Category: Religion


Is This Lobby Different From All Others?

The American relationship with Israel is both a political and an intellectual challenge for some students of foreign affairs.  Convinced that US national interests would be best served by distancing ourselves from the Jewish state, scholars try to figure out why our country behaves in this seemingly self-defeating way.
The problem is particularly tough for hard [...]




The Israel Lobby and Gentile Power

The more I’ve studied the long-term politics of Zionism in the United States, the more I’ve been struck by a paradox.  While most people see the Israel lobby as an attempt to use Jewish financial and electoral power to impose a special Jewish agenda on American foreign policy, it hasn’t actually worked that way.
In the [...]




Don’t Blame The Jews

Many people think that Jewish lobbying, pressure and influence dragged a reluctant Uncle Sam into the Middle East.  Think again.
Now it’s true that American opposition to Zionism has a long and distinguished pedigree.  In the 19th century, American missionaries built a network of colleges and hospitals across what was then the Ottoman Empire and what [...]




Holy Crap Rap

I always love when a blog post can be set to music, so I was very glad to be tipped off by a linking website (HT: Irenic Thoughts) to this video.
I was a little mystified by what these young people were doing until my research associate Sam (formerly team intern here at Mead GHQ, but [...]




The Night Yasser Arafat Kissed Me

The stars were sparking over Gaza on the unforgettable night when Yasser Arafat kissed me — gently, tenderly, sincerely.  I’ve rarely felt more relaxed or more comfortable with a world leader; he was kneading my shoulders and massaging my back at the time.  As the tension of a hard day drained out of me, I [...]




Faith Matters Sunday: The Perils of Common Sense

Theodore Roosevelt may have called him a “filthy little atheist,” but Tom Paine’s pamphlet “Common Sense” got right to the heart of the American world view.  Common sense is more than a political slogan in the United States; a belief in common sense is basic to democracy as we think of it here in this [...]




Literary Saturday: The Communist Manifesto

Everybody should read The Communist Manifesto, and read it more than once.  Short, fast-moving and written to be understood by a wide audience, it’s a gripping read, a huge intellectual accomplishment, and a way of thinking about the world that has shaped almost everything that came after it.  It was once said that the second [...]




Thinking the Unthinkable: War With Iran

“Do not even think about bombing Iran,” wrote Michael O’Hanlon and Bruce Reidel in yesterday’s Financial Times.  Pointing out that the US has two unpopular and unfinished wars in the region already, and that the damage from any military strikes on the Islamic Republic would be unlikely to do enough damage to its nuclear program [...]




Back In The Saddle

After a rough week of paper grading, family visits and writing capsule reviews for Foreign Affairs, I’m getting back to an ambitious blogging schedule.  I’m working on a post about war with Iran that should be up by morning, planning a look at the state of the climate change movement following Al Gore’s typically unreflective [...]




Middle East ‘Realists’: Anti-Semites or Just Dumb?

The Gallup organization has come out with yet another poll showing that Americans by an overwhelming percentage sympathize with the Israelis rather than the Palestinians.  This time, the pro-Israel sentiment is at a near record level: 63 percent of those asked said their sympathies lie more with Israel, 23 percent said both or neither, and [...]




Fools Rush In

Regular longtime readers of this blog know about E. Benjamin Skinner, a former Team Mead research associate who has gone on to great things.  He wrote a book on slavery in the contemporary world, A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery, which received the 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for nonfiction. In the course [...]




Sunday Jeremiad: Petty Prophets of the Blue Beast

There’s nothing like Lent for reflecting on the sins of other people; I thought I’d start at the top — with the bishops of my own church.  As the Episcopal church along with the other mainline Protestant denominations diminishes, we don’t have to look far to see bishops and leaders who are largely failing in [...]




The Holy Crap Must Go

Almost 500 years ago, Martin Luther posted his famous 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.  There’s no doubt that a lot of serious prayers were prayed and good sermons preached in the Castle Church where Luther posted his theses.  But over the years a lot of holy crap had collected [...]




Antisemitism Saturday

Antisemitism is never a great subject to discuss, but there are two good reasons for posting on it today.  One is that the entire internet has been aflame with the feud between Andrew Sullivan and his longtime mentor Leon Wieseltier, and the question of whether Sullivan is an antisemite has gotten half the country’s bloggers [...]




Top 10 Global Trends of the 2010s Recap

Last week, I wrote about the following global trends that will be shaping our world in the coming decade; each are listed below, with links to the longer, more detailed predictions.
Interesting Times: All of these global trends will be fueled by, and responding to, the unprecedented rate of technological change. The acceleration of advancement that [...]




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From the March/April 2010 issue

Behind the Settlements

West Bank settlements hollow out respect for the law in the State of Israel.

Are the Settlements Illegal?

Answering that question is a pitfall the Obama Administration has been wise to avoid.

Allies Divided

Israel and America have long taken opposite approaches to managing Palestinians and other Arabs.

The Outpatient Prison

How to lower both the prison population and crime—at the same time.

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