Articles by: "Schlomo"
Rewriting Europe’s narrative

When the European Economic Community, the predecessor of the European Union, was established by the 1957 Treaty of Rome, the narrative that defined it was that economic integration would encourage growth, strengthen democracy and bury …

Trump’s war of choice

President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran was not his first departure from a key international agreement. From the Trans-Pacific Partnership to the Paris climate accord, tearing …

The US needs a Syria strategy

US President Donald Trump lauded the missile strikes by the United States, France and the United Kingdom on Syrian military installations—carried out in retaliation for a chemical-weapon attack allegedly perpetrated by Bashar al-Assad’s regime—as a …

The threat to Western democracy starts at home

Four days before the United Kingdom’s 1924 election, the Daily Mail published a letter purportedly written by Comintern Chairman Grigori Zinoviev calling on British Communists to mobilise ‘sympathetic forces’ in the Labour Party to support an …

The politics of national memory

When, on a visit to Warsaw in 1970, German Chancellor Willy Brandt suddenly dropped to his knees before the Monument to the Ghetto Uprising, Władysław Gomułka, Poland’s communist leader, whispered, ‘wrong monument’. Gomułka would have …

Iran, the hollow hegemon

Israeli and Arab leaders have spent years warning of the rise of an Iranian-led Shia empire covering much of the Middle East. With Iran now linked to the Mediterranean through a land corridor that extends …

The Saudi prince’s dangerous war games

A series of stunning political developments, originating in Saudi Arabia, has been roiling an already volatile Middle East. Is a major new war in the offing? Saudi Arabia’s ambitious 32-year-old crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman …

Why Catalonia’s independence bid is failing

In the confusing aftermath of Catalonia’s messy independence referendum, the Catalan regional government’s president, Carles Puigdemont, has wanted to have his cake and eat it. His long-awaited speech to the regional parliament, in which he …

The resilience of Spanish democracy

The idea that ‘Spain is different’ drove generations of romantic travelers across the Pyrenees to see for themselves, their imaginations stirred by visions of vibrant women and charming bandits. But Spain is no longer just …

The Arab autocracy trap

It has been more than six years since the start of the Arab Spring, and life for most Arabs is worse than it was in 2011. Unemployment is rife in the Middle East and North …

The case for Kurdistan

The Kurds—who occupy a mountainous region that includes portions of Armenia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey—are the largest ethnic group in the world without a state to call their own. It is time to change …