There has been uproar in the Jewish world about the accusations of the International Criminal Court (ICC) which have been levelled at Israel and its call for the arrests of Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. The ICC was established in 2002 on the basis of the Rome Statute four years earlier. Its role was to … Read more
Chaim Weizmann: A BiographyBy Jehuda Reinharz and Motti Golan Brandeis University Press (pp. 820) Chaim Weizmann was a remarkable man who truly deserved the accolade of “a founding father of Israel.”This majestic work by Jehuda Reinharz and Motti Golani, Chaim Weizmann: A Biography is as absorbing as it is comprehensive. Both authors have written about Weizmann for … 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
Many Israelis believe that Benjamin Netanyahu has blood on his hands. Since the release of 105 hostages through negotiations last November, the Israeli government has chosen the priority of destroying Hamas rather than securing the release of the remaining hostages. The families of the hostages have been calling for negotiations for almost a year – … Read more
Before the opening of the new Parliament in London last week, MPs swore allegiance to the Crown on the King James Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, the Sundar Gutka prayerbook, the Koran and the Hebrew Bible. All this demonstrated the wide diversity of British society in 2024. This positive imagery was shattered by the election of … Read more
Night of Power: The Betrayal of the Middle East By Robert Fisk, published by HarperCollins (Fourth Estate) 2024 pp.644 Robert Fisk, a long-time foreign correspondent for the Independent, died in Dublin in October 2020. This posthumous book which picks up from where his 2005 book The Great War of Civilisation left off and which covers the … Read more
When courses on Israel Studies first began in universities several decades ago, they were depicted by some as teaching a fictitious, invented subject – nothing less than an offshoot of the hasbarah industry. For those in communal leadership, it was often seen as just that – an opportunity to promote Israel within academia. The problem … Read more
When Pinchas Rutenberg, one of the giants of the Zionist movement, died in 1942, his friend, the writer Moshe Smilansky described him as “a great engineer with the soul of a poet.” Nevertheless, Rutenberg is missing from the public consciousness, even among those who treasure Jewish history. He stipulated in his will that no funds should … Read more
Professor Colin Shindler, you have, for the first time, opened up a disciplinary field that did not exist before you. Indeed, you are surprisingly the very first Professor of Israel Studies in the United Kingdom. You are also the President and Founder of the European Association for Israel Studies. You have already written twelve books, … Read more
During the last decade, British Jewry have lost several of its best-loved historians including David Cesarani, Robert Wistrich — and Martin Gilbert. Routledge has now published the ninth edition of Gilbert’s Atlas of Jewish History which last appeared in 2010. To this have been added maps about Jews in Muslim Lands and Jews in the post-Soviet era. … Read more