Are Chinese protestors really risking their freedom if not their lives just because of anger over the Zero Covid policy, or is the unrest in Shanghai and other cities happening for a more profound reason — like discontent about living under perpetual Communist dictatorship? In a TV debate, I…

As 2022 turns to 2024 — in election terms — the Democrats are still busy congratulating themselves over not being mauled on Nov. 8. But if they continue winning like this, it’ll be a Republican sitting behind the big desk in the Oval Office. Considering that they lost the House…

We tend to agree that journalists must cover what’s important. We ignore that importance is subjective and that news is basically a business, and we hope for a reasonable outcome. The Ukraine war has tested this brittle journalistic paradigm, and the results have been… reasonable. The news media arrived at…

Israel seems set to establish a government led by Benjamin Netanyahu and heavily dependent on the country’s far right. The motley crew of ex-cons, defendants, extremists and fundamentalists will claim to represent the democratic will of the people. But alas, the election in Israel was not exactly democratic. The new…

Whenever the right wins an Israeli election, the center-left starts agonizing over whether to offer or accept a “unity government” — joining forces with the relatively sane Likud mainstream to keep out “radicals” and “save Israel from itself.” The Economist recommended just this in its current issue. Opposition to…

I don’t know which way next week’s U.S. midterms will go, but the Democrats’ timidity is doing them no favors. It is a deficiency liberals manifest all around the world, and unless this is fixed authoritarians might come to dominate our era. Could prospects ahead of the midterms have been…

Many have wondered what it is about Benjamin Netanyahu that so upsets some people. After all, this erudite man in his 70s towers intellectually over most world figures and remains a ball of energy after a lifetime in public service. On Nov. …

Americans feeling apocalyptic about the future of their country might be interested to know that there is another democracy hanging by a thread in a November election: Israel’s. The Israeli right wing was always a surly bunch, but in recent years it has veered decisively toward the…

British jokesters this week circulated a meme of Liz Truss next to an iceberg lettuce, asking which will last longer. The answer, it turns out, was the lettuce. While that did not come as a total surprise — I myself predicted volatility the week she assumed the UK’s prime…