Category Archives: Middle East

Sacred city

Posted on September 8, 2015 by

From my Times review [£] of Jerusalem’s Sacred Music Festival: Can art trump politics in such a divided city? Last year’s Sacred Music Festival began just days after the end of the Israeli incursion into Gaza, an operation that caused the … Continue reading →

Posted in Middle East, Music | Tagged , ,

Notebook

Posted on September 6, 2015 by

Even when the two sides cooperated, it was agonizing: in 1950, the UN mediated the feeding of the one tiger, one lion and two bears of the Biblical Zoo on Israeli-controlled Mount Scopus and officially explained that “Decisions had to … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Middle East | Tagged , , ,

Another country

Posted on February 11, 2015 by

A piece entitled “When ISIS Ran The American South” is not the kind of thing you normally expect to see on the website of a right-wing magazine. Kudos to Rod Dreher. [Warning: graphic content]

Posted in History, Middle East, Race, US politics | Tagged , , , , ,

Links

Posted on October 3, 2014 by

“Hipsters are the new chavs.” It’s all about denigrating the young, says the Evening Standard’s Richard Godwin. Talking of the young… “People in their 30s are starting to notice that you can’t spend all those Facebook likes on a decent … Continue reading →

Posted in Class, Journalism, Media, Middle East, Photography | Tagged , , , , , ,

Links

Posted on September 21, 2014 by

“For every working journalist in America there are now 4.6 PR people.” The FT on the blurring of the line between news and public relations. Now that he is 80, Leonard Cohen has started smoking again. Should the elderly stop … Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism, Middle East, Music | Tagged , , , , , ,

The next generation

Posted on September 9, 2014 by

Israeli children playing by the cement protection walls around the kindergarten in Kibbutz Nahal Oz. [Photo: Menahem Kahana/AFP]

Posted in Middle East, Photography | Tagged ,

Notebook

Posted on October 22, 2013 by

Soon it became generally accepted that Tutenkhamen had somehow killed Lord Carnarvon. Howard Carter found it necessary to repeat time after time that Tutenkhamen’s tomb contained no biological booby traps, no poison and no curse, but to no avail. The … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Middle East, Notebook

The boy victim

Posted on April 8, 2013 by

I remember reading James Fallows’ original feature on the strange case of Mohammed al-Dura ten years ago. He’s now written a brief follow-up. The story was perplexing then, and it still seems murky — a sort of Rorschach Test for … Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism, Middle East