It’s a question Israelis and Israel advocates of all political stripes have been asking in recent months. What has caused Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist and pro-market liberal, to lurch from centre-left defender of the State of Israel to increasingly shrill basher of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli government, and the state itself? WeContinue reading “What’s the matter with Thomas Friedman?”
Category Archives: america
By their fruitcakes ye shall know them
You can always judge a politician by their followers. Mitt Romney attracts the committed, Ron Paul the committable. Grassroots campaigners are essential in American politics, in those states with lengthy caucus and primary processes, and even elsewhere thanks to the Internet’s empowerment of the ideologically energised. Politicians must rely on these people to get their messageContinue reading “By their fruitcakes ye shall know them”
Ron Paul, an unexamined phenomenon
The American primary process, a kind of elongated sweeps for the cable news channels, is a four-yearly vaudeville show that doubles as a selection process for future leaders of the free world. Imagine the aesthetics of American Idol welded to the intellectual demeanour of pro football. When it’s the Democrats, there’s also a touch of the campusContinue reading “Ron Paul, an unexamined phenomenon”
Let us now praise an infamous man
Christopher Hitchens is gone. ‘Dead’, he would prefer. ‘Gone’ is too mystical, a tacit indulgence of superstitious notions of a life beyond the temporal. ‘Death is certain,’ he insisted. ‘There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.’ Now who will rail? Now who will rage? Now who will reason? Hitchens was more than anContinue reading “Let us now praise an infamous man”
Stephen Daisley 