Friday

3 Jul 2020

Saturday

11 Jul 2009

A reply to Melanie Phillips

Melanie Phillips is nothing if not prolific and fast. Even before Spectator readers could access my reply to her earlier criticism of me, she had written and posted her own reply, “He Still Doesn’t Get It.”In it, she selectively quotes from my article.  The quotes do not do justice to the thrust of my argument.  Accordingly, my article is being published in full here.American Support For Israel Must Remain Bipartisan: A Reply to Melanie PhillipsMelanie Phillips has written a critique of me because I remain a Democrat and continue to support President Barack Obama, despite his recent statements regarding expansion of Israeli settlements and other matters relating to the Middle East conflict.  See here.  Other conservative supporters of Israel have joined her in attacking me as well.

Wednesday

30 Aug 2006

How to protect civil liberties

HarvardIt is five years since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but Western democracies have not even begun to address seriously, and in a nuanced way, the moral and intellectual challenges posed by the relatively new phenomenon of mass-casualty suicide terrorism. The traditional paradigm by which we have long confronted harmful conduct — waiting until the harm occurs and then punishing the harm-doer to deter others — cannot work with the suicide terrorist who welcomes the ultimate punishment. A new paradigm, relying more on anticipatory and preventive measures, must be considered. But such measures carry with them considerable dangers to civil liberties. The debate thus far has been largely an unilluminating clash of ideological extremes with one side arguing against any compromise with the old deterrent-civil liberties model, and the other side insisting that the need to prevent mass-casualty terrorism trumps traditional concerns over civil liberties.

Saturday

22 Apr 2006

We can’t attack Iran

Alan Dershowitz says that the pre-emptive assault on Iraq has given a bad name to a good idea — and will leave Iran the most dangerous nation in the worldFace it. Iran will get the bomb. It has already test-fired rockets capable of targeting the entire Middle East and much of southern Europe. And it claims to have 40,000 suicide volunteers eager to deploy terrorism — even nuclear terrorism — against its enemies. With a nuclear capacity, the Islamic Republic of Iran will instantly achieve the status of superpower to which Iraq aspired. Nothing will deter Iran. Sanctions are paper protests to an oil-rich nation. Diplomacy has already failed because Russia and China are playing both sides. Sabotage, bribery — even assassination of nuclear scientists — may delay but will not prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

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