Politics

French Foreign Minister Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand (1754-1838) was an accomplished political survivor who managed to serve the French revolutionary government, Napoleon Bonaparte, and the postwar Bourbon restoration. He was a subtle and accomplished statesman, remembered today primarily for his sage advice to his fellow diplomats: “Above all, no... See more

former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, used to call this kind of negotiation “dead cat diplomacy,” where the goal was less to reach an accord and more to ensure that if the negotiations failed, the responsibility—the dead cat—would be left at the other’s doorstep.

Beginning with the New Deal and extending through the first three decades after World War II, the federal government created centers of economic power that offset the power of the giant corporations and Wall Street.

Unions pushed for and won legislation in 1935 that legitimized collective bargaining, and then, in subsequent decades, built economic ... See more

In the midst of all of that, the Arab world is moving on. The new game in town is Saudi-Israel normalization. The two-state solution is off the table. Palestinian freedom is off the table. Washington is distracted with other issues; it’s not a priority. So I think all of those are the context in which they’re saying, “Look, right now, Palestinians ... See more

How do we get there? There may be truth in the familiar Irish quip – “I wouldn’t start from here” – but I think the answer has already been provided by the Jews, Muslims, and others campaigning simultaneously against anti-Semitism and genocide. Israelis and Palestinians must mutually acknowledge (perhaps via a South African-like Truth and Reconcili... See more

More than half a million Germans migrated to the United States in the two decades before the rise of the Third Reich, largely for economic reasons. It would be absurd to claim they were morally superior to those who stayed and participated in the Nazi regime. They were simply spared the moral test that so many of their compatriots, whether through ... See more

Though these categories overlap, Israeli violations of international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict in the war may be broadly grouped as follows: starvation, torture, mass executions, and the indiscriminate use of bombs, drones, and missiles.

This awful past has resonated deeply with me for months as I have watched the unfolding of the conflict between Israel and Hamas and the outrageous toll that it has taken on civilians on both sides—first against Israelis, and then in vastly larger numbers against Palestinians. Dower argues, I believe convincingly, that one only arrives at a state o... See more

The advocates of revolutionary politics, meanwhile, are reduced to melancholic apathy, their ‘pseudo activity’ taking the place of the political work of the revolution. Žižek is scathing in his critique of the ‘local stupidities’ of the ‘Left’ (scare quotes are his) that is more concerned with ideological purity than material change, making enemies... See more