Fathom

Spring / 2021

2017 Fathom Interview with Naftali Bennett

By Naftali Bennett
 ‘Forming a Palestinian state along the lines that many readers of Fathom believe is the way forward would... Read more > Winter 2017

Peter Beinart and Palestinian Refugee ‘Return’: A Critique

By Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf
 Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf are the authors of The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the... Read more > June 2021

The Danger of Greater Israel

By Michael Walzer
 In this urgent essay, written before the new Israeli coalition government was agreed, but with great relevance to... Read more > June 2021

Opinion | A desire to remove Netanyahu has created a coalition stretching from Naftali Bennett to Mansor Abbas. Can it...

By Calev Ben-Dor
 The (four-time) failure of the right wing and ultra-Orthodox parties to garner 61 seats, the steady erosion of... Read more > June 2021

How to Defeat Hamas

By Toby Greene
 Toby Greene argues that military tools are not enough. What’s needed is a long-term vision for sustainable political... Read more > June 2021

Book Review| The CIA War in Kurdistan: The Untold Story of the Northern Front in the Iraq War

By Paul Iddon
 Sam Faddis's recent account of his time as a CIA operations officer in Iraq in the run-up to... Read more > June 2021

Still Standing, but Shaky: Jordan at 100

By Asher Susser
 Asher Susser is Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern History at Tel Aviv University (TAU). On the occasion of Jordan’s... Read more > May 2021

‘Calling a truce with left-wing antisemitism’: The Case Against the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism

By John Hyman and Anthony Julius
 University College London’s governing Council voted in November 2019 to adopt the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) Working... Read more > May 2021

UK-Israel 2021 | When Britain almost declared war on Israel

By Ronnie Fraser
 At the beginning of January 1949, eight months after Britain had withdrawn from Palestine, Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin... Read more > May 2021

I hope that UCL faculty and staff will defend IHRA, as I would do were I with them

By Michael Walzer
 Michael Walzer is professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey and editor emeritus... Read more > May 2021

Fathom Long Read | Antisemitism and the IHRA at University College London

By Cary Nelson
 For twenty years Cary Nelson was part of the elected leadership of the American Association of University Professors,... Read more > May 2021

Read it again. Read better. Dave Rich on Derek Penslar’s serial misrepresentations of the IHRA

By Dave Rich
 Dave Rich is Head of Policy at the Community Security Trust. He argues that Derek Penslar’s criticisms of... Read more > May 2021

Cultivating Israel Hatred in the University: The role of the T-Group Classroom

By Channa Newman and Thomas Mullane
 The Basic Skills Training Group, or simply ‘T-group', was popularised in the 1950s as a humanistic therapeutic approach... Read more > May 2021

UK-Israel2021 | The Roots of the ‘Al Aqsa is in Danger’ Myth: Alfred Mond and a Speech Distorted

By Yisrael Medad
 In 1921 British politician Alfred Mond, visiting Palestine, said ‘our sanctuary, our Temple, we will construct as an... Read more > May 2021

The UK and US can help build an International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace. The time is now.

By John Lyndon
 This journal has long argued that people-to-people peacemaking programmes on a grand scale are essential to advance the... Read more > April 2021

Once Again on the Jerusalem Declaration: A Rejoinder to Derek Penslar and Michael Walzer

By Cary Nelson
 Cary Nelson’s responds to replies by Derek Penslar and Michael Walzer to his Fathom article ‘Accommodating the New... Read more > April 2021

IHRA and JDA: Examining Definitions of Antisemitism in 2021

By Jeffrey Herf
 Jeffrey Herf is Distinguished University Professor, Department of History, University of Maryland College Park. His latest book, Israel’s... Read more > April 2021

‘A Remarkably Aggressive Naïveté’: A Response to Derek Penslar and Michael Walzer

By Richard Landes
 Richard Landes argues that the claim made by the signatories of the Jerusalem Declaration that – in the... Read more > April 2021

The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism may inadvertently give cover to antisemites

By Gerald Izenberg
 Gerald N. Izenberg is Prof. Emeritus of History at Washington University in St. Louis. He argues that the... Read more > April 2021

Diary from London | Adam Ognall, Chief Executive, New Israel Fund UK

By Adam Ognall
 After ten years in post, Adam Ognall is stepping down as CEO of the New Israel Fund UK... Read more > April 2021

Palestinian Elections: As In 2006, A Dangerous Idea

By Elliott Abrams
 Elliott Abrams is Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was Deputy... Read more > April 2021

Why I Signed the Jerusalem Declaration: A Response to Cary Nelson

By Derek Penslar
 Derek Penslar is William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History at Harvard University and Resident Faculty at the... Read more > April 2021

The Jerusalem Declaration: A Response to Cary Nelson

By Michael Walzer
 Michael Walzer is Professor Emeritus of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University. For many... Read more > April 2021

Book Review | The Star and the Scepter: A Diplomatic History of Israel

By David Rodman
 The State of Israel has existed for a little over 70 years. A medium power by global standards,... Read more > April 2021

President Biden's Middle East Policy

By Yossi Kuperwasser
 Yossi Kuperwasser argues that President Biden's Middle East policy reflects the tension between his understanding that the region... Read more > April 2021

Fathom Long Read | Accommodating the New Antisemitism: a Critique of ‘The Jerusalem Declaration’

By Cary Nelson
 Download and print a PDF version here.  In this comprehensive critique Cary Nelson argues that the recent ‘Jerusalem... Read more > April 2021

Book Review | Stories from Palestine: Narratives of Resilience

By Zeina M. Barakat
 To be entrusted with someone’s narrative is a privilege. To grant such access … is an act of... Read more > April 2021

Three best books on Zionism, recommended by Gil Troy

By Gil Troy
 Fathom is inviting experts to select their three favourite books about a subject. The series began with Sara... Read more > April 2021

Mansour Abbas: Islamist Kingmaker of Israeli politics

By Calev Ben-Dor
 Arab political parties have become central players in Israeli politics. But how has a young dentist turned politician... Read more > March 2021

Opinion | Israel voted for change, but that’s only the beginning of the story

By Toby Greene
 During Benjamin Netanyahu’s first premiership in the late 1990s, his crisis-driven leadership style led British Ambassador David Manning... Read more > March 2021

UK-Israel2021 | The Rockiest of Starts: Anglo-Israeli Relations 1948-1950

By Natan Aridan
 Natan Aridan is Lecturer in Israel Studies and researcher at the Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of... Read more > March 2021

Book Review | The Wondering Jew

By Robin Moss
 In the spring and summer of 2017, Micah Goodman caused something of a publishing sensation with Milkud 67,... Read more > March 2021

Israel's political system is broken. Here is how to fix it.

By Yohanan Plesner
 As Israelis head to the polls for the fourth time in two years, Yohanan Plesner, President of the... Read more > March 2021

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

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

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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