Leonard Fein
By Leonard Fein
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Opinion Seize the Day, Tomorrow Could Be Worse
“We are witnessing a genuine grassroots revolution in Egypt and its outcome will have to reflect the will of the people, not our desires.” So writes a friend from Israel. But “the will of the people,” as awesomely impressive as it has been these past days in Tahrir Square and elsewhere, inevitably becomes a chimera…
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Opinion Hello, Germany
It is cold, unreasonably cold, and the fact that the news from around the world is mostly terrible doesn’t help. Having in mind the good and welfare of my readers, as also my own desire for an uplifting thaw, here is some news to warm the freezing heart. For the 11th year in a row,…
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Opinion In Cairo, Stability, Democracy — or Neither?
Be careful what you wish for. Over the years, American officials have with modest frequency lectured other countries about their denial of basic civil liberties to their citizens. Some lectures have been quite public: Cuba and Venezuela come readily to mind. Others, such as China, have typically been reported sotto voce. During the Cold War,…
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Opinion A Speech Chasing a Dream
“Tepid,” they said, and “flat.” “No specifics,” they charged; “a missed opportunity,” they concluded. When the commentators of CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN and MSNBC all have similar takes on a straightforward event — in this case, the president’s State of the Union message — I’m inclined to invoke my own private anti-trust act. Were there…
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Opinion A Rainbow in Tucson
Here is just one of the very many Tucson stories that have now become part of who we are: It is a story told by the political commentator Mark Shields, quoting his friend Allen Ginsberg, a historian in Maine: What we have witnessed (in part) is a white, Catholic, Republican federal judge murdered on his…
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Opinion Threats and Tools of Violence
Even as the commiseration is expressed, the prayers for the dead and the wounded accomplished, the mind turns to the context. “I’m only surprised this doesn’t happen more often, with the crazy irrational political climate we have right now,” writes a commenter on The New York Times website. Others remind us that during the fall…
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Opinion Mirror Image
The argument has long-since been familiar: If a two-state solution fails, dies from sheer exhaustion, then we’re looking either at a continuation of the status quo or at some form of one-state solution. The status quo is inherently noxious; it is also inherently unstable. It is folly to suppose that it can endure indefinitely, that…
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Opinion Theater of the Absurd
Act I: In September, some dozens of prominent Israeli rabbis signed a religious opinion calling on Jews not to rent or sell real estate to Arabs. Among the signers, many were municipal chief rabbis, meaning they are state employees. Their stated rationale? According to Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, of the Beit El settlement, “We don’t need…
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