Late last year, as the primaries were just heating up, pundits and commentators were busy trying to make sense of the Donald Trump phenomenon.His stump speeches were more akin to the stream of consciousness rantings of an out-of-control id than what was expected from a serious pr

During the past year, I had the pleasure of receiving visits from Ayman Odeh, Ahmad Tibi and, most recently, Basel Ghattas — as they passed through Washington. All are Palestinian citizens of Israel.

One week ago, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Stanley Vernon Majors murdered his next-door neighbour, 37-year-old Khalid Jabara.He shot Khalid dead on the front porch of the Jabara home.It was a horrific crime that could have been prevented.Reflecting on the developments leading up to this m

This presidential election is exposing deep fault lines in our society and the failure of some of the basic institutions of our democracy.If we do not change direction, we are on our way to “hell in a handbasket”.I begin with the difficult situation in which Republicans now find

The quadrennial process of party platform writing is more of a political exercise than a policy deliberation. When party leaders sit down to debate what will or will not go into their platform, their eyes are less focused on what will constitute sound policy.

After back-to-back Republican and Democratic conventions, the stage is set for a 100-day mad dash to the November presidential contest. There were telling differences between the two events.To begin with, the conventions revealed the state of play within each party.Both Repu

To understand why the United States fails so miserably in efforts to achieve an Israeli/Palestinian peace, all you need to do is take a look at the mix of bad policy and bad politics found in the Israel/Palestine sections of the platforms of both the Republican and Democratic par

I grew up watching both parties’ conventions. Television networks covered them from beginning to end. Oftentimes, because the outcome was not assured, there was drama and tension. During the past several decades, conventions have lost their excitement.

Last week, a coalition of mostly far-right “Christian” organisations hosted a conference in Washington that claimed to be defending persecuted minorities in the Middle East.Given the very real threat posed to vulnerable ancient religious communities by barbarous groups like Daesh