An American Expat in Egypt, Jordan, So Different From A Decade Ago

What's it like to be an American expat in the Middle East now, with regional tensions high and many locals blaming the U.S. for sticking with Israel? Samantha Childress on Substack shares her experiences in Egypt and Jordan. Goodbye to All That: On Loving and Leaving Cairo. Vignettes from Life in Amman. Despite a loud …

Israel-Hamas War At 8 Months: Disastrous

On May 7, 2024 the war between Israel and Hamas begins its eighth month. Some 1,200 Israelis were murdered by 1,000 Hamas operatives on October 7, 2023. In the seven months since then, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. Among them, according to the Israeli Defense Force, were 11,000 Hamas soldiers, along …

Passover Reflections on Jewish & American History

 “No people has ever insisted more firmly than the Jews that history has a purpose and humanity a destiny,” Paul Johnson wrote in “A History of the Jews” (1987). Reflecting on Passover, the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks observed that in retelling the saga of the exodus from Egypt, Jews commit themselves to a “momentous proposition: that history has meaning” …

Rapid Reconstruction of Gaza in the Works

Arab Gulf states -- Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman -- plus Egypt, Jordan, the U.S., and the European Union are creating a “massive postwar reconstruction plan…for the besieged Gaza Strip,” The Christian Science Monitor reports. The plan would “rebuild the coastal strip, unite and overhaul Palestinian governance, and create a Palestinian security force in …

More Insight on the Israel-Palestinian Conflict

I've added several links to my mini-course on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Journalist Andrew Sullivan offered a well-reasoned argument for why Israel's actions so far do not constitute genocide. Israel has no intention of eliminating the Palestinian people (they are represented in the Israeli parliament), whereas the stated goal of Hamas is to eliminate the Jewish …

War on the West?

'Progressive' comedian Bill Maher defends Western values against perceived assault, especially in the Israel-Palestine conflict. His commentary on “The War on the West” went viral, with as of this writing more 1.2 million views on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnl243DjsUE On Substack, I do a deeper dive into the concept that there's a war on Western values, reporting on …

1948 Arab-Israeli War: Israeli Victory Led to Wide Recognition, But Nakba Was Minimized Until Recently

"The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war." Wikipedia. It began immediately following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine on May 14, 1948. The Israeli Declaration of Independence was issued that day by …

Palestinians Fear Genocide, and Ignoring Historical Context

NYT: Palestinians and their allies are worried that the killings by Hamas militants of Israelis will be used to justify genocide in Gaza. "Gaza residents have long endured food and medicine shortages, crumbling infrastructure, soaring joblessness and outbreaks of violence that have killed thousands of people. The expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which complicates the …

What Would An Israeli Victory Look Like?

If Israel engages in a maximalist campaign against Hamas in Gaza and then withdraws, the last surviving member of the Qassam Brigades -- the military wing of Hamas -- "will, as it were, grab a bloody Hamas flag, wave it for the cameras, and declare victory," observed Aaron MacLean in Mosaic Magazine. The article is titled "Israel's Outside-the-Box …

A Time For War? Studied Empathy? Or Both?

Here's a well-reasoned piece by Steve Schmidt arguing that this is a time for war. The bleating and whining for peace now, he writes, is no more appropriate than it was in WW2. Click. My Substack e-newsletter, "Israel-Palestine: Is Studied Empathy Still Possible?" is getting a lot of attention and has garnered several new paid …