Defining Terms Being against Zionism and Semitism has evolved into being against the existence of Israel. At its most basic definition, anti-Zionism is the “opposition to the existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish state.”  There are various shades of anti-Zionism as oppositions go.  Muslim anti-Zionism, the most problem-laden opposition, looks at the state of [...]

The Trouble with Colonizers While the crux of the Israeli-Palestinian animosity is a fight for the right to a homeland, geopolitics involving powerful countries has played a crucial role in this conflict. It is of note that at the beginning of the modern Jewish immigration to Palestine, the Arab world was either under the Otttoman Empire or [...]

Holy Land Conquests Because it is identified with Jesus and the Old Testament, Christians use the term Holy Land for Israel. Within the Holy Land is the contested city of Jerusalem. It was occupied by Muslim Arabs after their conquest in AD 322. By 1099, the Christian Crusaders from Europe wrested the Holy Land and slaughtered Jews [...]

Israel and Palestine If the Middle East were a tinderbox, Israel and Palestine would be the fuse.  Their protracted hostility as we know today has been there for more than fifty years.  One can glean though that their ancient history renders their hostility to be just as ancient.  Who, then, are the Israelis and Palestinians, and [...]

Aaahhh, ubiquitous germs.  In peace they’re used for research and made as basis for vaccines that ensure human immunity to their ravages.  In war they are used as weapons of mass destruction. Biological warfare is not new.  It can be traced back to ancient times, in Europe where the first use of biological weapons was recorded [...]

The first tape I held was in Grade 6 Home Economics sewing class.  It was that long, calibrated flexible device for measuring sizes and lengths called a tape measure. Magnetic tapes that became more common years later were for a different human activity apart from sewing.  Out of its protective plastic shell magnetic tapes are even [...]

Names of revolutions of centuries past lack fizzle.  The French, American, Russian, and Philippine Revolutions, though colored red with blood, are names that seem bland now that more recent revolts are called with symbols or colors. The series of revolutions in Eastern Europe in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s started with the 1989 Velvet Revolution [...]

Standards are a blend of place and time and a people’s culture. Religion also bears heavily on standards. And there’s tradition. A bikini-clad woman pushing a shopping cart in a beachside supermarket in Honolulu isn’t a strange sight.  Transport that sight to our local malls, or for that matter to New York’s Madison Avenue, and it [...]

They are on the rise, these women.  Hillary Clinton is on the frontline as a presidential contender in the next US elections.  Angela Merkel is the sitting Chancellor, the first woman to be so in Germany, while Segolene Royal had just given newly elected French president Nicolas Sarkozy a serious runoff in an election with [...]