Opinion

• Letters

  March 5, 2004

  After Gaza, What’s Next? Yuval Steinitz, a Likud Knesset member and chairman of the body’s foreign affairs and defense committee, was quoted by the Forward as saying that he might support a pullout from Gaza if “it will enable us to strengthen our position vis-à-vis the Palestinians in a few years time, and if it…

  5 min read
• Opinion

  An Acquired Iraq Complex

  The history of American intervention and non-intervention abroad is rather inglorious. Within recent memory, there’s Vietnam, warranted by a flawed domino theory and a resolution (The Gulf of Tonkin) that defrauded the United States Congress, a war riddled with misinformation, disinformation and outright lies. A gunboat or two off the coast at Dubrovnik in 1991…

  By Leonard Fein Mar 5, 2004 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  The Blinding Mirror

  Whatever else may be said about it, the bitterly divisive debate over “The Passion of the Christ” proves that Mel Gibson’s movie is — well, divisive. This is not a small point. Gibson and his admirers insist the film’s message is one of love and redemption, meant not to divide but to unite. In countless…

  Mar 5, 2004 | 3 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 I have the answer to Jon Stewart’s toughest question about Israel

  

• Nora Berman ‘Eddington’ is full of conspiracy theories but it’s not about Jews. Or is it?

  

• Dan Perry Recognizing a Palestinian state is a great way to doom Palestinians

  

• Emily Tamkin Is starvation in Gaza really Israel’s fault? The facts are clear

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  Which Comes First?

  The latest twist in the never-ending tragicomedy of Middle East diplomacy is a debate between America and Europe over whose recipe for peacemaking is more wildly unrealistic. The cynics among us will call it a draw. The debate revolves around President Bush’s new Greater Middle East Initiative, which aims to promote democratic reforms in the…

  Mar 5, 2004 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  A Matter of Comfort or Right? Gay Marriage: An Exchange

  In his February 13 column “Communal Confusion,” the Forward’s David Klinghoffer took aim at Jewish groups that back gay marriage. Klinghoffer argued that the Torah’s disapproval of homosexuality is clear, and that on gay issues these Jewish groups have privileged an alternative set of values over Judaism. “The reigning value of the Jewish organizations you…

  Feb 27, 2004 | 6 min read
• Letters

  February 27, 2004

  Negative Assessment Of War Is Premature Your editorial’s conclusion (“Intelligence and Wisdom,” February 20) that the administration committed an error of great magnitude in taking us to war in Iraq is, respectfully, premature. After more than 40 years we miraculously emerged unscathed from a world in which our very survival rested on the concept of…

  Feb 27, 2004 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  New Podhoretz Reader Puts His Famed Volte-Face in Perspective

  Since disclosures of interest are expected from reviewers these days no less than from politicians and financial analysts, I’ll make mine at the start. For the last three-and-a-half decades I have written frequently for Commentary, a monthly magazine that was as closely associated with Podhoretz for over a generation as was The New Yorker with…

  By Hillel Halkin Feb 27, 2004 | 5 min read
• Opinion

  Back to the Middle Ages?

  As other explanations for America’s invasion of Iraq have been cast into doubt, a new dawn for human rights has become one of the rationales invoked by the Bush administration to justify the war. So it’s not surprising that the American-led Coalition Provisional Authority would boast of its efforts to improve the lot of Iraqi…

  By Kathleen Peratis Feb 27, 2004 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Israel’s Right to Self-Defense on Trial

  Israel’s right to defend itself against suicide bombers is on trial. On Monday, the International Court of Justice at The Hague began a hearing on whether Israel has the right to build a security fence to try and keep out the terrorists. This case is being brought to the court by the Palestinians and anti–Israel…

  By Eliot Engel Feb 27, 2004 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Passion and Redemption

  Amid all the boiling passions awakened by Mel Gibson’s “Passion,” it’s been mostly overlooked that this movie is a critical landmark in Gibson’s personal journey as an artist. Of the 40 films with which he’s been associated over a 25-year career as actor, director, producer and writer, only three have been described as labors of…

  Feb 27, 2004 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Don’t Rush Rebuilding of Iraqi Military

  Improving security may be the single most important objective for U.S. officials in Iraq, but current American efforts to promote security risk jeopardizing Iraq’s eventual chances of becoming a democracy. Iraqis walk along dangerous streets, with murder and robbery common. An ongoing insurgency claims American lives almost daily, and kills Iraqis even more frequently. The…

  By Daniel Byman Feb 27, 2004 | 4 min read