Why the silence over attacks on Israeli campuses? A few days before Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU), spoke at the demonstration for Palestine earlier this month, my colleagues and I – the Israeli and Jewish studies staff at the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas) – put out … Read more
Israel has not been the political flavour of the month for many years. Much of this is attributed to the settlement drive on the West Bank following the six-day war in 1967. Others attribute it to collusion with Britain and France during the run-up to the Suez campaign in 1956. It can certainly be argued … Read more
As reader in Israeli studies at Soas, University of London, I teach the Israel-Palestine conflict to large classes that include Palestinians, Israelis, Jews and Muslims. I do this without any difficulties in the multicultural environment at Soas, and I work hard for all my students. I am also a loyal trade unionist. While my union, … Read more
Brian Klug is highly selective in his choice of Jewish communal figures to bolster his argument. Many left wing Jewish academics and writers, such as Norman Geras and Howard Jacobson, opposed the initiative of Independent Jewish Voices. They were never approached to sign the IJV letter probably because they did not distance themselves sufficiently from … Read more
With the fog of publicity lifting, it is still difficult to know what Independent Jewish Voices actually stands for. Its advocacy in support of the universality of human rights, condemnation of racism and a negotiated peace between Israelis and Palestinians is not exactly revolutionary. It is certainly not new. The political innocence of its open … Read more
Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis Bat Ye’or Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005 384 pp., pb. $23.95/£17.50, ISBN 083864077X; hb. $49.50/£36.50, ISBN 0838640761 The Israel–Palestine conflict is an obstacle placed in the path of Jewish-Muslim dialogue in Europe. But in this book there is no indication that there are two narratives to this tortuous conflict … Read more
I came to Spain because I felt I had to… we didn’t worry when Mussolini came to power in Italy. We felt bad when Hitler became chancellor of Germany, but what could we do? We felt – although we tried to help and sympathize – that it was their problem and wouldn’t affect us… I … 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
The British newspaper The Guardian has had a long and illustrious association with Jews and Zionism. The original owners, the Scott family, befriended Chaim Weizmann and its editorial writer, Herbert Sidebotham, was a powerful advocate of the Zionist answer to the Jewish problem at the beginning of the 20th century.Within weeks of Turkey’s entry into … Read more