israel/palestine

Blumenthal’s Goliath is not funny, nor is it very entertaining. It is, for many reasons, often painful to read.

Just when you thought Syria couldn’t get more confusing…

The doctor dances with settlers.

The seven of us stood in the parking lot of the office building across the street, and Joe opened the zippered cover of his three-ring binder full of painstakingly collected photographs of the old neighborhood gathered for the exhibition. As he began reading aloud an oral history from Marian Sahadi Ciacci—“A Syrian who married an Italian!”—it felt like a religious occasion, a conjuring out of almost nothing of an entire world gone by.

I think we should be cautious about attempts to frame the Boston bombings, or for that matter any profound act of violence, mainly as a failure of (or an injunction for) “interfaith cooperation.”

When things go well, feelings of “joy” and being “moved” abound, much like the Slim Peace participants claim of their experience. It is unclear whether such events actually change how these Jews and Muslims perceive each other, or if they only change how Jews and Muslims view themselves.

The latest bloggingheads.

Western experts, looking for a comprehensible narrative, mistake consistency for fact. The misconceptions are further compounded by how difficult it is to identify a potential suicide—even mental health professionals can get it wrong—and how easy it is to conflate suicide terrorists with regular terrorists, the vast majority of whom don’t strap on bombs, preferring to stay alive and fight.

Creepy postings on the Israeli embassy’s FB wall are getting a lot of press.

Israel celebrates its second annual anti-immigrant rally.