John Loeffler: June 23, 2014

As ISIS rebels roll towards Baghdad and a conflict with Shia Muslims in that part of Iraq, they’ve spoken of rolling back the Sykes-Picot conspiracy. What does this mean? John’s boralogue provides an historic background to the events surrounding the creation of the Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916 during World War I, and how this secret transaction between France and Great Britain laid the groundwork for the violence and chaos we’ve seen in the Middle East during the century that followed. Meanwhile Iraqi Christians are caught in the cross-fire and fleeing to areas dominated largely by Kurds. It’s not a great solution but they are running out of options, not to mention food and water. Juliana Taimoorazy from Iraqi Christian Relief (www.iraqichristianrelief.org) fills us in. Although colleges generally have norms regarding bullying, assaults and intimidations, incidents targeting Jews and supporters of Israel seem to go uncensured on U.S. college campuses. Those who appeal for their rights are derided as “Islamophobic” and it’s now reaching epidemic proportions. Tammi Roissman-Benjamin is director of the AMCHA Initiative (amchainitiative.org), which monitors this situation. Finally the Washington Post did a hit piece against a conference this week on issues surrounding the Benghazi disaster. Of course, instead of addressing issues, they chose to hurl epithets and staged questions. James Simpson (www.aim.org) contrasts the Wapo’s op ed piece with what really happened.