The New Republic

The Dream of the CeltBy Mario Vargas Llosa Translated by Edith Grossman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 358 pp., $27)   READ MORE >>

I wish it would be historically possible—that is, historically honest—for Israel to be omitted from the long list of target countries that have been the victims of terrorism. Alas, it is not. But President Obama has a habit of making such lists, and he always fails to include Israel (or anyplace within its borders) as a target of this distinctive and most vicious form of warfare.  READ MORE >>

On the front page of the Sunday Boston Globe “Ideas” section, there’s a photograph of East Belfast—or, rather, of a concrete demarcation “that separates the Protestant community from the Catholic residents on the other side of the wall.” It is called the “Peace Line,” and maybe it’s what George Mitchell, who negotiated the settlement that ended “the Troubles,” thinks of as peace. READ MORE >>

My previous item on Peter King touched a nerve with the excellent Alex Massie, who points out that King was an outright apologist for terrorism by the Irish Republican Army. Massie points me to this old New York Sun article (not by him) which has some great details: READ MORE >>

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