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Ben Cohen. Credit: Courtesy.

Ben Cohen

Featured Columnist

Ben Cohen is a senior analyst with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) and director of FDD’s rapid response outreach, specializing in global antisemitism, anti-Zionism and Middle East/European Union relations. A London-born journalist with 30 years of experience, he previously worked for BBC World and has contributed to Commentary, The Wall Street Journal, Tablet and Congressional Quarterly. He was a senior correspondent at The Algemeiner for more than a decade and is a weekly columnist for JNS. Cohen has reported from conflict zones worldwide and held leadership roles at the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee. His books include Some of My Best Friends: A Journey Through 21st Century Antisemitism.

From left: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Featured Columnist
How does Israel interpret the Russian-Iranian alliance?
In Israeli eyes, Tehran is allied with Moscow because both are in conflict with the U.S. for different reasons, and that fact is far more important than any ideological overlaps between them.
Jan. 6, 2023
Ben Cohen
Ukrainian civilians and soldiers take shelter under a bridge in Kyiv, March 5, 2022. Credit: Міністерство внутрішніх справ України via Wikimedia Commons.
Featured Columnist
2022: The year FUD took off
The ideas and institutions that anchored us in the past are falling away, yet the shape of our new era remains unclear.
Dec. 29, 2022
Ben Cohen
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers a speech to the nation in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Sept. 1, 2022. Source: Twitter/@POTUS.
Featured Columnist
The Iran nuclear deal is dead. Or is it?
As long as the EU believes there is even the faintest hope of a breakthrough with the mullahs, the U.S. is unlikely to place an official stamp upon its commander-in-chief’s off the cuff comments.
Dec. 23, 2022
Ben Cohen
A Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) protest against Israel in Melbourne, Australia. Credit: Mohamed Ouda via Wikimedia Commons.
Featured Columnist
BDS versus modern art
The toxic sledgehammer politics of BDS—the “with us or against us” choice—mean that the route from urging Israel’s elimination to expressing hostility towards Jews, particularly when those Jews engage in support for a Jewish state where they do not themselves reside, is quite a straightforward one.
Dec. 15, 2022
Ben Cohen
Mahsa Amini, Iran
Featured Columnist
Beware of Iran’s reformist clerics
The Islamic Republic cannot be reformed. Iran will only have a bright future once the Islamist regime is gone for good.
Dec. 9, 2022
Ben Cohen
A protest against China's "Zero Covid" policy. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Featured Columnist
China’s cry for freedom
It barely needs remarking that those who participate in protests, whether in Russia, Iran or China, are exhibiting extraordinary courage. To protest against any regime that brooks no dissent is to invite incarceration, abuse and in many cases, torture.
Dec. 2, 2022
Ben Cohen
Flags with FIFA and Qatar 2022 World Cup logos wave in the wind. Credit: rarrarorro/Shutterstock.
Featured Columnist
Qatar’s farcical World Cup begins
Qatar’s censorship on behalf of its Iranian ally aligns with the sly, underhanded manner through which it used its wealth and influence for the purpose of bribing FIFA into awarding Doha the 2022 World Cup, an outcome that former FIFA President Sepp Blatter now belatedly admits was “a mistake.”
Nov. 17, 2022
Ben Cohen
Putin, Khamenei
Featured Columnist
Russia and Iran are heading for defeat in Ukraine
Dithering at a time when we should be focused on further defeats for the Russians in the Ukrainian theater only helps Vladimir Putin. Let us seize the moment and deal the Russian-Iranian alliance the blow it deserves.
Nov. 11, 2022
Ben Cohen
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Featured Columnist
What the Kanye West scandal can teach the UN
The contrast between the speed with which the private sector moved to condemn Kanye West’s anti-Semitism and the stubborn persistence of outdated, unhelpful and anti-Semitic notions about Israel at the U.N. is frankly painful to observe.
Oct. 28, 2022
Ben Cohen
Then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Oct. 22, 2021. Photo by Kobi Gideon/GPO.
Featured Columnist
Israel must arm Ukraine
As a growing power in the world, Israel needs to adjust its foreign policy accordingly, looking beyond its own corner of the world and paying greater attention to the balance of power between the Western democracies and authoritarian states like Russia and China.
Oct. 20, 2022
Ben Cohen
Mahsa Amini, Iran
Featured Columnist
‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadi:’ Iran’s Kurdish Message
“Women, Life, Freedom” represents a complete about-turn on the cult of terror and death promoted by the Iranian regime in the name of the Islamic faith. It is a pithy rejection of the ideology and purpose of the Islamic Republic as well as a vision of the type of government that might replace it.
Oct. 14, 2022
Ben Cohen
A demonstration against the BDS anti-Israel movement at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London on April 27, 2017. Credit: Philafrenzy via Wikimeda Commons.
Featured Columnist
Should Israel lead the fight against anti-Semitism?
It is preferable for Israel to remain what it has always been—a beacon of hope and a refuge for those who need one, but absolutely not a substitute government for Jews in the Diaspora.
Oct. 7, 2022
Ben Cohen
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