What is the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull?
Sarah Palin’s single-word answer to her own question—“lipstick”—propelled her from relatively obscure Alaska governor to political superstar. A superstar that fizzled out fast.
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Vote for my party and, if elected, we will put 10,000 more police on the streets. What’s not to like?
Vote for my party and, if elected, we will build 50,000 social homes. Sounds good to me.
Wait a minute. How much will these initiatives cost?
In 2017, after Britain’s Labour Party announced that it would hire an additional 10,000 police, radio interviewer Nick Ferrari asked Labour minister Diane Abbott how many coppers these new coppers would cost.
£300,000, she replied.
Wrong answer. £300k would suffice to pay each policeman a few pennies per hour. She tried again, upping the total to £80 million. Wrong again. The real cost would be about four times that amount.
A similar gaffe-by-number felled Green Party leader Natalie Bennett a few years earlier when the same interviewer asked her about the price tag for those 50,000 homes.
£2.7 billion was her prompt – and incorrect – answer.
A Christian, a Muslim and a Jew host a panel discussion on America’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The punchline: the Jew is a critic, not a supporter, of Israel.
The University of Winnipeg’s “My Jerusalem” event was a bit of a joke, as I explain in my TOI blog: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/whose-jerusalem-is-it/
Direct Hit The Temple—one of four Inns of Court in London—is located between Fleet Street and the River Thames, bordering London’s financial district and the heavily Jewish East End: ideal targets for Luftwaffe bombers.
What if a Noam Chomsky-like figure, or Chomsky himself, did an ideological u-turn and stated openly that he had been far too critical of the Jewish state, and too forgiving of the Palestinians?
Would many—indeed, any—anti-Israel radical leftists follow suit and change their own minds?
When Soviet leader Josef Stalin said “Dance!”, Nikita Khruschev shuffled his feet. Continue reading
Shelby Steele
Old news: When Syrians kill Palestinians, America’s radical left neither notices nor cares—even when hundreds, even thousands, are killed.
When an Israeli kills one Palestinian, the left becomes apoplectic with rage.
Man-bites-dog: When blacks kill blacks, America’s radical left has little to say—even when the death toll is tragically high and many victims are children. When a policeman kills a black, the left erupts in anger and indignation. Continue reading
One Size Does Not Fit All During—and before—the war, gas masks were fitted to pets as well as to working animals.
Memories of the gassing horrors from the First World War were still fresh. Continue reading
When Israel emerged victorious from the Six-Day War in June 1967, the anti-Israel left in America, Britain and other western countries immediately pronounced judgement: the Jewish state was guilty of, among other things, “colonialism.” The main “other things” were “fascism” and “militarism.”
Israel did not plead guilty to these charges. Continue reading
A new anti-Israel slogan recently rode into town: “racist endeavour,” as in: “Israel is a racist endeavour.” Anti-Israel activists get a good bang for their buck with this compact phrase. “Racist” accuses Israel of being, well, racist.
“Endeavour” suggests that this racism is not accidental or incidental but is intentional, an integral part of Zionism. Continue reading
By Robert Liebman, timesofisrael.com, August 7th, 2017
Notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan. Fugitive terrorist murderer Assata Shakur, a.k.a. Joanne Chesimard. Would-be police killer Baba Sekou Odinga.
America’s top feminists—leaders of several well-attended progressive, gay and anti-Trump marches—openly and unapologetically admire the unadmirable.
Bari Weiss, New York Times Opinion Section editor
“Will progressives have more spine than conservatives in policing hate in their ranks?,” asked Bari Weiss in a recent [August 1, 2017] New York Times op-ed.
My answer: “No!” It’s too risky. Continue reading
By Robert Liebman, Jewish Chronicle (UK), March 10, 2016, slightly modified July 2018
The radical left can chew gum and protest two or more causes at the same time. In fact, as self-proclaimed humanitarians, they should cast a wide net. Why, then, in a wicked world, do western boycott activists focus only on Israel? Continue reading
On June 26, 2018, 28-year-old political novice Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez soundly (57-43 per cent) defeated ten-term Democrat incumbent Joe Crowley in the primary contest for a seat in Congress. Continue reading
By Robert Liebman, originally published in Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), January 10, 2015
Several recent initiatives reveal the deep intent of many academic BDS supporters to attack Israel at any price, even if their own credibility and integrity foot the bill. Continue reading
By Robert Liebman, originally published by SPME (Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, December 10, 2014; this version slightly modified and images added, August 2, 2018.
More than fifty tenured Princeton academics recently signed a petition urging divestment from companies which supply military-related equipment to Israel. The organizers hope that many more of their colleagues will join them. The petition threw the local Jewish community into uproar. Continue reading
By Robert Liebman, Jewish Chronicle, May 9, 2014, this version slightly modified, and images added, August 1, 2018.
Alongside notifications of jumble sales and concerts, an article in the newsletter of my local church propelled the needle on my Oy-ometer off the scale.
Israel, this article proclaimed, was cruelly and arbitrarily mistreating the residents of a Palestinian Christian village. The writer supported her contentions with evidence that was weak (where it was comprehensible) and blatantly biased. Continue reading
By Robert Liebman
This is a slightly modified version of an article that originally appeared in algemeiner.com, June 10, 2015.
June 10, 1967 marked the end of the Six Day War and the beginning of the radical left’s hate affair with the Jewish State.
Although Israel neither welcomed nor wanted this conflict, the Left declared that Israel, not the invading Arabs, had been ‘militaristic,’ ‘colonialistic,’ and ‘fascistic.’ Continue reading
By Robert Liebman, Times of Israel, December 24, 2016 – slighted modified and photographs added, July 26, 2018
“Which Side Are You On, Boys?”
The fiftieth anniversary of the Six Day War in 2017 is likely to be overshadowed by commemorations for the one-hundredth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. Each is monumentally important.
Leftist detestation of Israel did not begin with Israeli statehood in 1948 or the Suez crisis in 1956. Continue reading
By Robert Liebman, Times of Israel blog, May 5, 2014 – slighted amended and photographs added, July 25, 2018
If you want to criticise Israel in terms so extreme as to definitely impress your friends and neighbors, you can amass an impressive intellectual arsenal by boning up on Middle East history.
Or you can save yourself considerable time and energy by learning a dozen or so emotive buzz words. Simply utter them and you win the argument as if by magic. Continue reading
By Robert Liebman, Times of Israel blog, May 26th, 2017 – slighted modified and photographs added, July 24, 2018.
“I’m sick and tired of you guys!” Wham! Bam! Politician slams journalist to the ground.
Greg Gianforte, the Republican candidate in Montana’s special House of Representatives election, grappled with British reporter Ben Jacobs and threw hiim to the floor. Continue reading
By Robert Liebman, Times of Israel blog, March 4, 2014 – slighted amended and photographs added, July 24, 2018
A collision between a paedophilia advocacy group, a civil-liberties organisation and the Labour Party has resulted in a major British political scandal. The kerfuffle has nothing at all – and everything — to do with Israel. Continue reading
Brawling is as British as shepherd’s pie. Murder isn’t.
One year after the Brussels soccer riot and on the eve of the World Cup in Mexico City the British national character takes center stage.
On May 29, 1985, fifteen months after moving to London from New York, I watched a live broadcast of British soccer fans running amok in Brussels before the game between Liverpool and Juventus, from Turin, Italy had even begun. When it was over, the body count was 39 dead and hundreds injured. Continue reading
by Robert Liebman, originally published July 21, 2012, this version slightly tweaked
My collection of gaffes by American politicians grows—boy, does it grow – with each election, and with every session of Congress.
But the details of one past gaffe elude me. Whodunnit? When did he do it? Alas, why did he not have enough sense to finesse his way out of danger? Continue reading
by Robert Liebman, 2012
When a schoolboy correctly spelled “potato,” George H. W. Bush’s Vice Presidential running mate Dan Quayle intervened, saying that “potato” should end with an e.
Quayle misspelled.
Todd Akin
Missouri congressman Todd Akin said that rape victims could biologically fend off pregnancy.
Akin “misspoke.”
Running for a Senate seat in Missouri, Akin said what he meant and believed about abortion, but he ended up on the canvas. He knocked himself out. Continue reading
by Robert Liebman
Good afternoon. Have a nice day.
The police may have been trying to tell me something, but a simple No Tickets Available sign would have sufficed.
The London 2012 Olympics opened with glorious pageantry soon followed by controversy, especially over empty seats.
The Games ended on a note of euphoria, and the empty-seat sagas seem to have been completely forgotten. Continue reading
by Robert Liebman
Adenoid Hynkel (Charlie Chaplin) and the world he wants to conquer.
In the topsy-turvy world of Yiddish and, later, Jewish-American narrative, the schlemiel reigns supreme, while the superhero who frequently accompanies him is largely ignored.
This larger than life-size, obviously compensatory doppelganger offers startling insights into Jewish fears of inadequacy, inferiority, and powerlessness—fears which are not necessarily unjustified. Continue reading