by Matthew Friedman | Jan 21, 2024 | Commentary, Gaza Journal
“Because actually the world is not made up of ‘nations’ and fatherlands that want only to preserve their cultural distinctions, and only if it means not sacrificing a single human life. Fatherlands and nations want much more, or much less: They have vested interests...
by Matthew Friedman | Jan 14, 2024 | Commentary, Gaza Journal
I recognize that one of my great intellectual limitations is that, while I can identify problems and ask questions, I am at a loss when it comes to solutions. That is why I try to listen respectfully to people who have constructive ideas, even if I don’t...
by Matthew Friedman | Jan 7, 2024 | Commentary, Gaza Journal
I am not an optimist by nature. That is perhaps an occupational hazard of being a Jew and a historian. It is difficult to see a bright future through a Jewish historian’s lens. The past, I often tell my students, is full of bad news since history is always the story...
by Matthew Friedman | Dec 31, 2023 | Commentary, Gaza Journal
I have to ask what would happen if Washington simply stopped making “emergency weapon sales” to the State of Israel. Would Israelis suddenly find themselves in peril? Would the IDF suddenly grind to a halt? Or, would it just become that much more difficult...
by Matthew Friedman | Dec 24, 2023 | Commentary, Gaza Journal
I have been posting in social media about the War on Gaza, and collecting these posts in weekly installments in The Typescript for more than two months. It began as an act of witness and resistance. The Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer wrote in Rethinking the...
by Matthew Friedman | Dec 17, 2023 | Commentary, Gaza Journal
I have always expected a rupture in Am Yisroel; the definitive and irreconcilable cleavage between the Jews of Zionism and the rest of us. But I did not expect it to come so soon, or with such vehemence. I really don’t believe that there will be any going back...
