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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

Yaakov Teitel and the Allure of Lawlessness

Can one man's violence be divorced from an environment where acting on fury is sometimes treated as a virtue?

Gershom GorenbergNov 05, 2009
A Palestinian woman gestures as an Israeli border police officer stands above her, during clashes between Palestinians and Jewish settlers during the olive harvest in the West Bank village of Karut. (AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh)

The glossy flier was posted on a bulletin border in a small, illegal outpost of Israeli settlers near Nablus in the West Bank when I visited last week. The black print appeared over a soft green picture of olive trees. The West Bank is famed for its olive oil, and autumn is harvest season. For years, it's also been the season when settlers from the most extreme outposts and settlements clash with Palestinian farmers and vandalize orchards.

The Israeli Left Implodes

The lack of leadership on the Israeli left is all the sadder given the new prominence of the dovish camp among supporters of Israel in the United States.

Gershom GorenbergOct 22, 2009
(AP Photo)

Danny Ben-Simon has quit. If anyone needed more evidence of the disarray of the Israeli left, this is it -- but then, no one actually needs any more evidence.

Ben-Simon became the whip of the Labor Party's Knesset delegation just five months ago. That sounds like a prominent position for a first-time Knesset member, until you remember that the once-powerful party now has just 13 representatives in the 120-seat parliament and that at least four of them have had nothing to do with Labor since its leader, Ehud Barak, insisted on joining Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government in order to become defense minister.

Trouble at the Temple Mount

When diplomacy appears deadlocked, the chances of violence rise. Jerusalem's most holy space has once again become a tinderbox.

Gershom GorenbergOct 08, 2009

Five cops edged the Street of the Chain carrying riot batons and shields. A few meters away, in the shadows of a covered alleyway, four more cops were doing what police do so often, which is wait. The Street of the Chain is one of the main thoroughfares of Jerusalem's Old City, a narrow, stone-paved walkway descending toward the entrance to Haram al-Sharif, a.k.a. the Temple Mount. It's lined with Palestinian-owned shops selling scarves, t-shirts, the trinkets of three faiths, and anything else that might catch a tourist's eye. On Tuesday afternoon, police reinforcements were deployed along the street, on the lawn outside Jaffa Gate, and throughout the Old City.

Skipping the Summit for the Movies

Our Middle East correspondent skips the Netanyahu-Abbas meeting to watch Ajami, a controversial film that shows the courage needed to truly bring peace.

Gershom GorenbergSep 24, 2009
(The Match Factory)

Update: Ajami, the new Israeli film on tense relations between Palestinians and Jews in Jaffa, won the Israeli equivalent of the Oscar -- the Ophir Prize -- for best film at a Haifa ceremony on Saturday night. Ajami's Jewish and Palestinian creators, Yaron Shani and Scandar Copti, also won the prizes for best director, best screenplay and best editing. The film -- in which most of the dialogue is in Arabic -- now becomes Israel's candidate for best foreign film in next year's Academy Awards.

Will the U.S. Stop Treating Settlement as a PR Problem?

George Mitchell's visit to Israel to discuss settlements doesn't mean the U.S. is taking the issue seriously.

Gershom GorenbergSep 10, 2009

In the summer of 1974, the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv received a cable from the State Department. The main office was concerned about press reports that Israel intended to expand settlements in the occupied territories. The cable complained of the "difficulties such publicity generates in U.S.-Arab relations." The reports "were most unhelpful to Middle East peace efforts." Foggy Bottom therefore wanted to know how Israel's Labor government "might be induced to turn off public comments on expanding settlements."

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