-century ago, the appearance of a work of Jewish history caused a stir. For one thing, the author was not Jewish; for another, the book was unashamedly supportive of the State of Israel, which even then was enough to provoke hostility, especially on the Left.
Whither the AlawitesFriday, January 20, 2012 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Time does not appear to be on the side of Syria's minority Alawite-led regime. President Bashar Assad has reportedly been offered asylum in Moscow, which wants an orderly transition that will preserve Russian strategic interests. Other stories have Assad and his loyalists preparing mountain strongholds for a last-ditch stand.
Jerusalem’s Ego and IdThursday, January 19, 2012 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Biography is not the same as history. Biography charts the outer and inner life of a person—character, spirit, morality, emotion, perhaps even soul. History, by contrast, incorporates different narratives and pieces of evidence, seeks out new data, then rises above all the fragments with a synthesis.
Our Defenders at the CIAWednesday, January 18, 2012 by Jonathan Neumann | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
News flash: Top-secret intelligence memos written during the last years of the Bush administration describe covert activities—in intelligence parlance, a "false flag" operation—by Israeli Mossad officers, posing as American CIA agents.
Editors' Picks
Wardrobe Malfunction Shimon Peres, Spiegel. "I see it as a 'world spring' rather than an Arab spring," muses the Israeli President. "And you can't come to a world spring dressed for winter." (Interview by Hans Hoyng & Juliane von Mittelstaedt)
A Habsburg Hanukkah Matti Friedman, Times of Israel. How did the ornamental headgear of an Imperial soldier, emblazoned with the double-headed eagle, emblem of the Holy Roman Emperor, come to be a hanukkiah?
The Phony Cyberwar Brandon Valeriano, Ryan Maness, Foreign Affairs. Despite the hype following the success of the Stuxnet and Flame viruses in slowing Iran's nuclear program, cyberwarfare is not the strategic game-changer it’s been made out to be.
Of Rabbis and Maccabees Reuben Livingstone, Jewish Chronicle. The rabbis never deny the necessity of self-defense. So, why does the Talmud’s discussion of Hanukkah downplay the military exploits of the Maccabees?
The Problem of Proportional Response Yaacov Lozowick, Israel State Archives. Fifty years ago Ben-Gurion faced the problem of finding a proportional response to Syrian attacks on Israeli fisherman. The answer was—as it remains today—targeted military attacks.
Akko's Shipwrecks , Phys.org. The sea around the city of Akko is full of preserved shipwrecks, from the Hellenistic period through the Egyptian-Ottoman War. And excavations have just begun.
Prisoners of Yom Kippur Mitch Ginsburg, Times of Israel. Shot down over Damascus on the second day of the Yom Kippur War, Ori Shahak was captured and tortured in Syria; every Yom Kippur takes him back there.
The Problem with the Peace Process Richard Landes, Tablet. “Overestimating the power of politics and dramatically underestimating the importance of culture has actually hindered the possibility for a political solution.”
Mossad’s Mistake Mitch Ginsburg, Times of Israel. The attack that began the Yom Kippur War caught everyone in Israel, including Golda Meir, by surprise—everyone except the Mossad. A new look at Israel’s Pearl Harbor.
How Orientalism Shaped Obama Lee Smith, Tablet. Blaming the recent attacks against U.S. targets on a cheap video reflects Edward Said’s argument that Europe subjugated Muslims by distorting perceptions of their culture.