Stumbling Toward Another War - by Uri Avnery: "Introducing Miss Calculatsia, that fashionable foreigner, the new star in Israeli discourse. To a Hebrew ear, she sounds like a young beauty, like 'Miss Israel.' But Miss-Calculatsia, the Hebrew version of 'miscalculation,' is neither young nor beautiful, nor even female: just another pretentious foreign word taking the place of a perfectly good Hebrew one. (In Latin, 'calculus' is a small stone. These were built into the abacus, which was used by the Romans long before they ever dreamed of computers.) The miscalculation spoken of is not a beauty queen, but a queen of ugliness: a war between Israel and Syria that may break out any minute – not because Israel wants it, nor the Syrians, but because one side misjudges a provocative act that will push the other into war."
Broken Spring? : Information Clearing House This is a sequel to my June 2011 article, ‘After the spring’, on the upheavals in the Arab world. It is an article that has been painful to write, because it brings bad tidings and offers a pessimistic analysis of the upheavals, at least in the short term, in a number of Arab countries. The outcomes and potential outcomes of these uprisings have also acquired new, very significant dimensions. These include a complex entanglement with the accelerated preparations for a possible attack on Iran, and a poisonous, sectarian aspect that could have the consequence of ripping Syria and the Middle East apart.
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