Opinion

• Opinion

  Like Old Times: CIA’s New Fiasco in Beirut

  There’s a sort of grim poetry in the timing of today’s news about the burning of two major CIA intelligence networks by Iran and Hezbollah. It was almost exactly 70 years ago, with the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, that the creation of the CIA was set in motion with…

  By J.J. Goldberg

  3 min read
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  Opinion

  ‘Price Tag’ Attacks Pose Test for Israel

  Israeli society has been confronted recently by a troubling new trend: vigilante attacks by some settlers and their supporters against Palestinians in the occupied territories, Arab citizens of Israel and, increasingly, Israeli peace groups. These began as the settlers’ own form of retaliation — exacting a “price” for any Palestinian violence — but have devolved…

  By Ziad Asali Nov 21, 2011 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Undermining Democracy

  Israeli President Shimon Peres thinks the bills are a very bad idea. So do the opposition leader and three prominent ministers from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s own Likud party. Even Gerald Steinberg, head of NGO Monitor, who has made his reputation exposing what he considers dangerous left-wing biases in Israeli human rights groups — even…

  Nov 21, 2011 | 2 min read

Columnists View All

• Alyssa Katz Class assignment: Get to know your murdered Jewish neighbors

  

• Rob Eshman ‘Remember the Liberty’ has become code for ‘Israel Is Evil’ 

  

• Dan Perry A new proposal to radically destabilize Israel

  

• Emily Tamkin Outrage over Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed on sexual assault of Palestinians is missing the point

  

• Jay Michaelson When it comes to Israel/Palestine, everyone is sure that everyone else is a bigot

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  Bibi Is a Liar, So What’s the Fuss?

  Few stories that start out as potential bombshells end up as utterly duddish (from “dud”) as the “hot mic” exchange between Presidents Sarkozy and Obama. Duddish, that is, here in Israel, where I am for a couple of weeks; not so back home, in the States, as we shall see. If I were a rich…

  By Leonard Fein Nov 20, 2011 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Penn State: A Modern-Day Akeda

  This essay is closely adapted from a *d’var Torah that the author delivered on the Sabbath of November 12 at Ansche Chesed, a Conservative synagogue in Manhattan.* The text of parsha Vayera is as familiar as any in the Torah. It includes the Akeda, the passage we read not only in the annual cycle, but…

  By Samuel G. Freedman Nov 18, 2011 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  A Shift in the Collective

  The old way of collecting and disbursing money from American Jews to Israel and other communities overseas has finally collapsed under the weight of philanthropic trends and communal distrust. That historically beloved bureaucracies have lost their attractiveness to donors is not just a Jewish story — across the giving landscape, it is no longer enough…

  Nov 18, 2011 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Bibi and Abu Mazen Kiss

  One can always dream, right? This photo(shopped) image has been making the rounds and it’s hard to tear your eyes away from that pucker. It’s one of a series from a new ad campaign from Benetton that harkens back to the days when they were regularly producing wonderfully subversive ads that demanded a double take…

  By Gal Beckerman Nov 17, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Letters

  The Real FDR

  Thanks to Henry Morgenthau, Jr., (father of Robert Morgenthau) in 1944, President Roosevelt acted to save Jews by creating the War Refugee Board. Other than that, whatever FDR did to save Jews between 1939 and 1945 was merely accidental. The reasoning of Robert Morgenthau in his October 21 op-ed, “How FDR’s Political Risk Helped Save…

  Nov 16, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Letters

  Bad Choices

  I have always enjoyed looking through the “Forward 50” and finding many people who I respect and admire recognized for their good work. So I was surprised and disappointed to see David Yerushalmi and Jennifer Rubin included in this year’s list. Yerushalmi’s fear-mongering campaign against Islamic law — Shariah — should be an embarrassment to…

  Nov 16, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Letters

  Vatican Must Repent

  I was stunned to read in your November 11 article that Cardinal Kurt Koch, the Vatican’s emissary, said the cross should be viewed as the definitive Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is about reminding and insisting that individuals need to take responsibility for their behavior. The cross is about avoiding responsibility by having Jesus take responsibility…

  Nov 16, 2011 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  After Raid, Occupy’s Ideas Live On

  Occupy Wall Street is in exile. Her benches, once bountiful, lay barren. Her sidewalks — a wasteland. Where there were tents bustling with life, there is breeze. As the Book of Lamentations wonders, “How does the city sit solitary that was full of people?” Under cover of night, eschewing the eye of moral scrutiny, Titus…

  By Daniel Sieradski Nov 16, 2011 | 3 min read