During Chanukah, two students defaced a Menorah at Northeastern University, and Northeastern's Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) led an ugly anti-Israel/pro-Hamas rally in Copley Square. One observer noted "the virulence of the chants and messages on the placards... suggest that more sinister hatreds and feelings... were simmering slightly below the...

Here's a classic. Let's start with the ghoulish display of sorrow over the body of a dead boy, allegedly killed by Israeli bombing. It's aimed right at the heart of  someone like Annie Lennox who, upon seeing bombs falling on Gaza, immediately imagines Palestinian babies on the receiving end, rather than Hamas militants targeting Israeli babies. And, of course, the news media snatch up...

  In 1938, shortly after philosopher Martin Buber, formerly of the University of Frankfurt, came to Israel to teach at Hebrew University, a reporter asked how his Hebrew was. He replied: "Good, but not good enough to be obscure in." The joke, apparently, is on the city of Frankfurt, which tomorrow—Sept. 11, incidentally—will hand its prestigious Adorno Prize for excellence in...

  Dear Judith Butler, I have recently read up on the controversy surrounding your getting the Adorno Prize. After an initial survey of the field, I think you need to seriously consider the criticism leveled against you. Even those who do not question your sincerity, worry about your judgment. Their case is strong. Although you disassociated yourself from Hamas and Hizbullah's violence,...

  The Butler controversy continues. For some reason Todd Gitlin, whom even people who disagree with him consider "nuanced," comes out with a defense of his colleague at Columbia, Judith Butler. Despite the obvious daylight between him and Judith, he frames this as part of a schoolyard fight where he is just one stage before, "I'm rubber and your glue…" Not what I'd...