When the existence of a European Association of Israel Studies (EAIS) was first publicized a decade ago, many believed that it was merely a front for advocacy and that the discipline was an invented one. The last ten years have borne testimony instead to a profound intellectual endeavour that indicates Israel Studies is an area … Read more
The Temple Mount in Jerusalem is holy to both Jews and Muslims. It is also the site where religion and nationalism meet — a tinderbox ready to be ignited. Its sensitivity lends itself to be exploited by Islamists, sympathetic to Hamas and Islamic Jihad and by the far Right in Israel and its Kahanist allies. … Read more
DURING THE PAST WEEK, the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been engulfed in wave after wave of allegations and accusations about his conduct in the highest office of public service in the UK. He has seemingly slipped deeper and deeper into the slime of sleaze. On a wide range of issues, a familiar story has … Read more
Last Shabbat, 24 April, was the annual day of remembrance of the Meds Yeghern — the “great evil crime” of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. While it often merits a throwaway comment in speeches during Holocaust Memorial Day, it is doubtful whether it earned a mention during the many services in Jewish houses of worship last … Read more
The National Health Service is rightly revered by all in this time of the coronavirus. It is admired worldwide and based on the principle that medical care should be provided ‘free at the point of delivery’. It was established in July 1946, by Aneurin Bevan, the Minister of Health in Clement Attlee’s post-war government. But … Read more
The research interests of David Miller, a professor of political sociology at the University of Bristol in the south of England, focus on neo-liberalism, corporate influences on health and science, the counter-jihad movement, Islamophobia — and the Zionist movement. His academic work has been to dissect and examine campaigns and networks — and in the context … Read more
Review of Lutz Fiedler’s Matzpen: A History of Israeli Dissidence (Edinburgh University Press 2020) pp.408 Lutz Fiedler’s highly informative book about the far Left group, Matzpen, is a welcome addition to the recording of both Jewish and Israeli history. This book started life as a doctoral thesis under the supervision of Professor Dani Diner, a stalwart of … Read more
Review of Suzanne Rutland’s Lone Voice: The Wars of Isi Leibler, published by Gefen Books 2012, pp. 663 This book is about the life and times of Isi Leibler, a leader of Australian Jewry and a bare knuckle fighter for Jewish rights. Lone Voice: The Wars of Isi Leibler (Gefen Books) is also an account of … Read more
The storming of the Capitol Building by the supporters of the defeated president, Donald Trump, was a shocking event to behold. The citadel of American democracy was being desecrated, an insurrection on live television before an incredulous audience. One American journalist called it ‘the bonfire of the insanities’. And the outgoing president happily fanned the … Read more