Fathom

Autumn / 2022

Opinion | Israel’s electoral crisis ends but the struggle for its soul goes on

By Toby Greene
 Toby Greene is a former deputy editor of Fathom and author of Blair, Labour & Palestine: Conflicting Views on Middle... Read more > November 2022

Opinion | This defeat feels different. It feels fundamental. Now we must fight for the country we love

By Paul Gross
 Paul Gross fears this will be the first coalition in Israeli history where a majority of its members... Read more > November 2022

Opinion | The Scapegoating of Yair Lapid

By Alan Johnson
 Alan Johnson is the editor of Fathom. ‘God’ said Mark Twain, ‘is the most popular scapegoat for our... Read more > November 2022

The Lust Libel: Sexual Antisemitism in History and Contemporary Culture

By Jonah Cohen
 Antisemites have long depicted the Jews as a perverse, predatory, and pornographic people; horny vampires of the Orient. That... Read more > November 2022

Book Review | Bibi: My Story

By Anshel Pfeffer
 Back in 2017, I sat with a group of Israeli colleagues in a small hotel conference room in... Read more > November 2022

Fine margins and the Israeli Election – three that will determine the result

By Calev Ben-Dor
 As Israelis head to the polls for the fifth time in less than four years, and with little... Read more > October 2022

Tel Aviv or Jerusalem? The UK mulls moving its Embassy

By Richard Pater
 Former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss was reportedly mulling moving the British embassy to Jerusalem. Richard Pater argues... Read more > October 2022

‘Maybe he was the last of his kind’: A Conversation about Amos Oz with Nurith Gertz

By Liam Hoare
 Liam Hoare talks to literary scholar Nurith Gertz about What Was Lost to Time (Hebrew), her biography of... Read more > October 2022

Appease or Confront? Western Policy Options and the Iranian Nuclear Bomb

By Yossi Kuperwasser
 Yossi Kuperwasser served as head of the research division in the Israel Defence Force Military Intelligence division and... Read more > October 2022

A Party Transformed: How UK Labour is ripping Left Antisemitism out by its roots

By Luke Akehurst
 In 2020, following Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, the UK Labour Party was found guilty by the Equalities and Human... Read more > October 2022

Why Amnesty is wrong to call Israel an ‘Apartheid State’

By Alan Johnson
 [The] system of apartheid originated with the creation of Israel in May 1948. – Amnesty International’s Apartheid Report, 2022. ... Read more > October 2022

Jerusalem Film Festival 2022: On absences haunting films made years after their passing

By Tal Kra-Oz
 Tal Kra-Oz is a writer based in Tel Aviv. His work has appeared in Tablet Magazine, The Forward... Read more > October 2022

The Rise of Itamar Ben Gvir

By Calev Ben-Dor
 In the March 2020 elections Itamar Ben Gvir’s Jewish Power party was shunned by other right wingers and... Read more > September 2022

Opinion | Time for the UN to rethink Palestine

By Alex Ryvchin
 Alex Ryvchin is the Co-Chief Executive Officer of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and a member of... Read more > September 2022

Diary | The inaugural conference of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism

By Kathleen Hayes
 Kathleen Hayes is the author of the Fathom articles ‘Antisemitism and the Left: A Memoir’ and ‘“Punch a... Read more > September 2022

Book Review | Peace and Faith: Christian Churches and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

By Jonathan G. Campbell
 This lengthy edited volume contains an introduction, sixteen chapters (organized into Parts I-III), appendix (on the history of... Read more > September 2022

Liz Truss’s world view and its implications for UK-Israel relations

By Toby Greene
 ‘Geopolitics is back’ Liz Truss has said. In what is the most thorough analysis of her world view... Read more > September 2022

Book Review | Breaking History: A White House Memoir

By Colin Shindler
 Jared Kushner's account of his four years in the Trump White House produces several interesting revelations. It is... Read more > September 2022

Fathom eBook | Rescuing Israeli-Palestinian Peace: The Fathom Essays 2016-2020

By Fathom Editors
 Fathom's new eBook, Rescuing Israeli-Palestinian Peace: The Fathom Essays 2016-2020, contains over 60 articles, reports and interviews. The editors believe it is the most comprehensive... Read more > September 2020

Winter / 2021

What should Biden do next on Israeli-Palestinian Peace and Iran? A review essay by Yair Hirschfeld

By Yair Hirschfeld
 Professor Yair Hirschfeld was a key architect of the Oslo Accords in 1993. In this review essay he assesses the policy... Read more > February 2021

Castles in the Air? The American Return to the UN Human Rights Council

By Gerald M. Steinberg
 The Biden administration has decided to return to the UN Human Rights Council in order to reform it... Read more > February 2021

Why you should read the two Israeli novels on the New York Times list of 100 notable books of 2020

By Liam Hoare
 Two Israeli novels — The Memory Monster by Yishai Sarid and The Tunnel by A.B. Yehoshua — made... Read more > February 2021

Fathom eBook | In Defence of the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism

By Fathom Editors
 Fathom has published a new eBook about the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, which you can DOWNLOAD HERE. In... Read more > February 2021

Why the 2010 Equality Act does not make the IHRA definition of antisemitism redundant

By Lesley Klaff and Derek Spitz
 David Feldman and others have argued against the adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism by universities on... Read more > February 2021

UK-Israel 2021 | How Israel military tech (and doctrine) will make the UK better at fighting the hybrid warfare of...

By Seth Frantzman
 Technology is radically transforming the battlefield, revolutionising doctrines of warfighting and counter-terrorism. ‘Hybrid warfare’ is the new reality.... Read more > January 2021

Existential conflicts cannot be solved: a new framework for resolving the Israeli–Palestinian dispute

By Bren Carlill
 'The Challenges of Resolving the Israeli–Palestinian Dispute: An Impossible Peace?' is published this month by Palgrave Macmillan. In... Read more > January 2021

It was the new phenomenon of Israel-focused antisemitism that required the new definition. David Hirsh responds to a recent ‘call...

By David Hirsh
 40 UK-based Israeli academics, broadly from the anti-Zionist left, have issued a ‘call to reject’ the IHRA Working... Read more > January 2021

BICOM Forecast Paper: The Middle East in 2021

By BICOM
 BICOM’s sixth annual forecast is a guide for policy makers and opinion formers to issues and events that will... Read more > January 2021

UK-Israel 2021 | An interview with UK Ambassador to Israel Neil Wigan  

By Neil Wigan OBE
 BICOM’s Director Richard Pater spoke to UK Ambassador Neil Wigan shortly before the turn of the year about... Read more > January 2021

The IHRA: A Reply to the Guardian Letter signed by Sir Stephen Sedley et al.

By Dave Rich
 On 7 January 2021 The Guardian published a letter from eight lawyers who claimed that the IHRA definition... Read more > January 2021

Rereadings | Yisrael Medad on the poetry of Uri Tzvi Greenberg

By Yisrael Medad
 Yisrael Medad spent many hours with the poet and Revisionist Zionist Uri Tzvi Greenberg (1896-1981) at Greenberg’s Ramat... Read more > January 2021

The Three Best Books on Settlements, recommended by Sara Hirschhorn

By Sara Hirschhorn
 Welcome to a new Fathom series in which experts select their three favourite books about a subject. To... Read more > January 2021

Summer / 2022

Documentary Review | Remember Baghdad (2017)

By Lyn Julius
 Remember Baghad, now showing on Netflix, is reviewed by Lyn Julius, journalist and co-founder of Harif, an association... Read more > July 2022

The Modern Language Association, Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism

By Cary Nelson and Joe Lockard
  The MLA Executive Council have hit a new low by acting in secret, without notice and without membership... Read more > July 2022

Opinion | We Need to Talk About the BBC

By David Collier
 In a week when it was reported that the BBC ignore 99 per cent of attacks on Israelis but... Read more > July 2022

Book Review | Israel’s Moment: International Support and Opposition to Establishing the Jewish State, 1945-1949

By John Strawson
 Herf’s book forensically demolishes the myth that the West set out to create Israel to promote its interests.... Read more > July 2022

Book Review | Nine Quarters of Jerusalem

By Danny Seidemann
 There are no experts on Jerusalem. The city is too complex, its history too long, too shrouded in... Read more > July 2022

Fathoming the Intellectual Revolution of our Time (1) | ‘Punch a Terf’ and ‘Smash the Zionists’: Misogyny and Antisemitism in...

By Kathleen Hayes
 Series Introduction: Huge waves of intellectual change are sweeping the Western world at an astonishing speed. Liberal democratic... Read more > July 2022

Antisemitism and the University of London: Statement by David Hirsh

By David Hirsh
 A debate is raging at Goldsmiths, University of London after the President of the Student Union tweeted that... Read more > July 2022

Book Review | The Wealthy: Chronicle of a Jewish Family (1763-1948)

By Liam Hoare
 At the age of 40, having worked as a teacher and an official in the Israeli education ministry... Read more > July 2022

Arabs sharing government power with Jews in Israel is the new normal. It works, and there is no turning back

By Ron Gerlitz
 Written shortly before the collapse of the Israeli coalition government, Ron Gerlitz, CEO of aChord – Social Psychology... Read more > June 2022

Fathom Opinion | A Left-Winger’s Lament for the Israeli Coalition

By Jack Omer-Jackaman
 Written shortly before yesterday’s long anticipated break-up of the Israeli government, Jack Omer-Jackaman argues that leftists like himself... Read more > June 2022

The most important creative output in modern Hebrew literature since Agnon: Yael Halevi-Wise appreciates the life and work of A.B.Yehoshua...

By Yael Halevi-Wise
 Yael Halevi-Wise marks the passing of her friend, the Israeli novelist, short story writer and playwright, A.B.Yehoshua. Author... Read more > June 2022

Looking Forward by Farming Upwards: Israeli Diplomacy in South East Asia

By Haim Shweky
 Haim Shweky was the cultural attaché to the Israeli embassy in Vietnam between 2018-2019. He recounts his time... Read more > June 2022

The Boston Mapping Project: BDS and the Paranoid Style of Politics

By Richard L. Cravatts
 Richard L. Cravatts is President Emeritus of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. The Boston ‘Mapping Project’... Read more > June 2022

‘What is your nation, if I may ask?’: Antisemitism and Zionism in James Joyce’s Ulysses

By Noga Emanuel
 In 2022 book-lovers celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of James Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses, which tracks the... Read more > June 2022

Understanding decision-making in the Palestinian arenas

By Michael Milshtein
 BICOM Director Richard Pater speaks to Dr Michael Milshtein, a colonel (res.) in the Israel Defense Forces and... Read more > June 2022

Christians and the reconciliation route to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict

By Cary Nelson
 A few months ago, Presbyterians for Middle East Peace (PFMEP) published Peace And Faith: Christian Churches and the... Read more > June 2022

Algeria, where are your Saturday people, and where are your Sunday people?

By Lela Gilbert
 Lela Gilbert is a Fellow at Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom and the author of Saturday People,... Read more > June 2022

Beyond Liberal Peacemaking: New Initiatives in Israel

By Calev Ben-Dor
 With the peace process frozen, some groups – Mosaica, Shrinking the Conflict Initiative, Women Wage Peace, Shaharit, the Herbert... Read more > May 2022

How Israeli & Palestinian Peacebuilders Can Leverage Post-Pandemic Trends in Philanthropy

By Adam Basciano
 Adam Basciano is the co-founder and former director of IPF Atid, Israel Policy Forum’s network of next generation... Read more > May 2022

Fathom Opinion | ‘We are suffocating among people who think that they are absolutely right’: When totalitarian speech invades the...

By Hedda Harari-Spencer
 Hedda Harari-Spencer is a Senior Lecturer in Hebrew at Tufts University. All translations from French are her own.... Read more > May 2022

The Three Best Books on Understanding Evil

By Stephen de Wijze
 Stephen de Wijze is senior lecturer in political philosophy at the University of Manchester and the co-editor with... Read more > May 2022

The political odyssey of Ayman Odeh

By Calev Ben-Dor
 What took Ayman Odeh, the young Arab politician who rose to prominence before the 2015 elections and was... Read more > May 2022

‘Israel Is Living On Borrowed Time’: Yossi Melman on Security Threats and Social Divisions

By Yossi Melman
 In early April, deputy editor Samuel Nurding sat down with Haaretz’s intelligence and security correspondent Yossi Melman and spoke about... Read more > May 2022

The Anti-Israel Politicisation of the US Academy: The Next Phase is Happening at California and Illinois

By Cary Nelson
 The University of California and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign UIUC are on the verge of green-lighting... Read more > May 2022

My Israeli Music | Hen Mazzig

By Hen Mazzig
 Hen Mazzig is an Israeli writer living in London. He is a Senior Fellow at The Tel Aviv... Read more > May 2022

Spring / 2022

Israeli-Palestinian Peace: The Abraham Accords have created space for a radical transformation in our thinking

By Koby Huberman
 Koby Huberman argues the Abraham Accords have made possible a paradigm shift in the way we think of... Read more > April 2022

An Open Letter to Anti-Zionists from a Veteran of the Left

By Kathleen Hayes
 Kathleen Hayes invites the ‘anti-Zionist’ Left to think again. For 25 years, I was a member of a... Read more > April 2022

Israel on Netflix | Maktub (2017)

By Noga Emanuel
 Noga Emanuel kicks off our new irregular series looking at Israel on Netflix with her take on Maktub,... Read more > April 2022

British Christian Zionism (Part 3): Reverend William Hechler – from Hovevei Zion to Herzl and beyond

By Philip Earl Steele
 Philip Earl Steele examines the contribution of Reverend William Hechler to the early Zionist movement and argues that... Read more > April 2022

Fathom Opinion | ‘Al-Aqsa is in danger’ is a dangerous lie. ‘Temple Denial’ is antisemitic historical revisionism. It’s time for...

By Richard L. Cravatts
 Richard L. Cravatts is President Emeritus of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. Last week in Jerusalem,... Read more > April 2022

Understanding the recent terror attacks in Israel

By Ely Karmon
 On 4 April deputy editor Samuel Nurding spoke with Dr Ely Karmon about the recent terrorist attacks in... Read more > April 2022

Diary | Back from the ‘Other Side’: Reflections on a Visit to the West Bank and East Jerusalem

By Mike Prashker
 Mike Prashker is an Israeli educator, social entrepreneur, writer and public speaker. He founded MERCHAVIM – The Institute... Read more > April 2022

My Israeli Music | Tal Kra-Oz

By Tal Kra-Oz
 Tal Kra-Oz is a writer based in Tel Aviv.  Previous contributors to this series have done an excellent... Read more > April 2022

Who By Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai | An interview with Matti Friedman

By Matti Friedman
 In early March, Fathom's deputy editor Calev Ben-Dor sat down with Matti Friedman to discuss his new book,... Read more > March 2022

Book Review | Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai

By Calev Ben-Dor
 Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai is the latest in Matti Friedman’s wonderful array of books... Read more > March 2022

Israel Needs to Talk about the Arab Riots of May 2021

By Russell A. Shalev
 In little more than a week in May 2021, Arab rioters set ablaze 10 synagogues and 112 Jewish... Read more > March 2022

Keir Starmer’s attempt to portray the Labour Party as having ‘closed the door’ on antisemitism is premature

By Euan Phillips
 In 2021, after the EHRC-mandated rule changes to tackle antisemitism had been approved by his party, Sir Keir... Read more > March 2022

Fathom Opinion | The University of Toronto’s Antisemitism Problem

By Stuart Kamenetsky
 Stuart Kamenetsky is Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. The institution, he writes, has an... Read more > March 2022

Israel, Ukraine and the Right Side of History

By Dahlia Scheindlin
 Dahlia Scheindlin, writing from Tel Aviv on 15 March, critically assesses the three reasons the Israeli government has... Read more > March 2022

Bennett, Putin and Zelensky: Between Mediation and Surrender

By Gerald M. Steinberg
 Gerald M Steinberg is emeritus professor and founder of the Program on Conflict Management and Negotiation at Bar... Read more > March 2022

The Meaning of Shahd Abusalama

By Marc Goldberg
 Marc Goldberg of the Community Security Trust, writing in a personal capacity, casts a concerned eye over some... Read more > March 2022

Amnesty International, Israel and Race-Baiting

By Cary Nelson
 Cary Nelson argues that Amnesty International’s report, by reducing a complex, political, national question involving two victim peoples... Read more > March 2022

Rejecting IHRA: The Avoidable Debacle at the University of Toronto

By David Matas and Aurel Braun
 David Matas is an international human rights lawyer based in Winnipeg. The author of several books, he is... Read more > February 2022

The UK-Israeli trade relationship | An interview with Ian Austin

By Ian Austin
 In this BICOM episode, Richard Pater speaks to Lord Ian Austin, UK Trade envoy to Israel, about his... Read more > February 2022

On Amnesty’s car-crash interview in Israel

By Shany Mor
 When the two most senior Amnesty officials presented their new report in Israel they struggled to answer the... Read more > February 2022

The Three Best Recent Books on the Yishuv during the British Mandate, recommended by Donna Robinson Divine

By Donna Robinson Divine
 Fathom has been inviting exerts to select their three favourite books about their subject. See Sara Hirschhorn on... Read more > February 2022

After Soleimani, is Iran losing control of its proxies?

By Danny Citrinowicz
 The recent Houthi attack on strategic targets in the UAE has once again raised the issue of Iranian... Read more > February 2022

Mothers Against Violence: Viewing settlers’ violence under a ‘powerful womanly lens’

By Hamutal Gouri
 Hamutal Gouri participated in the response of Mothers Against Violence to settler violence in the Palestinian village of... Read more > February 2022

The Arab citizens of Israel | An interview with Dr Arik Rudnitzky

By Arik Rudnitzky
 In this BICOM Podcast, Richard Pater speaks to Dr Arik Rudnitzky, a researcher in  the ‘Arab Society in... Read more > February 2022

Book Review | The European Left and the Jewish Question 1848-1993: Between Zionism and Antisemitism

By Colin Shindler
 While many look to the rise of both Bolshevik Russia and Nazi Germany to understand the Left's evolution... Read more > February 2022

The Middle East in 2022

By BICOM
 BICOM’s seventh annual forecast is a guide for policy makers and opinion formers to issues and events that... Read more > January 2022

Israel is sliding into a one-state reality

By Emanuel Shahaf
 Emanuel Shahaf is Co-Chair of the Federation Movement which proposes a federal citizen state in Eretz-Israel/Palestine, excluding the... Read more > January 2022

My Israeli Music | Jonathan Spyer

By Jonathan Spyer
 Jonathan Spyer is an Israeli analyst, writer, and journalist of Middle Eastern affairs. He emigrated to Israel from London... Read more > January 2022

The Israel Question and the Left: A Review Essay

By Barry Finger
 Barry Finger is a frequent contributor to US socialist journals, a former shop steward and activist with the Public... Read more > January 2022

Britain should do less in the Middle East, but do it better | An Interview with Michael Stephens and Christopher...

By Michael Stephens and Christopher Phillips
 What Next For Britain in the Middle East: Security, Trade and Foreign Policy after Brexit (I.B Tauris, 2021),... Read more > January 2022

Is Israel a 'Settler-Colonial' State? A debate between Alan Johnson and Leila Farsakh

By Alan Johnson
 On 17 December Peter Beinart hosted an online discussion entitled, 'Professors Alan Johnson and Leila Farsakh on whether... Read more > January 2022

Rereading | The Idea of the Jewish State by Ben Halpern

By Donna Robinson Divine
 Donna Robinson Divine is Morningstar Family Professor of Jewish Studies and Emirita Professor of Government at Smith College.... Read more > January 2022

My Israeli Music | Yossi Kuperwasser

By Yossi Kuperwasser
 Brig. Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser was chief of the research division in IDF Military Intelligence, and until recently,... Read more > January 2022

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