Dana Goldstein

There are compelling reasons for Obama to stay relatively quiet as the unrest continues in Iran — thus avoiding the appearance of protesters there being “tools of the West,” which would strengthen the regime’s hand. But now, in the face of Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei‘s threats to protesters today, the president has responded, in an […]

Once upon a time, folks were apoplectic over Obama‘s appointment of Hilary Clinton to lead the State Department. Clinton just didn’t share Obama’s diplomacy-focused, tough-love approach to the Middle East, they said. She wouldn’t play hardball with Israel on the settlements and Palestinian statehood. Well it turns out that Hillary — duh! — is a […]

As we begin to debate national education standards here in the United States, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the truly high standards foreign nations hold their students to. I’ve already written about the Finnish national curriculum. Now check out these sample questions from the French baccalaureate exam, which students begin taking today. Bonne chance! For […]

Photo of West Bank settlement construction and Palestinian worker via the Boston Globe. The Boston Globe has an extraordinary photo essay depicting the brutality and heartbreak of settlement, within both Palestinian and Jewish communities. In general, the Globe‘s Big Picture feature is really impressive. Sadly, the editors producing it are laboring with increasingly little job […]

Photo from Tehran by Farhad Rajabali, via Flickr The photos coming out of Tehran demonstrate, movingly and beautifully, that women are on the front lines of the protests taking place there, veils and all. The images reminded me of President Obama‘s focus on the hijab during his June 4 Middle East policy speech from Cairo. […]

Among Mousavi supporters, a ritual is emerging: Each night, folks open their windows or step out on balconies at a coordinated time, shouting “Allah-o-akbar!” The phrase means, “God is Great,” and as Ali Gharib writes at Mondoweiss, the call hearkens back to the hopeful early days of the 1979 revolution, when Iranians were united against […]

Sam Brownback with a young supporter at the 2007 CPAC conference in D.C. Photo via Flickr user VictoryNH. On the heels of Dr. George Tiller‘s May 31 murder outside his Wichita church, the state of Kansas has, once again, become the nation’s foremost battleground over reproductive rights. In recent years Kansas tilted left, in large […]

Iranian reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi Both the Ahmadinejad and Mousavi camps are claiming to have won 60 percent of the vote in today’s Iranian presidential election. Via Swampland, here is Joe Klein‘s report from Tehran: I’ve just returned from a day of poll-watching in various Tehran neighborhoods. The lines are long…but I’m worried […]

Last week, Adam and I debated the merits of Max Blumenthal and Joseph Dana‘s shocking video report from Jerusalem, in which drunk American teenagers said that President Obama deserves to be shot, is Muslim and “a terrorist,” and that the occupied territories are “ours.” Now Blumenthal and Dana have compiled a report from a small […]