He Threatened Us, Now He Goes to Jail
By Dr. James J. Zogby Back in May, a jury found Patrick Syring, a former State Department official, guilty of 14 counts of making threats against my life and my staff at the Arab American Institute. This week, a federal judge sentenced Syring to five years in prison to...
We Have a Problem: Guns
By Dr. James J. Zogby Once again, mass shootings are in the US headlines. And in the aftermath of yet another massacre of innocents, we are in the throes of what has become patterned ritual behavior. After the initial shock, we undergo a brief period of mourning, followed by...
By Dr. James J. Zogby I've just returned from Detroit, Michigan, where I attended the second set of Democratic Party presidential primary debates. For many reasons, the debates were a frustrating experience. In the first place, there were simply too many candidates – many of whom, frankly speaking, didn't...
By Dr. James J. Zogby When Americans express concern about religious extremism and violence, they almost always are thinking about Islam. The problems posed by the politicization and weaponization of religion, however, are deeper, more widespread, and more dangerous. Several years ago, I moderated a panel discussion on "Using...
The "Faustian Deal"
By Dr. James J. Zogby While much has already been written about President Donald Trump's recent racist taunts against four first-term women Members of Congress, I have a few observations of my own to make. In the first place, no one should have been surprised that as Trump began...
By Dr. James J. Zogby In the coming week, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs will move on four bills – all of which, I believe, drive more nails in the coffin of Israeli-Palestinian peace. While two of the proposed bills are blatantly pro-Israel, it is the two more...
Our Fractured Nation “Celebrates” the Fourth of July
By Dr. James J. Zogby I'm writing from my home in Washington, DC, on the evening of the Fourth of July, deeply troubled by the display that has just unfolded a few miles away on our National Mall. President Donald Trump, in defiance of all tradition, turned our nation's...
What If Palestinians “Take the Money and Run?”
By Dr. James J. Zogby I wasn't at the "Peace to Prosperity" Summit, but I listened to some of the speeches and read the documents the White House produced for the event. Nothing that I saw or read changed my belief that the entire affair was long on fantasy,...
Most Democratic Candidates Still Afraid to Criticize Israel's Violations of Palestinian Rights
By Dr. James J. Zogby The attitudes of Democratic voters toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have become decidedly more balanced in the past two decades. Favorable attitudes toward Palestinians are up while attitudes toward Israel appear to be in decline. While, overall views of Israel remain positive, substantial numbers of...
The Idea of America is at Risk
By Dr. James J. Zogby I have long argued that the American identity was fundamentally different than that of most other countries in the world. While the identity of most nations has been ethnic-based, being American represented an inclusive idea that transcended ethnicity. For centuries we have absorbed peoples from...
