Ben Cohen
Ben Cohen writes a weekly column for JNS on Jewish affairs and Middle Eastern politics. His writings have been published in Commentary, the New York Post, Haaretz, The Wall Street Journal and many other publications.
China wants to blind the world
American democracy may be immersed in crisis at the present time, but the various claims of its death are, as Mark Twain might have quipped, greatly exaggerated. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said on...
Designating anti-Semitism: Positives and pitfalls
One of the more reprehensible aspects of the global campaign to strip Israel of its legitimacy is the fact that so many leading human-rights organizations have been co-opted by it.
Under the cover of concern...
Still stuck in a time warp
Some of you will probably be familiar with a charming German movie called “Goodbye, Lenin,” the story of which concerns a woman in Communist-ruled East Germany who falls into a coma and wakes up...
Can France’s courts learn from Facebook in the fight against anti-Semitism?
Who is more effective in the fight against resurgent anti-Semitism: Facebook or the French judiciary?
I’m asking this particular question because of two separate developments over the last week that, when taken together, suggest that...
Lift the US ban on journalist Jonathan Spyer
There is no role in journalism that is more mentally and physically punishing than that of a war correspondent.
Reporters and writers who cover wars are, in my experience, a special breed. Insofar as generalizations...
The Holocaust vs. the rest: A new threat
“Then again I got a story that’s harder than the hardcore cost of the Holocaust/I’m talkin’ ‘bout the one still goin’ on.”
This line from the rap album “Apocalypse ’91” by Public Enemy served, 30...
Social distancing in the Warsaw Ghetto
“I was told that these were human beings. They didn’t look like human beings.”
With these haunting words, the Polish resistance fighter Jan Karski recalled his agonized reaction as he walked around the Warsaw Ghetto...
Germany’s lessons for BDS
Three incidents in three different countries during the last week graphically illustrated the ease with which anti-Zionism can serve as a vehicle for anti-Semitism.
In the Austrian city of Graz, the president of the Jewish...
Lukashenko’s iron fist in Belarus
Around the world, authoritarian regimes continue to growl in the faces of their own people as they demand freedom and reform. In Venezuela, Nicolas Máduro still clings to the presidency despite the fact that...
Rejecting the rejectionists
In 1977, shortly after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s address to the Knesset in Jerusalem outlining his proposals for peace with Israel, the PLO and five Arab countries formed a bloc whose sole purpose was...