Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Provides Lessons For Our Time
On the anniversary of the month-long uprising and as Israel marks Holocaust Memorial Day, Heather Robinson of Algeimener urges action against those threatening the destruction of the Jewish state.
Today, with Iran–a genocidal regime whose leaders have stated their murderous intentions–on its way to attaining nuclear capability, we know better than to believe that genocide is unimaginable and too illogical to ever occur in the modern world. We have a concrete example of what happened 70 years ago when the Jews of Europe took a wait-and-see approach to dealing with a fanatical regime intent on their elimination.
Why Iran’s Mullahs Cannot Rest Easy
Writing in the New York Times, Ray Takeyh warns that Iran’s vibrant history of opposition politics cannot be suppressed forever.
The postwar history of Iran reveals a perennial struggle between successive social movements seeking emancipation and accountability, and despotic governments uneasily resting their power on repression. The dream of dictatorial stability has always eluded Iran’s rulers, whether monarchs or Islamists, as they have confronted a populace with an undaunted spirit of dissent. That spirit is bound to resurface, bedeviling Iran’s politics and complicating its diplomatic path.
American evangelicals are not entirely united in their blanket support for Israel, with some wondering why they are not more pro- Palestinian, writes Lee Smith in Tablet Magazine.
To pro-Israel evangelicals and Zionists who were paying attention, Christ at the Checkpoint was a wake-up call. The larger trend, which for want of a better phrase might be called the pro-Palestinian evangelical movement and is indeed spearheaded by Palestinian Christians, is already changing minds. Giving them momentum are money raised in the United States, theology, and perhaps most important of all, a movie. The documentary film With God on Our Side is leaving many former pro-Israel evangelicals wondering why they never heard the Palestinian side of the story.
In Gaza, Hamas rule has not turned out as many expected
Gazans have discovered that their Islamist rulers are as easily swayed by the trappings of power as other politicians, writes Karin Brulliard in the Washington Post.
Hamas has hired more than 40,000 civil servants, and analysts say the top tiers are filled by loyalists. Members of the Hamas elite are widely thought to have enriched themselves through investment in the dusty labyrinth of smuggling tunnels beneath the border with Egypt and taxes on the imported goods. That money has been channeled into flashy cars and Hamas-owned businesses that only stalwarts get a stake in, critics say.
After years of comfortable and familiar ties, writes Aaron David Miller in Foreign Policy, American officials must now navigate a Middle East without their old allies who ruled pre-Arab Spring.
In the new Arab Oz, the recent rebellions were strangely leaderless. So far, no single individual or leader has emerged to command a mass, popular following that could be converted into real staying power. In Egypt, the young Googlers and liberals who played such a key role early on have been marginalized by better organized and more disciplined forces, namely the military and the Muslim Brotherhood, while the death of the Coptic pope last month leaves the country’s 8 million Copts leaderless at a critical moment. In Yemen, Saleh’s successor, a weak interim president (dubbed Mrs. Saleh by some) presides over a precarious transition. If there are strong leaders waiting to emerge, they’re not yet even in the wings.
The Egyptian army’s determination to maintain its powerbase and business empire could lead it into direct confrontation with the now dominant Muslim Brotherhood, writes Rajan Menon in the LA Times.
The military-intelligence complex has reacted by trying to engineer a post-Mubarak polity that protects its vast economic empire and guarantees the army a political role. So it was shaken when the parliamentary election results were announced in January: The Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and its allies won more than 45% of the 508 seats, the Salafists’ Al Nour and its partners, 25%.
