Maximilian Hess is a Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in London. He calls himself the child of an American Jewish and Catholic German couple and said antisemitism has indelibly shaped his life. Hess says the world seems turned upside down. Comments that are antisemitic are ignored while legitimate criticisms
Continue readingTag: International
IN-SIGHTS: Claims of antisemitism used to defend Israel’s atrocities
I understand people who believe that Israel should defend its lands against armed attacks and fervently assert the country has a right to a peaceful existence. But I sympathize with innocent Palestinians whom Israel has displaced, starved, and massacred. I reject the notion that Israel can be excused when the
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Canada profiting from death and destruction
This country was once known as a peacemaker and peacekeeper. Now it is better known for selling instruments of death and destruction. As occurs in other sectors, profit-seeking arms dealers are either amoral or immoral. In this ProPublica article, Canada is mentioned 26 times…
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: How Trump unleashed Iran
In 1953, Iran’s democratic government led by Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq was toppled by a military coup backed by the CIA and the British Secret Intelligence Service. Mosaddeq had nationalized the British-controlled Iranian oil industry, and the Americans and the Brits weren’t having any of that. The coup transformed Iran’s
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Why must the Palestinians beg for a country in their own land?
A seemingly eccentric question, one that shouldn’t have to be asked, yet it does because that is the bizarre situation the Palestinians find themselves in. Indeed, many find themselves refugees in their own land. Their circumstances are a reflection of the disdain that supporters of Israel, particularly its chief enabler
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: 7,000 children, 60 journalists, 130 UN aid workers … enough?
On September 11th, 2001, the Islamist extremist group al-Qaeda carried out one of the most dramatic terrorist attacks in history on the United States. It knocked down two phallic symbols of U.S. capitalism and killed nearly 3,000 innocent people. The Americans could have sought out the perpetrators and brought them
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Dr Gabor Mate – belated respects due
In the 1960s, Gabor Mate was a brave young man standing up to bullies and stating unpopular ideas. Now Dr. Mate, he is still a man of conscience not afraid to speak hard truths.
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Seven moral principles
Professor Robert Reich describes meeting with students to discuss tragic events in Gaza and Israel. It was a mixed group, some Jewish, some Palestinian, and some with other backgrounds. They sought common ground as they examined what basic moral principles were at stake. Conclusions the group determined…
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Poland comes in from the cold
It’s all up and down with democracy these days as right-wing populists, some bordering on fascism, come and go. The most prominent case, of course, was our great neighbour to the south electing Donald Trump and then trading him in for one of the best and most progressive presidents in
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: COP28 and the great transition
Maybe it took an oilman to do it. When Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber of the United Arab Emirates was appointed President of the UN Climate Change 2023 Conference (COP28), environmentalists threw up their hands in despair. Al Jaber was also head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. And the
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: The morality of tyrants
I have long been intrigued at how men who inflict torture and murder on their fellow human beings can consider themselves moral leaders. History is replete with authoritarians of various hues who fit the mould. One who exemplifies the type at the moment is Russia’s very own Vladimir Putin. One
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Chinese at the border
Perhaps the most famous border in the world is the one along the Rio Grande that separates Mexico from the United States. It is almost certainly the most popular. U.S. Border Patrol agents encountered over 200,000 migrants attempting to enter the country last November alone. About two-thirds were apprehended and
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Swedes take on Tesla
The world’s richest man is not amused. Elon Musk, CEO and biggest shareholder of automaker Tesla, is annoyed at a series of strikes against his company. He calls them “insane.” He has simply encountered a culture which takes workplace democracy seriously. When Tesla set up in Sweden, Musk attempted to
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Between the sea and the Jordan …
Being an admirer of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, I read with interest a recent column of his in The New York Times about the Palestine situation. One thing that particularly caught my attention was his reference to a phrase in the original platform of Likud, the political party led by
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: The two-state fallacy
The Hamas attack on Jewish settlers in Israel has evoked a cascade of sympathy around the world, for the victims and for Israelis and Jews generally, and rightly so. How could it not? But there are exceptions. One group of Israelis that deserves no sympathy is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: A Gaza-Canadian analogy
Reading about the circumstances of the Palestinians in Gaza, I was reminded of a piece of our own history: the infamous pass system. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Indians of Western Canada signed treaties with the Canadian government yielding control over their territories. They believed they
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: A loss for illiberalism, a gain for democracy
Generations of Communism is not the best training for democracy. So perhaps we shouldn’t have expected that when the Soviet Union collapsed under its own dead weight, the countries that emerged would quickly become functioning democracies. Actually some have done very well, others not so much. Russia and Belarus, riddled
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Are our hands clean?
One of the best articles I have read about the Hamas-Israel war is The New York Times “There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive” by Peter Beinart. Beinart is a Jewish-American professor of journalism and political science at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Jewish wisdom; Gentile folly
Reading The New York Times, as I do every morning (the world’s best newspaper), I have encountered a number of articles on the current hostilities in Palestine. I couldn’t help but notice that the articles with the most rational, most compassionate, and wisest analyses were written by Jews. This might
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Terrorism—weapon of the weak?
Hamas’s invasion of Israel has once again brought attention to the Palestine problem. The routine of Israel oppressing the Palestinians while simultaneously stealing their land has once again been interrupted by outright war. For over 75 years our government, parroting the United States, declares that a Palestinian state can only
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