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Picture of Judea Pearl

Judea Pearl

Judea Pearl is a professor of computer science at UCLA and president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, named after his son. He is co-editor of “I am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl” (Jewish Lights, 2004), winner of the National Jewish Book Award.

Judea Pearl: A Poem for Israel’s 61st

The song was written for Micha Shagrir\’s documentary film \”Mirdaf\”, during the War of Attrition (1968-1970). It describes the military situation along the Jordan border when PLO raids against Israel, followed by IDF chases after the perpetrators, became a daily routine. The song was first performed by Chava Alberstein, to music by Nahum Haiman (this year\’s recipient of Israel\’s Prize) and can be heard on you-tube (search for Mirdaf).

Our New Marranos

Three years ago, in a column in this journal, I argued for the formula, “Anti-Zionism = Racism,” instead of the standard claim that anti-Zionism is a cover for anti-Semitism. My aim was to empower pro-Israel students with a more potent intellectual weapon to fight back the rising anti-Israel campaign on college campuses.

It’s time for words to lead the peace process

Let us be frank: The current stalemate is ideological, not physical, and it hangs on two major contentions: \”historical right\” and \”justice,\” which must be wrestled with in words before we can expect any substantive movement on the ground.

A clash of two birthdays

In sharp contrast to the birthdayof Kuntar, next month will witness another birthday celebration closerto my heart: the birthday of our late son, Daniel Pearl, who would have turned 45 on Oct. 10

Al-Jazeera and the glorification of barbarity

The focus of my attention naturally turned to Al-Jazeera because, with its outreach of 50 million viewers from Morocco to the Persian Gulf, this pan-Arab satellite channel is considered the conscience and future of the Arab world.

Israel @ 60: Confronting denial

Each year, in preparation for Israel\’s birthday, newspaper editors feel an uncontrolled urge, a divine calling in fact, to invite Arab writers to tell us why Israel should not exist.

History disproves myth that founding Zionists were naive

We are often told, mostly by anti-Israel propagandists, that the early Zionists\’ attitude toward the indigenous Arab population in Palestine was laden with ignorance, naivete, denial, contempt, abuse and outright oppression. Afif Safieh, the PLO representative to the United States, tells audiences on campus after campus: \”[Palestinians] have suffered three successive denials — a denial of their mere physical existence, a denial of their national rights and, the most morally disturbing, a denied recognition of their pain and suffering.\”

A culture of violence or a cult of the superficial?

When The Journal asked me to write a note about the murder of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, I initially declined. I did not feel I had anything insightful or original to add to the dozens of gloomy and desperate articles we have been receiving by Pakistanis and Western analysts in the wake of that horrible tragedy.

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