this week's signandsight

After the honour killing in Hamburg, women’s rights activist Serap
Cileli tells Germans to draw the line. Columbian journalist Hector
Abad Faciolince discovers what his countrymen are worth – in US visa
dollars. Neofascist historical revisionism is up and saluting in
Italy. Bahman Nirumand examines Abdolkarim Soroush’s thesis that not
God but Mohammed wrote the Koran. And having overdosed on the naivety
of new German feminism, the SZ wishes it was a meatball in Poland.

A journey into the heart of the enemy

On the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel, exiled Iraqi writer,
Najem Wali, decided to go and survey the “enemy” territory with his
own eyes. What he found was an explanation for the reluctance of Arab
leaders to let their people make the same journey: the stagnation of
Arab societies and economies cannot be blamed on Israel.

Magazine Roundup

In the London Review of Books, Kevin Kopelson spills the beans about
his plagiarism-littered path to professorship. Elet es Irodalom is
green with envy over the independence of the Polish press. The
Christians had it better under Nasser and Saddam Hussein, claims
Coptic priest Giuseppe Scattolin in Resetdoc. In Le point,
Bernard-Henri Levy spits out a colourful array of adjectives to
describe the regime in Burma. And in L’Espresso, Umberto Eco analyses
how the Mafia is murdering with the times.