Martin Kramer has rightly attempted to resurrect Nahum Sokolow’s role in the Zionist diplomacy that led up to the Balfour Declaration. He demonstrates clearly the incremental progress of that diplomacy during World War I, and how the Zionist diplomats ensured that political significance was attached to each new step, no matter how seemingly insignificant. He … Read more
“The crowds cheered wildly when the announcement came that 40 Israeli planes had been shot down, then 70 planes and then 86 — against a loss of two to the Egyptians whose pilots were saved.” So wrote the Associated Press correspondent in Cairo on 5 June 1967. Fake news has its forefathers. Yet such falsehoods … Read more
”Israel is in mortal danger: she stands encircled by enemies who declare their intent to destroy her.” So began an appeal by the leadership of British Jewry to the community to make “a personal financial sacrifice” four days before the start of the Six Day war in June 1967. The appeal was not heard by … Read more
Two recent UK election campaign moments provide a window into the electoral dilemma of many British Jews: should they maintain their lifelong allegiance to the Labour party – or not? The first, earlier this week, concerns a BBC radio interview conducted by journalist Emma Barnett with Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour party. … Read more
The Six Day War: The Breaking of the Middle East (Yale University Press) by Guy Laron THE SIX-DAY war was partly an accidental conflict into which all parties drifted — a war in which the balance of influence between politicians and the generals tipped towards the military. Only one of Levi Eshkol’s government — average … Read more
The Last of the Tsars: Nicholas II and the Russian Revolution (Macmillan) 400 pages; £25 By Robert Service The tale of Nicholas and Alexandra has been romanticized in film and verse, demythologized by academics in numerous books and promoted by Vladimir Putin as a means of fortifying Russian nationalism in the public arena. A hundred years later, … Read more
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The refusal of the Labour party’s National Constitutional Committee to expel Ken Livingstone was not unexpected. The verdict of effectively extending Livingstone’s suspension for another year was simply a case of choosing the line of least resistance between Labour’s warring factions. It also reflected the desire of many ordinary Labour members not to believe the … Read more
The latest rebuke to the ‘entry to Israel’ law barring entry to foreigners who call for a boycott of Israel or settlements has come from lecturers in Israel studies in the Diaspora. Although many of the leading lights of the Association of Israel Studies have struggled valiantly against the advocates of BDS on U.S. campuses, they may … Read more
Review of Our Israeli Diary, 1978: Of That Time, Of That Place By Antonia Fraser Published by One World (London 2017) pp149 $16.99 In May 1978, the Nobel Prize winning playwright, Harold Pinter and Lady Antonia Fraser, a celebrated historian who later became his wife, visited Israel. Fraser has now published her diary of … Read more