You probably remember the refrain, during the Bush years, that the Islamists objected to our freedoms and our way of life – that this is why America was attacked on September 11.
This is not exactly in the realms of profound analysis, and belonged with Bush’s ill advised response soon after the attacks, that America was [...]
Aug
25
2009
25
2009
Part Five – Axis of Honour: Dislocation, Family, and Terror
Aug
24
2009
24
2009
Aug
18
2009
18
2009
Part Three – The Axis of Honour: Honour and Shame
Honour and Shame
Parts one and two of this series have focused on how both right- and left-wing ideologies prevent us from understanding terrorism. I’ve mentioned that if we remove ideology from our analyses, we have a much better chance at tackling the issue, both theoretically and practically.
I’ve also suggested, “honour” as one framework that [...]
Aug
17
2009
17
2009
Part Two – The Axis of Honour: Honour, Communalism, and Islamist Suicide Terrorism
Terrorism, Terrorists and Suicide Attacks: Our Representatives Fail to Shed much Light
The first post in this series took issue with the flaccid thinking of some academics and policy makers. They are, however, no worse that many non-academics (in the media and lobby groups) on the right.
Bren Carlill of AIJAC, recently wrote in The Australian, [...]
Aug
14
2009
14
2009
In The AJN – The Holocaust: No Laughing!
I remember the story of two Jewish girls in their early 20s.
They were a bit tipsy on a weeknight when they arrived at one of the girls’ family home. The young ladies didn’t want to scandalise the parents, so they tried to compose themselves before entering.
“Stop laughing,” the girl whose house it was – let’s [...]
Jul
15
2009
15
2009
SJ Signs off – temporarily
Dear Readers,
As you will have noticed, over the past couple of weeks, all posts have been written by contributing writers (Yoram, Malki, Frochel, The Hasid, Malki, and Paroggan).
The same reasons that initially forced me to conceal my identity have forced me to cease writing completely and suddenly. Fortunately, a wonderful group of people enabled the [...]
Jul
13
2009
13
2009
Thank you, and Good Night
The Sensible Jew is about to go on indefinite hiatus.
Before I sign off, however, I would like to thank our guest writers, Yoram Symons, Malki Rose, Frochel, Hasid, and Paroggan for keeping the site filled with content over the last couple of weeks.
I would also like to thank Yvonne Fein for her invaluable input, suggestions [...]
Jul
7
2009
7
2009
Defence of the Wertheim Appointment – Just Not Good Enough
About two weeks ago we began following the story of Peter Wertheim’s appointment to the position of Executive Director at ECAJ. The utterly opaque process by which this appointment had been made smacked of the very failings in accountability of leadership about which we have been writing from the outset.
In response to “letter writers to [...]
Jun
15
2009
15
2009
Talking Tachles 2: In Defence of the Right to Responsive Representation and Transparency
In the first post in this series, we asked a number of questions regarding representation, legitimacy and transparency. Some of the responses touched on themes such as apathy and whether there is indeed any “right” to representation at all.
Firstly, a straw man has been created in the suggestion that we are somehow disciples of Joseph [...]
Jun
3
2009
3
2009
The Sensible Jew Salutes Antony Loewenstein.
Sometimes, we all need a bit of light relief. The Sensible Jew therefore salutes Antony Loewenstein for providing us with a very silly blog piece about Israel.
Mr. Loewenstein begins with a horrifying description of some bad amateur theatrics in which Israeli leaders at a Birthright programme play the part of Palestinians and then try to [...]
The Big Sunday: Thousands visit and The Shtick
Yesterday was quite surreal.
After The Sunday Age published a story on this blog, we received unprecedengted traffic: 3,235 people visited the site (according to Wordpress statistics). This is a record for the blog, and outstrips the numbers that arrived when the initial Age story was published a couple of months ago.
This brought an expected spike [...]