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
Tel Aviv was founded on 11 April 1909 (20 Nissan 5669) as a city of rebellion. It was a reaction to the misery and deprivation of the East European shtetl. It was a desire to improve living conditions for the Jews of nearby Jaffa and to liberate them from Arab slumlords. It was a break … Read more
Yigal Allon, Native Son: A Biography Anita Shapira. Translated by Evelyn Abel University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008, Pp.385, £32.50, ISBN 978-08122-4028-3 Following the sudden demise of Yigal Allon in February 1980, a draft outline for the beginning of an autobiography was discovered in his papers. In the intervening period, Allon’s image has become more complex, … Read more
The Distortion of Zionism Zionism is often seen by the left in perjorative terms today. Yet more often than not, such prejudice is based on ignorance rather than knowledge and understanding. Significantly, Peace Now, the grassroots mass movement which has a long history of protest against support for the settlements is never characterised as … Read more
1948: The First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris Published by Yale University Press, 524pp. Benny Morris has the unique distinction of being criticised and often vilified by both Israelis and Palestinians because of his interpretation of the war of 1948 – and especially his appraisal of the exodus of around 6-700,000 Palestinian refugees. Thus, … 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
A Sense of Purpose: Recollections By Suzy Eban Halban Publishers 384 pages; $29.75 Suzy Eban’s recollections encompass almost the entire breadth of Israeli history – from her first meeting in Ismailiya in 1943 with Aubrey Eban, then a British army officer, until his death in November 2002. With the exception of the chapter on the … Read more
Giora Goldberg, Ben-Gurion against the Knesset (London: Routledge, 2003). Pp 338. $150.00 cloth. Ben-Gurion, of course, helped to construct and shape the state of Israel, but his actions in the arena of the Knesset, according to Giora Goldberg, led to unforeseen consequences in later years. In the early years of the state, Ben-Gurion wielded tremendous … Read more
Churchill and the Jews: A Lifelong Friendship By Martin Gilbert Henry Holt 359 pages; $30 Churchill’s Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft By Michael Makovsky Yale University Press 342 pages; $35 In 2002, the BBC ran a phone-in competition to discover who was the greatest Briton of all time. Nearly half a million people voted for … Read more
The Zionist leadership was incredibly pessimistic in the spring of 1947 that the handing over of responsibility of the Palestine question to the United Nations would bring any sort of positive results. If it eventually came to a vote, the British were confident that the Zionists would fail dismally to achieve a two thirds … Read more