• Bush Revives Pan-Arabism . . . by Accident or Design?

    Is there any rational human being on the planet who doesn’t perceive Israel’s measures against Lebanon to be an irrational overreaction?  Seriously, if every pair of “kidnapped” soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan warranted the “reaction” being meted out by Israel at this moment, I suspect the United States as a whole would be little more […]

  • Darkness on the Edge of Cairo

    Every day I walk from my fashionable neighborhood to the university and pass a pair of very kind, white-uniformed police officers.  They stand in their almost blindingly clean attire, only a block from my crumbling apartment building, smoking Egypt’s cheapest Cleopatra cigarettes and directing traffic.  “Ya Pasha!” they shout, “Habibi!”  This is my daily greeting […]