Opinion

• Opinion

  Have Your Say | Is Bloomberg’s Run For President Good For Jews?

  Have Your Say is your chance to tell us what you think. Comment below or on Facebook and let us know what you think about the question posed in the headline. We’ll incorporate your answers in a story later in the week! Have Your Say | Is Bloomberg’s Run For President Good For Jews? https://t.co/MkR8Y1mSOJ…

  By Forward Staff

  < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  Netanyahu’s Response To His Indictment? Play The Victim And Weaken Israel Even More

  When Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced on Thursday that he would indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on three separate corruption charges, Netanyahu knew just what to say. He called a press conference in advance, for precisely one hour after the first announcement began. Glaring at the cameras, he practically guffawed at points to swallow…

  By Dahlia Scheindlin Nov 21, 2019 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  3 Qs With Jodi | What Does Israel’s Political Stalemate Really Mean?

  Whenever people ask how long I was in Jerusalem as the bureau chief of The New York Times, I answer both in years and in stories. That is, almost four years — or, two wars in Gaza and two Israeli elections. My successor has certainly got me beat: two Israeli elections in six months, and…

  By Jodi Rudoren Nov 21, 2019 | 3 min read

Columnists View All

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

  

• Jay Michaelson I supported Israel’s actions in Gaza in October 2023 — not anymore

  

• Rob Eshman The staggering hypocrisy behind Trump’s deal to free the last living American hostage

  

• Nora Berman She’s a titan of Israeli architecture. Her story contains troubling lessons for her country

  

• Dan Perry It looks like Israel totally underestimated Trump

  

• Emily Tamkin This week proved it: Trump’s approach to antisemitism at Columbia is horribly ineffective

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  Thank You, Lt. Col. Vindman, For Reminding Us Who We Are

  Watching the impeachment hearings, I was transported back to September 1972 when I briefly encountered — in a very personal fashion — the face of the KGB. A frightening moment, it offered me a glimpse of what an antisemitic authoritarian government is capable of. I had arrived in Moscow with a friend Erev Rosh Hashana…

  By Deborah E. Lipstadt Nov 20, 2019 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  The Devastating Irony Of The Impeachment Hearings For Russian Jews

  Two children of Jewish refugees testified in the Trump impeachment hearings in Washington this week. Today, Ambassador Gordon Sondland invoked his immigrant background in the opening statement of his testimony. “My parents fled Europe during the Holocaust,” he testified. “Escaping the atrocities of that time, my parents left Germany for Uruguay… Like so many immigrants,…

  By Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt Nov 20, 2019 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  The Problem With Settlements Is Not That They Are Illegal. It’s That They Are Immoral

  Yesterday the Trump administration said Israeli settlements in the West Bank don’t violate international law. That’s absurd. Among international lawyers, the consensus that settlements are illegal rivals the consensus among international scientists that humans contribute to climate change. As UCLA’s Dov Waxman has pointed out, the legal advisor to Israel’s own foreign ministry admitted that…

  By Peter Beinart Nov 19, 2019 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Vassar Is Actually Handling Anti-Zionist Protests Really Well. I Should Know – They Protested Us

  This is one of a number of responses to what happened at Vassar when an Israeli speaker, Hen Mazzig, was protested last week. In 2019, protests against pro-Israel and Jewish speakers are all too common. The topic is a heated one, and speakers getting protested has become almost a daily social media frenzy. These episodes…

  By Jacob Miller Nov 19, 2019 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Here’s Why We Protested Hen Mazzig At Vassar

  This is one of a number of responses to what happened at Vasser when an Israeli speaker, Hen Mazzig, was protested last week. On Thursday November 14, at 5 p.m., around 25 members of Vassar’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter along with other students gathered on the third floor of Rockefeller Hall to voice…

  By Ezra Mead Nov 19, 2019 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  We’re Having the Wrong Debate about the West Bank

  It was a special treat, I remember: We would jump in the back seat of a car and hop over to Efrat on Saturday night. I was 17, and living for a year in Gush Etzion, the area just south east of Jerusalem that has been the scene of repeated violence. I remember the quiet…

  By Ari Hoffman Nov 19, 2019 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  The Two-State Solution Is Not A Gift To Us Palestinians. It’s The Only Way Israel Survives.

  On Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo unveiled a massive shift in U.S. foreign policy: The U.S. would no longer consider Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory illegal under international law. The devastating announcement, made at a press conference in Washington, threatens to undermine future hopes for peace or a two-state solution to the conflict. But…

  By Muhammad Shehada Nov 19, 2019 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  The Real Beneficiary Of US Recognition Of The Settlements Is Not Israel

  Most days, you could be forgiven for not paying attention to shifts in diplomatic policy stances. But on Monday afternoon, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a policy change with potentially far reaching implications. He announced that “the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law.”…

  By Alex Zeldin Nov 18, 2019 | 4 min read