The United States must look past the violence and extremism that has erupted after the “Arab Spring” revolutions and boost support for the region’s young democracies to forge long-term security, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday. Clinton, seeking to reinforce the Obama administration’s Middle East policy following a wave of anti-American violence and…
Jordan’s King Abdullah appointed reformist politician Abdullah Ensour as Prime Minister on Wednesday to prepare for the country’s first post-Arab Spring parliamentary election, due by early next year, a palace statement said. The monarch had dissolved Jordan’s tribally dominated parliament last week, half-way through its four-year term, paving the way for the election that should…
Video: Nate Lavey A year and a half after the ouster of Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the president of the Tunisian Jewish community is wistful for the one-party government that ruled the country for decades. “You cannot find a better government than what we had,” said Roger Bismuth, who has held the…
Today is Purim — the day that we are commanded to retell the story of how a Persian Queen helped save her fellow Jews from annihilation. It’s also International Women’s Day. So it’s no coincidence that a group that opposes the Iranian regime, and its efforts to obtain nuclear weapons — an organization backed by…
The Arab Spring presents a conundrum for many liberal Jews. As liberals they feel compelled to advocate self-determination over tyranny and democracy over dictatorship. But as Jews they worry that the Arab dictators, particularly Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, held down the lid on a seething Pandora’s Box of popular anti-Semitism. On the contrary, though, I would…
This past year was a historic one for the Arab world. The regional security order that has been in place for decades has been upended, and there is great uncertainty as to the new political, economic and security dynamics taking shape. The near future will be complex and volatile, and nowhere more so than in…
Harsh, relentless, and unforgiving, the Russian winter has played a major role in preventing the armies of Napoleon and Hitler from invading and conquering Russia. The Russian winter is a variable with a track record of changing the course of history. But perhaps change is the wrong word — rather than encourage change, this unbeatable…
As the countries and peoples of the Middle East seek to forge their political futures, they, or at least some of them, are searching for models of democracy that they can follow. Of course, they can look to democratic theory, but how many ordinary people will crack open John Locke, the Federalist Papers, or John…
100% of profits support our journalism
