War fatigue settles among Palestinians
October 13, 2024 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
One year after the Hamas atrocities in southern Israel ignited a multi-front war between the Jewish state and Iran’s regional proxies, a discernible trend is emerging among many Palestinians, especially those in Gaza. They are getting tired of the war. Read more
The Nazification of anti-Zionism
September 1, 2024 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Aug. 28, Yonathan Arfi, the head of the French Jewish umbrella body Crif, complained that most of his fellow citizens have an understanding of antisemitism that is rooted in the memory of the Second World War. Read more
An ‘abject, squalid, shameless’ debate at the Oxford Union
July 21, 2024 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
In an era dominated by social media and defined by short attention spans, it’s striking that longer, more involved debates hosted by elite institutions still matter. Read more
How António Guterres betrayed the Jews
June 16, 2024 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
Back in February, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a speech at the Ohel Jakob synagogue in Munich in which he struck most of the right notes. Read more
Why the pro-Hamas demonstrations are different and more dangerous
May 26, 2024 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
Over the last eight months, Jewish communities around the world have been both intimidated and repulsed by the surge in pro-Hamas demonstrations. Read more
UNRWA meets the Spanish Inquisition
May 19, 2024 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
The collaboration between UNRWA, the U.N. agency solely dedicated to Palestinian refugees and their descendants, and the Hamas rulers of Gaza continues unabated. Read more
War is hell. Everywhere.
March 24, 2024 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
“War,” the Union Army Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman is famously said to have told a group of army cadets some years after the American Civil War, “is hell.” Read more
October 7: Rape as an instrument of genocide
March 10, 2024 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
As the world marked International Women’s Day on March 8, the various social media platforms lit up with posts from pro-Israel celebrities and influencers demanding the release of the female hostages who remain in the captivity of the Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Read more
An ideology of violence
March 3, 2024 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
When all is said and done, antisemitism is fundamentally an ideology of violence. Read more
The myth of British exceptionalism
February 18, 2024 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
That old image of the Jewish family with a packed suitcase at the ready in case they are compelled to leave their home suddenly has returned with a vengeance across Europe. Read more
You’re not antisemitic? Sure?
December 31, 2023 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
Amid the current debate over whether a new front will open up in Israel’s war against Hamas and its regional allies, it might be observed that this is already happening. Read more
Ben Cohen: A letter to the rest of the world
November 5, 2023 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
Dear non-Jews, Read more
The Mireille Knoll murder trial: Will France deliver justice this time?
November 7, 2021 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
Under different circumstances, it might have been the stuff of a modern fairy tale with two principal characters. Read more
Chile: The peril of Daniel Jadue
July 18, 2021 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
The anti-Zionist activist Roger Waters, who also doubles up as the bassist of veteran rockers Pink Floyd, gave a ringing endorsement last week to one of the candidates in the Chilean presidential election, which takes place later this year on Nov. 21. Read more
After latest legislation on stolen Jewish property, it’s time to cut ties with Poland’s government
July 4, 2021 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
Poland is awash in antisemitism, and it is the government in Warsaw that is setting the hateful tone amid the worst breakdown in Polish-Jewish relations since the fall of Communism more than 30 years ago. Read more
The antisemitism of Jean-Luc Mélenchon
June 13, 2021 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
In the first round of the French presidential election in 2017, nearly one in five voters marked their ballots for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the candidate of the newly formed far-left “La France Insoumise” (“France Rising”) party. Read more
What does ‘justice for Sarah Halimi’ mean?
May 30, 2021 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
There was a particularly nasty incident that was reported in the crime sections of the French press this week. Read more
The return of the anti-Jewish mob
May 23, 2021 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
The left-wing French parliamentarian Danièle Obono stormed out of a live debate on May 13 about the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian hostilities hosted by the French-language channel of the Israeli broadcaster, i24 News. Read more
For Palestinians, the past remains the future
May 16, 2021 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
Judging by the present pattern, the next conflagration over Gaza—and by extension, the still-unresolved Palestinian question—will occur in 2028 or so, just in time for the 80th anniversary of Israel’s creation. And judging by the present mood, the seven years until then will yield as little political progress as have the past 13, a period in which we’ve witnessed two full-scale wars between Israel and Hamas, with a third now in the offing. Read more
Is the truth a casualty of the Abraham Accords?
April 25, 2021 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
There’s an old adage of disputed authorship that has travelled down the centuries: In times of war, truth is the first casualty. As the English writer Samuel Johnson explained it in the 18th century, war breeds “the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.” That has always been the case. Read more
America has made a serious mistake on UNRWA
April 12, 2021 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
The Biden administration’s regressive decision to include $150 million for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) as part of its restoration of more than $200 million of financial aid to the Palestinians symbolizes its deeper refusal to recognize the gargantuan obstacle this agency has placed in the way of resolving their ongoing conflict with Israel. Read more
Anti-Semitic or just ‘strident’?
March 21, 2021 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
There is a curious sentence that appears in the definition of antisemitism currently being tested by a group of progressive Jewish Americans. Read more
South Africa’s chief justice confronts the apartheid analogy
March 14, 2021 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
As of this writing, South Africa’s Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng was on day seven of a 10-day deadline to publicly apologize for a speech he made last year in which he offered a full-throated defence of Israel, and still, he stood fast—no apology was forthcoming. Read more
History, the Holocaust and hatred in Turkey’s school textbooks
March 7, 2021 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
Time and again, the Middle East has taught us that whatever political problems or challenges a given regime may be facing, it always has at its disposal an antisemitic explanation for how these came about in the first place. Read more
Remembering Manfred Gerstenfeld: Truth against myth
February 28, 2021 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
There is an acerbic joke that you sometimes hear in the Netherlands to the effect that most Dutch people were part of the anti-Nazi resistance, but that they joined “after the war.” Read more
Engaging with the UN Human Rights Council
February 21, 2021 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
Many people who have never heard of the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) might reasonably ask why this body has the name that it does, upon learning that one of its members, China, is currently engaged in genocide against its Uyghur Muslim minority. Read more
‘Shaun on P13:’ Ordinary Norwegians expose the anti-Semite in their midst
February 14, 2021 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
If Shaun Henrik Matheson was an American radio presenter rather than a Norwegian one, it’s highly unlikely that he’d still have a job this week. Read more
Joe Biden, Anne Neuberger and dual loyalty
February 1, 2021 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
Lost amid the whirlwind of anger, violence and recrimination that followed the November 2020 presidential election in the United States was the singular concern over where Joe Biden’s ultimate loyalties might lie, as voiced by a group of conservative voices across the pond in Britain. Read more
‘Freedom for Humanity:’ A Cautionary Tale
January 24, 2021 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
What follows here is a story about a politician from the extreme left, a politician from the far-right and a painting replete with antisemitic tropes that has travelled around the Internet for around a decade, and still does. Read more
‘Your suffering is our pleasure’: The anti-Zionist glee at Sheldon Adelson’s death
January 17, 2021 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
When the former Conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died in 2013, there were some on the left who regarded her passing as a moment for celebration. Read more