George Szamuely

George Szamuely is a frequent columnist for the Taki's Top Drawer pages of the "New York Press". Szamuely has also written for antiwar.com, "Counterpunch", "Commentary", "The Observer" and the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Biography

He was born in Hungary in 1954, his father being Tibor Szamuely (historian) and his great-uncle Tibor Szamuely, and he was educated in England.

Political Views

Szamuely has been an ardent critic of United States foreign policy. Despite his one-time association with the neoconservative Hudson Institute, his opposition to the state of Israel has allied him with the paleoconservative and libertarian movements [ [http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=16266 FrontPage Magazine ] ] . He has been highly critical of the workings of the United Nations tribunals, in particular the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia [ [http://www.counterpunch.org/szamuely0924.html George Szamuely: US Hypocrisy on Those IKCs ] ] . He argues that the ICTY, along with human rights groups like Human Rights Watch, foster conflict rather than reconciliation and serve the interests of Western powers by targeting their opponents, while ignoring or minimizing their, often far more serious, crimes as well as those of their allies. [ [http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/1957 ZNet - Human Rights Watch ] ] He has been a supporter of Serbia's actions in Yugoslavia. [ [http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/62/069.html George Szamuely, The Yugoslavian Fairy Tale ] ]

Arrest

Jayson Blair reports in the "New York Times" that on October 5, 1999, Szamuely was arrested for having 500 overdue library books from the New York University campus library, many of them rare or out of print, which he refused to return after repeated warnings. His fines ran up to $31,000. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE7DF1431F935A35753C1A96F958260 N.Y.U. Library Scofflaw Taken Out of Circulation - New York Times ] ]

References