Tag Archives: Zionism

January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, declared so by the UN. On this day we remember the six million Jewish victims, and millions of other victims, brutally murdered in a systematic, evil slaughter, ethnic “cleansing” or genocide. But let’s remember something else.  The UN has proven itself to be …

I have just returned from over a month in Israel with my family over the Jewish Holidays. In my head, I had been planning to write a piece about some reflections I had relating to Israel, Theodore Herzl and whether the Zionist dream had been fulfilled. Whenever we visit Israel …

I remember the day when, as a child, I walked into an elevator with my sister and parents, and as the doors were closing, my sister decided to test out whether the doors would open up if she stuck her arm through them.  They didn’t.  There was a moment of panic …

On Saturday, 12th August in Charlottesville Virginia, a group of people descended on the city to demonstrate and stop the city’s officials from removing the monument of Robert E. Lee, a confederate soldier.  Spotted within their ranks were KKK members, white nationalists or whatever that means, neo Nazis, antisemites. etc.  …

 I am a Zionist. If I announced that, on walking into a party in New Zealand, I would quite likely get a worse reaction than if I declared that I am a P-addicted, ISIS sympathising prostitute. It’s not the kind of thing that one can state in polite company, at …

29 July 2017 saw an anti-Israel rally in Auckland’s Aotea Square that had been billed as “Alaqsa solidarity rally” to protest against Israel’s “security measures that require Palestinians to enter through metal detectors to go pray” (sic). These measures were removed by Israel before the day of the rally, after …

A Muslim friend recently asked “how can we discuss Zionism away from Judaism?” I offered to meet with her and explain it. As the offer has not thus far been taken up, my response to the question has now been put into writing. There is a great deal of innocent …

Sneakers put out to dry. Wet and full of sand, they looked tired. My heart almost bursts to see them. They tell a story people who live elsewhere wouldn’t recognize – but most Israelis would. Those who don’t have this story in their own home know the story well. Across …

This is not about Linda Sarsour. This is about Jews who are afraid to identify themselves as Zionists.  This is about people worldwide who hear the word “Zionist” and think about tanks vs “freedom fighters,” “occupiers” vs “oppressed” people. This is about women who are put off by the title …

In one of the most polarizing trials in Israeli army history, 20 year old Sergeant Elor Azaria, who shot and killed a wounded Palestinian terrorist in Hebron, was found guilty of manslaughter. Three judges presiding over the military court ruled that he had violated the ‘Purity of Arms doctrine’ of …

Martin Luther King Jr. fought for the rights of the black minority in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. His passionate words inspired many people to move for equal rights for all Americans. As the last MLK Day of the first Black US President is celebrated, and in the aftermath …

In July I went on a life-changing trip to Israel. This was my fourth trip to Israel, but I have not been there for 17 years. I have written in the past about other aspects and experiences of this trip.  I have not focussed on Israelis themselves, Israeli society, and …

Yesterday a Shalom.Kiwi reader, Natalie Owen, posted a series of hate-filled antisemitic rants in response to one of Shalom.Kiwi’s articles. Normally these kinds of abusive rants would be removed, but on this occasion we thought they served a useful purpose in demonstrating what antisemitism looks like. This is because Natalie helpfully …

There is every reason, both “concretely & in principle”, why Jews living in a Palestinian-Arab state, under Palestinian-Arab sovereignty is unacceptable    “There is no reason, concretely and in principle, why Jews should not be able to live in a future Palestinian state” –  Ron Dermer, Israel’s Ambassador to the United …

Zionism injected controversy into Middle Eastern politics not because there were competing nationalist claims for the same land, or because it entailed the creation of a Palestinian refugee issue. There was a time when being a “Leftist Zionist” was no contradiction. Zionism was built on principles of equality, common ownership …

Mahmoud Abbas completed his PhD dissertation for Lumumba University in Moscow in 1982. For years I have been reading that this piece of writing – which to the right is the original cover – entitled “The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism” was one in which he …

Remember Professor Andrew Pessin? Anyone who follows the Long Arab War against the Jews of the Middle East knows about the harassment of vocal pro-Israel professors on western university campuses, including in the United States. As I wrote in a piece last summer: Professor Andew Pessin is a Professor of Philosophy at …

 For anyone living outside of Israel and opposed to the delegitimisation of Zionism, it is difficult not to be aware of the movement called ‘Breaking the Silence’ (BTS). ‘  The Boycott movement against Israel frequently use their material, the anti-Zionist groups on campus show their video clips on a loop …

Adalah is also known as the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. It is funded by a number of left-wing organizations including: the New Israel Fund (NIF); the Ford Foundation; the Open Society Foundation (George Soros); Oxfam; and the European Commission. Adalah claims to be “an independent human …

On 29/12/2015 I travelled to Birmingham to participate in a panel at the ‘Limmud’ conference. Being a writer rather than a speaker, being given control of a microphone wasn’t something I was particularly looking forward to, yet having seen the list of talks, some of which appeared interesting, I had …