Martin Kramer didn’t get along well with the other children

23Feb10

Harvard Fellow and self-designated “authority on the modern Middle East” Martin Kramer has an issue with Palestinian children: ‘Aging populations reject radical agendas, and the Middle East is no different. Now eventually, this will happen among the Palestinians too, but it will happen faster if the West stops providing pro-natal subsidies for Palestinians with refugee [...]

Filed under: Israeli / Palestinian   |  8 Comments
Tags: "demographic threat", Gaza, Gunnar Heinsohn, Harvard, Martin Kramer, Racism

Acclaimed with faint criticism

23Feb10

I have an essay on Kant’s prescription for perpetual peace due in yesterday, so naturally I’ve spent the past hour or two scouring the internet for distractions. Sadly they just don’t pump out lolcats fast enough to satisfy the procrastinatory needs of the modern arts student, so I was forced to resort to Googling the [...]

Filed under: meta   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: Cambridge, Chris Brooke, meta

‘This Time We Went Too Far’

18Feb10

Norman Finkelstein has a new book out on the Gaza massacre. You can pre-order it here. I hope to have a review up soon, and an excerpt may be appearing shortly over on New Left Project. For now, here’s a recent debate between Finkelstein and a former advisor to Ariel Sharon:

Filed under: Israeli / Palestinian, Videos   |  6 Comments
Tags: Gaza, Gaza massacre, Norman Finkelstein, Operation Cast Lead, Raanan Gissin, This Time We Went Too Far

ADL unconcerned by persecution of Jews

11Feb10

“I had hoped we could finally put the depressing events of 2009 behind us. Yet, just one month into the New Year, our hope that history would not repeat itself, that anti-Semitism would not again rear its ugly head, has been tempered by the realities of our times. January brought new and shocking manifestations of [...]

Filed under: Israeli / Palestinian   |  2 Comments
Tags: Abraham Foxman, ADL, Andrew Sullivan, antisemitism, Leon Wieseltier, new-antisemitism, zionism

Charlie Brooker on media coverage of Haiti

05Feb10

For my take on media coverage of the crisis in Haiti, see here.

Filed under: Latin America, Media, Videos   |  6 Comments
Tags: Charlie Brooker, Haiti, Media, Newswipe, Racism

Getting Voltaire wrong

04Feb10

According to Wikipedia Voltaire’s oft-cited defence of the right to free speech cannot in fact be attributed to him. Nor can this: “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll certainly give you prominent platform from which to say it.” Tim Marshall’s Foreign Matters blog at Sky News is a painfully [...]

Filed under: Activism, Israeli / Palestinian, meta   |  12 Comments
Tags: Benny Morris, Cambridge, Free Speech, Islamophobia, meta, Racism, Tim Marshall, university

Don’t mean no trouble…

02Feb10

From the now legendary Cambridge Tab: ‘The Cambridge University Israel Society have cancelled a talk  by former Cambridge student Benny Morris after pressure from students. The political historian, who was due to speak at Catz, has been accused in the press of ‘Islamophobia’. The decision to cancel the talk was made by Israel Society after [...]

Filed under: Activism, Israeli / Palestinian   |  9 Comments
Tags: Activism, Benny Morris, Cambridge Tab, Islamophobia, meta, Racism