Posts Tagged ‘Israel’
ORWELL IN GAZA—A MEDIA FABLE
ORWELL: This is Becca Orwell reporting live with Abu Jihad, Deputy Minister for Information of persecuted Hamas here in besieged Gaza. Minister, I want to be entirely objective about the Israeli war machine. What’s going on here? ABU JIHAD: The Israelis keep bombing our rocket launching sites and targeting our military leaders. Now they’ve entered…
Read MoreCANCER IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Last Friday, Iran’s parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani referred to Israel as a “cancer” in the Middle East. He accused Israel and the United States of trying to “sterilize” the Arab Spring. But what happened last week in “non-cancerous” countries? Sunday: Six hundred Syrians fled besieged Homs under attack by snipers… A Pakistani family of eight…
Read MoreJOHN KERRY’S FRAMEWORK
My short story “White on White” in Summerset Review in a way suggests the current Israeli-Palestinian negotiations shepherded by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. The tale offers an updated example of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” So do the negotiations. According to Tom Friedman in the January 29 New York Times, Mr.…
Read MoreBLACK IS WHITE—AND BLACK
In George Orwell’s novel 1984, Big Brother, the symbol of tyranny, declares that “Black is white, and white is black.” This marks just one example of “doublethink,” which twists truth and falsehood. But doublespeak is more than fiction, as we learned in Gaza last week. On Saturday, Palestinians celebrated Hamas’ twenty-fifth anniversary marked by the…
Read MoreAN AFFRONT TO HUMANITY
I was waiting for a bus the other morning when a woman I know slightly approached. A sling encased her left arm. “What happened?” I asked. She proceeded to tell me about an experience that left her confused—and me, as well. Two days earlier she took the bus home from work. Standing room only. A…
Read MoreSNAKE EYES
Following last Monday’s presidential debate on foreign policy, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra J. Saunders offered sage advice. “Foreign policy is an oxymoron. When U.S. presidents deal with countries like Libya, Syria or Iran, whatever they do is a roll of the dice.” The Middle East is a complex place. We must navigate it carefully.…
Read MoreINSULT TO HUMANITY
David Brooks, the New York Times columnist, offers fascinating insights into the workings of the human mind in his book, The Social Animal. Brooks points to how we often judge people in milliseconds based on stimuli recognized only the subconscious. I had that experienced with a recent photo in the San Francisco Chronicle. I immediately…
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