Opinion

• Letters

  Open Versus Closed Societies

  This is in reply to the comments of Iain Levine of Human Rights Watch in your March 30 article “HRW Founder Charts Another Way to Probe Human Rights.” There is no basis for his claim that I urge human rights organizations to refrain from investigating complaints of war crimes. When I chaired HRW, we pioneered…

  < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Reform’s Distracting War Over Politics

  The nomination of Rabbi Rick Jacobs as president of the Union for Reform Judaism has unintentionally started what could become a divisive and even destructive internal conflict within the Reform movement. Rabbi Jacobs’s association with what are perceived to be left-wing organizations have Reform Jews with conservative or even moderate political views on Israel fearing…

  By Dana Evan Kaplan May 4, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  After Bin Laden, Unity Might Not Be Fleeting

  The death of Osama Bin Laden has a lot of folks talking about a new feeling of national unity, a sense that we’ve suddenly been granted leave for the first time in a long time to feel like one nation instead of warring tribes. How long it will last is anybody’s guess. Nobody is taking…

  By J.J. Goldberg May 4, 2011 | 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 Americans keep getting killed in the West Bank. Here’s how the US could fight that awful trend

  

• Nora Berman First Camp Auschwitz, now Alligator Alcatraz — why the right is obsessed with commodifying brutality

  

• Dan Perry What exactly is going on between Israel and Syria — and is the prospect of peace dead?

  

• Emily Tamkin Zohran Mamdani’s victory proves it: The ‘gotcha’ mode of fighting antisemitism has to go

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  A Spring Visit to Israel

  A journalist friend tells me I am wrong to talk of “a Tel Aviv bubble,” a common expression that refers to the quite distinctive café society of Israel’s megalopolis and also implies, dismissively, that Tel Aviv separates itself from the Israeli hinterland, is more open, more casual, sexier, more — well, more Mediterranean. But my…

  By Leonard Fein May 4, 2011 | 2 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Should Bin Laden Have Faced a Judge?

  When I heard the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed, I was in the middle of an author’s tour for my recent book on the Eichmann trial. It was impossible not to immediately see the parallels between the fates of these two mass murderers, who both ended up in watery graves: While bin…

  By Deborah E. Lipstadt May 3, 2011 | 3 min read
• 
  Opinion

  A Tale of Two Brothers

  If you’ve felt embarrassed by Israel lately, what follows might really offend you. But first, a parable. Two brothers live on distant continents. Aaron, the elder, makes a good living as a corporate lawyer, finding fulfillment in his family and hobbies. Joshua, the younger, chose a much harder path as a novelist, chasing an artistic…

  By David Hazony May 2, 2011 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Pride and Justice

  We feel safer today. Not completely safe, but safer. Osama bin Laden’s death does not eradicate al Qaeda, nor does it eliminate the terrorist threat from this virulent network of violent radicals. It may, in fact, make the United States and its allies, notably Israel, more vulnerable to revenge attacks in the coming days and…

  May 2, 2011 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Fatah Spokesman: ‘Bin-Laden’s Elimination Is Good for the Peace Process’

  The statement by Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh mourning Ben-Laden and condemning his killing is getting a lot of internet traffic. It’s instructive; optimists make much of the group’s occasional hints at softening and its conflicts with Al Qaeda. Worth remembering that it still sees itself as part of Jihad International. Here is Ynetnews.com’s report…

  By J.J. Goldberg May 2, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Bin Laden Dead: Some Thoughts About Celebrating, and About the Region (updated)

  Two big nights in a row for Obama – White House correspondents’ dinner followed by the bin Laden press conference. In the TV chatter after the announcement, NBC reported that the big lead had come from Pakistani intelligence last. I passed it along in the initial version of this blog post. This morning, as I…

  By J.J. Goldberg May 2, 2011 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Bibi Forbids Aides To Find Any Upside to Fatah-Hamas Pact; JTA Attacked for Reporting Facts

  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed his cabinet ministers to stick to a single message regarding the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation agreement, Israel’s Channel 10 News reports on its Nana-10 website. The message: “there is no possible positive component in the reconciliation agreement.” That’s right:Cabinet ministers are forbidden even to speculate on any conceivable upside. You…

  By J.J. Goldberg May 1, 2011 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Yesterday Abbas Couldn’t Make Peace Since He Didn’t Speak for Gaza. Today He Can’t Because He Does. When Can He Eat Cake?

  Boy oh boy, Jews say the darnedest things, don’t they? You’ve got to love it. We’ve been hearing for years now that the Palestinian leadership under Mahmoud Abbas isn’t capable of making peace with Israel even if it wants to because, among other things, it doesn’t speak for Hamas, which controls Gaza (see here, here…

  By J.J. Goldberg Apr 29, 2011 | 3 min read