GORDON BROWN: POWER WITH PURPOSEBy James MacintyreBloomsbury Publishing336 pages Gordon Brown was prime minister of the United Kingdom between 2007 and 2010. For a decade before that, he managed the country’s finances as Chancellor of the Exchequer. His public persona projected a dour countenance, a son of the Manse (a house for Protestant clergy in Scotland), and … Read more
Last Saturday, 45-year-old Essa Suleiman was charged with attempting to murder two identifiably Jewish men on a rampage in Golders Green, a centre of Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox life. Suleiman had been a patient at a London psychiatric clinic and earlier that day, attempted to knife a Muslim friend of 30 years. It was the latest … Read more
According to recent polls of American Jews, organised by GBAO Strategies and by the Jewish Electorate Institute, between 55 and 60 per cent oppose United States’ military action against Iran. In one poll, 77 per cent expressed their belief that President Donald Trump does not have a plan for the conduct of the war. It marks a … Read more
Thirty years ago, Yitzhak Rabin, the then prime minister of Israel, was assassinated as he left a peace rally in Tel Aviv. He had been cut down essentially because he had signed a Declaration of Principles – the Oslo Accord – with Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in September 1993. The killing … Read more
38 LONDRES STREET: ON IMPUNITY, PINOCHET IN ENGLAND AND A NAZI IN PATAGONIA By Philippe Sands Published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 480 pages; In the autumn of 1998, the former president of Chile Augusto Pinochet was awakened from his slumber by several British policemen as he lay in bed recovering from a back operation at … Read more
Many Israelis believe that Britain is a den of antisemitic iniquity. Many American Jews believe the UK is on the road to a repeat of the violence of 1930s Germany. Many evangelicals believe that Britain’s 300,000 Jews are about to be overwhelmed by the millions-strong Muslim community who have embraced Jihadism. But while there has … Read more
One hundred years ago, the Revisionist Movement was established at the Café du Panthéon in the heart of the Latin Quarter in Paris by acculturated Russian Jews. Its leader was Vladimir Jabotinsky – an intellectual, a man of letters and a spellbinding orator, a figure often quoted by Benjamin Netanyahu. The link is not coincidental. … Read more
Last month, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gideon Saar, ordered the closure of its embassy in Dublin. It followed an Irish proposal to join South Africa in the “genocide” accusation at the International Court of Justice at the Hague. Ireland, together with Spain and Norway, have formally recognised the State of Palestine. This was the … Read more
Following the killing of Hassan Nasrallah by the IDF, Jeremy Corbyn – the Labour party’s former and now expelled leader – commented, “Israel’s genocidal intent and violence in Gaza is being repeated in Lebanon. This is what Islamophobia, dehumanisation of brown lives and total impunity looks like” (Morning Star 30 September 2024). Corbyn’s words epitomised the … Read more
At the beginning of this month, Victor Kara-Murza, a British-Russian dissident, was suddenly released from his Siberian strict-regime camp and flown out of Russia as part of a major prisoner exchange. Murderers and spies were taken to the East, free thinkers and human rights activists were taken to the West. When asked if this exchange … Read more