In normal times, the election of the leader of Her Majesty’s opposition would be front-page news in Britain. In the age of the coronavirus, Sir Keir Starmer’s election as Labour party leader was more of a media whimper. Yet it spelled the end of the far Left’s control of Labour under Jeremy Corbyn and signals a shift to more rational policies … Read more
THE ISRAELI NGO Peace Now’s Settlement Watch project has documented settlement building and expansion on the West Bank for several years, utilising official statistics and analysis of aerial photographs. Its latest report of settlement activity for 2019 suggests that the construction of units on the West Bank is 25 per cent higher under Donald Trump … Read more
Review of Avi Shilon’s The Decline of the Left Wing in Israel: Yossi Beilin and the Politics of the Peace Process Published by I. B. Tauris 2020, pp. 341 In an epoch of reaction, racism and populism, many ask how did Israel lose its way? Why did the traditional Israeli Left decay? Why did the … Read more
Hosni Mubarak’s long life encompassed the history of both modern Egypt and modern Israel. A young pilot serving in King Farouk’s forces, he embraced the revolution of 1952 which ousted the monarchy and brought the Free Officers Movement to power. The dominance of the military through its leaders — Mohamed Neguib, Gamal Abdul Nasser and … Read more
The emergence of Sinn Féin as a major political force in last week’s election in Ireland is a watershed in the onward march of Irish republicanism towards a united Ireland. Like the Conservatives on the mainland, dissatisfied voters who felt left behind deserted the major parties and turned to Sinn Féin. Even so, like the … Read more
During the last decade of his life, Qassem Soleimani emerged from the shadows and was promoted as a noble and self-effacing warrior, an Iranian Napoleon who would recreate a new Persian empire — a Shia crescent from Mashad near Turkmenistan to the Mediterranean in Lebanon. Soleimani’s story was that he was recognised as a military … Read more
The remarkable revelation that Jeremy Corbyn — as part of a Palestine Return Centre (PRC) mission to Beirut in 2011 — met representatives of Palestinian rejectionist factions is further evidence of his fundamentalism when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict. It meant that he had no qualms sitting with those opposed to the PLO, those who refused … Read more
In September 1940, David Ben-Gurion undertook a hazardous voyage across the Atlantic on board the requisitioned Cunard cruiseliner, the Scythia, arriving in New York just before Yom Kippur. He had been in London since early May and observed first-hand the fall of France, the Battle of Britain and death and destruction during the Blitz. He was … Read more
Even if conditions prove reasonable, the loss of faith in a peace agreement has been so profound that it would take a lot to overcome the psychological hurdle – both sides believe that their leaders are unable to face making historic decisions.” This quote at the beginning of Be Strong and of Good Courage, an … Read more
An official ceremony took place last week in the old Jewish cemetery in Hebron to mark 90 years since the Tarpat disturbances which resulted in 67 Jews being killed by their Arab neighbours. The brutality precipitated an exodus and Jews only returned to Hebron after the Six Day War in 1967. The disturbances originated in … Read more