Briefing Note on the Campaign Against Antisemitism

With the misnamed Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) in the news, find below a short briefing on the organisation I co-authored back in 2019. The briefing was submitted as an appendix in Jewish Voice for Labour’s submission to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). The EHRC was then investigating complaints of anti-Jewish harassment and discrimination…

In Defence of Francesca Albanese

In July 2014, Israel embarked on a brutal military assault against the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces killed more than 2,000 Palestinians, including 550 children. The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross observed, 'I’ve never seen such massive destruction ever before'. As this devastation unfolded, Francesca Albanese - then a specialist on Palestinian…

DID ISRAEL THWART ANOTHER PALESTINIAN “PEACE OFFENSIVE”?

At this point, the script writes itself: Hamas threatens to moderate its position by amending its Charter, so Israel assassinates a senior Hamas militant.[1] Whenever a credible Palestinian force threatens by political moderation to undermine Israel’s pretexts for diplomatic rejectionism—by offering/adhering to a ceasefire; signalling acceptance of the international consensus framework for resolving the conflict;…

B’TSELEM ON ISRAEL’S ‘WHITEWASH MECHANISM’

Yesterday, former Israel Defence Forces (IDF) deputy chief of staff Uzi Dayan testified in defence of an Israeli soldier (Sgt. Elor Azaria) who was captured on film summarily executing a Palestinian man in Hebron who posed no threat. Dayan protested that, in opening an investigation into the incident, the authorities had violated the accused's 'right to innocence':…

What Israel did in Gaza

Al-Monitor reports on the forthcoming publication of the Shapira report into Israel's summer 2014 assault on Gaza: As one senior Israeli security official confided to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “If data on the number of missiles and shells fired during Operation Protective Edge was released to the public, everyone would be horrified.” Since it had…

Norman Finkelstein on David Cameron’s Dodgy ‘Friends’

British Prime Minister David Cameron has long professed himself a ‘passionate friend of Israel’.  He is also a passionate supporter of the Conservative Friends of Israel, whose meetings he has repeatedly addressed and whose long-time director, Stuart Polak, he awarded with a peerage.  Cameron is reputed to be an intimate friend and ally of Israel’s…

Norman Finkelstein on Bernie, Palestine and Politics

The great Norman Finkelstein has been interviewed on Bernie, Palestine and Politics. Among other things, he talks about how Israel has successfully defanged human rights NGO coverage of Israeli crimes: most human rights organisations sat out Operation Protective Edge (2014), while Amnesty reverted to its pre-1987 apologetics. This is an extremely dangerous development, since the human rights…

DOCUMENTARY RECORD VS. RECORDING DOCUMENTARIES

Sam Harris riffs off Alan Dershowitz: The reality is that the Israelis, for all their faults, have been more restrained in their use of force than the U.S. has—if for no other reason than that they are more vulnerable to world opinion. Every Palestinian child the IDF kills inches Israel ever closer to the brink…

PALESTINE AFTER THE ARAB SPRING

Mouin Rabbani, Norman G. Finkelstein and I have an article in the latest issue of Insight Turkey examining the impact of the Arab uprisings on the prospects for Palestinian self-determination. Unfortunately the full text is behind a pay-wall (accessible via ProQuest), but here's how it begins: When a series of uprisings across the Arab world…

GUARDING THE GUARDIANS

I interviewed Norman Finkelstein on the role of human rights organisations in the struggle for justice in Palestine: As always in politics, the issue is not what you’d in an ideal world prefer; the issue is choosing between the givens. Of course, politics is also about transforming those givens. But I think you cannot transform a…