THE GENESIS OF THE LIKUD Since the election of the Likud in 1977, the party has led government for 28 out of those 42 years. In addition it partnered Labour in the rotation government (1984-1988). Likud was only truly out of power when Ariel Sharon’s Centre-Right Kadima ruled between November 2005 until February 2009 and … Read more
MAURICE PERLZWEIG was one of the great n a m e s o f J e w i s h diplomacy during the inter-war and postwar periods. When he died in New York in 1985, a lonely, forgotten figure, police had to break into his apartment where they discovered a large number of books, newspapers, … Read more
Pope Francis’s announcement that the Vatican will open the archives on the life and times of his predecessor, Pius XII (1939-1958) – some 16 million pages – has answered the call of historians over many decades. The attitude of Pius towards Jews, anti-Semitism and Nazi atrocities has remained a matter of controversy for Jewish and … Read more
AS THE DEADLINE FOR submitting party lists neared on February 21, Benny Gantz (Hosen l’Yisrael) and Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) joined forces to form a centrist bloc, ‘Blue and White’ for the 2019 Israeli election in early April. It represents the strongest challenge to Netanyahu for years. In the two months since Netanyahu called an election, … Read more
In the early 1970s, Rabbi Meir Kahane visited Britain to establish a Jewish Defence League to advance the cause of Soviet Jewry. I worked to stop him because I had seen what had happened in the US. In 1968 Kahane formed the JDL in New York to campaign for Soviet Jewry, target perceived antisemites and … Read more
Jeremy Corbyn’s accumulated sayings over the last 40 years has proved to be treasure trove for his many critics. From his inability to act as a mediator between Israelis and Palestinians to currently defending the authoritarian Maduro government in Venezuela in the name of socialism, Mr Corbyn’s past is proving to be an albatross around … Read more
Last week the Malaysian prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, telephoned the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Gaza to express his government’s strong support for the Palestinian cause. Significantly Mahathir chose Palestinian Islamism and not Palestinian nationalism, Hamas rather than Fatah, to demonstrate Malaysian solidarity. His publicised telephone call came shortly after his controversial anti-Jewish – as … Read more
MENAHEM BEGIN spent almost three decades astutely constructing a broad coalition of the right based on his own Herut movement until his election in 1977, when he began to realise that the responsibilities of office differed vastly from opposition.He was confronted with a rebellion when only 57 per cent of Herut loyalistsvoted for the Camp … Read more