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

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

The IHRA Definition, Institutional Antisemitism, and Wittgenstein

By Eve Garrard
In the wake of the EHRC report on antisemitism in the UK Labour Party, a variety of complaints... Read more > December 2020

Book Review | Head of the Mossad: In Pursuit of a Safe and Secure Israel

By Paul Gross
The Director of the Mossad has to think geopolitically. He (and so far it has always been a... Read more > December 2020

Israel Without Sharon’s Coma: A Counterfactual History

By Calev Ben-Dor
How might the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have looked had Ariel Sharon not suffered two strokes that left him incapacitated?... Read more > December 2020

‘The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man.’ The tenacity of an anti-Zionist fable

By Shai Afsai
Some authors are unwilling to dispense with unsubstantiated stories, opting instead to put scholarly standards aside in their... Read more > December 2020

Fathom Long Read | Adorno and Iran: Critical Theory and Islamic Antisemitism

By Stephan Grigat
‘After Auschwitz’, said the German philosopher and social critic Theodor Adorno, we should embrace a new categorical imperative:... Read more > December 2020

Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (1948-2020): A Tribute

By Michael Wegier
Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks was a good friend to this journal, meeting with its editor when it was... Read more > December 2020

Opinion | Jews are asking for protection from their universities from antisemitism. David Feldman’s ‘All Lives Matter’ response is not...

By David Hirsh
This is a response to an article by David Feldman, ‘The government should not impose a faulty definition... Read more > December 2020

Fathom Podcast | Will Saudi Arabia make peace with Israel?

By Sir John Jenkins
In this podcast, Fathom's Deputy Editor Samuel Nurding speaks with Sir John Jenkins, a senior fellow at Policy... Read more > December 2020

Book Review | Since 1948: Israeli Literature in the Making

By Liam Hoare
In 2013, the New York-based Israeli novelist Rudy Namdar published The Ruined House. Both upon its initial Hebrew... Read more > December 2020

Never Alone: Prison, Politics, and My People | An interview with Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy

By Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy
Fathom Deputy Editor Samuel Nurding spoke with Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy about Never Alone: Prison, Politics, and... Read more > November 2020

The Unique Voice of Ruth Gavison (1945-2020)

By Alexander Yakobson
Alexander Yakobson is co-author with Amnon Rubinstein of Israel and the Family of Nations: The Jewish Nation-State and... Read more > November 2020

What Corbyn’s favourite sociologists Greg Philo and Mike Berry get wrong about contemporary antisemitism

By Matthew Bolton
Matthew Bolton is the co-author with Frederick Harry Pitts of Corbynism: A Critical Approach, praised by Professor Paul... Read more > November 2020

Symposium: Biden and Israel | ‘Biden will not reprise the acrimony of Barack Obama’s dealings with Israel. He may prove...

By Joshua Muravchik
A Biden administration carries the promise of restoring bipartisanship to support for the Jewish state, says Joshua Muravchik.... Read more > November 2020

Symposium: Biden and Israel | Don't expect to see the Obama/Kerry paradigm

By Robert Satloff
Robert Satloff, the Executive Director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, argues that whilst the Middle... Read more > November 2020

Symposium: Biden and Israel | ‘There is simply too much damage to repair around the world. The Israelis and the...

By Jo-Ann Mort
A Biden/Harris administration will seek to return foreign policy to the Obama track, but the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will... Read more > November 2020

Symposium: Biden and Israel | ‘The biggest challenge for US-Israeli relations will be Iran. The Biden team has been vague,...

By Jonathan Rynhold
While the theatrics of Biden and Netanyahu’s personal relationship may engage the attention of media pundits, policymakers will... Read more > November 2020

Symposium: Biden and Israel | The Abraham Accords shattered a policy paralysis and a cycle of failed mediation and negotiations...

By Alex Ryvchin
Trump’s decision to upend the failed foreign policy establishment orthodoxy about the Middle East Peace Process is being... Read more > November 2020

Diary from Ramat Gan | ‘The humanities classroom is one of the great achievements of Western civilisation’

By William Kolbrener
William Kolbrener is professor of English Literature at Bar Ilan University. He has written widely on the literature, politics... Read more > November 2020

Corbyn is one man. Left-Wing Antisemitism is a Tradition

By Alan Johnson
Alan Johnson, editor of Fathom and author of our 2019 Report Institutionally Antisemitic Contemporary Left Antisemitism and the... Read more > October 2020

Fathom Report | Institutionally Antisemitic: Contemporary Left Antisemitism and the Crisis in the British Labour Party

By Alan Johnson
This major Fathom report finds the Labour Party is now ‘institutionally antisemitic’ as the term is defined in... Read more > March 2019

Rabin’s 1989 Peace Initiative – When The Security Hawk First Displayed His Dovish Peace Policy

By Joel Singer
Joel Singer is the former Legal Adviser to the Israeli Foreign Ministry under the Yitzhak Rabin-Shimon Peres Government. He... Read more > October 2020

The Poverty of 'Anti-Zionism' and the Renewal of Zionism

By Alex Ryvchin
‘Anti-Zionism’ writes Alex Ryvchin, ‘has spawned White Papers that locked Jews in a Europe intent on killing them,... Read more > October 2020

Diary from Tel Aviv | Thinking in Quarantine

By Dahlia Scheindlin
Dahlia Scheindlin is a leading international public opinion analyst, a political consultant and a policy fellow at the Century Foundation; she... Read more > October 2020

CALL FOR PAPERS: Fathoming UK-Israel2021

By Fathom Editors
In 2021 Fathom will publish a set of articles about the UK-Israel relationship, to be collected into an eBook, and perhaps a... Read more > October 2020

Images of Israel in India

By Khinvraj Jangid
Dr Khinvraj Jangid is Director of the Centre for Israel Studies at Jindal School of International Affairs, OP... Read more > October 2020

Rereadings | The Arthur Hertzberg / Hugh Trevor-Roper Controversy about Antisemitism

By Bernard Harrison
Fathom is continuing its series of Rereadings, in which writers revisit classic texts, with Philosopher Bernard Harrison on... Read more > October 2020

Diary from Tel Aviv | Among the Furious Tribes in Lockdown Israel

By Calev Ben-Dor
Fathom is introducing a new kind of voice to our readers. From time to time we will publish... Read more > October 2020

Peter Beinart’s Grotesque Utopia

By Shany Mor
Peter Beinart’s essay ‘Yavne: A Jewish Case for Equality in Israel-Palestine’ saw him give up in the two-state... Read more > October 2020

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

The UAE-Israel Deal: Like a Bridge Over Troubled Sands

By Koby Huberman
Koby Huberman is co-founder of the Israeli Regional Initiative Group, which advocates a regional approach for a two-state... Read more > September 2020

Communists for the Jewish State: British Communists and the Daily Worker in 1948

By John Strawson
'The British Mandate in Palestine is now ended and the Jewish State of Israel has been proclaimed …... Read more > September 2020

Opinions | What Bibi learned from Arik. And why it might still not be enough.

By Calev Ben-Dor
The prime minister is using Ariel Sharon’s old playbook to manage multiple crises: keep your hands on the... Read more > September 2020

Fathom Book Reviews

By Fathom Editors
The Fathom editorial team are seeking reviewers. If you would like to review one of the books below for Fathom,... Read more > January 2020

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