When the judge in the trial of Bruce Lehrmann for the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins dismissed the jury and ordered a retrial, it was to uphold a cardinal principle of justice – those standing in judgement of others must be unimpeachable in their neutrality, free from bias and exhibiting …

For the most part, my childhood in Australia was free of antisemitism.  This led me to believe we had left that hatred behind in the Soviet Union, when we emigrated in 1987. In Australia, my family moved house every couple of years as new migrants finding their way tend to …

The United Nations and various member states are poised to revisit the question of Palestine with renewed vigour.  This invariably means flushing more money into UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency], a special agency devoted to keeping Palestinians in refugee camps in preparation for their long foretold conquest of …

There is a story that emerged from Kristallnacht, of the Jews of one German town being forced to line up and spit on a Torah taken from the ransacked synagogue.  To the delight of the sneering Nazi thugs, even the most observant of the community did so, choosing debasement over …

One of those supposedly immutable laws of war is that you do not mess with Russia. Napoleon learnt this in 1812.  He invaded with 450,000 men, captured Moscow, but was eventually repelled, limping out with little more than 50,000 men ravaged by hellish combat, mad with hunger and rife with …

On the last day of April, Yehya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, delivered these instructions to the Palestinian people: “Let everyone who has a rifle, ready it,” he said. “And if you don’t have a rifle, ready your cleaver or an axe, or a knife.” On …

Amnesty International has released the latest report in a co-­ordinated non-government organisa­tion campaign to associate Israel with apartheid. Following a process set down by Human Rights Watch, the report redefines apartheid to little resemble the crimes in South Africa and disfigures Jewish-Israelis into a familiar stereotype of greed, cruelty and …

Much will be said and written about the new report by Amnesty International accusing Israel of “apartheid” and “crimes against humanity.”  Amnesty’s sympathisers in the human rights community and liberal press have reliably boosted the story, reporting Amnesty’s pronouncements as statements of fact and not figments of activism.  These accusations …

By the time the Sydney Festival concludes and the famed Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin and the Sydney Dance Company ensemble take their last bows, the anti-Israel activists will have claimed their victory. Peace between Israelis and Palestinians will be no closer. Palestinian statehood will remain a mirage owing as much …

A few weeks before the surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945, a group of survivors of the Holocaust met in Bucharest to mark Passover, the Jewish festival of freedom.  Among the group was Abba Kovner, who had escaped the Vilna ghetto and led a partisan campaign that struck at …

Why we honour the martyred Soviet Jews. In The Jews of Silence, Elie Wiesel writes that there is only one reason why a Jew travels to Kiev.  That is to see Babi Yar.  So it was for me when a few years ago, I returned to Kiev, thirty years after …

In 2016, the International Criminal Court (ICC) faced a crisis. The African Union voted by a huge margin for a mass withdrawal from the ICC amid complaints that since its formation in 2002, the Court had only pursued cases concerning alleged war crimes in Africa. Indeed, questions about the necessity …

In January 1919, Chaim Weizmann, who would become the first president of Israel, signed an agreement with Emir Faisal, who would rule Syria and Iraq. Signed on the eve of the Paris Peace Conference at which the victors of World War I would determine how to administer the former colonies …

The Zionist Achievement When the French essayist and playwright Edmond Fleg attended Herzl’s Third Zionist Congress in Basel in 1899, he marvelled at the scene. It wasn’t merely the dynamism of the convenor that moved Fleg but the diversity of the delegates. ‘I looked about me. What Jewish contrasts! A …

The White House has announced that Israel and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to sign a peace agreement which will see the two nations establish full diplomatic relations, and “the exchange of ambassadors and cooperation on a broad range of areas, including tourism, education, healthcare, trade, and security.”  The …

Why Zionism faces a crisis, what it will mean and what is to be done. When the French playwright Edmond Fleg attended Herzl’s Third Zionist Congress in Basel he marvelled at the scene. “I looked about me.  What Jewish contrasts!  A pale-faced Pole with high cheekbones, a German in spectacles, …

Keir Starmer, the post-Jeremy Corbyn leader of Britain’s Labour Party, acted swiftly to demote a member of Parliament who tweeted an article containing a paragraph linking Israel to the killing of George Floyd. In truth, when Labour MP Rebecca Long-Bailey tweeted the interview with the actress Maxine Peake in which she …

The latest US proposal to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been predictably rejected by the Palestinian side. In fact, it was rejected before it was even tabled.  Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh announced the day before the plan was released, ‘We reject it and we demand the international community …

A new study released on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp has found that a quarter of French millennials haven’t heard of the Holocaust, while an earlier study of American millennials found that 66 per cent did not know what Auschwitz was. …

The Arab-Israeli conflict traverses decades, manifests in regular wars, terrorism and endless political skirmishes in international forums.  It is also a battle to establish narratives – victims and aggressors, Davids and Goliaths, oppressors and oppressed.  Language and the meaning given to basic concepts form a key part of this battle.  …