This week, October 24th-30th, 2016, the stand-out issue was the reverberation from the speech by B’Tselem director Hagai El-Ad.  The right is demanding he be stripped of his citizenship: Take away that man’s citizenship! Whether this was because of El-Ad’s detailing of how the Israeli state goes about crushing a coherent Palestinian community (for the Israeli […]

The EU is wobbling on a tight-rope; it has firmly rejected the idea of boycotting Israeli goods and has given Israel favourable terms of trade. But it has specified that Israeli imports must state their place of origin and here the EU’s foreign policy chief asserts that BDS actions are protected under laws guaranteeing citizens’ freedom of expression.

Right-wing MKs and the land-theft far-right group Regavim want to extend boundary walls so that the illegal settlement Ma’ale Adumim will become properly Israeli.

MoSA, Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs – which has been given the money for, and the task of combatting BDS activity among foreign students – seems to be funding a network of right-wing Israeli students who see their main job as being to defend all things Israeli, with violence if necessary. This report about UCL.

It’s possible the management of Habima has strong Zionist views about treating all the land between Jordan and the sea as Israel’s by divine right. Its crass decision to perform at one of the most hardline settlements is likely to limit its touring future as the decision delivers a seal of approval to the settlement despite the universal anti-settlement policy abroad.

Distinguished analyst Marzuq Al-Halabi, Palestinian citizen of Israel, explores the different currents of Palestinian-ness from a focus on political rights through withdrawn concentration on identity to a quiet effort to integrate. Given the threat from the Right he urges an alliance with democratic forces.

This posting on Palestinian writer and thinker Emil Habibi, who coined the term ‘opsimist’, is included now because of the posting above about currents in Palestinians’ thought. Habibi died in 1996.

Here is another very valuable contribution to the debate about what constitutes antisemitism and, where it occurs, how to respond.If all Jews are blamed for Israel’s actions they are also then guilty of dual loyalty. It is written by 3 academics and was sent to the Home Affairs select committee inquiry.

And that, simply, is the naked power to kill your enemies with impunity. When Trump says his foreign policy is to “bomb the shit out of ISIS” “kick ass”, pro-Israel Americans are especially admiring and envious writes Shalom Goldman.

Britain has a strong tradition of radical and political song. Palestine has not figured in that before. Robert Cohen brings to us Coope Boyes and Simpson and their new song, Children of Palestine.

The basic facts of the Israeli occupation, of its treatment of Palestinians and its expansion of settlements have been in the public domain for a long time. So why is a Likud MP now demanding that Hagai El-Ad be treated as a traitor? Because, as the post below suggests, the B’Tselem director stated the need for outside intervention in the face of Israeli complicity and passivity.

Veteran commentator Akiva Eldar is also impressed by Hagai El-Ad’s speech (see post below) – but not by the ignorance of the attacks on him. He points out that at every stage of its existence outside bodies have intervened to press Israel to save itself.

The speech B’Tselem’s director gave to the UN Security Council provides the platform which the opposition in Israel should adopt: The rights of Palestinians must be realized; the occupation must end; the UN Security Council must act; and the time is now.

Defence minister Avigdor has said in an interview – though not a formal proposal – that if Hamas disarms, Israel will lift the siege of Gaza. The response so far has been hostile – the siege is anyway illegal [and Hamas does not control all the armed groups].

It is well-known that Christian Zionists are evangelical about Jews retaking Israel (to trigger the 2nd Coming). Less well-known, points out Richard Silverstein, is that Jewish supremacists in Israel are violently hostile to Christianity.

As a founding member of JfJfP Richard Kuper draws on his personal experience and his extensive knowledge of Israel to analyse the Home Affairs report on antisemitism which floats on a raft of fixed assumptions that Labour antisemitism is a fact for which no further evidence is needed.

This week, 17th-23rd October, 2016, there happened to be two interesting articles about Britain’s imagined role in the Middle East, both suggesting that more power is projected onto this former imperial power than it has actually exercised since 1945. The 1917 Balfour Declaration is a particular paper tiger. Chris Doyle of CAABU is taken aback […]

Israel’s border police have always exercised extreme vigilance about who they allow into the country. Since the setting up of the anti-BDS unit more unwanted British visitors have been identified and sent home after interrogation and strip-searching.

Noam Rotem of +972 goes through the many meanings of Zionism – a nebulous idea. But today, for Israelis, Zionism is what protects their supremacy and national identity. The Left must break with that idea.

Perhaps the best thing about the Home Affairs Select Committee report on antisemitism is the debate it has provoked. Here Asa Winstanley puts forward his view of what Zionism is and argues it is the correct word for Israel’s raison d’etre.