Occupied Palestinian Territory
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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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Trump’s peace plan. Really?
It’s over one hundred years since the then League of Nations, in 1922, bestowed upon Britain a mandate over Palestine. Much has come to pass in the intervening years, yet the spirit of the Mandate, and its anchor point, the 1917 Balfour Declaration, is with us still, finding expression in Trump’s so-called Gaza peace plan. Continue reading
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No hindrance placed in their way
Victory is near. So at least must the West Bank Israeli-Jewish settlers’ assess as they consume by fire, bullet and bulldozer Palestinian land, livelihoods – and lives. No hindrance placed in their way. In Gaza, too, the death knell sounds as Israel busies itself with the dirty – but it must be done! – business 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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Zionism and the Jewish Establishment
For some, the stories told in foundational texts – Old and New Testaments, the Mahabharata and so forth – are parables and myths illuminating paths to right conduct. For others of a more literalist bent, what is written is hardcore objective historical fact, pointing, in a no-nonsense way, to what has happened in the past, Continue reading
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Gaza, Lebanon, Syria: the moral abasement of the UK’s political and mainstream media caste
Has the moral abasement of our political class, along with the bulk of mainstream media, including the public-funded – that’s you and me – BBC reached its nadir, or will it descend still further into an ethic-less abyss of its own creation? How comes it that this coterie of comfort and ignominy so tenaciously cleaves Continue reading
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The end of the Israeli state?
It is not possible to be certain of the duration of its decline, it is only possible to be certain of the conclusion: the end of the Israeli state. A state that has debased itself more than anyone could have imagined possible. Israel, in common with any other state, has no inherent right to exist. 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
About Me
This is Bernard Spiegal’s blog.
I write mainly about Palestine/Israel and related issues; sometimes other stuff too
Bernard Spiegal 