Contributions by:

Lawrence Davidson

The Academic Boycott Of Israel: Objections And Defense

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Introductory Comments and a General Defense Boycotts are historically common and popular forms of protest. Unlike sanctions, which are enforced by governments and sometimes destroy the lives of millions of ordinary people (as in the case of the 12-years of sanctions against Iraq, and the on-going Western sanctions against Hamas and the Gaza Strip), boycotts…

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Deconstructing the Lobby: John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby, Farrar, Strauss ,and Giroux, 2007

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Most people are local in their orientations. They spend their days focused on work, school, the kids and their friends.  They go to the movies and out to dinner.  Under normal circumstances the attention paid to what is happening on the other side of the proverbial hill goes little beyond an occasional tut-tut at the…

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Israel’s Palestine: It’s Apartheid And Not Peace

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The Messenger and His Message Jimmy Carter’s book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, is an insider memoir with a political purpose. It tells the story of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process from 1973 to the present intertwined with Carter’s own experiences and reminiscences as the president who convened Camp David I, brought about the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty,…

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Blitzkrieg in Gaza

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On June 27, 2006 Israel sent troops, tanks and aircraft into the Gaza Strip.  This invasion has been described to the world as a “rescue operation” to free one soldier who had been taken prisoner by Palestinian resistance forces. Almost certainly Corporal Gilad Shalit’s capture on June 25th  served as a pretext for an operation…

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How The Us Lost Latin America To Hugo Chavez

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Background: Open Market “Freedom” vs. Democracy Inrecent times there has been a general shift to the left in Latin American politics.  The traditional center-right parties that had controlled politics in most of the South and Central America were not really democratic ones.  They were patronage parties deeply rooted in a culture of corruption and often…

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Torture In Our Time

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Civilizing Steps The impression of pain, then, may increase to such a degree that, occupying the mind entirely, it will compel the sufferer to use the shortest method of  freeing himself from torment….He will accuse himself of crimes of which he  is innocent so that the very means employed to distinguish the innocent from  the…

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The Zionist Worldview And The Pitfalls Of Confirmation Bias: A Rebuttal To Gamaliel Isaac

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Among the fallacies that get in the way of clear thinking there is one that is known as “confirmation bias.” Here is a common definition for this type of one dimensional thinking, “confirmation bias refers to a form of selective thinking that focuses on evidence that supports what the believers already believe while ignoring evidence…

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Christian Zionism And American Foreign Policy: Paving The Road To Hell In Palestine

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The Cultural and Religious Context The 19th century English poet and critic Matthew Arnold once observed that culture gives us a picture of how our world should be and then compels us to go out and “make it prevail.” Westerners have been doing just that for at least 500 years, and as a consequence there…

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Bush And Kerry In Baghdad And Jerusalem: Is There A Difference?

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When the smoke from the 2004 election clears many Americans hope John Kerry will be president and big foreign policy changes will result. Unfortunately these hopes are not likely and here are two reasons why: first, the interest group generated pressures that set broad parameters for policy tend to remain constant no matter who occupies…

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The Zionist Attack On Jewish Values

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On November 17, 1917 Sir Arthur James Balfour, acting for the wartime British cabinet of Prime Minister David Lloyd George, issued what has historically become known as the Balfour Declaration. Promising a national home for the Jews in Palestine, the declaration established an alliance between the Zionist movement and the British Empire. For the Zionists…

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