Although my day job is writing the foreign affairs column for The New York Times — more Persian Gulf than fairway golf — thinking about golf and playing as often as I can is my all-consuming hobby. So like millions of others, I was awed by Tiger Woods’ comeback for the ages by his winning the Masters at 43 years old. What can be learned from it?Opinion6 Aug 2024
Although my day job is writing the foreign affairs column for The New York Times — more Persian Gulf than fairway golf — thinking about golf and playing as often as I can is my all-consuming hobby. So like millions of others, I was awed by Tiger Woods’ comeback for the ages by his winning the Masters at 43 years old. What can be learned from it?Opinion6 Aug 2024
There are two countries that I’ve been professionally, emotionally and intellectually involved with my entire journalism career — the United States and Israel. I’ve never been more worried about both, because President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are essentially the same person, and they pose the same threat to their respective nations.Opinion6 Aug 2024
Here’s some news you may have missed. Southeastern Africa got hit in March with a cyclone that United Nations officials say was one of the worst weather disasters to ever strike the Southern Hemisphere. “Ever” is a long time.Opinion6 Aug 2024
I’ve been watching with more than a little interest the controversial statements about Israel and the Israel lobby by Ilhan Omar, a freshman Democratic congresswoman from the 5th District of Minnesota, because it turns out that we have a lot in common — up to a point.Opinion6 Aug 2024
Around the end of each year major dictionaries declare their “word of the year.” Last year, for instance, the most looked-up word at Merriam-Webster.com was “justice.” Well, even though it’s early, I’m ready to declare the word of the year for 2019.Opinion1 Aug 2024
Up to now I have not favored removing President Donald Trump from office. I felt strongly that it would be best for the country that he leave the way he came in, through the ballot box. But last week was a watershed moment for me, and I think for many Americans, including some Republicans.Opinion26 May 2024
JERUSALEM — Amos Yadlin, the former head of military intelligence in Israel, likes to say that Israel as a Jewish-majority democracy faces two existential threats: a nuclear-armed Iran and turning itself into a binational state by permanently occupying the West Bank with its 2.5 million Palestinians. And while Israel has a strategy for addressing the first threat, it has none for the second.Opinion26 Jun 2019
If you’re keeping score at home on the Trump foreign policy, let me try to put it in a nutshell: The president has engaged America in a grand struggle to reshape the modern behavior of two of the world’s oldest civilizations — Persia and China — at the same time.
WILLMAR, Minn. — In 1949 my aunt and uncle moved from Minneapolis to this town in west-central Minnesota, where they started a small steel distribution company. I visited them regularly for 50 years. About 40 years ago, my aunt whispered to me one day that she had been in her local grocery store and had heard someone ... “speaking Spanish.”
Growing up, I was always fascinated with the magician-psychic Uri Geller, who was famous for bending spoons with his supposed supernatural powers. How did he do that? I wondered. I’ve been thinking about him lately as I’ve watched an even more profound magic trick playing out in our politics. We have a president who can bend people.
SAN DIEGO — On April 12, I toured the busiest border crossing between America and Mexico — the San Ysidro Port of Entry, in San Diego — and the walls being built around it. Guided by a U.S. Border Patrol team, I also traveled along the border right down to where the newest 18-foot-high slatted steel barrier ends and the wide-open hills and craggy valleys beckoning drug smugglers, asylum-seekers and illegal immigrants begin.
JERUSALEM — Amos Yadlin, the former head of military intelligence in Israel, likes to say that Israel as a Jewish-majority democracy faces two existential threats — a nuclear-armed Iran and turning itself into a binational state by permanently occupying the West Bank with its 2.5 million Palestinians.
Maybe I missed it, but I haven’t heard any of the Democrats running on the argument that he or she is the best person to answer the White House crisis line at 3 in the morning.
The beating heart of 24/7 back then was a vast floor of young phone operators, most with only high school diplomas, save for a small pool of techies who provided “help desk” advice.