My Conversation with Coleman (Hughes)
A chat with one of our great public intellectuals about Israel and Palestine, India and Pakistan, and a lot more
Subterranea
The buried, the overlooked, the obscured. Archival digs into the world’s most written-about, and least understood, patch of earth: The one between the river and the sea.
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Israel and Lebanon: Once almost-allies, now at war ... again
Before 1948 many prominent Lebanese, above all President Émile Eddé, welcomed a Jewish presence to the south. What went wrong?
I wrote ‘Palestine 1936.’ The film ‘Palestine 36’ is an affront to history
In The Free Press, I review an Oscar-shortlisted film, funded by Qatar, Turkey, and the BBC, that rewrites the past to serve a modern political agenda
Yolande Harmer: Israel's forgotten super-spy in Egypt
Harmer was Israel's most important spy in 1948, infiltrating the royal palace, Muslim Brotherhood and Arab League. Her legacy deserves to be honored
Notes from underground
Scenes from a bomb shelter (mine), and thoughts on the present apocalypse
Before he was Viscount of Alamein, there was Monty of Mount Carmel
A few years before halting the Nazis in Egypt, the irascible general commanded a counterinsurgency from his Haifa HQ
If I forget thee, Guiana
On the eve of the Holocaust, Britain closed the gates to the Holy Land and proposed a Jewish homeland in South America
Reinventing Gaza, then and now
Trump's vision of a 'Riviera of the Middle East' has a century-old precedent. It didn't end well.
A ‘fanatic’ as long as he breathes: Ibn Saud vs. the grand mufti
In secret 1939 letter, Saudi Arabia’s founder warned Hajj Amin would lead Palestinians to ruin. He wasn’t alone
Mahatma Gandhi’s Zionist ‘soulmate’
The Great Soul opposed Jewish statehood. His ‘lifelong companion’ left his fortune to Israel and his ashes in Galilee