Leonard Fein
By Leonard Fein
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Opinion Too Late for Peace, and Too Soon, Too
They say it hasn’t been this hot here in Israel in 65 years. Where I am for a few days is Kibbutz Geva, in the Valley of Jezreel, not far from Nazareth and Afula, hardly the warmest place in Israel, yet here it reached 104 today. In this kind of heat everything feels suspended. One…
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Opinion Even Without Partners We Must Work Together
‘Peace? Of course we want peace. But we cannot have peace without a partner, and we have no partner.” We’ve all heard those words over and over again, perhaps even spoken them. Imagine, then, my shock at hearing them the other day from a West Bank Palestinian. Nor could there be any mistake: There was…
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Opinion Before the West Bank Turns to Hamas
Within 24 hours of my arrival in Israel, I am treated to virtually every conceivable reaction to the Hamas conquest of Gaza. One friend, who knows well my longstanding belief that only a two-state solution can finally put this conflict to rest, says smugly, “So, who do you want us to negotiate with now?” Another…
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Opinion The Power of One Voice
The bad news drives out the good. Or, as I prefer, Elef’s Law: Every ounce of promising idea one can articulate will beget at least a pound of dismissive refutation. Here comes a promising idea. It will immediately be thought implausible, but not because it lacks merit. It will be thought implausible because we have…
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Opinion An Exemplar of the Best of America
No, it is way too soon to pop the cork and pour the champagne. True, President Bush has announced new American sanctions against Sudan and promised greater American effort to persuade the United Nations to take more vigorous action on behalf of Darfur. But three years after then-secretary of state Colin Powell declared that what’s…
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Opinion The Sour Legacy of the Spring of ’67
On June 1, 1967, the Beatles released “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” The Wall Street Journal, reflecting on what it calls the Beatles’ most famous achievement, says that “When ‘Sgt. Pepper’ appeared, it was as if a massive block party had appeared outside your window.” I missed the block party, and was absent as…
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Opinion A City United in Name Only
Here is a quiz: On May 14, 2007, the ambassadors of seven nations — Georgia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Congo, Cameroon, Honduras and Cote d’Ivoire — gathered in Jerusalem on an auspicious occasion. On November 6, 1995, the following, among others, gathered in Jerusalem for a very different occasion: the president of the United States, his wife…
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Opinion Immobilized by Moral Ambiguity
Will it never end? The “it” refers to the cruelty, the meanness, the violence that so have characterized our times, and do still. While Iraq and Afghanistan continue to leech — blood, treasure, honor — it is other things I have in mind just now. The haunting question is the disturbing theme of a movie…
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