More
EN
Newsletter
More
Newsletter
EN
Support JNS
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.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Donald Trump. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Featured Columnist
Donald Trump and the Western alliance
Would the president imperil the fundamental security of the West by removing 9,500 U.S. troops from Germany, leaving 25,000 in place?
Jun. 26, 2020
Ben Cohen
U.S. and Israeli flags. Credit: defenseimagery.mil via Wikimedia Commons.
Featured Columnist
America, Israel and original sin
However battered our current system looks, it remains true that a democratic system is the best framework for balancing the freedom of individuals with the requirement for social order and civic justice.
Jun. 19, 2020
Ben Cohen
Two undated photos of POW gravestones inscribed with swastikas at the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio, Texas. Credit: Military Religious Freedom Foundation.
Featured Columnist
Nazi headstones, Confederate statues: America’s battle over memory
U.S. President Donald Trump’s vocal rejection of the removal of Southern memorials might seem patriotic, but in reality, it isn’t.
Jun. 12, 2020
Ben Cohen
Rev. Al Sharpton speaking at the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center conference in Washington, D.C. on May 20, 2019. Credit: RAC.
Featured Columnist
‘Get your knee off our necks:’ Jews and the new civil-rights movement
The Rev. Al Sharpton is an apt example of the painful contradictions between fighting racism and fighting anti-Semitism.
Jun. 5, 2020
Ben Cohen
Venezuelan President Nicolas Máduro meets with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in November 2016. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Featured Columnist
Iran and Venezuela: The unshakeable alliance
Much as Hugo Chávez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used to do, the double-pronged axis is again poking America in the eye.
May. 28, 2020
Ben Cohen
Then-director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth at the Media Security Conference in Munich, Feb. 19, 2017. Credit: Kuhlmann/MSC via Wikimedia Commons.
Featured Columnist
Suddenly, Human Rights Watch discovers anti-Semitism
HRW has felt always uneasy addressing the issue from the left, reassured in the mistaken belief that once the Israeli “occupation” ends, then Muslim anti-Semitism will disappear as well.
May. 22, 2020
Ben Cohen
Alexander Gauland, who leads the parliamentary group of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Featured Columnist
The dangerous discourse of German victimhood
When you recall where it has led the world, and especially the Jewish people, in the recent past, vigilance today only seems like common sense.
May. 8, 2020
Ben Cohen
Image of an anti-Semitic Twitter user advocating for the heavily Jewish town of Lakewood, N.J., to be “nuked.” Source: Screenshot.
Featured Columnist
The return of populist anti-Semitism
Corona has exacerbated a new virus online, touching on the regulation of the Internet, global restrictions on hate speech, national security measures and the prospect of tougher legal sanctions against both individual extremists and the platforms that host them.
Apr. 24, 2020
Ben Cohen
Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room at the Palace of Nations in Geneva, the meeting room of the U.N. Human Rights Council. Credit: Ludovic Courtès via Wikimedia Commons.
Featured Columnist
China’s hallowed status at the United Nations
The fact that the Communist regime has been included on a panel to decide some of the world’s human-rights issues is just another example of how the various agencies that compose the U.N. system can be twisted to favor one member state even as they discriminate against another.
Apr. 17, 2020
Ben Cohen
British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, May 12, 2017. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Featured Columnist
Jeremy Corbyn in historical perspective
When he took the stage at the United Kingdom’s annual Glastonbury Festival in 2017, reveling in the thousands of audience members chanting his name to the tune of “Seven Nation Army” by the White Stripes, many commentators saw this rock-star moment as inaugurating a boldly new and potentially unstoppable Socialist opposition.
Apr. 8, 2020
Ben Cohen
"Wall Street Journal" reporter Daniel Pearl was murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. Source: Screenshot.
Featured Columnist
Daniel Pearl’s murderer gets ready for freedom
Should his release go forward, Omar Saeed Sheikh will become that rare thing—a jihadi who achieved legendary status not through “martyrdom,” but through defeating the system that imprisoned him. That is not an outcome that any Western government should desire.
Apr. 3, 2020
Ben Cohen
A view of the Chinese Communist Party. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Featured Columnist
Calling out racists in America and in China’s Communist Party
To speak of the party’s responsibility for the coronavirus while shedding light on its broader human-rights outrages isn’t “racism”; if anything, it’s an act of solidarity with the people of China.
Mar. 27, 2020
Ben Cohen
Load More