Anti-Israel

Canadians are demanding the ouster of a parliamentarian who said that Israel has no right to exist.

Over the past week, there's been a lot of talk over how the West has "lost" Turkey. Even Defense Secretary Robert Gates seems to be buying into this line of thinking.

Anti-Israel flotilla turned the tide of world opinion against Israel, Lebanese Fatah leaders say, and time is ripe for a charge on Israel’s border.

What do chocolate, cookies, A4 paper, potato chips, cumin, toys, jelly, nuts, dried fruit, nutmeg, and goats have in common?

It's a tricky one. If you're a moderate, they have absolutely nothing in common. But if you are a hard-line Israeli politician, they are all potentially dangerous goods that could threaten Israel's security. Well, it seems that that side of the political spectrum has won the argument, as all the above are items that the Israeli government has prohibited from entering Gaza.

Arguments between academics are usually entertaining, and arguments between academic literary critics are often the most entertaining of all.

Literary criticism is not a science, it's more like an ennobled conversation in which one's values and attitudes masquerade as substantive statements about literary art. The irony is that literary artists are hardly ever literary critics (mostly due to disinterest) and literary critics are hardly ever literary artists (mostly due to incapacity). People toss whip cream at each other. It's all in fun--and the university pays you for it.

The Obama administration has announced that the US will join the UN 'Alliance of Civilizations,' widely perceived as anti-Israel.

This story in the Forward today reminds me of something my older son wrote to us in a letter from Jewish summer camp when he was 14.

He told us the kids were terrific but that some of them were so paranoid about Israel that he thought they were "crazy." After all, these were all pretty well-off Jewish kids at a beautiful spot in Massachusetts and yet they acted like they were under assault by the world . Some of them were even Republicans (because of Israel).

There is nothing as dangerous as a desperate ideologue armed with a minimal amount of knowledge. An excellent case in point is Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post. This past week in Glick's ongoing saga of fighting to make sure Israel never even explores any compromises with the Palestinians, she argues for turning Israel into a partisan wedge issue in the United States.

As near as I can make out Glick's argument runs something like this:

1. Democrats increasingly hate Israel and Republicans love Israel;

By Sam Asher, Zara Bohan, Alexandra Chen, Melanie Harris, Paul Katz, Daniel May, Oded Na'aman, Adam Shinar, Tidhar Wald

I begin this commentary by looking up the word terrorism.

One dictionary defines terrorism as follows: The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.