In the Forward’s opinion section, you’ll find analysis and essays from diverse corners of the Jewish world.
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Opinion
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Opinion
The Flotilla, the Israeli Moral Imagination and the Failure of U.S. Jewish Leadership
Haaretz reporter Anshel Pfeffer has a very important piece in the Friday paper that looks at the Gaza Flotilla incident and the yawning gap between Israeli and international perceptions of the affair — and then connects it to Peter Beinart’s “breathtaking” New York Review of Books essay, “The failure of the American Jewish establishment.” In…
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Opinion Israel: U.S. Asset or Burden? Asset, Say ADL, AIPAC, 334 Congressmen. Burden, Says Mossad
One of the debates simmering just below the surface this week is the question of whether Israel is a strategic asset or burden to the United States. Pro-Israel advocates have maintained for decades that it is an asset, and a darned valuable one. This view has been emphatically restated in the past few days by,…
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Opinion Chosenness and Its Discontents
The first line is familiar. I’ve added the rest: How odd of God to choose the Jews. But how on earth could we refuse? Was the choice reciprocal? Fact eternal or just cyclical? Was it mystical, statistical, poetical, umbilical? The consequence let us confess Is no small measure of distress. We stand accused, we are…
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Opinion Erdogan’s Turkey Is Not a Friend
Speaking in the aftermath of Israel’s botched raid on the Gaza flotilla, veteran American diplomat Aaron David Miller commented: “Overnight, the Israelis have boosted Hamas’s stock; accelerated the international community’s efforts to pressure and isolate Israel; undermined [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas, prompted a crisis with the Turks.” Miller may be right on the first…
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Opinion Why Israel’s Ship of State Is Adrift
Israelis’ hearts went out to the young soldiers who were shown rappelling down to the deck of the Mavi Marmara only to be attacked by a mob armed with sticks and knifes (though the video clips released by the Israel Defense Forces don’t show what happened after the soldiers opened fire). But amid feelings of…
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Letters June 11, 2010
Specter’s Legacy Sits In Judgment The end of Arlen Specter’s career as a U.S. senator should be hailed by Jews as well as by all Americans (“End of Specter Era Brings New Race for Jewish Vote,” May 28). Why? Because of his key role in driving the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Specter’s…
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Opinion Time for Israeli Ingenuity
In their best-selling book “Start-Up Nation,” Dan Senor and Saul Singer detail how Israel’s “economic miracle” has been fueled by an informal, creative and entrepreneurial business culture backed by government policies focused on innovation. How is it, then, that a nation with the economic brainpower to lead the world in per-capita start-ups cannot apply that…
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Opinion We Are One, Genetically
The Jewish communal world is obsessed with the notion of peoplehood and how to define it, promote it, strengthen it — especially how to encourage younger, unaffiliated Jews to feel part of a sprawling but interconnected global family. A new scientific study may offer some help. Turns out that Jews the world over share many…
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Opinion Another Fine Mess, Bibi
This is from Amnon Abramovitch, a popular commentator on Israel’s Channel 2 Television News, writing for the Yediot Ahronot opinion page (Hebrew, print only), Tuesday, June 1. Wherever he touches military and security affairs, Benjamin Netanyahu has bad luck. An evil eye, a sort of un-naches. That’s how it’s been since way back when, and…
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Opinion Fiasco at Sea, Failed Strategy
Three very negative strategic trends came together to produce a fiasco-at-sea when Israel intercepted the civilian flotilla that was seeking to breach the blockade of Gaza. First, Turkey’s Islamist leadership saw an opportunity to champion the Palestinian cause and Hamas in particular through sponsorship of the six-ship flotilla by IHH, a humanitarian organization that functions…
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Opinion The Flotilla Was a Killer
Israel got suckered, the same way it gets suckered over and over. It walks into situations where it will inevitably come out looking like a bully, arouses worldwide anger and then gets indignant when it’s condemned. It’s like watching Charlie Brown charge the football, knowing that Lucy will snatch it away as she always does….
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