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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.

U.S. President Donald Trump announcing America’s withdrawal from the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal on May 8, 2018. Credit: Screenshot.
Featured Columnist
‘Trump’s war’ isn’t coming
U.S. President Donald Trump has shown himself to be an advocate of regime reform, rather than regime change.
May. 11, 2018
Ben Cohen
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas speaks during a meeting with members of the Fatah Central Committee in Ramallah on Jan. 14, 2018. Photo by Flash90.
Featured Columnist
Time to abandon the ‘original sin’ theory
It is not possible to separate Abbas’s grotesque views about supposed Jewish culpability for the Holocaust from his equally grotesque views about the origins of the State of Israel.
May. 4, 2018
Ben Cohen
British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, May 12, 2017. Photo by Chatham House, London/Wikimedia Commons.
Featured Columnist
‘Anti-Zionist and Jew:’ Behind Jeremy Corbyn’s apology
For all the apparent differences between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, we spend an enormous amount of time thinking and speaking negatively about Jews as a group.
Apr. 26, 2018
Ben Cohen
From left: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Environmental Protection Minister Ze'ev Elkin and Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar meet in Moscow at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, Jan. 29, 2018. Credit: Kobi Gideon/GPO.
Featured Columnist
Russia and Israel, seven decades on
Israel’s leaders understood pretty clearly by the early 1950s that the Soviet embrace could easily turn into a noose.
Apr. 19, 2018
Ben Cohen
The Mordechai Anielewicz statue at the Yad Mordechai kibbutz in southern Israel. Anielewicz was the young leader of the Jewish Fighting Organization, which led the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against Nazi Germans for a month from April into May of 1943. Credit: Bukvoed via Wikimedia Commons.
Featured Columnist
The Warsaw Ghetto: The epitome of rightful resistance
As the 75th anniversary of the uprising approaches, there will be a great deal of solemn commemoration of its heroes and victims. Yet the passage of time should encourage us to think a little less mournfully.
Apr. 16, 2018
Ben Cohen
Police photos of Grigori Zinoviev, the veteran Russian Bolshevik leader of Jewish descent, taken after his arrest in 1934. Two years later, he was executed by Stalin. (Wikimedia Commons)
Opinion
On Zionism, progressives take a page out of the socialist playbook
As comforting as it may be for many Jews to observe the rhetorical and thematic overlaps between biblical prophets and modern-day socialists, the bald truth is that the revolutionaries themselves never saw it that way.
Apr. 8, 2018
Ben Cohen
Marchers honor the memory of Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll, 85, who was murdered in March 2018 in an anti-Semitic attack. Credit: European Jewish Press.
Featured Columnist
French Jews spend another Passover under anti-Semitism’s shadow
There was the gruesome death of 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll, followed by a 30,000-strong march against anti-Semitism in Paris and the discovery of a serial killer . . . all this on the heels of a horrific Jewish murder last spring.
Mar. 30, 2018
Ben Cohen
From left: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Environmental Protection Minister Ze'ev Elkin and Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar meet in Moscow at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, Jan. 29, 2018. Credit: Kobi Gideon/GPO.
Featured Columnist
Putin an anti-Semite? It really doesn’t matter
There are few signs that Vladimir Putin is pursuing policies abroad that would lead him to turn on the Jews of Russia, as happened more than once under his Soviet predecessors.
Mar. 23, 2018
Ben Cohen
Israelis and tourists enjoy the beach in Tel Aviv on a summer day. Photo by Miriam Alster/Flash90.
Opinion
The secrets of happiness (or unhappiness) revealed
Israel just misses making the top 10, but still ranks an impressive No. 11 out of 156 nations rated on the annual World Happiness Report, a testament to its internal spirit.
Mar. 18, 2018
Ben Cohen
Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Featured Columnist
‘Céline’ redux? France’s publishing problem
No one could possibly believe that Céline’s words can be read dispassionately in France today, where anti-Semitic attacks of the most brutal kind occur with disturbing frequency.
Mar. 9, 2018
Ben Cohen
Queen Elizabeth visiting Birmingham in July 2012 as part of her Diamond Jubilee tour. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Opinion
The House of Windsor’s Israel problem
It beggars belief that the shrewd Elizabeth, for whatever reason, has willingly complied with a stance of pretending that Israel doesn’t exist.
Mar. 2, 2018
Ben Cohen
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. Credit: Flickr.
Opinion
From Holocaust to ‘Polocaust’: A change in common parlance doesn’t change the facts
Only one other country today wields the Holocaust as a weapon to bash Israel and the Jews: Iran. That a member state of the European Union now finds itself in the company of Tehran’s deniers and revisionists should give pause.
Feb. 22, 2018
Ben Cohen
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