A Response to Anneliese Dodds MP on Gaza

Anneliese Dodds MP (Labour, Oxford East) has sent by email the following statement on Gaza: Dear constituent, Thank you for writing to me to raise your concerns about the situation in Israel and Gaza. I know many people living in Oxford who have family and friends in Gaza and in Israel, or have simply been…

International Law

For although I do not mean to assert that it is usually the practice of renowned and learned sages to shorten the road to any great conclusion — their course indeed being rather to lengthen the distance by various circumlocutions and discursive staggerings like unto those in which drunken men, under the pressure of a…

Europe’s Israel-Palestine Policy – In Diplomats’ Own Words

European diplomats interviewed by the International Crisis Group frankly summarised Europe's Israel-Palestine policy as comprising five main planks: 1. Pretend to support a two-state solution while consciously making it impossible ‘European officials do realise that their policy is tantamount to accepting the further decline of the two-state solution’s feasibility ... A senior diplomat explained, “The settlements are expanding regardless of what government…

A Very Healthy Country

Introducing Maurice Hirsch: Director of Legal Department, Palestinian Media Watch (2017- today)Senior Military Justice Consultant, NGO Monitor (2017-2018)Head of Military Prosecution for Judea and Samaria, Israel Defense Forces (2013-2016)Head of Legal Advice to the Navy, Air Force, Ground Forces and Home Front (2010-2013)Deputy Head of the Military Prosecution for Judea and Samaria (2007-2010)Head of the…

WHEN ‘TROPES’ ARE TRUE

The Observer published ‘gross antisemitism’ in the form of a ‘remarkably dishonest’ article that was ‘a projection of anxieties and racist fantasies about Jews’. So alleged Shany Mor, an Israeli academic and former foreign policy official. The article in question reported on Israel’s failure to provide COVID vaccines to Palestinian inhabitants of the territories it…

Does Israel Have the Right to Cage Two Million People in a Coronavirus-Ravaged Prison Camp?

My new article in Jacobin asks: If international calls to end the Gaza closure are ignored, and Israel’s blockade remains in force, would Israel have the right to obstruct Gazans fleeing a COVID-19 emergency? The article argues that, if our answer to this question is 'no', it follows that Israel also had no right to forcibly prevent…

Interview on Gaza and Labour Antisemitism

In October 2017, I was invited by Tom Mills and Dan Hind to their excellent Media Democracy Podcast for a discussion about the Labour antisemitism controversy. I returned this week to talk about... the Labour antisemitism controversy. Good to see the political conversation has progressed over the past year. This time around, we also spoke…

Israel Has No Right of Self-Defence against Gaza

Human rights groups and UN bodies have condemned Israel's "excessive" and "disproportionate" use of force in Gaza. But this does not go far enough. In a new essay for Jacobin, Norman Finkelstein and I argue that Israel cannot claim a right to use any force in Gaza — whether moderate or excessive, proportionate or disproportionate; whether…

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: IMPOSE ARMS EMBARGO ON ISRAEL

Amnesty International (27 April 2018): "The time for symbolic statements of condemnation is now over. The international community must act concretely and stop the delivery of arms and military equipment to Israel." "[M]any" Palestinian fatalities "were deliberately killed or injured while posing no immediate threat" "Israeli soldiers are using high-velocity military weapons designed to cause…

WHY ISRAEL HATES INTERNATIONAL LAW

We didn’t want to establish a mechanism for conflict resolution by a third party, because when there’s a strong versus a weak partner, the third party tends to take the side of the weak. - Joel Singer, Legal Advisor to Israel's Foreign Ministry, who helped formulate the Oslo Accords (1996) Source: Lev G. Grinberg, Politics and…