Category Archive for 'Uncategorized'

When Truth Is Prohibited: Why Western Leaders Refuse to Call Jihadist Terror by Name

Monday, June 13th, 2016

Academia has undergone an astounding revolution in the last half century: Whole disciplines have replaced their original vocation, the quest for truth, with the diametric opposite – a prohibition on truth.  By Gadi Taub (First Published in English in Haaretz, Dec. 20, 2015) When all Narratives are Created Equal A talented student of mine in […]

Does Abbas Really Want Israel to Withdraw From the West Bank?

Wednesday, June 1st, 2016

Published in Haaretz, Feb. 18, 2016 A Palestinian journalist I happened to run into recently in some smoking corner asked me, “What makes you think we will let you leave the territories? Who will protect us?” I assume that he was at least half-joking. But as a thought experiment, maybe it’s worth exploring the other […]

Why the American ‘multicultural’ model falls apart in Europe and Israel

Wednesday, May 4th, 2016

By Gadi Taub   So routine has the use of the word “multiculturalism” become, that it is now invoked to described a variety of different things. In some of its popular usages, it is merely a synonym for pluralism. There is of course no problem with this from a liberal democratic point of view. Originally, […]

Yitzhak Taub, 1927-2014

Saturday, January 25th, 2014

My beloved father, Yitzhak Taub, passed away on his birthday, January 17, 2014. I wanted this eulogy to be saved somewhere, even in this electronic day and age. Had my father thought that I would stand on his grave and say he was a righteous man, he would not have been pleased. My father had […]

Israeli Counter-Intellectuals Take Aim at Academic Freedom

Monday, October 8th, 2012

Here is one more thing in which Israel is imitating America: neocon tactics. American neocons think that American universities are overwhelmingly liberal, and so they have created alternatives in the form of think tanks designed to foster conservative thought. This, in itself, is not a bad thing. The Left often tends not only to preach […]

Mutual Unilateralism

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

The reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas is certainly bad news for peace. But this does not mean it is bad news as such. Because the most urgent need for the future survival of both Israel and Palestine is not peace. It is partition. And the reconciliation may actually be good news for the prospect of […]

Opposites Attract

Friday, February 11th, 2011

It is an old adage that political opposites converge. But when it actually happens, it’s still a surprise. And in the last year or so, in Israel, it did: Extreme hawks on the right, and extreme anti-Zionists on the left, seem to have arrived at more or less the same plan for ending the Israeli-Palestinian […]

Interview with Michael Weiss at Just Journalism

Thursday, January 27th, 2011

About Herzl, Zionism, the anti-Israeli and British Neo-Colonialism. Here’s an excerpt: MW: One of the more interesting points you make in your settlements book is that settlers seem to be echoing the sentiments of the anti-Zionist left in calling for a binational state. You quote Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook and Shlomo Aviner and others who […]

Plan B for the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Tuesday, November 30th, 2010

(This piece originally appeared in The New Republic print edition, on October 28th.) It is more than likely that the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) will reach a dead end. If not on the issue of settlements then on other matters. It’s not in the details, it’s in the big picture: Benjamin […]

Zionism: Land vs. Liberty

Saturday, November 20th, 2010

The importance of the settlement question goes even beyond politics. It is not just a matter of policy, it is also one of ideology. The question goes down to the very foundation of Israel’s existence because asking about settlement is really asking what Zionism should be: Is Zionism about liberty, or is it about land? […]