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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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Israel: A state of contradiction
The Israeli state sustains itself despite the contradictions that underpin it. Viewed this way, it’s an inherently unstable structure, its disparate parts coalescing in various formations to produce fragile, temporary, governmental coalitions of ill-grace. The state’s foundations rest, in part, on sustained acts of legerdemain. On ethical, conceptual and theological trickery. This, in part, contributes Continue reading
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Chief Rabbi Mirvis and the distorting mirrors
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, in his Sunday Telegraph article, sought to give the impression that he was taking a dispassionate look as to the merits of the charge of genocide against the state of Israel, brought before the International Court of Justice by the South African government. In so doing, he pointed to the definition Continue reading
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Israel’s strategic intent remains constant
The focus has been on Gaza, understandably so. But this has perhaps been at the expense of ignoring, or at least marginalising, what is simultaneously happening in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in particular since the 7th October. In order to understand Israel’s strategic intentions towards Palestinians, its important to keep in view events 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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Beware London! An intifada is coming to your streets.
Readers will be much relieved that the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) has girded its loins to stand firm against the possibility that an Intifada could occur here in London. It proposes to hold a march in the capital on the 26 November, to help ward off the possibility. So, if you’re concerned about the imminence 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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Are there words enough?
It feels as though the world has become unhinged. All assumed stable reference points are suspended. Prime Ministers and Presidents can look us in the eye and, by their equivocations, by their sophistry, by their contrived selective vision allow – allow, give permission to, endorse, support, stand alongside, watch the back of, provide the means 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 