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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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Palestine/Israel: Gramsci has something to say to us
At time of writing, the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel is nominally agreed. ‘Nominally’: Israel, as ever, has conjured pretexts that call into question what was but moments ago cause for cautious, celebratory feelings among both the Palestinians of Gaza and the families and friends of the Israeli hostages – achievement of a ceasefire agreement Continue reading
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The no solution, two-state solution
It is not a requirement of belief, that prayers are answered. People pray anyway, often in situations when more materially substantial actions are not available, either to salve a hurt, or correct a wrong. So it is with the optimistically titled two-state solution. It had all but expired as a meaningful, let alone just, approach Continue reading
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Is it genocide that we see?
Israel’s justification for its murderous onslaught on Gaza is that Hamas must be destroyed since it represents an existential threat to Israel; this, from its perspective, bloodily demonstrated in the events of the 7th October. The current and continuing Israeli attacks on Gaza are justified in those terms: Israel’s objective is to seek out Hamas, Continue reading
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Can Israel change?
In a couple of earlier blog articles I wondered whether Israel has the internal resources – ethical, psychological, imaginative, political – to reflect upon itself critically; to shed its self-imposed, self-defeating burden of maintaining and justifying a state founded on Jewish Supremacism. All the indications are that it has not. This was the case Continue reading
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What’s a pause but continuity confirmed?
What once were considered shared norms, for example, that armed forces do not as a matter of course kill and maim children, for Israel, this understanding is now redundant. It’s moved on from that, it is no longer a serviceable concept. Rather, callous, cool and calculated disregard are the governing principles. The habit of praying-in-aid Continue reading
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History did not begin on the 7th October
‘Under cover of Gaza war, settlers working to fulfil state goal of Judaizing Area C.’ That B’tselem headline above has it right, or almost right, for the Judaizing of Area C has long been underway. A project of displacement and replacement: the indigenous Palestinians removed to make way for Israeli Jews. And this not limited Continue reading
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Israel: confronting its dreamscape
The ground is shifting, the habitual reference points obscured. What seemed entrenched, is now dislodged. Israel is in flux, somehow lost to itself, as countervailing forces and tendencies rise to the surface to vie with each other. Things are falling apart, there is at present no centre to hold. The spark that lit the Continue reading
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Magical thinking: The two state solution
I was going to begin this article with a recitation of funeral rites – funeral rights for the Two State Solution, the notional way forward to resolving the Palestine/Israel impasse. That ‘solution’, at base, proposes there should be two states – a State of Israel alongside a newly minted State of Palestine – on Continue reading
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UK Government and allies support BDS
Rank hypocrisy and shameless double standards are by now the unsurprising hallmarks of the UK Government. But it has excelled itself in its rapid and enthusiastic conversion to BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) now seen as both a morally appropriate, and potentially efficacious, strategy designed, in this case, to persuade Russia to reverse its invasion of 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 