Ran HaCohen

Dr. Ran HaCohen was born in the Netherlands in 1964 and grew up in Israel. He has a B.A. in computer science, an M.A. in comparative literature, and a Ph.D. in Jewish studies. He is a university teacher in Israel. He also works as a literary translator (from German, English, and Dutch). HaCohen's work has been published widely in Israel. "Letter From Israel" appears occasionally at Antiwar.com.

The Palestinian Gandhi

“Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?” is a quite popular question, especially abroad. You won’t often hear it asked (with the inevitable self-righteous shrug) here in Israel: after all, the Israeli culture itself worships violence, with the semantic field of “war” being the richest in the modern Hebrew language, with militarism as the state religion, and … Continue reading “The Palestinian Gandhi”

Democracy, a Free Press, and Other Fantasies

S.Y. Agnon, the famous Israeli writer, once toyed with the idea that the German culture was all but forgotten, with German scholars traveling all over the world, desperately looking for exiled German Jews who were the last to preserve the lost German culture and save it from oblivion. I cannot help thinking about this fictitious … Continue reading “Democracy, a Free Press, and Other Fantasies”

The Third Intifada

To appreciate the breathtaking magnanimity expressed by this short slogan, one needs to remember its context. Imagine: a foreign army occupies your village for decades, reduces you to subjects without any rights, arrests you arbitrarily, savagely tortures the arrested, and, on top of it all, sends mighty bulldozers to erect a gigantic wall on your … Continue reading “The Third Intifada”

How to Remember Arafat

Two, three, or four young Palestinians are killed by Israeli forces every day now (we call it “restraint”), but none of them could win even a fraction of the attention given to Yasser Arafat, the dying old leader. The endless stream of words occasioned by Arafat’s long dying and death is a good opportunity to … Continue reading “How to Remember Arafat”

Sharon’s True Face Exposed (and Ignored)

While Israel’s military, purportedly on its way to get out of the Gaza Strip, is getting deeper and deeper into it, exercising its long terrorist tradition of forcing the civilian population to collaborate in massive killing and the destruction of homes and infrastructure, Sharon’s top advisor Dov Weisglass made it to Ha’aretz‘s front page (Oct. … Continue reading “Sharon’s True Face Exposed (and Ignored)”

Whose Fault Is It?

Out of almost 1,400 words, it was the following short sentence that attracted almost all the readers’ reactions to my previous column: “The Arab states and the Palestinians have in fact acknowledged Israel’s right to exist in peace, if it withdraws from the occupied Palestinian territories taken in 1967; whereas Israel wants to keep these … Continue reading “Whose Fault Is It?”

Back to Indirect Occupation?

There is nothing very complicated or mysterious about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Never trust those who present it as an extremely complex issue, with endless political, historical, religious and cultural repercussions, on which you cannot take an informed stand without a Ph.D. in history and three decades of political activity for AIPAC. It’s quite simple: the … Continue reading “Back to Indirect Occupation?”

Don’t Call it a Wall

A year ago, I urged readers to forget about President Bush’s “Road Map to Peace” – on which so much attention was wasted at the time, by now a dead letter – and concentrate on the real map of Palestine, radically changed by the construction of Israel’s Apartheid Wall, which was virtually ignored by the … Continue reading “Don’t Call it a Wall”

Heads We Win, Tails They Lose

Surprise surprise: having said for almost four decades that no Jewish settlement should ever be dismantled, Sharon’s plan to dismantle Jewish settlements in Gaza was rejected by his own Likud party members. You can fool all the people all the time – but don’t sell them a new folly every week. Sharon was defeated by … Continue reading “Heads We Win, Tails They Lose”