Ian J. Bickerton, The Arab-Israeli Conflict: a History Published by Reaktion Books (London 2009), pp. 244, price £15.95 This is a broad and familiar narrative of the Israel-Palestine conflict. The author believes that violence has not solved anything and argues concisely that only concerted diplomacy will bring results. While this is clearly logical and … Read more
The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict By Jonathan Schneer Published by Random House, (New York 2010), pp. 432 price $30 The Balfour Declaration was the British charter of November 1917 that viewed “with favour” the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Of course, David Lloyd George and … Read more
The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership by Yehuda Avner Published by Toby Press, pp. price £19.99 This is a work of recollections, reminiscences and vignettes. Yehuda Avner’s life spans the lifetime of the state of Israel – and in one sense, he tells the traditional story from his earliest days in … Read more
The definition and meaning of Jewishness is an ongoing and indeed eternal preoccupation of the Jewish people. The British writer Howard Jacobson is no exception to the army of explainers. In his latest novel, he looks at the 70 faces of Jewish identity through fictional characters – and leads the reader into a House of … Read more
Vladimir Jabotinsky was one of the founding fathers of the modern Zionist movement. He was one of the great inspirers of discriminated and impoverished Jewish youth in Eastern Europe in the inter-war years. In a pre-television era, audiences would sit patiently for hours, enthralled and entranced by his rhetoric. A Russian-Jewish intellectual who … Read more
THE OLD LEFT AND THE NEW LEFT Since the end of the peace process in the 1990s and the beginning of the al-Aqsa Intifada, an important feature in the debate on the Israel-Palestine imbroglio has been a questioning of the legitimacy of Israel as a nation-state by sections of the political Left and the … Read more
Theodor Herzl was born, 150 years ago this week, in Hungary, moved to Austria as a teenager, embraced German nationalism at university and found salvation in Zionism during the last decade of his short life. In part he was trying to solve his own Jewish problem of who he really was. A few years before … Read more
Right-hand man: Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party appeals to ordinary Israelis’ deep-seated fears By Dani Filc Routledge £75 Why do so many impoverished Israelis vote for the Right? Netanyahu’s policies of privatisation and empowerment of the private sector clearly seem to be against their interests. Yet they shout: “Long live Bibi and Israel”. Dani Filc … Read more
Why improving Israel’s image is a tough job Following Gorbachev’s accession to power in 1985, I was able to visit Jewish refuseniks in Moscow, after many years of being refused a visa due to my work for Jews in the USSR. I met many remarkable people on that visit, including Yuli Edelstein, shortly after his … Read more
Lenin was only interested in Jewish nationalism in so far as it related to the Russian workers’ movement Since the beginning of the al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000, an important feature in the debate on the Israel-Palestine imbroglio has been a questioning of the legitimacy of Israel as a nation-state by sections of the political … Read more