Does the Palestinian right of return negate the right to national self-determination of the Jews? Does it mean a return to Israel or to the future state of Palestine? Would it mean the state of Israel would dissolve into a Greater Palestine with Jews as a tolerated minority? These are questions asked by the Israeli … Read more
Since the commencement of the current intifada, we have made a clear distinction between unpalatable news and biased news in the highly selective depiction of Israel in the national media. All of us are long-time supporters of the Israeli peace movement, but we are not prepared to serve as apologists for Palestinian terrorism or blind … Read more
Today’s British left has little understanding of Jews and anti-semitism because it was not forged by the struggle against fascism in the 1930s and the Holocaust (The hatred that won’t die, February 28). Jews are perceived to be white, bourgeois and invisible – certainly not members of the oppressed. The left is rationally anti-antisemitic, but … Read more
Norman Finkelstein argues in extracts from his forthcoming book (G2, July 12 and 13) that Holocaust remembrance has become an exploitative industry used to justify Israel’s policies and that the campaign by Jewish survivors for compensation for assets lost under Nazi occupation and slave labour is directed by gold diggers. More disturbing is the Guardian’s … Read more
MAGGIE O’KANE’s report (Guardian July 29) describing Muslim women and children incarcerated for five days in cattle-train wagons at the end of which time seven children, two mothers, and two old women were found dead, is too near the experience of our Jewish brethren under the Nazis for us to remain silent. The implementation of … Read more
Last Friday morning, Dr Lionel Kopelowitz, president of the Board of Deputies, paid a courtesy call on Mr Yitzhak Shamir, Prime Minister of Israel, and no doubt exchanged pleasantries of a non-controversial nature. If the Board delegation had walked toward the Damascus Gate on Shabbat afternoon, they would have witnessed another side of the Israeli … Read more
Although returning participants may now try to paper over the cracks, the necessity to stage a solidarity conference was the clearest indication yet that Mr Shamir does not have full support for his policies in the diaspora and that loyal dissent is a serious obstacle. According to Ehud Olmert MK, co-ordinator of the conference on … Read more
As a Jewish voter in Mrs Thatcher’s constituency, I found it difficult to recognise myself in Hugo Young’s highly monolithic caricature of British Jews (May 27). He informs me that the leaderene is “an honorary Jew” and that Judaism is an integral basis for Thatcherite philosophy. Our apolitical chief rabbi is elevated to the status … Read more
As a deputy who was unable to attend the last meeting. I find the Board of Deputies statement on the current crisis in Israel and the territories embarrassingly devoid of meaning. It does not address the fundamental issues which have caused the riots and only parrots time-worn slogans which are being rendered increasingly irrelevant. This … Read more
We oppose censorship, but we are impelled to participate in the debate about Jim Allen’s play, “Perdition,” especially after a number of Holocaust experts have declared that it is riddled with errors and distortions. Advisers have written countless pages separating fact from fiction in the search for objective truth. Such objections have been ignored by … Read more