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Middle East Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 24, 2009 20 Comments

I can't keep up with all the ways in which this administration is failing. From the health care restructuring proposals gone sour, to the slippage in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the appeasement of Hugo Chavez and Iran and the bullying of Honduras, to the end...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 03, 2009 4 Comments

Until June 2009, when Iranians took to the streets to protest corrupt elections, I had not heard of Juan Cole, blogger and Professor of History. But for those weeks, Juan Cole was all that, bringing his expertise and connections to bear better than most bloggers. But...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 02, 2009 13 Comments

The remains of Navy Captain Scott Speicher, a pilot who has been missing since being shot down during the 1991 Gulf War, have been positively identified. The Pentagon has released a statement:The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) has positively identified remains recovered in Iraq...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 26, 2009 2 Comments

A court in Great Britain has found that a religious Jewish school engaged in racial discrimination by applying the traditional definition of who is a Jew as part of its admissions policy.Traditionally, whether one is Jewish is determined by maternal lineage. If one's mother is...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 15, 2009 4 Comments

In the weeks prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Johns Hopkins Professor and noted Middle East scholar Fouad Ajami wrote that a free Iraq might have a profound impact on neighboring Iran:It is in the nature of things today, in an Iranian...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 10, 2009 14 Comments

One thing, to a certainty, is that the Holocaust Museum shooting by a long-time neo-Nazi white supremacist, who previously committed an attempted shooting at the Federal Reserve in 1981, will be used for political purposes.Although the shooting is only hours old, numerous blogs already are...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 10, 2009 2 Comments

Latest tail-wags-dog faux story: Israeli "Minister without Portfolio" Yossi Peled sent an 11-page letter, revealed by the Jerusalem Post, to Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. At one point in the letter, Peled says that if the U.S. keeps moving in an anti-Israel direction, Israel should reconsider...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 08, 2009 3 Comments

If you want to know why Barack Obama was spitting into the wind with his "historic" speech to the Muslim world, at least as regards the Israeli-Palestinian issue, there is no better example than this juxtaposition of Palestinians booby-trapping horses as part of a failed...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 08, 2009 1 Comment

Hamas reacted to Obama's "historic" speech to the Muslim world by attempting to kidnap Israeli soldiers along the Gaza border last night, in a coordinated assault timed also to coincide with the Lebanese elections:DEBKAfile's military sources report at least four Palestinians killed after Israeli air...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 07, 2009 2 Comments

Election result are in from Lebanon, and the pro-Western "March 14" parties are the big winner:The March 14 alliance clinched around 70 out of 128 seats, maintaining its majority in parliament after defeating the Hizbullah-led alliance in Sunday's crucial elections. Celebrations broke out in several...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 07, 2009 0 Comments

From The Guardian, showing that investment fraud is universal:Jawad Tawfiq, a 52-year-old Gazan actor and director, was dubious at first, but his nephew insisted. If they could scrape together enough money, the nephew said, large profits could be made from investing in the tunnels that...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 07, 2009 8 Comments

In his "historic" speech to the Muslim world, Barack Obama spoke up for the rights of women. The first example Obama used was the right of Muslim women in the West to wear hair covering (italics mine):The sixth issue that I want to address is...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 05, 2009 3 Comments

A portion in Barack Obama's "historic" speech to the Muslim world was particularly odd. In apologizing for religious intolerance in the United States, Obama said as follows:Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together. We must always examine the ways...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 05, 2009 10 Comments

I didn't know what the term "shorter" meant until I started blogging. A "shorter" is someone who exaggerates someone else's opinion, or creates a false choice between two extremes. Back in the day, such form of argument would be called setting up a "strawman."As others...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 04, 2009 8 Comments

Here is a one sentence summary of Barack Obama's "historic" speech to the Muslim world:"I have no right to tell you how to live, because we're as bad as you are, but here's how you need to live."--------------------------------------------Follow me on Twitter and Facebook...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 03, 2009 3 Comments

Depends on what the meaning of "bow" is. Because leaning down to have a medal put over your head is not a bow. How could anyone think otherwise? From LGF:Please note! Barack Obama is absolutely not bowing to King Abdullah! He’s receiving a medal.That is...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 05, 2009 5 Comments

Al-Jazeera, which has served as a continuous conduit for al-Qaeda videos, has released a hit-piece on American troops in Afghanistan.The highly edited, and ominously narrated, few minutes of tape purport to reveal a plot a year ago by a group of Christian evangelical American soldiers...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 29, 2009 25 Comments

It would be very easy to fall into a depression over Arlen Specter switching political parties, giving Democrats a likely filibuster-proof Senate majority. The result will be that Obama will be able to push through much of his agenda without meaningful debate.Not that I will...

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