Tag: the left

What's wrong with this picture? Why didn't anybody tell me Sen. John McCain has joined the left wing of the Democratic party?

Got that? The goal of J Street is not to represent American Jews on the left, but is instead "to move American Jews" to the left and to the Administration's/friends on the Hill's point of view, and to "provide them with cover."

Out of 95 thousand registered Kadima party members, only 40% voted by 10 p.m., when the polls closed. It was rumored that left-leaning Haim Ramon was planning to resign as Chair of the Kadima Council. Along with the Mofaz win, this may suggest that the party is moving to the right. It may also mean that Kadima could not be taken for granted as partnering with the left on issues such as religious vs. secular tensions.

Two of the four new judges appointed to Israel's Supreme Court will be inaugurated this morning at the President's Residence in Jerusalem, just a...

Laughter really is the best medicine. Caroline Glick, deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post and senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, has found humor and satire to be valuable tools in making the case for a strong Israel. Her latest venture to that end is Latma, the Hebrew-language media satire website Glick created and edits.

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As we mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, it would be instructive to look back at the early reactions to the atrocity on the part of some prominent leftists. It's become something of a mantra on the left that the whole world initially sympathized with the U.S., and that America's image was so irredeemably tarnished only after the evil warmonger George W. Bush trashed the Constitution and sent the American military off to slaughter innocent Muslims in the interests of Halliburton and other capitalist behemoths.

Israeli radical leftists have long had an intense hatred for American conservatives, who are almost all pro-Israel. Actually, Israeli leftists hate American conservatives precisely because conservatives are pro-Israel.

Though he had more than his share of detractors during and after his years as managing and then executive editor of The New York Times, can there be any doubt that the paper began its precipitous and still ongoing decline the moment A.M. Rosenthal was forced, by company policy, to retire in 1986 at age 65?

Editor's note: This week, Shmuel Sackett, international director of Manhigut Yehudit, is filling in for Mr. Feiglin.

Editor's note: This week, Shmuel Sackett, international director of Manhigut Yehudit, is filling in for Mr. Feiglin.

Another month, another round of recriminations in the Modern Orthodox community. Two months ago it was a breakaway rabbinic organization established, in part, to promote decentralized conversion standards. Last month it was a public forum on homosexuality in the Orthodox community.

Anyone who thought Israel was immune to the kind of divisive "culture wars" that have beset America in recent years was in for a rude awakening this past week.

Anyone who thought Israel was immune to the kind of divisive "culture wars" that have beset America in recent years was in for a rude awakening this past week.

The Gates of Paradise have arrived in New York, and anyone interested in experiencing one of the great masterpieces of the Early Italian Renaissance cannot afford to miss this current exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The 1947 baseball season was Jackie Robinson's first and Hank Greenberg's last. It also marked the debut of another Jewish slugger, Al Rosen.

For obvious reasons, the disproportionate number of Jews who were either members of the old American Communist Party or otherwise active in left-wing politics during the Cold War has always been a sensitive issue for the Jewish community.

In April 2004, Ilan Pappe, the left-wing Israeli academic and self-described anti-Zionist, told Haaretz that post-Zionism, which appeared dead as a doornail after nearly four years of non-stop Palestinian violence, would rise again.

William Sloane Coffin Jr., the left-wing Presbyterian minister who gained notoriety in the 1960’s for his militant antiwar stance and his association and identification with radicals of every stripe while serving as chaplain at Yale University, died April 12 at age 81. The coverage in the mainstream media was almost uniformly laudatory – as it invariably is for those who establish themselves as outspoken critics of the United States.

Barely redeemed from Egypt, the Jewish people faced a terrible foe. Amalek attacked without warning, without reason.

Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" explores tragically unrequited anticipation.

For those of us who came of age in the 1960's and 70's, a time when the Cold War was still very much a daily life-and-death concern, there was never much confusion about what Right and Left stood for in terms of U.S. foreign policy.

Onward with the best (or worst, if you will) of what those on the left are saying in the aftermath of Sept. 11. We'll start off the week with Studs Terkel, whose popular oral histories (Working, etc.) lead many to mistakenly label him a writer when in fact he's nothing more than an energetic tape recordist, to use the memorable term coined for him by Chicago Sun-Times columnist Steve Neal.

The Monitor's most recent undertaking, interrupted by unavoidable circumstances last week, involved a look at some of the early left-wing reaction to the terrorist attacks on America. That our friends on the left would adopt a blame America and/or Israel party line should have been obvious from the get-go, and was exemplified by essays written by Robert Fisk in The Nation and Gary Kamiya on Salon.com.

It took American leftists about 48 hours or so to find their voices after the Sept. 11 attack on America, but find them they did. There were no surprises.Once the initial shock wore off and it became clear that this was not Oklahoma City, not the doing of any home-grown terrorists, the rationalizations and excuses began to fly. And, as always seems to be the case with those on the left, the real culprits were not Islamic extremists but the U.S. and Israel.

The almost universal calls for ?solidarity? with Israel following in the wake of Reform leader Eric Yoffie?s announcement of the suspension of youth trips to Israel has underscored a curious dimension to the politics of the left. While the Sarid and Beilin crowd talk about American Jews demonstrating their support for the Jewish state, they continue to rail against Prime Minister Sharon for not agreeing to an immediate resumption of negotiations with the Palestinians despite the continuing violence, and for not ordering an immediate end to all construction on the so-called ?settlements.? Despite the lessons of the collapse of Oslo and the obvious and cynical refusal of Yassir Arafat to end the violence, the left persists in attacking Mr. Sharon for insisting that the violence must stop as a precondition to renewed talks. They would reward violence with political concessions while the prime minister would not.