We're led to believe that today's political struggles are largely a contest between populists and elitists. But something besides libertarians is missing from that simple tale: the elitists in populist clothing, or elitist populists. We have no better example than a...
History
TGIF: Ahad Ha’Am’s Prophetic Warning about Political Zionism
by Sheldon Richman | Dec 15, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, History, Justice, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Ukrainian-born Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg (1856-1927), whose pen name was Ahad Ha'Am (Hebrew for one of the people), was a proponent of Spiritual, or Cultural, Zionism, which made him a rival to Theodor Herzl and Political Zionism, the movement dedicated to creating a...
TGIF: Inspiration for the Nakba?
by Sheldon Richman | Dec 8, 2023 | Featured Articles, History, Justice, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
The unspeakable violence that plagues Israel and Palestine daily relates in part to the assertion of an ancient, ancestral, and even divinely bestowed property right to a parcel of land, which is often called "holy" and "promised." For background, here are a few...
Kissinger, RIP?
by Sheldon Richman | Dec 1, 2023 | Blog, History, Politics
I published my take on Henry Kissinger, who died this week at age 100, in 2014, when presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was courting his support. Read it here.
TGIF: Jewish Dissent on the Balfour Declaration
by Sheldon Richman | Dec 1, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, History, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
In the fateful year 1917 the British cabinet had one Jewish member: Edwin Montagu. He was also the only cabinet member to oppose the Balfour Declaration of that year, which paved the way for the self-declared creation of the state of Israel, the so-called Jewish...
TGIF: When History Didn’t Begin
by Sheldon Richman | Nov 10, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, History, Justice, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
I agree with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. I've never written those words before. But on Oct 24, Guterres said to the UN Security Council (emphasis added): The situation in the Middle East is growing more dire by the hour. The war in Gaza is raging and risks...
TGIF: The Glorious Bourgeois Peace Movement
by Sheldon Richman | Nov 3, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, History, Justice, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Those of us whose pro-peace/antiwar principles are of the bourgeois classical-liberal variety need reminding now and again that we have a glorious tradition going back hundreds of years. We need not get lost in the dominant rhetoric that opposes war, empire, and its...
TGIF: Don’t Police the World
by Sheldon Richman | Oct 27, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, History, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
"We" -- to be precise, U.S. policymakers and their quasi-private-sector, tax-nourished enablers-beneficiaries-- must not police the world, become directly involved in wars, covertly assist belligerents, or act as arms merchants and bankers. The central government...