by Matthew Friedman | Jun 1, 2025 | Commentary, Gaza Journal
I documented the destruction of Gaza for 52 weeks – an entire year – in my Gaza Journal. I began the journal on 29 October 2023 after an erstwhile friend took exception to my social media post, “I am diminished by the death of every noncombatant, whether they are...
by Matthew Friedman | Apr 19, 2025 | Behind the Lines, Essays
By refusing to even countenance the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States from a Salvadorian concentration camp, the Trump regime is testing norms and boundaries; but more than that, it is signaling how it expects to shape the future, and the White...
by Matthew Friedman | Mar 28, 2025 | Behind the Lines, Commentary
“Getting the Hell out of here” is on my mind these days. I live in a deep-blue part of New Jersey, no more than a couple of miles from one of those liberal universities that give Redhats hives. But if I go just a mile further out in either direction, I...
by Matthew Friedman | Mar 21, 2025 | Behind the Lines, Commentary
I could never have imagined that I would find myself “behind the lines.” The phrase was always a feature of the kind of military adventures that I consumed as a boy; the First World War ace forced down behind the German Trenches, Jan Kubis in Alan...
by Matthew Friedman | Feb 15, 2025 | Behind the Lines, Commentary
I am not really a flag guy. I don’t like them. They flatten complex ideas, communities, and identities into simple, two-dimensional images and have historically served as instruments of discipline that evacuate politics and ideas of any depth of meaning. They are a...
