Because Arab Americans and American Muslims have been waiting to see when theaObama administration would finally act to end Bush-era ethnic and religious profiling guidelines and practices, we were troubled to read press accounts this week indicating that Attorney General Er

I did my doctoral work at Temple University, whose founder was a 19th-century Baptist preacher, Russell Conwell. Conwell was, to be sure, an accomplished writer, a captivating preacher and a visionary entrepreneur, but the theology he helped popularise was, in a word, distu

Western biases are not only transparently self-serving and flat-out wrong, they can also be so annoying.  As an example, a few weeks back, the Washington Post featured a long lament by a British intellectual pointedly suggesting that because Europe was in decline, the world

US President Barack Obama’s upcoming meeting with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah comes at a time when transformative developments are convulsing the regional and world order, and relations between the US and the Kingdom have become strained. It is a situation that the

While reviewing polling data on Israeli and Palestinian attitudes towards the current US-led peace effort, what comes through quite clearly is not just the obvious disconnect between the views of the two groups, but the extent to which this disconnect is driven by the Israeli-cen

This past week, Washington hosted two of my least favourite annual events.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu never tires of inventing new hoops through which he insists Palestinians must jump. As he acknowledged a few weeks ago, it is all part of a cynical game that he plays in an effort to kill the chances for peace. First, he insisted on the

The Ukrainian struggle for independence speaks to me on so many levels. Because I know the history of the Ukraine, I understand its people’s resentment and fear of its often domineering Russian neighbour.

This past week I travelled to New York City to speak at an event honouring the 30th anniversary of the 1984 “Jesse Jackson for president” campaign.