Apartheid
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Football anyone? Travels in irony
It’s an odd sight, PM Starmer falling over himself to seek additional resources to enable Birmingham police to cope with the ‘high risk’ possibility that were Maccabi football fans allowed to attend their November Europa League game against Aston Villa, violent disorder emanating from the Maccabi fans was a realistic possibility. The ‘high risk’ designation Continue reading
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Two-states: solution or chimera?
This seems to me to be axiomatic: It is not possible to construct a viable, and just – note ‘and just’ – independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. The so-called ‘two-state solution’ is no solution at all. I have rehearsed the arguments supporting the propositions above, here and here and here and here, and therefore will Continue reading
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The curtailment of truth-telling: Palestine Action and the assault on freedom
Evil-doers abhor truth. Therefore it must be smothered, distorted, silenced, concealed. That is what thematically connects the British Government’s intention to proscribe Palestinian Action with the Israeli government’s decision to close access to Israeli state archives. The Israeli state archives are the source material upon which Israel’s ‘new historians’ – for example Avi Shlaim and Continue reading
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The Board of Deputies of British Jews: Time’s up?
Mainstream, establishment Jewish opinion on Israel and Palestine, as promulgated and vigorously promoted by the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BoD), is facing a challenge. A challenge from within the depth of the body itself. In a statement to the Financial Times (16 April), thirty-six – out of over 300 – Deputies signed a Continue reading
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Apposite comparison? Nazi attitudes and behaviour, and Israel?
In our daily talk, but also when addressing more specialist areas of endeavour, we deploy the tools of analogy and comparison, comparing one thing or behaviour with another, as aids to understanding and insight. And, sometimes, to remind ourselves of the standards we would like to uphold. In this noticing of similarities, we do not Continue reading
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Is Israel in descent?
Is it too far out of left field to suggest that Israel is crumbling? That the manifestations of its seeming military prowess’ now yet again being visited on Gaza, but also in the West Bank, are actually the gasps of a wounded and failing entity? When a country goes to war, it’s generally expected that Continue reading
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Perhaps. Just perhaps…the boundaries of what can be thought and said about Israel are shifting
Perhaps. Just perhaps…Israel, in unleashing its genocidal fury on Gaza, and now on Lebanon, has, unwittingly, fostered and spread the corrosive agents that are eating away at its legitimacy as a specifically Jewish, Zionist state. This is happening at the fundamental level of ideas, of ideologies, of ethics and of morality. Of what can be Continue reading
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Project Israel: hegemony + elimination
The project to create an Israeli imperium over swathes of the Middle East is well under way. Hubris attends the project, as time will tell. Israel, led by a man, Netanyahu, with pronounced megalomaniacal tendencies, allied to maniacal, Jewish supremacist Knesset members and government ministers, knows no bounds in its pursuit of ‘security’ via domination. Continue reading
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It didn’t work first time, so we’ll do it again: Israel repeats itself in deadly ways
The Middle East is in a phase of radical uncertainty. Speculation is rife. Will Israel launch a ground offensive against Hezbollah? Will Hezbollah expand the scope and severity of its attacks on Israel? By the time you read this, the answers may be known. Or remain as uncertain as it is at the time of Continue reading
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Israel’s PR problem: Itself
The problem for proponents of Israel as a ‘normal’ state, is Israel itself. Over the past eleven months, Israel’s murderous, ethnic cleansing in Gaza, and now escalating in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, have been displayed on our screens for all to see. It is not a good look to destroy hospitals, kill and Continue reading
About Me
This is Bernard Spiegal’s blog.
I write mainly about Palestine/Israel and related issues; sometimes other stuff too
Bernard Spiegal 