Free Republic

Israel's attempt to wipe out Hamas is understandable, but stupid. No country in the world is going to ignore the provocation of rockets being launched from neighbouring territory day after day. If Mexico had a group of anti-imperialists bombing Texas, imagine how long it would take for America to mobilise a counterattack. Israel has every right to respond. But the kind of response matters. Killing 500 Palestinians and wounding 2,000 others (at the time of writing) is disproportionate. Hamas can harass, but it cannot pose any threat to the existence of Israel. And just as Hamas's indiscriminate bombing of population...

A J Mast for The New York TimesAlvin H. Rosenfeld is the author of an essay critical of liberal Jews that has generated heated debate. The American Jewish Committee, an ardent defender of Israel, is known for speaking out against anti-Semitism, but this conservative advocacy group has recently stirred up a bitter and emotional debate with a new target: liberal Jews. An essay the committee features on its Web site, ajc.org, titled “ ‘Progressive’ Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism,” says a number of Jews, through their speaking and writing, are feeding a rise in virulent anti-Semitism by questioning...

Americans are familiar with campus characters, such as Ward Churchill and Noam Chomsky, who misuse their positions in academia to disseminate anti-American hate and propaganda from the university podium, often in the guise of "scholarship". But in many ways Israeli universities are considerably worse. Israeli universities are crawling with extremist faculty members, many of whom hate their own country, endorse the enemies of their country, and collaborate with Bash-Israel organizations around the world, sometimes even with open anti-Semites. Over the past year, the "Israel Academia Monitor," a watchdog group that monitors anti-Israel extremists and "Post-Zionists" in Israeli universities, has begun...