A day after a series of blasts rocked Thailand’s capital, the country’s leaders feverishly sought to dispel any notion the incident was part of a terrorist plot. The evidence, however, suggests otherwise: police discovered …
israel
The Art of Nazi Hunting: How Israel’s Mossad Found Adolf Eichmann
“Operation Finale: The Story of the Capture of Eichmann” is a museum exhibition that chronicles the secret Mossad operation that stalked and captured Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann from his refuge in Buenos Aires, and …
Must-Reads from Around the World: Feb. 8, 2012
Iowa Beckons – Communist Party mouthpiece China Daily muses the impact of Vice-President Xi Jinping’s U.S. visit next week. While its news story quotes experts saying it “will help China-U.S. ties fly clear of U.S. election year …
Obama Seeks to Cool War Fever While Keeping Up Pressure on Iran
Nobody likely envies the challenge President Barack Obama faces getting his “messaging” right on Iran. He must meet the demands of election-year politics and continue to press Tehran’s back to the wall over its nuclear program, …
The Mainstreaming of Hamas Continues as Palestinian Unity Gains Steam
One of the least-noticed consequences of the Arab Spring might be called the “mainstreaming of Hamas.” The chief of the Palestinian party and militia, which the West knows chiefly for its suicide attacks on Israel, has …
Must Reads from Around the World: Feb. 3, 2012
Al Shabaab Splintering – Foreign Affairs investigates the splintering of the al-Qaeda-linked militant group, al Shabaab, in Somalia and its potential fallout for the West. “In a sense, with the gains made in recent months, there …
Must Reads from Around the World: Jan. 30, 2012
Global Briefing, Jan. 23 2012: Syria, Sendai and Sarkozy
Juvenile Injustice — The Guardian examines accusations that Israel’s military justice system mistreats Palestinian children. The special report, based on interviews and affidavits given by minors to an international human …
A Hit-and-Run Death Clouds French-Israeli Relations
Given France’s historic and generally close ties with Arab regimes, it’s perhaps not surprising that Paris’ relationship with Israel has always been somewhat complicated. And while French President Nicolas Sarkozy has made …
At Christmas, a Maronite Christian Village in Israel Revives the Language Spoken by Jesus Christ
In the far north of Israel, in a stone church tucked onto a remote hillside, Christmas Mass will be recited, as it is every year, in the language Jesus Christ spoke. Aramaic remains the liturgical language of the Maronite Christians in the Galilee, where Christ grew up and a resilient congregation struggles to revive the language in …
Story Problem: Gingrich’s “Dead Jews” Textbook Example Doesn’t Exist
It made for dramatic television, Newt Gingrich’s screed against the Palestinians. Defending his earlier assertion that they are “an invented people,” the former House speaker kicked things up at notch at a Dec. 10 debate in Des …
Shyne-ing in Jerusalem: How One Rapper Saw the Light and Moved to Ultra-Orthodox Judaism
Doing his time for firing that pistol in the nightclub with Puff Daddy and J. Lo a dozen years ago, the rapper known as Shyne experienced a jailhouse religious awakening. The faith he says changed his life involved embracing his …
How Not to Deal with Protesters: A Death in the West Bank
The weekend offered a hard lesson in the nature of what passes for calm between Israel and the Palestinians living in the territory its army watches over. It was a lesson in two parts, one exploding in the sandy soil of the Gaza …