Colin ShindlerReview of Leslie Turnberg’s Mandate: The Palestine Crucible 1919-1939 (Vallentine Mitchell 2021) pp.320 Three years ago, a retired British army officer, Ian Westerman, wrote an article in Ha’aretz, entitled ‘What did the British ever do for Israel?’ This piece, courageously suggested that in an age of decolonising the academic syllabus and retrospectively rectifying the perceived wrongs … Read more
LAST MONTH, the hardliner Ebrahim Raisi was elected president of Iran on a very low turnout of voters. He had easily been defeated in 2017 by the outgoing President Hassan Rouhani who, like Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami before him, had hoped to move the Islamic Republic in a more pragmatic direction. In contrast, … Read more
Eighty years ago, at precisely 3.15 a.m. on the night of 22 June 1941, General Heinz Guderion moved his Panzers across the bridge, spanning the River Bug. This was the beginning of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union — an invasion which took the lives of over 20 million Soviet citizens including over two … Read more
ON SUNDAY THE KNESSET voted to approve the ‘Change’ government of Naftali Bennet and Yair Lapid. Whether this multi-headed pantomime horse will survive is an open question, but it does appear that Benjamin Netanyahu has been put out to political pasture. While it is too early to write him off, what are we to make of … Read more
David Baddiel is well-known in Britain as a comedian and a writer. He is also unusual – in that he does not shy away from his Jewishness in his stage routine, but actually glories in his identity. The grandson of disenfranchised, well-to-do, Jewish business-people who escaped Nazi Germany in 1939, his Twitter biography is just … Read more
NETANYAHU IS DOWN, but is he out? At the time of writing, this question remains unanswered. In the interim, he has reverted to his old habit of incitement as he did just before the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. His supporters in the Likud together with the Kahanists and the quiet admirers of Yigal Amir have door-stopped … Read more
When the existence of a European Association of Israel Studies (EAIS) was first publicized a decade ago, many believed that it was merely a front for advocacy and that the discipline was an invented one. The last ten years have borne testimony instead to a profound intellectual endeavour that indicates Israel Studies is an area … Read more
THE RECENT CONFLAGRATION between Israel and Islamists in Gaza follows a depressingly, familiar pattern. It begins with a spark, deliberate or unintentional, and expands to rockets and warplanes. The international media presents a balanced view at first, which depicts the tragedies and sufferings of both sides. Israel’s military might then gains an edge and the focus … Read more
The Temple Mount in Jerusalem is holy to both Jews and Muslims. It is also the site where religion and nationalism meet — a tinderbox ready to be ignited. Its sensitivity lends itself to be exploited by Islamists, sympathetic to Hamas and Islamic Jihad and by the far Right in Israel and its Kahanist allies. … Read more