LITMIR.BIZ

Israel has become the most reviled of states; and the international Left—world church bodies, British labor unions, American human rights groups and the like—has been especially vociferous in its condemnations. But, ironically, Israel's humane accomplishments in the very realms that the Left most cherishes compare favorably with those of most other countries. This is especially true if Israel is compared with other countries in its region, or with other countries under external duress, or with the other states born after World War Two that have so often stumbled at nation-building. In Liberal Oasis: The Truth About Israel, Joshua Muravchik marshals a wealth of hard data, livened with telling anecdotes, to show that in the achievement of liberty, equality, fraternity, Israel is one of the world's most remarkable and admirable societies.

Подробнее

Before September 11, 2001 we Americans did not think much about freedom or democracy in the Middle East. U.S. policy toward the region aimed to assure a reliable flow of oil, to encourage peace between the Arabs and Israel, and above all, during the Cold War, to prevent our rival from gaining any strategic advantage over us. 9/11 impelled us to reconsider. Now, as we are entangled in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan the Mid-East’s political and social quandaries lie at the very core of our foreign policy objectives. And yet, after years of blood and fortune spent on the democratization of the Middle East, the most identifiable personalities in the region are notorious terrorists, backwards autocrats and fanatical preachers. As Joshua Muravchik demonstrates in Trailblazers of the Arab Spring, there are in fact also heroic democrats and liberals in these lands of anti-democratic fanaticism, and the fight they are fighting is also our fight.Muravchik brings to light the stories of seven remarkable people, six Arabs and an Iranian. Five are men; two, women. Four are Sunnis, two are Shiites, and the seventh is mixed. All are devoted passionately to a cause, and, while the angles from which they attack it are varied, the larger goal is the same for all seven—to make their countries more open and democratic. Trailblazers of the Arab Spring reminds us that freedom is a prize that must be won through struggle and sacrifice, and it introduces us to our anonymous friends who have consecrated their lives to the birth of free societies in the Middle East.

Подробнее

In only one year, Obama has saddled Americans with a skyrocketing deficit that will leave future generations deeply in debt; a health-care plan that prescribes a cure worse than the illness; catastrophically expensive environmental schemes; and a foreign policy that appeases enemies and punishes friends.In this frank and insightful Broadside, Joshua Muravchikanalyzes these and Obama’s other misguided efforts to “fundamentally transform” America during his first year in office.

Подробнее

During the Six-Day War of 1967, polls showed that Americans favored the Israelis over the Arabs by overwhelming margins. In Europe, support for Israel ran even higher. In the United Nations Security Council, a British resolution essentially gave Israel the terms of peace it sought, and when the Arabs and their Soviet supporters tried to override the resolution in the General Assembly, they fell short of the necessary votes.Fast forward 40 years and Israel has become perhaps the most reviled country in the world. Although Americans have remained constant in their sympathy for the Jewish state, almost all of the rest of the world treats Israel as a pariah.What caused this remarkable turnabout? Making David into Goliath traces the process by which material pressures and intellectual fashions reshaped world opinion of Israel. Initially, terrorism, oil blackmail, and the sheer size of Arab and Muslim populations gave the world powerful inducements to back the Arab cause. Then, a prevalent new paradigm of “social justice,” in which class conflict was supplanted by the noble struggles of people of color, created a lexicon of rationales for taking sides against Israel. Thus, nations can behave cravenly while striking a high-minded pose in aligning themselves on the Middle East conflict.

Подробнее