Opinion

• Opinion

  Eyeless in Israel

  Since the start of the current Gaza campaign, the Israeli government and army have repeatedly said that they learned many lessons from the Second Lebanon War. Ostensibly, they are referring to the tactical and political breakdown outlined in the devastating postwar report issued by the Winograd Commission. But it seems that the government also learned…

  By Lisa Goldman

  3 min read
• Opinion

  Inviting International Intervention

  The war in Gaza is moving into its “international” phase, with a host of countries and institutions offering schemes for a cease-fire. Most of these involve the likely deployment at border crossing points into Gaza of third-party monitors, including the active participation in peacekeeping arrangements of two of Israel’s neighbors, Egypt and the West Bank-based…

  By Yossi Alpher Jan 8, 2009 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  ‘There Is No Alternative’ Is No Answer

  In August of 1973 I arrived in Israel as a guest of the Foreign Ministry. For reasons I no longer recall, the ministry had decided that trying to effect my conversion to its view of Israel’s policies regarding the Palestinians was a worthy investment. This was six years after Israel’s stunning victory in the Six…

  By Leonard Fein Jan 8, 2009 | 4 min read

Columnists View All

• Jodi Rudoren This is my last column as editor of the Forward

  

• Jay Michaelson American Jews were played — now what?

  

• Rob Eshman Charlie Kirk and Alan Berg: 2 murders, 41 years apart, show the painful perils of polarization

  

• Nora Berman ‘A long record of failure’: Is it time to put the two-state solution to rest?

  

• Dan Perry Israel’s strike in Qatar: An audacious bid for victory, or just another foolhardy provocation?

  

• Emily Tamkin Trump’s attack on George Soros is ludicrous. It also endangers Jews (and everyone else)

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  Grasping Gaza

  When Israel first unleashed its bombs over Gaza on December 27, it was depicted around the world as a rogue state recklessly igniting an apocalypse. Televised images of warplanes and bloodied Palestinian children inflamed passions in foreign capitals and brought angry crowds into the streets of Europe and the Muslim world. Few beyond Israel’s strongest…

  Jan 8, 2009 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Preserve, Protect, Defend

  In his brilliant biography of the U.S. Constitution, Akhil Reed Amar notes that the document is a contract, a covenant between Americans and the government created to serve them. The Preamble’s lyrical framework bridges the personal (“We the People”) with the active promise (“do ordain and establish this Constitution”). And what the people had ordained…

  Jan 8, 2009 | 2 min read
• Letters

  January 16, 2009

  Yoffie’s Right, Israel Needs Tough Doves Rabbi Eric Yoffie is right on target both in his affirmation of Israel’s need to respond to the rockets being fired from Gaza into Israel’s cities and in his critique of J Street and of a few Jewish doves who “have demonstrated an utter lack of empathy for Israel’s…

  Jan 8, 2009 | 4 min read
• 
  Opinion

  On Gaza, Sense and Centrism

  Wars sicken me, even wars that I support. I support Israel’s offensive in Gaza, but watching it on TV — the images of bombed-out buildings, crying women and, inevitably, the bodies of innocent bystanders — is a painful experience. I suspect that most American Jews feel the same discomfort that I feel. They support the…

  By Eric Yoffie Dec 31, 2008 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Obama’s Gaza Opportunity

  When Israel unleashed its warplanes on Gaza on December 27, a collective gasp could be heard around the globe. The sudden fury of the bombardment brought visions of another Lebanon-style debacle: neighborhoods in rubble, mass civilian deaths, angry mobs surrounding Western embassies, furious diplomatic brinkmanship leading to a humiliating Israeli withdrawal. What actually happened, at…

  Dec 31, 2008 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  A Danger Greater Than Denial

  The news that Herman Rosenblat’s Holocaust memoir “Angel at the Fence” is a fraud has the press buzzing and the publishing world reeling. The book, which the publisher apparently anticipated would be a best-seller, was pulled right before it was to be shipped to bookstores. No one who has paid close attention to the story,…

  By Deborah E. Lipstadt Dec 31, 2008 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Holding Hamas Accountable

  Operation Cast Lead, initiated in response to resumed Hamas rocket attacks on communities in southern Israel, represents Israel’s most furious attack on Hamas since the terrorist group assumed control of Gaza. For the past six months, an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire maintained an uneasy status quo, during which time Hamas smuggled some 80 tons of explosives, roadside…

  By Matthew Levitt Dec 31, 2008 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Changing the Game, or More of the Same?

  Here’s the context: A few days after the Thanksgiving holiday, at a party he attended reluctantly, he met and chatted up a young woman. Somewhat to his surprise, she gave him her phone number. A few days later, he called her and arranged a dinner date for December 28. Having asked around about her, he’d…

  By Leonard Fein Dec 31, 2008 | 4 min read