A series of revolutions over the last two years – the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ – has created a new reality for peace-making in the region. New governments pay far more attention to Arab public attitudes – including Islamist ones – than the autocratic regimes that they have replaced. This has meant countries once seen as…
We begin this piece with some trivia. In the past nine years, five Israeli movies grossed more than two million dollars in the US. Now, two million dollars for a small foreign language art film is a lot of money. Rare are the foreign films that reach it, and before 2004 no Israeli film had…
In the decade following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Western analysts’ search for a ‘moderate Islamist’ alternative to Al-Qaeda often brought them to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose rhetorical rejection of terrorism and embrace of electoral politics was seductive. Much of the resulting literature thus touted the Brotherhood’s supposedly ‘democratic’ and ‘non-violent’ nature, all of which left…
Shmuel Feiner’s fine biography of Moses Mendelssohn shows us just how radical was the very ‘German’ moderation of this 18th century Jewish German philosopher. By rejecting the Faustian pact that Jews were supposed to enter, a pact that demanded abandonment of ‘harmful’ Jewish habits in return for equal rights, Mendelssohn (1729-1786) challenged the prejudices that…
Patrick Tyler begins Fortress Israel with an alleged Israeli ‘hit’ against an Iranian nuclear scientist. In reality, the entire book is a ‘hit’, designed to discredit Israel. As with all skilful propagandists, Tyler begins with some truths, but moulds facts and context to suit his case. Tyler’s thesis has four primary elements. First, that Israel’s…
Dror Moreh is the director of the Academy Award nominated Israeli documentary The Gatekeepers, a rare insight into the Shin Bet (Israel’s domestic secret service agency). For the first time ever, six former heads of the Shin Bet agreed to share their insights and reflect publicly on their actions and decisions. Intimately interviewed, they shed…
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