When I didn’t manage to read a book I had selected for 2017’s Read Harder Challenge I left the library request in as these were books that I had put onto the list for several reasons. Following ElCicco’s detailed and extensive review of A Hope More Powerful than the Sea I knew I needed to read this book in order to bear witness to one woman’s experience as a refugee from the Syrian war as it is one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of my […]
Nevertheless, She Persisted
…[R]efugees would not risk their lives on such a dangerous journey if they could thrive where they were. ~Melissa Fleming, office of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Too many people in the West, particularly in the US, seem to think that refugees are moochers who want to selfishly come here to get something for nothing. We have little to no idea how refugees become refugees, and more tragically, we often just don’t give a damn. It’s not our problem, right? “If these people would […]
Resist the urge to go fetal
He was a wannabe gangster and a high school dropout who got tattoos, drank and smoked, and sold drugs on the streets of Jordan. His mother was so concerned, she sent him to Muslim self-help classes. There, Ahmad Fadil found a new path. By the time he was killed in a U.S. airstrike in 2006, Fadil-by then known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi- had lead a new terrorist insurgency in Iraq and Jordan that resulted in tens of thousands of civilian deaths. That group was ISIS. […]
Mossad on the Trail of Arab Bad Guys …. Again
Gabriel Allon, our favorite art restorer and Israeli Mossad assassin is back, and he is about to become the father of twins and replace a former associate as the head of Israel intelligence. The plot, as usual, is so implausible as to require a total suspension of belief, but the plot lines are so complex, the characters so colorful, and the payback to the bad guys so creative that one can almost ignore the fact that the author’s rage at Middle Eastern bad guys totally […]