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Gershom Gorenberg

Gershom Gorenberg is a senior correspondent for The Prospect. He is the author of The Unmaking of Israel, of The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977 and of The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. He blogs at South Jerusalem. Follow @GershomG.

Recent Articles

He Whose Name Shall Not Be Written

Israel's prime minister is the main issue in the upcoming election. That's just what he wants.

Gershom GorenbergFeb 24, 2015
(AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
(AP Photo/Ariel Schalit) The Israeli prime minister speaks to his Likud party members during a campaign event near Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, February 9, 2015. T he French author Georges Perec earned peculiar literary distinction by writing a 300-page novel called La Disparition ( A Void ) without once using the letter "e." His countryman, Michel Dansel, published Le Train de Nulle Part ( The Train from Nowhere ), a novel in which he managed to avoid the use of a single verb. I envy these writers, whose lives were apparently so graced with calm that the only thing they want to exclude from their thoughts was a letter of the alphabet or a part of speech. I live a less blessed life. As an Israeli and a journalist, my aspirations are more limited, yet less within my own power to achieve. I aspire to be able to write about my country's politics without using the name of the current prime minister . I'd like to write my next 300 articles without the N-word. I'd like to think of him, if I...

Silence of American Jewish Leaders on Boehner-Netanyahu Ploy is Unacceptable

The Israeli prime minister has worked assiduously to transform Israel into an American partisan issue since his first term—never mind the harm to the Jewish state.

Gershom GorenbergFeb 04, 2015
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci) House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio looks on at right as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes a statement on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 24, 2011. M eir Dagan, former head of Israel's Mossad espionage agency, says that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's scheduled speech to the U.S. Congress is an "excessive provocation" of America and "the gravest blow to [Israel's] security." Dov Weisglass, the closest adviser of late prime minister Ariel Sharon, said on Israel's prime-time version of Meet the Press, that the speech will cause "terrible damage" to Israel. Speaking of talk shows, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters at a Democratic retreat on Friday that if Netanyahu wants to tell Americans his views on Iran, a Sunday morning interview program would be a better venue. Netanyahu is a fixture on such shows, she said. Pelosi didn't say that Democratic lawmakers would stay away from Netanyahu's address on March 3—but she wouldn't...

Netanyahu's Gambit: Is Israel's Latest Military Move Designed to Bolster His Re-election Campaign?

A risky attack in Syria could be the prime minister's electoral strategy—whatever the cost to Israel.

Gershom GorenbergJan 21, 2015
(AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
(AP Photo/Ariel Schalit) An Israeli soldier works on a tank near the Israel-Lebanon Border, northern Israel, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2015. Israel is on high alert for possible attacks from the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah following an airstrike on Hezbollah fighters in Syria, Israeli defense officials said Tuesday. Israel has boosted deployment of its "Iron Dome" anti-missile aerial defense system along its northern frontier, which borders Lebanon and Syria, and has increased surveillance activities in the area, the officials said. Israel's Security Cabinet is scheduled to meet to discuss a potential escalation in violence, they said. T his much is clear: On Sunday afternoon, a helicopter gunship fired two missiles at a Hezbollah convoy in southwestern Syria, near the de facto border with Israel. The dozen dead included three of the Lebanese Shi'ite movement's senior military figures and an Iranian general. Since none of the rebel groups that Hezbollah is fighting in Syria—the...

Don't Starve the Palestinian Authority. Replace It With a Real State

Cutting U.S. aid to the Palestinians would mean heaping one mistake on another.

Gershom GorenbergJan 08, 2015
(AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
T he quick storyline is this: The president of Israel has just bashed the prime minister of Israel, which should create a dilemma in Washington—but only if someone is paying attention. President Reuven Rivlin was speaking this week at a briefing for several dozen Israeli ambassadors to European countries—the kind of officially closed session from which leaks are certain, with important comments intended for the media. Three days before, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had retaliated for the Palestinian decision to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) by freezing the monthly transfer of taxes that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Rivlin said this wasn't smart, and wasn't good for Israel. "With those funds, the Palestinians provide for themselves and the PA functions. It is in Israel's interest that the PA functions," Rivlin said, adding that when he was a working attorney, "I never filed a suit for damages that would end up hurting me." Israel's...

The Uniquely Awful Role of Sheldon Adelson in the Israeli Election

Gershom GorenbergDec 17, 2014
(AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)
A s the contest for who will lead the nation takes shape, the classic right-wing charge of pervasive, hostile media bias was splashed in giant tabloid type across the front page of the daily Israel Hayom last Friday. The headline read: "Netanyahu: The Media is Campaigning to Bring the Left to Power." The Friday edition of an Israeli paper is the equivalent of a thick Sunday edition in America; print newspapers are still very popular in Israel, and Israel Hayom is one of the two most popular papers. You might just sense a contradiction here: The most-read headline of the week in one of the country's most influential news sources carried Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's accusation that the media is deliberately trying to take power from him and give it to the left. The irony certainly wasn't intentional. The undeclared purpose of Israel Hayom is to promote Bibi Netanyahu . "Newspaper" in Hebrew is iton; Israel Hayom has gained the nickname Bibiton. A vast army of people wearing red...

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