Kathleen Peratis
By Kathleen Peratis
-
Opinion Why Do We Still Blame Victims Of Date Rape?
According to Alfred P. Doolittle, shrewd and cheerfully unemployed working-class nemesis of Henry Higgins in “My Fair Lady,” some poor people are deemed “deserving” of charity — the ones who seem miserable and wretched — and others, the “undeserving” (like him), are not. We divide sexual abuse victims into similar groups: those who deserve justice…
-
Opinion No Ifs, Ands Or Butts
In March, an American woman on the staff of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees accused the high commissioner himself of sexual harassment, saying he had “grabbed her behind.” The dashing and handsome high commissioner, Ruud Lubbers — a former Dutch prime minister who is currently charged with protecting 17 million…
-
Opinion America Is Not Above the Law In Bringing Saddam to Justice
The United States has turned over to Iraq “legal custody” of Saddam Hussein. He is apparently headed for a trial in an Iraqi courtroom. Unlike Slobodan Milosevic, whose trial before a highly qualified international criminal tribunal resumes this week, the quality of the justice Saddam will receive is very much in question. The United States…
-
Opinion Equal Right… To Fight Hate
For all the attention being paid to Abu Ghraib, there is a prisoner abuse scandal in the Middle East that has gotten scant attention in America. In Egypt, homosexuals have been arrested and tortured in a campaign against what the government calls “the globalization of perversion,” according to a recent Human Rights Watch report. The…
-
Opinion The Dumb of All Fears
Terrorism is the national obsession du jour, and its costs are high and rising rapidly. Our fears of terrorism are real and justified, but if we allow ourselves to be obsessed with them, we will inevitably do stupid things that will likely make matters worse, not better. Next up for scrutiny through a terrorism-obsessed lens…
-
Opinion Rule of Law, or the Law of the Jungle?
The Bush administration was not speaking metaphorically when it declared “war” on terrorism. It has incarcerated in Guantanamo approximately 650 alleged terrorists, labeling them “unlawful combatants,” and it is holding them without charge or trial, many presumably until the end of the “war on terrorism,” a day that may never come. The United States is…
-
Opinion Back to the Middle Ages?
As other explanations for America’s invasion of Iraq have been cast into doubt, a new dawn for human rights has become one of the rationales invoked by the Bush administration to justify the war. So it’s not surprising that the American-led Coalition Provisional Authority would boast of its efforts to improve the lot of Iraqi…
-
Opinion France Loses Its Head Over Headscarves
Ten thousand people, mostly Muslim women, marched in protest through Paris on Saturday. Similar demonstrations by Muslim women took place in other cities in Europe and the Middle East. Two thousand people turned out in Stockholm, 2,400 in London, 2,500 in Beirut, 300 in Nablus, about 100 in Washington, D.C. A typical chant: “My scarf,…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Music For Bob Dylan’s biographer, ‘A Complete Unknown’ is a dream come true — even if it’s mostly fiction
- 2
Culture They were a kosher bakery success story — 80 years later, people are still trying to make a buck off their babka
- 3
Film & TV Why ‘The Brutalist’ resonated so deeply with me
- 4
News RFK Jr. wants fluoride out of drinking water. Israel has a decade of lessons to offer.
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion My favorite Jewish Christmas tradition: do a mitzvah for children in need
-
Fast Forward US ambassador to Israel calls Gaza famine warning ‘inaccurate,’ prompting review
-
News RFK Jr. wants fluoride out of drinking water. Israel has a decade of lessons to offer.
-
Fast Forward Read the Forward’s 10 most-read stories of 2024
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
