Author Archives: Jerome Slater

‘Diaspora Jews want to be Israel’s partners, not donors,’ says an anti-occupation rabbi, but Netanyahu doesn’t care

Jerome Slater argues that the claim in the Gatekeepers that Israel is behaving like Nazi Germany in occupied countries is an exaggeration

An important paper in the journal International Security argues that Israel has repeatedly ignored Hamas offers to negotiate, making its wars on Gaza violations of just war morality– because it had alternatives to war

Romney’s gaffe in Jerusalem ought to be an election-changing moment

As disingenuous and pernicious as was Richard Goldstone’s previous Washington Post oped, in which he essentially retracted the Goldstone Report’s fully-substantiated finding that Israel committed war crimes in its attack on Gaza at the end of 2008, Tuesday’s NY Times … Continue reading →

While uneasy about the asymmetry of the Shalit deal between Israel and Hamas–a thousand Palestinian prisoners ( invariably described in Israel as “terrorists”) for one Israeli–the Israeli and the American Jewish media are also full of hymns of self-praise for … Continue reading →

After a promising beginning, the Obama administration’s policies on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have reverted to the US norm—essentially unconditional support for Israel’s follies. In particular, Obama’s UN speech on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was dreadful. But while outrage is fully justified, … Continue reading →

In August 2010 the UN Secretary General established a “Panel of Inquiry” to investigate Israel’s May 31 attack on the international flotilla that sought to defy the Israeli blockade of Gaza to bring supplies—and moral support—to the Gazan people. Israeli … Continue reading →

It is perfectly correct to observe that any celebration of the apparent victory of the Libyan rebels–a clear consequence of the major military assistance by NATO and the U.S–is, at best, premature.    If the outcome of the “victories” in Afghanistan … Continue reading →

It is very hard for an outsider to know what to make of the current wave of populist protest in Israel which, though advocating “social justice” in Israel has nothing to say about the occupation and repression of the Palestinians. … Continue reading →

A week or so back Jerome Slater published a piece on the right of return, to which Weiss responded last Friday. Slater’s response: My blog on the right of return was a response to Michael Walzer’s comment on the Dissent … Continue reading →

In its issue of May 26, the New York Review of Books, one of the few major US media outlets for articles seriously critical of Israel, published an article by David Shulman, “Goldstone and Gaza: What’s Still True.” Shulman is … Continue reading →

Like almost all serious critics of Israel and of U.S. policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, my initial reaction to the Congressional fawning over Netanyahu and the apparently unanimous standing ovations awarded to Netanyahu’s latest demagogic lies was one of outrage. … Continue reading →

Jerry Slater has a good piece of criticism of the latest NYT story on the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation. I excerpt it below. He wanted to preface it with this note, re Hamas. Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh’s statement that Osama bin … Continue reading →

The bombshell Goldstone reconsideration of nearly two weeks back is generating some great extended pieces of writing. I have now seen two of them. Norman Finkelstein has a paper on the retraction that he will soon publish; and I will … Continue reading →

My intention was to write a general response to the criticisms of my essays on this site. However, I will limit myself—enough is enough—to responding to David Samel’s “Zionism’s History, Real and Imagined.” This may be my swan song to … Continue reading →

Editor’s note: Below is an excerpt of an important post that’s been up for a few days already, Jerome Slater’s earnest/tormented/scholarly effort to reconcile his belief in the necessity of a Jewish state with the project’s unjust record in Palestine. … Continue reading →

I’d like to continue a recent discussion at this site on the Jewish state and a possible settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and do so by addressing the very interesting and subtle comment by Shmuel.  Shmuel begins by quoting my … Continue reading →

Benny Morris was one of the earliest and most important Israeli “new historians” whose scholarship and courageous truth-telling refuted a number of mythologies about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, among other things by demonstrating that the Palestinian refugee problem was deliberately created … Continue reading →