Preparing for the unlikely
As a new Jewish year begins, renewed U.S.-led peace talks continue between Israel and the Palestinians. Much has been written about the low expectations surrounding these negotiations on both sides. Certainly, Israelis and Jews have good reason to be skeptical. The resumption of Palestinian violence at the...
Church settlement boycott becomes interfaith train wreck
This past August, the General Council of the United Church of Canada, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, adopted a motion urging its members to boycott goods produced in West Bank settlements. The proposal was part of a larger, rather one-sided report prepared by the church’s Working Group...
Why seek validation from the IOC? Instead, flip it the bird
I love the Olympics, but not for the reasons you might think. It can be truly inspiring to watch the best athletes in the world – and the best Canada has to offer – compete against one another at the highest levels of sport. And I’m...
Why Thomas Mulcair gets it when it comes to Israel
Not surprisingly, Thomas Mulcair won the NDP leadership last month, replacing Saint Jack Layton as the man social democrats hope can rally left-of-centre voters to defeat Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. Here’s hoping he’s successful, but as I argued in an earlier post, it seems unlikely that...
‘Israeli apartheid’ is a slur that does no one any good
Campuses around the world are beginning to witness a series of annual events known as Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), and it’s a particularly depressing time of the year to be a progressive Jew. That’s because when you call Israel an apartheid regime, as many on the...
This guy has tenure at Columbia
Joseph Massad, an associate professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University, had this to say on Al Jazeera’s website on Oct. 27, 2011. It’s a deconstruction, of sorts, of recent speeches by U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the...