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

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 > Article

Fathom eBook | Essays on the British Mandate in Palestine, 1920-1948

By Fathom Editors
Fathom has published a new eBook to mark the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the British Mandate,... Read more > August 2020

‘Balancing the liberal and the national was the genetic code of the movement Jabotinsky and Begin founded’: Dan Meridor on...

By Dan Meridor
Dan Meridor served at various times as the Israeli Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, Minister of Justice... Read more > July 2020

Israel and Diaspora Jewry: Is the Coronavirus Crisis an opportunity to redesign the relationship?

By Shira Ruderman
Shira Ruderman argues that the coronavirus virus has presented Israel, the Nation State of the Jewish people, with... Read more > July 2020

Opinions | And the Walls Came Tumblin’ Down?

By Shaul Judelman
Rabbi Shaul Judelman is the Israeli co-Director for the NGO Roots, a unique network of local Palestinians and Israelis... Read more > July 2020

Mandate100 | The ‘Antisemite Ernest Bevin’ and the day Britain recognised the State of Israel

By Ronnie Fraser
Ronnie Fraser was working in the Israel State archives when he came across a lengthy and confidential document... Read more > July 2020

Mandate100 | Palestinians and the Partition Plan

By Mustafa Kabha
The editors thank Bloomsbury Academic (US), an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc., for permission to reprint this chapter, a... Read more > July 2020

Opinions | The Wisdom of Peter Beinart’s Grandmother

By Lyn Julius
Lyn Julius is the author of Uprooted: How 3000 Years of Jewish Civilization in the Arab World Vanished... Read more > July 2020

Opinions | How Not To Quote Ze’ev Jabotinsky: A Reply to Peter Beinart

By Yisrael Medad
Yisrael Medad argues that Peter Beinart’s quoting of Ze’ev Jabotinsky in his recent essay, as in his earlier... Read more > July 2020

'The unilateral application of Israeli sovereignty is necessary to move the peace process forward’: An Open Letter to Boris Johnson...

By Yossi Kuperwasser
On 1 July the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote an op-ed in the Israeli press, titled ‘As... Read more > July 2020

Dore Gold, Amos Gilead and Ghaith al-Omari: Three views on annexation / applying Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank

By Fathom Editors
BICOM-Fathom Webinar with Maj.-Gen. (Res.) Amos Gilead on implications of Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank and Israel's... Read more > July 2020

Mandate100 | ‘A dangerous people to quarrel with’: Lloyd George’s Secret Testimony to the Peel Commission Revealed

By Oren Kessler
Oren Kessler reveals the secret 1937 testimony given by David Lloyd George to the Palestine Royal Commission. Lloyd... Read more > July 2020

Opinions | What John McDonnell Still Does Not Understand

By Eve Garrard
For John McDonnell to pretend that Rebecca Long-Bailey lost her shadow cabinet job because she criticised Israel is... Read more > July 2020

The Lie That Will Not Die: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

By Dave Rich
This is Dave Rich's introduction to the forthcoming second edition of The Lie That Wouldn’t Die: The Protocols of the... Read more > July 2020

Book Review | Palestinian Refugees After 1948

By Simon Waldman
The Palestinian refugee problem has attracted the attention of many scholars from a variety of disciplines. When a... Read more > July 2020

Israel’s Annexation Policy – Why Now and What Next?

By Calev Ben-Dor
Deputy Fathom Editor Calev Ben-Dor offers Fathom readers a comprehensive review of the Israeli debate about, and likely... Read more > June 2020

Zeev Sternhell (1935-2020)

By Alan Johnson
Fathom Editor Alan Johnson reflects on the life and work of Zeev Sternhell who died this week. Obituary notices... Read more > June 2020

Mandate100 | The Year 1939: Why did Britain Abandon the Two-State Solution on the Eve of World War Two?

By Yaakov Lappin
Using documents in the National Archive, including German documents photographed and sent to Whitehall by an American spy,... Read more > June 2020

Rereading Past Continuous: Revisiting Yaakov Shabtai’s ‘Revolution’ in Hebrew Prose

By Liam Hoare
Liam Hoare launches a new Fathom series in which our writers re-read classic texts. Past Continuous, Yaakov Shabtai’s... Read more > June 2020

Book Review | The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace

By Alex Ryvchin
There is perhaps no aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is subject to greater distortion than the so-called... Read more > June 2020

Why Memmi Matters

By Susie Linfield
Albert Memmi, who died recently, was a Jew, an Arab, a Zionist, an anti-colonialist, a secularist, a socialist,... Read more > June 2020

The Yom Kippur War and British Politics

By Robert Philpot
Thousands of posters of Golda Meir appeared in the windows of Jewish homes; money poured in to fundraising... Read more > June 2020

The Soldiers are Still Talking

By Tal Kra-Oz
Soldiers' Talk: Protective Edge (2019) is a set of interviews with those who served in Gaza in 2014.... Read more > June 2020

Book Review | Arafat and Abbas: Portraits of Leadership in a State Postponed

By Khinvraj Jangid
The Palestinian national movement has been in disarray for a long time. The failings of its political leadership... Read more > June 2020

From Gil Troy to Susie Linfeld: Fathom writers share their favourite films and books about Israel (Week 8)

By Fathom Editors
Each fortnight Fathom writers have been recommending Israel-related books, films or podcasts to help our readers through the lockdown. This... Read more > June 2020

Intersectionality and Antisemitism – A New Approach

By Karin Stögner
Karin Stögner is Professor of Sociology at the University of Passau, Germany and co-ordinator of the Research Network... Read more > May 2020

Mandate 100 | ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’: S. Yizhar's and Amos Oz’s Stories of Jewish Struggle in the British...

By Liam Hoare
S. Yizhar is often called the founding father of Israeli literature and Amos Oz was for many the... Read more > May 2020

‘Seventy years we’ve been told we’re brothers in arms! Why not brothers in the economy, brothers in life?’ The Druze...

By Daniel Klein
Recent angry protests by Israel’s Druze citizens are about much more than shekels, argues Daniel Klein. Druze MK... Read more > May 2020

From Matti Friedman to Einat Wilf: Fathom writers share their favourite films and books about Israel (Week 7)

By Fathom Editors
Each fortnight Fathom writers have been recommending Israel-related books, films or podcasts to help our readers through the lockdown. This... Read more > May 2020

Book Review | Your Sons Are at Your Service: Tunisia's Missionaries of Jihad

By Kyle Orton
Early in his new book, Your Sons Are At Your Service: Tunisia’s Missionaries of Jihad, The Washington Institute’s... Read more > May 2020

Mandate 100 | ‘Negating the Diaspora’? Theory and Practice in Yishuv-Diaspora Relations during the Mandate

By Donna Robinson Divine
Donna Robinson Divine was the President of the Association for Israel Studies. In this careful and empathic account of... Read more > May 2020

Yair Lapid is now the leader of Israel’s ‘democracy camp’

By Paul Gross
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid’s recent 6,000-word essay set out a centrist vision of Israel’s future and warned... Read more > May 2020

Let us be Social Democrats. There is a way back for the Israeli Labour Party.

By Tal Harris
Tal Harris is a member of the central committee of the Israeli Labour Party and was among the... Read more > May 2020

Book Review | Paradigm Lost: From Two-State Solution to One-State Reality

By Yisrael Medad
This slim volume traces Ian Lustick's thinking on why the two-state solution, which he terms the TSS, has... Read more > May 2020

Mandate100 | Perfidious Albion or Strategic Realpolitik? Reassessing Britain’s 1939 White Paper

By Ben Crome
As part of Fathom’s series of essays marking the 100th anniversary of the British Mandate, Ben Crome examines... Read more > April 2020

Book Review | MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman

By Paul Iddon
Ben Hubbard’s new book is a biography of Saudi Arabia’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, popularly referred... Read more > April 2020

From John Strawson to Lyn Julius: Fathom writers share their favourite books and films (Week 5)

By Fathom Editors
Each week five Fathom writers will recommend Israel-related books, films or podcasts to help our readers through the lockdown. This... Read more > April 2020

Why the world needs to worry about the expiration of the Iran arms embargo in October 2020

By Ezra Friedman
Ezra Friedman warns that the expiration of the Iran arms embargo in October 2020 will allow Iran not... Read more > April 2020

Book Review | A State At Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion

By Azriel Bermant
In a recent interview with Fathom, Tom Segev, the distinguished journalist and historian and author of A State... Read more > April 2020

From Eve Garrard to Dave Rich: Fathom writers share their favourite books and films about Israel (Week 4)

By Fathom Editors
Each week Fathom writers will recommend five Israel-related books, films or podcasts to help our readers through the... Read more > April 2020

A Pandemic of Anti-Zionist Signification: Exploiting Gaza for Ideological Gain

By Cary Nelson
‘Close and unprecedented’ was how the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied... Read more > April 2020

Mandate100 | ‘Neither a Jewish State nor an Arab State’: How Zionist Bi-Nationalism Tried and Failed to Change the Face...

By Ben Reiff
In a penetrating study that draws on extensive archival research Ben Reiff asks why the small but vociferous... Read more > April 2020

Remembering Robert Fine

By Philip Spencer
The late writings of Robert Fine, who died in 2018, can help us understand the manifold connections between... Read more > April 2020

Book Review | The Making of the Israeli Far-Right: Abba Ahimeir and Zionist Ideology

By Donna Robinson Divine
It is hard to imagine a more fitting time for a study of Abba Ahimeir, not only because... Read more > April 2020

From Stephen De Wijze to Matthew Levitt, Fathom writers share their favourite books and films (Week 3)

By Fathom Editors
Each week Fathom writers will recommend five Israel-related books, films or podcasts to help our readers through the... Read more > April 2020

Fighting Back Against COVID-19 in Israel’s Bedouin Community

By Ruth Ebenstein
Ruth Ebenstein examines the vulnerability of Israel’s Bedouin community during the pandemic and explores both the self-help measures... Read more > April 2020

Mandate100| 1920: A Pivotal Year Reexamined

By Yisrael Medad
Fathom is marking the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the British Mandate with a series of essays.... Read more > Article

Book Review | Israel’s Jewish Identity Crisis: State and Politics in the Middle East

By Michael Wegier
Yadgar’s book was born out of a difficulty he found while teaching at Berkeley of recommending reading that... Read more > April 2020

From Jo-Ann Mort to Donna Robinson Divine: Fathom writers share their favourite books and films (Week 2)

By Fathom Editors
Each week Fathom writers will recommend five Israel-related books, films or podcasts to help our readers through the... Read more > April 2020

Keir Starmer is UK Labour’s new leader. Will he set a new course on Israel and Antisemitism?

By Luke Akehurst
Sir Keir Starmer has been elected as the British Labour Party’s new Leader. Luke Akehurst, a former member... Read more > April 2020

Mandate100 | ‘A Clean Cut’ for Palestine: The Peel Commission Reexamined

By Oren Kessler
In this fascinating dive into the archives Oren Kessler reveals the dramatic exchanges that shaped Lord Peel’s 1936... Read more > March 2020

COVID-19: Blaming the Jews for the Plague, Again

By Lev Topor
From state television to the dark web, antisemitic conspiracy theories are being used by Islamists and white supremacists... Read more > March 2020

Book Review | Be Strong and of Good Courage: How Israel’s Most Important Leaders Shaped Its Destiny

By David Rodman
Israel faces a fateful decision. What should be the final status of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria... Read more > March 2020

From Hamutal Gouri to Andrei Markovits: Fathom writers share their favourite books and films about Israel (Week 1)

By Fathom Editors
Each week Fathom writers will recommend five Israel-related books, films or podcasts to help our readers through the... Read more > March 2020

Mandate100: A Fathom Special Issue

By Fathom Editors
Over the next several months Fathom will publish articles, interviews and book reviews to mark the 100th anniversary of... Read more > March 2020

Mandate100 | ‘People say I am a post-Zionist, but I am a non-ideological person, committed to storytelling’: Tom Segev on...

By Tom Segev
The Israeli historian Tom Segev’s books One Palestine Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate (2000) and... Read more > March 2020

Book Review | The Decline of the Left Wing in Israel: Yossi Beilin and the Politics of the Peace Process

By Colin Shindler
In an epoch of reaction, racism and populism, many ask how did Israel lose its way? Why did... Read more > March 2020