Colin ShindlerAn outright victory over Hizbullah, as David Grossman argues (Comment, July 20), is impossible, but it may be considerably weakened militarily. The Israelis have learned the lesson of 1982 by not mounting a ground invasion of Lebanon. At that time, Sharon disobeyed cabinet orders to clear a 40km swathe of territory of Palestinian fighters and … Read more
Before moving into higher education and teaching Israeli studies, I taught chemistry for 20 years in an inner-London college and was a loyal member of my union, NATFHE (National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education). Lecturers in further education like myself were treated extremely badly by successive British governments and we went out … Read more
When the Irish rebels were pulled out of the General Post Office on Dublin’s O’Connell Street 90 years ago, they were jeered and spat upon by the locals. Decaying fruit was hurled at the wounded and the maimed. The Easter Uprising in 1916 was a courageous, futile affair – another link in the chain of … Read more
Inevitably, therefore, the question must arise of ‘transferring’ those Arabs elsewhere so as to make at least some room for Jewish newcomers. But it must be hateful for any Jew to think that the rebirth of a Jewish state should ever be linked with such an odious suggestion as the removal of non-Jewish citizens. So … Read more
THE MURDER OF YITZHAK Rabin on 4 November 1995 was a watershed in the campaign of incitement of the Israeli far right against the Oslo Agreement. Yigal Amir, Rabin’s assassin, was not considered insane or unbalanced before the killing, merely another right wing activist supporting the settlers. He was swept along by the rising tide … Read more
Nullifying Oslo: The Attempt to Impede Israeli-Palestinian Reconciliation The murder of Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995 was a watershed in the campaign of incitement of the Israeli far Right against the Oslo Agreement. Yigal Amir, Rabin’s assassin, was not considered insane or unbalanced before the killing, merely another right wing activist supporting the settlers. … Read more
The recent British Labour Party conference was seen as the first stage in the transfer from a Blair government to a Gordon Brown administration. Many comparisons were once again drawn between these two long-time rivals, but one commentator interestingly pointed out that their hostility toward Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, is a rare issue … Read more
Much has been written about contemporary anti-Semitism in Britain, often fuelled by apocalyptic comment from outside the British Isles. Internet bloggers recall the 1930s while emailers plead with British Jews to save themselves before it is too late. Yet there are no pogroms on the high street, no concentration camps in the parks, no crematoria … Read more
I am sitting at home, writing about David Ben-Gurion’s historic debate with Agudat Israel about a constitution for the new state of Israel, when the telephone rings. A colleague from Israel asks if I’m OK. “OK? Everyone’s fine.” A silence. “You had better watch the BBC,” he says. “There have been explosions in London.” A … Read more
Einstein’s address to the National Labor Committee for Palestine – which Howard Jacobson quotes (8 January) – followed the attacks by the Irgun Zvai Leumi on Arabs in November 1937. Up until then, the policy of the Zionist leadership during the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939 was one of “self-restraint” – no retaliation to killings of … Read more