The Provost at UK has launched a "War on Attrition", designed to mobilize faculty around the goal of keeping economically marginal students in school during the recession. In spite of my general skepticism of Wars on X, I think that the goal is a worthy...
israel/palestine
I'm sure this will be productive:A proposed resolution by a major Ontario union to ban Israeli academics at the province's universities has sparked a bitter debate between leaders of both.
Debates about the meaning of "terrorism" often feature some odd assumptions, including:(1) Killing 500 civilians while making some attempt to avoid killing them is less morally problematic than killing five.
And we have ourselves a ground invasion of Gaza. A week ago, I did not expect this. If the Israelis want to push this, Hamas cannot win in any conventional sense of the term, even to the extent that Hezbollah was able to resist in...
I've been writing an opinion column for ten years, and something I've noticed about what that role does to you (meaning me) is that it more or less impels you.
At least one Arab state can be expected to leap to Israel's defense:Of the various premises on which the U.S. invasion of Iraq was sold to the American people, one.
The ante is rhetorically upped:“The goal of the operation is to topple Hamas,” Haim Ramon, the deputy to Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister, said. It was the first time since it launched its blistering offensive that Israel has openly stated that regime change is its...
Via Ackerman, Gershon Shafir:First, Israel is about to exhaust obvious and legitimate military targets, especially those available for aerial bombardment, even under their broadest interpretation. Admittedly Hamas never seriously tried.
Serwer:A much commented upon statement from Marty Peretz, on the battle currently raging in Gaza:Message: do not fuck with the Jews. I'm not sure if this is applicable to international.
To be clear, I think that the Israeli air campaign against Gaza will end up being destructive, and, from a political point of view, pointless at best. That said, the Israeli attacks thus far have NOT been indiscriminate; civilian casualties are inevitable in any such...
The New York Times shows the stupid:But it has another goal as well: to expunge the ghost of its flawed 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and re-establish Israeli deterrence....“There.
I don't have many additional thoughts on the breaking of the Gaza ceasefire. The strategic aims seem clear; Hamas wished to provoke an Israeli attack in anticipation that the reaction.