The Death of Jewish Culture. By James Loeffler.

The Death of Jewish Culture. By James Loeffler. Mosaic, May 2014.

The Russian and Ukrainian Finalists in the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest.

Russia’s Eurovision performers made it to the finals — and got booed. By Terri Rupar. Washington Post, May 7, 2014.

Eurovision Song Contest 2014: Boos as Russia reach final. By Sophie van Brugen. Video. BBC News, May 7, 2014. 

Tolmachevy Sisters: Shine (Russia). 2014 Eurovision Song Contest First Semi-Final. Video. Eurovision Song Contest, May 6, 2014. YouTube. Tolmachevy Sisters profile, Eurovision. Preview video at YouTube.

Mariya Yaremchuk: Tick - Tock (Ukraine). 2014 Eurovision Song Contest First Semi-Final. Video. Eurovision Song Contest, May 6, 2014. YouTube. Mariya Yaremchuk profile, Eurovision. Preview video at YouTube.

Saving Higher Ed from Middle-Class Tyranny. By Peter Augustine Lawler.

Saving Higher Ed from Middle-Class Tyranny. By Peter Augustine Lawler. The American Interest, May 4, 2014.

The Streamlined Life. By David Brooks. New York Times, May 5, 2014.

Instant Citizens. By A. J. Delgado.

Instant Citizens. By A. J. Delgado. National Review Online, May 2, 2014.

CBS4 Investigates: Shortcut to Citizenship. By Rick Folbaum. With video. CBS Miami, April 30, 2014.  

Russian Women Flock to Miami to Give Birth to U.S. Citizens. By Shura Collinson. Moscow Times, April 15, 2014. Video at YouTube.

 

The Tragic History of the Two-State Solution. By Jeffrey Goldberg.

The Tragic History of the Two-State Solution. By Jeffrey Goldberg. Bloomberg, May 2, 2014.

Time for Democrats to Stop Celebrating Andrew Jackson. By Ari Rabin-Havt.

Time for Democrats to Stop Celebrating Andrew Jackson. By Ari Rabin-Havt. The American Prospect, May 2, 2014.

Realism in the Middle East. By Emanuele Ottolenghi.

Realism in the Middle East. By Emanuele Ottolenghi. Standpoint, May 2014.

Ottolenghi: 

President Obama’s latest attempt to cajole Israel and the Palestinian Authority into reaching a historic peace accord has floundered. Predictably, the blame game has now begun. Adding a new twist to the familiar script of failure in Middle East diplomacy, this time the US administration has chosen to join its European allies’ instinctive reaction of pointing the finger at Jerusalem, while Israel has publicly blamed the US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Each attempt no doubt has its peculiar qualities — the usual mixture of bad timing, clash of personalities and outside imponderables that make each round of failed peacemaking the stuff of lectures, essays, memoirs and recriminations.

Yet they all have much in common. For once one has replaced names or dates — US special envoy Martin Indyk for George Mitchell, 2008 for 2014 — the dynamics, stumbling blocks and predictable negative outcomes are the same.

Western diplomats, who seem keener than anyone else involved — Israelis and Palestinians included — to bring an end to this conflict, should ask the reason why. Why does peace remain elusive?

After all, it is these same diplomats who have insisted for more than 20 years that the contours of a peace deal are known to all and that the two sides always get to a point where they are “closer to a deal than ever before,” as John Kerry optimistically said last December, echoing Ehud Olmert’s almost identical statement in July 2008.

Funny, we are always so close, but we never get there. And that is part of the problem.

After 20 years of trying to find the perfect point of equilibrium in a complex algorithm of territorial, identity, and religious and material claims, it should be obvious that the peace-process formula has the wrong ingredients. Scientists would readily understand that repeating the same experiment over and over again without changing its elements or their quantities will always yield the same result.

Diplomats seem to miss this point. It is easier to blame “the extremists on both sides” or the craven pressure groups lurking in the shadows; the evils of nationalism or the perils of a fractious coalition; the shadows of the past or the narrative of the victor. Every time, something stands in the way whose nefarious influence could be removed or mitigated if only x, y or z were altered.

Europeans are fond of blaming America’s presumed bias towards Israel, forgetting, conveniently, that their lukewarm, fair-weather friendship for Israel can never replace American security guarantees. The liberal commentariat loves to go after Israeli hawks — it gives them a chance to let off their subconscious anti-Semitism by variously relabeling the object of their hatred with such anodyne terms as “the Israel lobby,” “neocons” and “settlers,” while downplaying terrorism, Islamic radicalism and the Arab world’s internal dynamics.

The BBC can wash its hands of the obligation to represent a complex story fairly, by embracing the morally neutered terminology of “bystanderism,” whereby fault lies with “the extremists on both sides” and other such invented “blame-both-sides” categories that only inhabit the moral equivalence of a liberal newsroom’s world.

Nobody, on the other hand, seems to have grasped the obvious, because it is unpalatable and inconvenient, especially to those who have spent a lifetime believing in Middle East peace both as an end in itself and a panacea for other problems. There is no deal because the cost of peacemaking far outweighs its benefits for either side.

After all, consider this. For Israelis and Palestinians alike the stumbling blocks, over the years, remain the same. The Palestinian demand for refugees to be granted a right of return, the Israeli demand for Palestinians to recognise Israel as a Jewish state and their mutually exclusive demands over sovereignty in Jerusalem are unlikely to change, because if compromised they would irreparably damage the core components of the national identity of each side.

Israel is unlikely to relinquish the strategic depth afforded by territorial control over the Jordan Valley and provided by the West Bank in exchange for vague international guarantees. Palestinian nationalism cannot leave behind, at least notionally, the millions of descendants of refugees who escaped the 1948 war, yet it is doubtful that it could accommodate them physically in a territory as small as the West Bank and Gaza and financially in an economy as tiny as the Palestinian one. And though Israel’s enemies would love to impose such an outcome, Israel is unlikely to commit national suicide.

As if this were not enough, past failures and regional developments compound the problem. Why should either side trust their negotiating partner when each previous attempt collapsed? What has changed to make it better?

Are the Palestinians less determined on resettling refugees? Have they renounced delegitimising Israel? Have settlements shrunk in size and demography? Are their inhabitants streaming back to pre-1967 Israel? Has Islam declared Jerusalem no longer holy? Has Judaism forgotten it? And how can Israel negotiate a final deal with the Palestinian Authority while Gaza remains under Hamas rule? Why should Israel take “risks for peace” when the entire region is in turmoil? Who can believe that a Palestinian government which signs a peace deal will survive long enough to make it stick, given the Islamic resurgence currently shaking the Arab world?

The Arab-Israeli conflict defies solution. It has always done so. It will continue to do so in the near future. Trying once more what failed before is doomed to beget more failure.

It is time the West recognised that the differences between the two sides are irreconcilable — and the sooner the better.

Why Liberals Think Conservatives Are Racists. By Rachel Lu.

Why Liberals Think Conservatives Are Racists. By Rachel Lu. The Federalist, May 2, 2014.

What Happens When A Palestinian Doesn’t Hate Israel Enough? By Luke Moon.

What Happens When A Palestinian Doesn’t Hate Israel Enough? By Luke Moon. The Federalist, May 1, 2014. 

Christy, a Palestinian Christian’s plea to Dr. Saeb Erekat. Video. Emmaus Group, April 25, 2014. YouTube.

When Does Criticism of Israel Become Anti-Semitic? By David Harsanyi.

When Does Criticism of Israel Become Anti-Semitic? By David Harsanyi. The Federalist, April 30, 2014.

The Right Wrestles with the Inequality Debate. By Walter Russell Mead.

The Right Wrestles with the Inequality Debate. By Walter Russell Mead. The American Interest, May 1, 2014.

Does It Matter that John Kerry Compared Israel to Apartheid? By Max Fisher.

Does it matter that John Kerry compared Israel to apartheid? By Max Fisher. Vox, April 29, 2014.

The Real Problem with Kerry’s “Apartheid” Myth. By David Harsanyi. The Federalist, April 29, 2014.

Hamas Must Repudiate the Anti-Semitism in its Charter. By Richard Cohen.

Hamas must repudiate the anti-Semitism in its charter. By Richard Cohen. Real Clear Politics, April 29, 2014. Also at the Washington Post.

John Kerry’s Jewish Best Friends. By Caroline Glick.

John Kerry’s Jewish Best Friends. By Caroline Glick. Jerusalem Post, April 29, 2014. Also at CarolineGlick.com.

Sorry, Israel Doomsaysers, the Conflict Can Be Managed. By Jonathan S. Tobin.

Sorry, Israel Doomsayers, the Conflict Can Be Managed. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, April 24, 2014.

Mike & the Mechanics: Beggar on a Beach of Gold.

Mike & the Mechanics: A Beggar on a Beach of Gold. Video. etnopollino, June 10, 2011. YouTube. Originally released 1995. Live at The House of Blues.

Mike & the Mechanics: Beggar on a Beach of Gold (1995). Full Album. Audio. MrOldBrownShoe96, October 15, 2012. YouTube.

Time to Choose: Liberalism or Zionism? By Dov Waxman.

Time to Choose: Liberalism or Zionism? By Dov Waxman. Haaretz, April 23, 2014.

Waiting for the Palestinian Godot. By Ari Shavit. Haaretz, April 24, 2014.

Discard the false visions of a binational state. By Salman Masalha. Haaretz, March 19, 2014.


Waxman:

It’s not easy being a liberal Zionist. Denounced by right-wing Zionists for being insufficiently pro-Israel and disparaged by left-wing anti-Zionists for being insufficiently universalist, liberal Zionists have long been on the defensive. How can they square their commitment to Jewish statehood with their commitment to liberal democracy? How can they support Israel when it oppresses Palestinians? How can they criticize Israel when it is the victim of terrorism, rejectionism and anti-Semitism? How can they align themselves with Israel’s enemies?

 

Challenged with such questions from the left and right, liberal Zionists have defended Israel’s claim to be a Jewish and democratic state (often conveniently overlooking the fact that Arabs make up almost 20 percent of its citizens). They have also championed the establishment of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories. For liberal Zionists, a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not only morally and strategically necessary for Israel, it is necessary for them. It is the only way to reconcile their Zionism and their liberalism; their support for Israel and their support for equality and human rights.

 

As long as the two-state solution is possible, liberal Zionism makes sense, at least to its adherents. This is why liberal Zionists have placed such high hopes on the U.S.-backed peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. While most Israelis and Palestinians — and many disinterested observers — long ago gave up their expectations for the peace process and now regard it with a mixture of skepticism and cynicism, liberal Zionists, especially those in the United States, still fervently believe in it. They have enthusiastically thrown their support behind American Jewish organizations like J Street that lobby for it. The peace process offers the tantalizing prospect of the realization of the liberal Zionists’ dream — two states for two peoples living peacefully side by side. As long as there’s a peace process, the dream lives on.

 

The failure of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace initiative, therefore, is a bitter blow for liberal Zionists. Over the past nine months, they set aside their doubts and invested their hopes in the slim chance that Kerry would somehow be able to cajole, entice and pressure Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas into making the difficult decisions and compromises necessary for a peace agreement. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, liberal Zionists desperately tried to convince themselves that this time things would turn out differently. Although every previous U.S. administration that has tried to broker peace has failed, the Obama administration could succeed; although Bibi has never demonstrated bold leadership, now he would; although Abbas has already turned down a previous Israeli offer, this time he wouldn’t.

 

It is now brutally clear that the current peace process will not end the conflict. Even if peace talks continue, there is no real prospect that a comprehensive final-status agreement can be reached, let alone implemented. Without such an agreement, the two-state solution is impossible to achieve since it can only be accomplished through mutual consent, not unilateral actions (such as an Israeli withdrawal from parts of the West Bank or Palestinian membership in the United Nations).

 

The apparent demise of the peace process forces liberal Zionists to confront a painful question that many wish to avoid — if a two state solution is now impossible, should they support, however reluctantly, a one-state solution? Must they concede that the only way to end the occupation is to endorse the principle of equal rights for Jews and Palestinians in all of Israel/Palestine? While granting citizenship to Palestinians living under Israeli rule in the West Bank effectively spells the end of the Jewish state, how much longer can liberal Zionists uphold Jewish self-determination at the expense of Palestinian self-determination?

 

To be sure, a one-state solution may be just as impossible as a two-state solution, if not more so — civil war and even ethnic cleansing are more likely outcomes than peaceful coexistence. Perhaps this long, interminable conflict cannot be resolved, at least not for the foreseeable future. In that case, liberal Zionists much accept that there is no easy way for them to reconcile their liberalism and their Zionism. Instead, they must either abandon their liberalism or their Zionism, or just learn to live with the constant tension between them. Whatever they choose, it will only become harder to be a liberal Zionist.

What Do You Call It When a Big Country Takes a Chunk of a Small One? Greed (And We Should Know). By David Lee McMullen.

What Do You Call It When a Big Country Takes a Chunk of a Small One? Greed (And We Should Know). By David Lee McMullen. History News Network, April 20, 2014. Also at Rambling Historian.

The Closing of the Academic Mind. By M.G. Oprea.

The Closing of the Academic Mind. By M.G. Oprea. The Federalist, April 21, 2014.

Let’s Give Up on Academic Freedom in Favor of Justice. By Sandra Y. L. Korn. NJBR, February 26, 2014. Published in The Harvard Crimson, February 18, 2014.


Oprea:

Harvard student Sandra Y.L. Korn recently proposed in The Harvard Crimson that academics should be stopped if their research is deemed oppressive. Arguing that “academic justice” should replace “academic freedom,” she writes: “If our university community opposes racism, sexism, and heterosexism, why should we put up with research that counters our goals simply in the name of ‘academic freedom’?”

 

In other words, Korn would have the university cease to be a forum for open debate and free inquiry in the name of justice, as defined by mainstream liberal academia.

 

Unfortunately, this is already a reality in most universities across America, where academics and university administrators alike are trying, often successfully, to discredit and prohibit certain ideas and ways of thinking. Particularly in the humanities, many ideas are no longer considered legitimate, and debate over them is de facto non-existent. In order to delegitimize researchers who are out of line, academics brand them with one of several terms that have emerged from social science theory.

 

The first term, “hegemonic,” is frequently used in history courses, literary criticism, and gender studies. Hegemony, of course, is a legitimate word that is often useful in describing consistency and uniformity. However, most people outside academia are unaware that being called “hegemonic” is the insult du jour. It strongly implies that you are close-minded and perhaps even bigoted. This term may be applied to offences ranging from referencing the habits or dress of a cultural group to discussing the views held by a religion (and daring to question them—so long as the religion in question is not Christianity).

 

To do these things is to “essentialize” those people by speaking about them broadly and being so bold as to imply that they may share a practice or belief in a general sense. It is the insult of those who would have every department in academia broken down into sub-departments ad infinitum in order to avoid saying anything general about anything, resulting in verbal and intellectual paralysis.

 

This strategy of labeling has been particularly successful in its application to middle-eastern and Islamic studies. Any author, or student, who does not join in the liberal narrative about Islamic culture—which includes unwavering support for Palestinians, the absolute equality of men and women in Islam, and an insistence on the peaceful nature of the religion despite any violent tendencies in its foundation— will find themselves labeled an “orientalist.”

 

Edward Said popularized this term in his 1978 post-colonial work Orientalism. According to many of my colleagues, an orientalist is a person who writes about the Middle East from a “western perspective,” which is when one does not unquestioningly support and affirm Middle Eastern and Islamic culture. This does not mean that westerners are excluded from writing about the Middle East and Islam. A westerner can do so successfully so long as their research is void of criticism. Write anything else and you will find yourself labeled an orientalist and no graduate course will touch your work with a ten-foot pole.

 

Sadly, this is precisely what has happened to the work of Bernard Lewis, one of the world’s most renowned Middle East scholars. Because he has written about clashes between Islam and the West, and is willing to look at the Middle East outside the utopian academic optic, Lewis has been “dis-credited” and replaced with authors like Tariq Ramadan in college or graduate course syllabi. Similarly, Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States and visiting professor at Harvard, Yale, and Georgetown universities, has been dismissed as “not a historian” by some academics, presumably because of his pro-Israeli stance. Kambiz Ghanea Bassiri, an associate professor at Reed College, strips the scholar Daniel Pipes of his status as a historian, writing that he is a “historian of Islam turned pro-Israel activist,” implying that the two are mutually exclusive.

 

The effect of discrediting one’s opponents in this way—rather than engaging and debating their ideas—is to create an academia where there is only one right way to think. If you dissent, you will be blackballed and labeled as hegemonic or orientalist.

 

Nowhere has this been more evident than in Brandeis University’s withdrawal of an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali recently because of her “controversial” stance on women’s rights in Muslim society, which mostly consists of objecting to things like female genital mutilation, forced marriages, and honor killings. Rather than defending Hirsi Ali, or at the very least welcoming the debate that her presence would bring, Brandeis chose to shut her out. This was done at the behest of Brandeis faculty, students, and the Council of American-Islamic Relations, all of whom claim she is Islamaphobic.

 

The censorial climate of academia extends beyond tenured professors and touches the students, both in undergraduate and graduate school. They are being taught what is and is not an “acceptable” way of thinking rather than being encouraged to think through difficult questions on their own.

 

(I recently met a fellow graduate student from a Muslim-majority country who confessed that she is disgusted with the way women are treated in her home country. She finds the inequality unacceptable. However, she felt the need to make a caveat: “I know as an academic and a Muslim I shouldn’t say this…”)

 

The trouble is, very few in academia will even engage supposedly orientalist and hegemonic views. How can one argue against a room full of graduate students—and a professor—who dismiss such views out of hand and label dissenters with epithets that are tantamount to “racist” in academic parlance?

 

Korn’s dream of a “just” academic utopia is already being realized. But like many utopian visions, there is a dark underbelly. Anyone who does not ascribe to the dogma of “academic justice” can expect to be shunned and muzzled—as Brandeis demonstrated recently. The irony is that in its effort to eliminate allegedly close-minded and bigoted views, the university itself has become illiberal, dogmatic, and intellectually hegemonic.

 

If we shut the doors on academic freedom, the acceptable territory of research and discourse will continue to shrink over time, and the self-censorial dogma of the academy will inevitably trickle out beyond the boundaries of the university campus, threatening freedom of speech—and thought—in society at large.

David McCullough, Jr, the “You’re Not Special” Teacher, Pens New Book.

“You’re not special” teacher pens new book. Video. The Kelly File. Fox News, April 22, 2014. Also at Fox News Insider.

You Are Not Special Commencement Speech from Wellesley High School. By David McCullough, Jr. Video. WellesleyChannelTV, June 7, 2012. YouTube. Transcript.

Taking Religion Seriously. By Charles Murray.

Taking Religion Seriously. By Charles Murray. The American, April 18, 2014.

Inequality Today: The Left-Liberal Narrative. By Walter Russell Mead.

Inequality Today: The Left-Liberal Narrative. By Walter Russell Mead. The American Interest, April 22, 2014.

Class Warfare Justified? By Robert J. Samuelson. Real Clear Politics, April 21, 2014. Also at the Washington Post.

The Most Important Book Ever Written Is All Wrong. By Clive Crook. Bloomberg, April 20, 2014.

Marx Rises Again. By Ross Douthat. New York Times, April 19, 2014.

Why We’re in a New Gilded Age. By Paul Krugman. New York Review of Books, May 8, 2014. Also here.

Why Inequality Doesn’t Matter. By Ben Domenech. The Federalist, April 23, 2014.

What Thomas Piketty’s Popularity Tells Us About the Liberal Press. By David Harsanyi. The Federalist, April 23, 2014.

The Sources of Egyptian Anti-Semitism. By Samuel Tadros.

The Sources of Egyptian Anti-Semitism. By Samuel Tadros. The American Interest, April 21, 2014.

Mark Levin Interviews William A. Jacobson on the BDS Movement.

On The Mark Levin Show talking Israel and the boycotters. By William A. Jacobson. Audio. Legal Insurrection, April 21, 2014. YouTube. Also at The Right Scoop.

Anti-Conservative Eliminationist Theorist Exonerates Anti-Zionist Conspiracy Theorist. By William A. Jacobson.

Anti-Conservative Eliminationist Theorist exonerates anti-Zionist Conspiracy Theorist. By William A. Jacobson. Legal Insurrection, April 20, 2014.