June 5, 2012 marks the 45th anniversary of the start of the Six-Day War. One of us experienced the war in Jerusalem at the age of 11, and the other in Beirut at age 4, yet it haunts us to this day. The war led to the ongoing Israeli military...
(211) Comments | Posted September 28, 2011 | 10:00 AM
President Barack Obama, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu all played mainly to their domestic political bases at the United Nations General Assembly meeting last week. Despite the drama, nothing in the basic discourse has changed, no party shifted its bottom-line positions, and none of it...
(29) Comments | Posted July 31, 2011 | 7:54 PM
In 2007, an organization called Conflicts Forum, which at the time was being funded by the European Union, issued a report intended to promote a "positive assertion of Islamist values and thinking" in the West. It essentially lays out a public relations campaign for rebranding "resistance movements" in...
(147) Comments | Posted July 18, 2011 | 9:45 AM
With the independence of the new Republic of South Sudan, the world is again reminded that states are created on the basis of local, regional and international necessity. At least two decades of international action, as well as a long, bitter and bloody conflict produced the independence of the south,...
(30) Comments | Posted February 9, 2011 | 12:30 PM
The United States stands at the horns of a dilemma in its relationships with the Middle East. The hesitant or on-the-boundary response of the Obama administration to the frozen Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, the ouster of authoritarian Tunisian President Zein al-Abidin Ben Ali, the people's uprising in Egypt against President Hosni...
(21) Comments | Posted January 3, 2011 | 3:45 PM
The murderous bomb attacks against Christian communities in Egypt and Iraq have been roundly condemned by most political and religious leaders, commentators and public opinion in the Arab world. They have also been met with an outpouring of passionate condemnation by ordinary people who have taken to the streets to...
(108) Comments | Posted November 12, 2009 | 1:36 PM
In the aftermath of the appalling attack at Fort Hood, one of the most important questions is how this rampage by a twisted fanatic has affected relations between Muslims and other Americans of different faiths. For some, Hasan's obvious fanaticism is not simply a starting point for thoughtful analysis about...
(82) Comments | Posted May 25, 2012 | 10:32 AM