By refusing to renew its six month truce with Israel and launching hundreds of rockets across the border, Hamas has provoked Israel into a devastating and tragic reaction. Yet following the embarrassment of its incursion into Lebanon in 2006, the question remains as to why Israel has responded in the manner it has. Is the [...]

Filed under: arabisraeliconflict, iran, jameschettle, middle east, terrorism on December 31st, 2008 | 4 Comments »

Hamas militants fired 200 rockets at Israeli communities, Israel reacted in the usual way, and at least 56 civilians have been killed. The cliché is that the response is “disproportionate” (examples here, here, here and here). You can call Israel’s response ineffectual, heavy-handed, counterproductive, short-sighted, demagogic, brutal, tragic, heartbreaking — but disproportionate? This ubiquity of [...]

Filed under: 9/11, jonathanbirch, middle east, middleeast, terrorism on December 29th, 2008 | 3 Comments »

…this guy would be dead by now. Of course, if Bush were Saddam, he’d never have tried his luck. But he knew his action would be interpreted as an act of political dissent — in a country where dissent is now allowed. He may serve a jail term, but it seems far more likely that [...]

Filed under: afghanistan, al qaeda, clarepoliticsnews, democracy, humanrights, ideas, iraq, jonathanbirch, society, uspolitics on December 15th, 2008 | No Comments »

Creative Commons licensed photo courtesy of Scott Beale / Laughing Squid
Calm in the midst of crisis, or marketing in the midst of murder? Looking back, how the responses of city businessmen caught up in the terrorist atrocity in Mumbai tells us much about the media’s role in crises, about ‘city culture’ and about how individuals [...]

Filed under: al qaeda, business, india, mumbaiattacks, terrorism on December 4th, 2008 | No Comments »