Forward.com

What Kind of Interviewer Confuses Hamas and Hummus?They took us down winding stone stairs and through long corridors, ostensibly to have some make-up dabbed on our noses for the cameras, in fact to meet the interviewer and test his disguise. We confronted a tall, blond-ish man in his thirties, dressed in leather and studs, his face heavily powdered, his arms and chest shaven. He spoke in a heavy German accent, his movements and mannerisms ultra-gay. He tried to write down our names, but they came out dyslexic.…Read more

Proudly Israeli, Even With a Second PassportOne of the less talked-about aspects of Ehud Olmert’s envelopes-filled-with-dollars affair is the unsavory picture it presents of Israel-Diaspora relations. Here is the sycophantic Diaspora shnorer sucking up to his Israeli hero, buying a piece of Zionist glory by slipping him money. And here is the Israeli politician, turning with a mixture of disdain and envy to wealthy American Jews for the support that, perversely, validates his Israeli identity.…Read more

How Jimmy Carter Almost Derailed Peace With EgyptThe unique synthesis of activism, idealism and ignorance that drove Jimmy Carter to meet with Hamas in late April is nothing new for the former president. It dates back to well before his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” — all the way back to his time in office, when he nearly derailed the incipient peace effort that would eventually become the Camp David Accords.…Read more

There’s No Good Way Out of GazaHamas-run Gaza now constitutes fully half of Israel’s, and the world’s, Palestinian problem — the more terrorist, Islamist and uncompromising half. Hamas threatens to torpedo any peace agreement the Olmert government reaches with the other half, the West Bank-based, Fatah-run Palestinian Authority. Rocket attacks from Gaza against neighboring Israeli towns and kibbutzim have become routine, and Gaza could now be described as one of two Iranian outposts on the Mediterranean coast.…Read more

There Is More to the ‘Arab Jews’ Controversy Than Just IdentityA recent column in these pages by Philologos rejecting the term “Arab Jew” has sparked a spirited e-dialogue among Forward readers and led the columnist to write two follow-up articles (including one in this week’s Arts & Culture section). Philologos’s point of departure was a Reuters dispatch of January 20 that cited remarks made in Germany by Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi head of intelligence and ambassador to the United States and the United Kingdom.…Read more