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 anti-Semitic 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
Donald Trump: The un-American president
January 10, 2021 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
Move over, James Buchanan. The 15th president of the United States of America is regularly ranked by historians as the worst-ever holder of that hallowed office—a one-term commander-in-chief whose unctuous appeasement of pro-slavery forces did nothing to prevent Southern states from declaring war on the Union one year after he left office. Read more
European hypocrisy laid bare in kosher-slaughter legal judgement
December 20, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
Last time I checked, the French were still preparing their famed foie gras delicacy using the method of “gavage.” Read more
The declining credibility of Palestinian objections to the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism
December 5, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
A group of Palestinian and Arab intellectuals, 122 in all, endorsed a statement last week published by The Guardian newspaper that attacked the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism. Read more
Designating anti-Semitism: Positives and pitfalls
November 14, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
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. Read more
Still stuck in a time warp
November 9, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
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 a few months later in a unified, democratic Federal Republic of Germany. Read more
Oh, the irony, Jeremy!
November 1, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
During Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure at the helm of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, one of the many anti-Semitism scandals that enveloped the party revolved around a speech he had given while still a backbench member of parliament, in which he ventured that British-born “Zionists … despite having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives … don’t understand English irony.” Read more
‘So what’? Foreign policy and the 2020 election
October 25, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
Not so long ago, presidential debates were vital occasions for an exchange on American foreign policy and its priorities, as well as this country’s broader place in the world. Read more
Can France’s courts learn from Facebook in the fight against anti-Semitism?
October 18, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
Who is more effective in the fight against resurgent anti-Semitism: Facebook or the French judiciary? Read more
An Israeli ‘dissident’ demolished
October 11, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
The most scathing book review I have read in a very long time appears in the Sept.18 edition of the London-based journal, the Times Literary Supplement. Read more
Lift the US ban on journalist Jonathan Spyer
October 5, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
There is no role in journalism that is more mentally and physically punishing than that of a war correspondent. Read more
UK Labour leader Keir Starmer is drawing a line under the Corbyn years
September 27, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
That old cliché about the media preferring a news cycle dominated by conflict rather than reconciliation has some merit when you look at the amount of attention received by the British Labour Party before and after the disastrous leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. Read more
The Holocaust vs. the rest: A new threat
September 21, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
“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.” Read more
Jordan is harbouring brutal terrorists wanted by France and America
September 13, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
Speak to policy analysts or policy-makers about the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and you’ll frequently encounter a series of truisms. Read more
Social distancing in the Warsaw Ghetto
September 5, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
“I was told that these were human beings. They didn’t look like human beings.” Read more
Germany’s lessons for BDS
August 30, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
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. Read more
Lukashenko’s iron fist in Belarus
August 23, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
Around the world, authoritarian regimes continue to growl in the faces of their own people as they demand freedom and reform. Read more
The lonely, angry anti-Semite
August 2, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
At high school, he made no friends and didn’t belong to any clubs. He liked girls but having a girlfriend was beyond his abilities. Academically, he was undistinguished, doing well in biology but failing in English. Read more
The United States shifts its approach to China
July 25, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
The appalling persecution of the Muslim Uyghur minority in northwestern China by the Communist Party (CCP) regime in Beijing is a matter of growing concern for Jewish communities around the world. Read more
A chill wind from Poland
July 18, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
I’ve known Rafal Pankowski, the Polish academic and campaigner against anti-Semitism and racism, for almost 20 years, but I don’t think I’ve heard him sound as worried about the political situation in his country as I did when he addressed a seminar last week on Polish anti-Semitism. Read more
‘Get your knee off our necks:’ Jews and the new civil rights movement
June 7, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
Fighting racism doesn’t necessarily mean fighting anti-Semitism. Fighting racism can sometimes involve elements of anti-Semitism. And fighting anti-Semitism can sometimes lead to accusations of racism. Read more
Suddenly, Human Rights Watch discovers anti-Semitism
May 23, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
The drumbeat of anti-Semitism has grown louder and more assured over the last two decades. Read more
The return of populist anti-Semitism
April 25, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
To the lexicon of new terminology introduced by the coronavirus pandemic, we can add the latest entry: “Zoombombing,” or the practice of hijacking private videoconferencing calls on the Internet by unwanted intruders. Read more
China’s hallowed status at the United Nations
April 19, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
If you are looking for an international institution that brazenly fawns over the world’s most despotic regimes regardless of how low they might sink on the moral scale, then the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) never fails to disappoint. Read more
Jeremy Corbyn in historical perspective
April 11, 2020 by Ben Cohen - JNS.org
The era of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the opposition Labour Party in the United Kingdom mercifully came to an end last week, with the election of the more centrist-minded Sir Keir Starmer as his successor. Read more