Roundup: Media's Take

Emanuele Ottolenghi: The Great Myth of Palestinian Statehood

[Mr. Ottolenghi is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and author of "Iran: The Looming Crisis," (Profile Books, 2010).] Since Sept. 11, 2001, American neoconservatives have forcefully argued that the combination of economic stagnation, rapid demographic growth, lack of upward social mobility, and political repression in most Arab countries was a breeding ground for Islamic radicalism. Their "freedom agenda"—which George W. Bush embraced

Anne Applebaum: In the Arab world, it's 1848 - not 1989

[Anne Applebaum is a weekly columnist for The Post, writing on foreign affairs.] "Each revolution must be assessed in its own context, each had a distinctive impact. The revolutions spread from one point to another. They interacted to a limited extent. . . . The drama of each revolution unfolded separately. Each had its own heroes, its own crises. Each therefore demands its own narrative." That could be the first paragraph from a future history of the Arab rev

Marc Michael: Truths of the 'Lotus Revolution'

[Marc Michael is a doctoral student in sociology at the University of Cambridge, currently completing his dissertation, A debt of one's own, on the topic of microfinance and Islamic finance. He also specializes in issues of gender and social theory, public health and political economy in the Middle East and Africa.] As the angry slogans, joyous roars and festive dances of Tahrir square give way to the possible birth of a civilian, liberal representational democracy, Egypt enters a t

Jonah Goldberg: Public Unions Must Go

[Jonah Goldberg is a columnist for the LA Times and editor at large for the National Review.] The protesting public school teachers with fake doctor's notes swarming the Capitol building in Madison, Wis., insist that Gov. Scott Walker is hell-bent on "union busting" in their state. Walker denies that his effort to reform public sector unions in Wisconsin is anything more than an honest attempt at balancing the state's books. I hope the protesters are right. Pu

Laurence Pope: The Second Arab Awakening

[Laurence Pope is a retired U.S. diplomat and former political advisor at the U.S Central Command.] PORTLAND, MAINE — In 1938, George Antonius, a Lebanese-Egyptian writer and diplomat, wrote a seminal book titled “The Arab Awakening,” tracing the spread of Western ideas in the Arab world and the origins of a new pan-Arab consciousness to institutions such as the American University of Beirut and Robert College in Istanbul. In the postwar years, this hopeful vision was r

Frederick Bowie: This Is Our Revolution, Too

[Frederick Bowie is an independent journalist. He has spent many years living and working in the Middle East, and was a regular contributor to Al-Ahram Weekly (Cairo).] Europeans just cannot seem to get Islam, or more properly, Islamism, out of their heads. This seems to be particularly true of Europeans who have not spent much time in the Islamic world, and whose idea of immersion journalism is to spend an afternoon wandering round an immigrant neighbourhood in the European capital

M. M. Lieberman: Should Israel Revisit Egypt Peace Deal?

[The writer is a fellow with the Truman National Security Project, and an international attorney in Washington, DC.] Unlike the Passover story Israelis will soon commemorate, the liberation tale playing out in Egypt today leaves many Jews conflicted. Witnessing the Egyptian people cast off their millennial shackles resonates deeply for the descendants of that country’s Hebrew slaves. Yet the modern-day pharaohs’ more recent attempts to destroy the Jews have put security ahead of ide

David Hirst: Gaddafi cruelly resists, but this Arab democratic revolution is far from over

[David Hirst, a former Middle East correspondent for the Guardian, was a reporter at the paper from 1963 to 1997.] The world has yet to settle on an agreed term for the great events unfolding across the Middle East. I was in the depths of the French countryside – out of touch, and with a BBC World Service that could only fade in and out of hearing late at night and early morning – during their latest, awe-inspiring Egypt phase. But I was soon persuaded that the designation which, in

Courtland Milloy: Revisionists Having a Ball with Civil War Anniversary

[Courtland Milloy is a metro columnist for the WaPo.] Put on your hoop skirts, little ladies; top hats and spats for you Southern gents. Blacks, to the kitchen. It's the sesquicentennial of the "War Between the States," and we're going to have us a "Secession Ball." Forget somber commemoration. Celebrate a victory more important than any fought on a battlefield: a triumphant revising of Civil War history by Confederate sympathizers. &quo

Adam Paul Laxalt: Recovering the Spirit of ’49

[Adam Paul Laxalt is an attorney and former lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, Judge Advocate General’s Corps, who served on active duty from 2005 until 2010.] Think back to the 19th-century Gold Rush of the American Far West. Towns emptied, schools closed, churches went quiet, houses were shuttered. People rushed from all over the world to take a chance at striking it rich and making a better life. People individually endowed by their Creator with creativity, talent, and grit risked eve

Jonah Goldberg: Liberty, 21st Century–Style

[Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute] Finally, the national conversation about democracy is relatively mature and serious. Save for some TV-news anchors, just about everyone seems to understand that democracy is a tricky thing. That skepticism was hard-earned. The last decade provided painful lessons for everyone, on both sides of the ideological aisle. Liberals, who were once naïvely opt

Joseph S. Nye, Jr.: New World Order

[Joseph S. Nye, Jr. is University Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School.] Beyond the euphoria and uncertainties of the moment, the revolt in Egypt has sparked a debate about how much technology and information matter in a revolutionary context. Some commentators, particularly in TV coverage, have claimed that Twitter, Facebook, and blogs largely drove events in Egypt. This has provoked a strong intellectual backlash—an argument that more traditional forces are

Ellen Bork: The Trouble With Tibet

[Ellen Bork, director of democracy and human rights at the Foreign Policy Initiative, writes frequently about U.S. policy toward Tibet and China.] Dharamsala, India—Flying from Delhi to Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile in northern India, takes about 90 minutes. The plane lands in the valley below the Dhauladar range of the Himalayas, a massive barrier between India and Tibet. From the airport, the road leads up to the former British hill station that Prime Min

Rabbi Marvin Hier: Anti-Semitic Hall of Shame

[Rabbi Marvin Hier is the founder and ean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance.] Sadly, there was no shortage of contenders in 2010 for the "Top 10 Anti-Semitic Slurs" list we put out at the Simon Wiesenthal Center each year. Taken together, the comments suggest that a bold new kind of anti-Semitism is emerging around the world. Our list of offenders includes a journalist, government leaders, a historian, a banker and even a prominent Hol

Danny Heitman: How can Obama save our economy and our democracy? Humanities education

[Danny Heitman, a columnist for The Baton Rouge Advocate, is the author of “A Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House.”] Calling America’s present economic challenges “our generation’s Sputnik moment,” President Obama used his State of the Union address last month to call for more federal spending on math and science education. One might have wondered, while listening to the president’s speech, just how many of his fellow Americans knew what Sputnik was – an

Charles Krauthammer: Obama's Louis XV Budget

[Charles Krauthammer is a columnist for the WaPo.] Five days before his inauguration, President-elect Obama told The Post that entitlement reform could no longer be kicked down the road. He then spent the next two years kicking - racking up $3 trillion in new debt along the way - on the grounds that massive temporary deficit spending was necessary to prevent another Great Depression. To prove his bona fides, he later appointed a deficit reduction commission. It made its

Steven Plaut: The Grand 'End Of Conflict' Delusion

[Steven Plaut, a frequent contributor to The Jewish Press, is a professor at the University of Haifa. His book "The Scout" is available at Amazon.com. He can be contacted at steveneplaut@yahoo.com.] For the past twenty years the quest for a Middle East peace and for resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict has rested largely upon one specific strategy. We'll call it the "End of Conflict Proclamation." The k

Nathaniel Zelinsky: The Peace Sign in the Middle East

[Nathaniel Zelinsky is a member of the Yale College Class of 2013. At Yale, he studies political science and economics. Nathaniel is interested in (and writes about) politics, modern conservatism, public service, and the V for Victory symbol. Besides blogging for the Huffington Post, Nathaniel frequently writes opinion pieces for the Yale Daily News and has appeared on National Review Online.]Last week, I wrote a short piece

Michael Schwartz: Why Mubarak Fell

[A professor of sociology at Stony Brook State University, Michael Schwartz is the author of War Without End: The Iraq War in Context (Haymarket Press). Schwartz's work on protest movements, contentious politics, and the arc of U.S. imperialism has appeared in numerous academic and popular outlets over the past 40 years.] Memo to President Obama: Given the absence of intelligent intell

Daniel Foster: Pigford’s Harvest

[Daniel Foster is NRO’s news editor. This article first appeared in the Feb. 21, 2010, issue of National Review.] One unhappy night in 1992, 40-year-old Timothy Pigford, a fourth-generation black farmer having a terrible time of it trying to grow soybeans in North Carolina, sat in the living room of the house he was barely holding on to and drew up the outline of a lawsuit against the federal government. It was a decision more than 15 years in coming, ever since the first of the man