Interesting cultural observation: in the US, people take one cent or one dollar off to create a perception of value: an iTunes song costs $0.99, not $1.00; a KIND Bar retails for $1.99, not $2; a jacket is on sale for $199 instead of $200. In Great Britain, that "discounted" valuation is a sign of [...]
Pom Wonderful did something, err, wonderful for the food industry by fighting to uphold the standards of the category in which it leads, pomegranate juice, to the point of successfully suing unscrupulous new entrants who tried to ride on its coattails by marketing lower grade products as if they were the real thing: "Consumers buy [...]
Some will criticize this as Shimon Peres’s much-discounted "New Middle East" vision, but I love it, and I am confident that if Israelis and Palestinians get their act together and accept the historical compromises necessary to a comprehensive permanent agreement, this will only be the beginning. Check out this vision for the future of the [...]
Jerusalem Post Editor David Horovitz’s interview with Barack Obama is one of the most to-the-point expositions of Senator Barack Obama’s stances on Mideast issues. Horovitz asked strong and straightforward questions, and Obama replied with earnest answers. Anyone who truly cares about understanding the "real" Obama on these issues should read this interview. One example: Horovitz: [...]
If you are struggling to understand why Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, both Shiite, are so popular among Arab masses from Egypt to Palestine and Saudi Arabia, where the predominant religion is Sunni, think of it through a different prism: the culture of Resistance. The culture of Resistance trumps the schisms [...]
Can policy makers and strategists be really so naive? The Ahmedinejad regime has turned Iran’s right to nuclear development into a national mantra. Only its Islamic fundamentalism and its ideology of spreading their revolution stand above their nuclear ambition. And yet diplomats seem to think they can sway Iran into a set of incentives to [...]
The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down. – SENATOR [...]
From an interesting article in Ha’aretz by Michalis Firillas [T]he concept of hegemony . . . is almost comical in the era of globalization. The sheer number of real or imaginary powers vying for the limelight has made international political maneuvering so complex that real power is hard-pressed to manifest itself in historically familiar ways. [...]
China seems intent on using its veto at the UN to minimize any interference with national sovereignty, even at the expense of basic human rights and values, to the point of again vetoing a UN resolution against Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s atrocious dictator, and seeking to fight an ICC warrant against Sudan’s genocidal President. Howard French [...]
To the chorus of people who complain that religious leaders are not doing enough to raise their voices against extremism and to improve interfaith relations and foster respect, here is an under-reported but remarkable story about a high profile conference to bring foremost Muslims, Christians and Jews together. See also this story. Among the participants [...]