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
8 Reasons Menachem Creditor Is Wrong To Be ‘Done Apologizing’ for Israel
We’re all exhausted by the horrors of Gaza. Whatever our political points of view, this is a trying time to care about Israel, Palestine, or the prospects for peace in the Middle East. Recently in these pages, my friend Rabbi Menachem Creditor has given eloquent voice to this frustration. He is fed up, he says…
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Opinion Gaza War Diary: Silence, Then the Bombs Go Off
A Palestinian carries the remains of an Israeli shell in the Gaza Strip / Getty Images Editor’s Note: Walid Abuzaid’s diary will run in two parts. This is the first installment. Thursday, June 27 I was in Cyprus when it all started. When we heard about the kidnapped teens, we were thrilled by the possibility…
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Opinion When ‘Anti-Israel’ Looks Like ‘Anti-Semitism’
Since Israel launched its military operation in Gaza, other countries are seeing an increase in anti-Semitic hate speech and attacks. In France, synagogues are being firebombed. In Belgium, coffee shops are barring Jews from entry. In Chicago, leaflets threatening the Jewish community are being discovered on parked cars. In India, Jewish sites are being threatened…
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Opinion Solitude and Quiet Will Not Cure You
It seemed like a fairly simple task. For a just-published study, researchers asked their subjects to sit in an empty room alone for 15 minutes. The only potential distraction was a device that allowed them to self-administer electric shocks, which they were allowed to try out beforehand. One-quarter of the women and two-thirds of the…
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Opinion The Gaza War Through Ultra-Orthodox Eyes
An ultra-Orthodox Jew watches the bombardment of Gaza from southern Israel / Getty Images (JTA) — Most Israelis blame the war in Gaza squarely on Hamas, though there are plenty who fault the Israeli government for not pursuing peace more aggressively. In the haredi Orthodox community, however, where practically everything is ascribed to the omnipresent hand…
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Opinion Israel’s Conflict Has a Past — and a Future
Some years ago, a career military person told me that when the first intifada broke out, in 1987, there had been no indication of the impending uprising. A simple traffic accident sparked rioting that spread, while the military, and indeed Israeli society, was caught by surprise. I ventured that after 20 years of holding a…
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Opinion Gaza Tunnels: How They Work, What Israel Knew
In my last post I promised to translate Alex Fishman’s Friday column in Yediot Ahronot discussing Hamas’s tunnels. Here it is. He briefly traces Israel’s growing awareness of the problem over more than a decade. He reaches much the same conclusion as Nahum Barnea: “…the fact is that everyone saw, everyone knew, everyone understood, and…
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Opinion Dani Danon Is Such a Threat to Israel Even Bibi Fired Him
Credit where credit is due: A year ago, I wrote about Israel’s Deputy Minister of Defense, Dani Danon, that he is Israel’s “enemy within,” perhaps the most dangerous current threat to Israel and a star of Likud, the linchpin of the governing coalition. My favorite Danon quotes: He refers to “the mistake we made in…
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Opinion Israel’s Latest Fib: ‘Gaza Tunnels Were Surprise’
Nahum Barnea, commonly described as Israel’s most respected political journalist, has spent much of the past two weeks with the troops in Gaza and talking to general command in Tel Aviv. His weekly column in today’s Yediot Ahronot weekend supplement, which I have translated below, happens to say some of the things I’ve been writing…
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Opinion For Peace To Win, Hamas Must Lose
Heading into the third week of its campaign against Hamas in Gaza, Israel finds itself tripping over an unexpected impediment: its overwhelming military superiority. The problem is that Israeli forces can do pretty much whatever they want in the densely populated district except figure out how to get out. And the longer they stay, the…
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Opinion Why Israeli Left Should Stop Backing Gaza Wars
Palestinians carry a boy following an Israeli military strike on the Gaza beach / Getty Images In the current outburst of violence, perhaps the only pliable and docile actor is Israel’s center-left. Politically speaking, opposition leader Isaac Herzog might as well be cowering in a shelter. He toes Prime Minister Netanyahu’s line, supporting both the…
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