Seth Mandel

2 weeks ago | commentary.org | Seth Mandel

Is Israel's war to topple Hamas in Gaza going unnecessarily slowly? That's become the conventional wisdom. But the tragic deaths of four IDF soldiers in a booby-trapped building in Khan Younis challenge that assumption. Chen Gross of a commando unit and Yoav Raver of an engineering unit were killed along with two other, as-yet-unnamed soldiers when they entered a building in Southern Gaza that was rigged with explosives, and the structure collapsed on the four of them.

2 weeks ago | commentary.org | Seth Mandel

Something terrible happened to Piers Morgan yesterday. Triggered by a small piece of logic uttered by his guest, Natasha Hausdorff, Morgan completely lost his bearings. That's not the terrible thing that happened to Piers, though. The terrible thing that happened was a lot of people who viewed Morgan's spectacular public meltdown commented that Morgan was behaving inappropriately and that he should grow up. Morgan was aghast at this "concerted effort to silence me." Poor Piers.

2 weeks ago | commentary.org | Seth Mandel

From the beginning of Benjamin Netanyahu's return to the premiership in 2009, he repeatedly insisted that the Palestinian Authority recognize Israel as a Jewish state. "Israel expects the Palestinians to first recognize Israel as a Jewish state before talking about two states for two peoples," Netanyahu reportedly told Obama's Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, at their first meeting.

2 weeks ago | commentary.org | Seth Mandel

The terror attack on Jews in Boulder has exposed how deeply heads have been buried in the sand, especially when it comes to anti-Semitism and the left. Reporting out of the Colorado college town has an Invasion of the Body Snatchers quality to it, depicting a community of identical-looking but hollowed-out replacements for the humans that once populated it.

3 weeks ago | commentary.org | Seth Mandel

When we talk about Jewish statesmen, we usually refer to Israeli prime ministers, diplomats, larger-than-life military figures and the like. But Stanley Fischer, who died this weekend at 81, also deserves the title. He saved Israel's economy twice. Fischer, an immigrant to America from what is now Zambia, excelled at MIT and became among the more highly influential economics professors there (though his teaching career began at the University of Chicago).