Colin ShindlerSo near and yet… (left to right) Arafat, Hussein, Clinton and Netanyahu By Ahron Bregman Allen Lane, £25 Ahron Bregman’s new book is an intelligent, critical account of contemporary Israeli history after the 1967 Six-Day War. The conquered territories, occupied and then colonised, became an ideological albatross that has hung around Israel’s neck ever since. … Read more
Surrounded and confounded – Vladimir Jabotinsky (centre) shortly before his death in 1940 By Hillel Halkin Yale University Press, £18.99 This is a revelatory exploration of Vladimir Jabotinsky, “father of the Israeli right”. He has been projected as a colossus by Menachem Begin and succeeding generations of Likud leaders. The Zionist left, aided and abetted … Read more
Menachem Begin: A Life, by Avi Shilon, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2012, xii þ 546 pp., ISBN 978-0-300-16235-6 This book is an English translation of Avi Shilon’s biography of Menachem Begin that first appeared in Hebrew in 2007. Although the author is a journalist with academic interests, this popular work is informed and comprehensive … Read more
The low attendance at last Sunday’s rally for Israel in part reflects the unease and dilemmas of many British Jews. While the security of Israel’s citizens is paramount, it co-exists with a concern for the sanctity of human life in general. Such nagging doubts underline the unspoken question whether this conflict was avoidable. Its genesis … Read more
P a t r i c k B i s h o p T H E R E C K O N I N G How the killing of one man changed the fate of the Promised Land 320pp. Collins. £20. Avraham Stern was the leader of the “Stern Gang”, or Lehi, and one of … Read more
Since the idea for this book was first mooted, back in 2008, the concept has evolved considerably. The world has moved on. Barack Obama was then a marginal outsider for the presidential prize. Thus, the ideas at the heart of this book have gone through an extensive process of being reformulated, updated and fully developed. … Read more
The October 1973 War Politics, Diplomacy, Legacy Asaf Siniver (ed.) Hurst and Co 331pp £30 DURING THE EARLY afternoon of October 6th, 1973 the Egyptian army crossed the Suez Canal and overran the Israeli Bar-Lev line on the eastern bank. This assault on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, was designed to … Read more
During the summer of 1970 while working as the political secretary of the World Union of Jewish Students, I received a telephone call from an irate caller who told me that the spelling of the organisation’s name in Russian on its headed notepaper was incorrect. I tried to explain that this was none of my … Read more
“Kingdoms shake and nations tremble The shout of the warrior and the roar of battle resounds to the ends of the earth because of the fury of the oppressor. The terrors of war are upon us: they have come close to our gates” So wrote Chief Rabbi Hertz in a special Shabbat prayer on the … Read more
As Israel celebrates the 66th anniversary of its founding, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to introduce an addition to the country’s basic laws — the closest thing it has to a constitution — to “legally anchor” Israel as a Jewish state. It seems that Mr. Netanyahu wishes to define the country as the nation-state … Read more