Fathom

Spring / 2017

Fathom 16 | Editorial

By Fathom Editors
 On its 50th anniversary, this special issue of Fathom maps the causes, courses and consequences of a watershed... Read more > Spring 2017

Einat Wilf: Constructive ambiguity has not worked. Peace needs constructive specificity

By Einat Wilf
 Einat Wilf is one of the most creative Israeli thinkers on the peace process. In this talk to... Read more > Summer 2017

1967 | How the Six-Day War is still transforming Israel

By Donna Robinson Divine
 For most Israelis, the military victory of 1967 rescued the country from an existential threat. But for some,... Read more > Spring 2017

Fathom Forum | Professor Sammy Smooha: ‘Israeli Democracy in Comparative Perspective’

By Sammy Smooha
 Sammy Smooha is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Haifa, and winner of the 2008 Israel... Read more > Spring 2017

1967 | 'A deal with the region should go through Ramallah’: an interview with Nidal Foqaha

By Nidal Foqaha
 Nidal Foqaha is Director-General of the Palestinian Peace Coalition-Geneva Initiative in Ramallah. He served as an advisor at... Read more > Summer 2017

1967 | ‘The Palestinians won’t pay the price of peace, which is recognition’: an interview with Michael Oren

By Michael Oren
 Michael Oren is a former Israeli ambassador to the US and currently serves as Deputy Minister for Diplomacy... Read more > Summer 2017

1967 | How Nasser’s vendetta against America led to the Six-Day War

By Gabriel Glickman
 For 50 years historians have debated the question of what motivated Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s disastrous drift... Read more > Spring 2017

1967 | The international media and the Six-Day War

By Meron Medzini
 Professor Meron Medzini served as the Director of Israel’s Government Press Office (GPO) in Jerusalem during the Six-Day... Read more > Summer 2017

1967 | As long as the Arab world views Israel as a temporary aberration to be conquered, Israel will stand...

By Einat Wilf
 To bring a permanent end to the Israeli military occupation of much of the territory acquired during the... Read more > Spring 2017

‘The situation in Gaza is much worse than prior to the war in 2014’: an interview with Giora Eiland

By Giora Eiland
 Giora Eiland served in the IDF for 33 years, rising to Major General. He left the IDF in... Read more > Spring 2017

1967 | Internalising defeat – the Six-Day War and the Arab world: an interview with Kanan Makiya

By Kanan Makiya
 Kanan Makiya is known for two seminal books - Republic of Fear, which called attention to the cruel... Read more > Spring 2017

Abbas in Washington: dancing in place or moving forward?

By Daniel B. Shapiro
 Writing exclusively for Fathom, Daniel B. Shapiro, former Ambassador of the United States of America to the State... Read more > Spring 2017

1967 | Why more and more Israeli Jews think the settlements are in Israel

By Oded Haklai
 Oded Haklai reports on research suggesting that for the generations of Israeli Jews born after 1967, the pre-1967... Read more > Spring 2017

Book Review | A Political Theory for the Jewish People

By Nahshon Perez
 A Political Theory for the Jewish People is a fascinating book, offering a rich and nuanced discussion of... Read more > Spring 2017

Ken Livingstone and the myth of Zionist ‘collaboration’ with the Nazis

By Paul Bogdanor
 In this meticulous rebuttal of the former Mayor of London’s charge that ‘you had right up until the... Read more > Spring 2017

Book Review | North Korea and the Middle East

By Jack May
 At a recent conference Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman identified North Korea as the greatest threat to global... Read more > Spring 2017

1967 | The wisdom of Resolution 242

By Toby Greene
 The logic of UN Resolution 242 – that this is a conflict of two sides with rights and... Read more > Spring 2017

Book review | Israel and Palestine Alternative Perspectives on Statehood

By John Strawson
 It is extraordinary that 70 years after the UN partition resolution we are still discussing the future of... Read more > Spring 2017

New thinking on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process: towards a hybrid approach

By BICOM
 The peace process is currently at an impasse. Bringing the parties together for another intensive effort at reaching... Read more > Spring 2017

1967 | Don’t believe the hype: the settlers have not made the two-state solution unachievable

By Orni Petruschka and Gilead Sher
 After 50 years of Israeli control over the West Bank, increasing numbers believe that a ‘two states for... Read more > Spring 2017

On Chaim Gans on the Jewish Diaspora

By Michael Walzer
 Fathom has invited a series of writers to respond to Chaim Gans’s A Political Theory for the Jewish... Read more > Spring 2017

Response to Michael Walzer’s ‘On Chaim Gans on the Jewish Diaspora’

By Chaim Gans
 Writing in Fathom Michael Walzer responded to the discussion of diaspora Jews in Chaim Gans’s book A Political... Read more > Spring 2017

‘I did not leave the Likud, the Likud left me’: an interview with Moshe Ya’alon

By Moshe Ya'alon
 Moshe Ya'alon is a former Chief of Staff for the IDF and served under the Netanyahu government for... Read more > Spring 2017

1967 | Remembering the Six-Day War

By Michael Walzer
 One of America’s foremost political thinkers, Michael Walzer wrote his seminal book Just and Unjust Wars in 1977.... Read more > Spring 2017

1967 | The Six-Day War and Israeli society: an interview with Yossi Klein Halevi

By Yossi Klein Halevi
 Yossi Klein Halevi is the author of the acclaimed book Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers... Read more > Spring 2017

1967 | Nasser’s Antisemitic War Against Israel

By Matthias Kuntzel
 Matthias Kuntzel is the author of the award-winning book Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of... Read more > Spring 2017

1967 | The Global Left and the Six-Day War

By Jeffrey Herf
 Jeffrey Herf is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of History at the University of Maryland, College Park,... Read more > Spring 2017

1967 | Natan Alterman or Amos Oz? The Six-Day War and Israeli Literature

By Liam Hoare
 Israeli writers were split by the Six-Day War. On one side was the poet Natan Alterman, whose Movement... Read more > Spring 2017

1967 | The Six-Day War was a watershed in Middle Eastern history

By Asher Susser
 The Arab defeat in 1967 shattered the image of pan-Arabism as a vehicle of Arab modernisation. The Islamists... Read more > Spring 2017

Book Review | The Master Plan: ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Jihadi Strategy for Final Victory

By Kyle Orton
 Brian Fishman's The Master Plan provides a comprehensive history of the Islamic State’s (IS) strategic evolution, covering the... Read more > Spring 2017

Book Review | The Resistible Rise of Benjamin Netanyahu

By Colin Shindler
 Admiration and respect are not words usually attached to the persona of Benjamin Netanyahu by either friend or... Read more > Spring 2017

State and religion in Israel: An interview with Elazar Stern

By Elazar Stern
 Elazar Stern is an Israeli politician and former soldier. He served as a Major General in the IDF... Read more > Spring 2017

Fathom Forum | Jeffrey Herf: Undeclared Wars with Israel: East Germany and the West German Far Left 1967-81

By Jeffrey Herf
 Jeffrey Herf is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Maryland. His books include Nazi Propaganda for... Read more > Spring 2017

Winter / 2016

Fathom 15 | Editorial

By Fathom Editors
 The 19th century American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson was not slow to offer pieces of advice. Many ended... Read more > Winter 2016

Balfour 100 | We need to talk about the Balfour Declaration

By Toby Greene
 2017 is the hundredth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the British government’s letter of support for the establishment... Read more > Summer 2017

How to change reality in Gaza and shape the evolution of Hamas: an interview with Grisha Yakubovich

By Grisha Yakubovich
 Col. (res) Grisha Yakubovich spent the majority of his 30 years in the IDF in the Coordinator of... Read more > Winter 2016

What Trump should do with the Iran deal

By Emily B. Landau
 Dr. Emily B. Landau is a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in... Read more > Winter 2016

Everyday Binationality in Jaffa: an interview with Daniel Monterescu

By Daniel Monterescu
 Daniel Monterescu is the author of Jaffa Shared and Shattered: Contrived Coexistence in Israel / Palestine.[1] An anthropologist... Read more > Winter 2016

‘Cooperation between rivals’: a new paradigm for understanding the Israeli-Palestinian system (2006-2016)

By Doron Matza
 Doron Matza proposes a new critical paradigm to understand the relationship between the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships: ‘cooperation... Read more > Winter 2016

Justifying Israel: An interview with Chaim Gans

By Chaim Gans
 Chaim Gans is a political philosopher and Professor of Law at Tel Aviv University. He is the author... Read more > Winter 2016

The BDS Disinformation Campaign in the Modern Language Association

By Cary Nelson
 In this comprehensive essay, Cary Nelson, former president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and co-editor... Read more > Winter 2016

Mamlakhtiyut, peace and the dangerous rise of populism: In memory of Shimon Peres

By Amir Peretz
 Amir Peretz is a Member of Knesset (Labor Party), former defence minister and former minister for the protection... Read more > Winter 2016

Debating Israel’s Identity

By Ruth Gavison
 Ruth Gavison is Professor Emerita, holding the Haim H. Cohn Chair of Human Rights, in the Faculty of... Read more > Winter 2016

Trump and the Middle East: Prospects and Tasks

By BICOM
 At the 2016 BICOM-Jewish News Policy Conference, ‘UK-Israel Shared Strategic Challenges’, a panel of Middle East experts discussed... Read more > Winter 2016

Mosul: after ISIS, what next?

By Seth Frantzman
 Mosul has suffered three jihadist takeovers since 2004. In a detailed mapping of the conflict and its actors,... Read more > Winter 2016

Book Review | Tragic Encounters and Ordinary Ethics: Palestine-Israel in British Universities

By Keith Kahn-Harris
 The publication of this book could hardly be better timed. The disturbance at a Friends of Israel Society... Read more > Winter 2016

Book Review | Dreams Deferred: A Concise Guide to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

By Luke Akehurst
 I tried to read Dreams Deferred in the conventional style, cover to cover. Bad idea. The book isn’t... Read more > Winter 2016

Book Review | Ike’s Gamble: America’s Rise to Dominance in the Middle East

By David Lowe
 In 2013, shortly after his nomination for US Defence Secretary, then Senator Chuck Hagel purchased three dozen copies... Read more > Winter 2016

Book review | A Horse Walks Into a Bar

By Liam Hoare
 A Horse Walks Into a Bar, an opening line to many a haggard joke, is not necessarily what... Read more > Winter 2016

Fathom Forum with Dr. Dalia Fadila: 'Q Schools: Educating for equality in Israel’

By Dalia Fadila
 This September Fathom hosted Dr. Dalia Fadila, faculty member of the International School for Leadership and Diplomacy at... Read more > Autumn 2016

Autumn / 2016

Fathom 14 | Editorial

By Fathom Editors
 Fathom 14 examines four challenges facing Israel: the challenge of creating a shared society, of creating a security system... Read more > Autumn 2016

Lessons from Cyprus for Israel-Palestine

By Dahlia Scheindlin
 Cyprus has experienced a protracted, unresolved conflict for roughly five decades. Like Israel-Palestine, the conflict has ethno-nationalist and... Read more > Autumn 2016

Returning Jihadis: A Generational Threat

By Peter Neumann
 Professor Peter Neumann’s new book Radicalised: New Jihadists and the Threat to the West, has been described as... Read more > Autumn 2016

The old ways have had their day. Peace-making will look very different in the era of Trump

By Claire Spencer
 Claire Spencer is Senior Research Fellow at the Middle East and North Africa Programme and Second Century Initiative,... Read more > Autumn 2016

Trump, Israel and the Jews: What Happens Next?

By Shany Mor
 Shany Mor is a former Director for Foreign Policy on the Israeli National Security Council. In these first... Read more > Autumn 2016

The Resistible Rise of Benjamin Netanyahu: an interview with Neill Lochery

By Neill Lochery
 Neil Lochery is the Catherine Lewis Professor of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean Studies at University College London (UCL).... Read more > Autumn 2016

Opinion amongst the young is drifting. An International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace is urgently needed

By Joel Braunold John Lyndon
 ‘The best people to convince Israelis that Palestinians are not monsters, and to show the Palestinians that Israelis... Read more > Autumn 2016

The Israeli-Palestinian Arena – what could be done short of an agreement

By Michael Herzog
 Michael Herzog has been a participant in nearly all Israeli-Palestinian negotiations since 1993. In this important essay, which... Read more > Autumn 2016

Dave Rich | ‘The Left's Jewish problem’

By Dave Rich
     Dave Rich is deputy director of communications at the Community Security Trust (CST), associate research fellow... Read more > Autumn 2016

After Brexit (1): Jonathan Rynhold on Israel’s future relations with the UK and the EU

By Jonathan Rynhold
 Fathom’s contributing editor Dr. Toby Greene sat down with Jonathan Rynhold, professor of Political Science at Bar Ilan... Read more > Autumn 2016

After Brexit (2): Azriel Bermant on Israel’s future relations with the UK and the EU

By Azriel Bermant
 Azriel Bermant, a lecturer in International Relations at Tel Aviv University and a former research fellow at Tel... Read more > Autumn 2016

Book Review | The Left’s Jewish Problem: Jeremy Corbyn, Israel and Anti-Semitism

By Philip Spencer
 To say this is a timely book is something of an understatement. Over the past few months, evidence... Read more > Autumn 2016

Symposium | A security system for the two-state solution

By Kris Bauman & Ilan Goldenberg
 Colonel Kris Bauman is Senior Military Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) at the National... Read more > Autumn 2016

Symposium | Israel’s core security requirements in permanent-status negotiations

By Michael Herzog
 As an official involved in most of the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians over the last 23... Read more > Autumn 2016

Symposium | ‘Separation is not the answer’: Gershon Hacohen on Israel’s security

By Gershon Hacohen
 Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen served in the IDF for 42 years, commanding troops in battle on the... Read more > Autumn 2016

‘Each must see the Other’: Education and mutual recognition in Israel – an interview with Ayman Agbaria

By Ayman Agbaria
 Professor Ayman Agbaria is a Palestinian poet, playwright, scholar and activist. He is a senior lecturer in education... Read more > Autumn 2016

Fathom Forum with Dr. Dalia Fadila: 'Q Schools: Educating for equality in Israel’

By Dalia Fadila
 This September Fathom hosted Dr. Dalia Fadila, faculty member of the International School for Leadership and Diplomacy at... Read more > Autumn 2016

How Obama Sold the Iran Delusion

By Ben Cohen
 Ben Cohen explores the Obama administration’s masterful success in persuading so many American influencers to buy into a... Read more > Autumn 2016

Shiraz Maher | Mapping contemporary Salafi-Jihadism

By Shiraz Maher
 Shiraz Maher is the author of Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea (Hurst, 2016) and Deputy Director at... Read more > Summer 2016

Communists Against Jews: the Anti-Zionist Campaign in Poland in 1968

By Simon Gansinger
 ‘Everything started collapsing then’, wrote Halina Zawadzka, who survived the Shoah in Poland, about her experience of 1968... Read more > Autumn 2016

Like a Cloud Contains a Storm: Jean Améry’s Critique of Anti-Zionism

By Marlene Gallner
 Jean Améry is best known in the anglophone world as a Holocaust survivor and author of At The... Read more > Autumn 2016

‘People didn’t dream there would be Haredim’: an interview with Rabbi Menahem Shemtov and Rebbetzin Shoshana Shemtov

By Rabbi Menahem Shemtov and Rebbetzin Shoshana Shemtov
 Rabbi Menahem Shemtov is the chairman of the Rabbis Committee for Inter-Religious Dialogue formally on behalf of the... Read more > Autumn 2016

‘The trends in high-tech are changing, but not at a pace Arab graduates need’: An interview with Reem Younis

By Reem Younis
 Reem Younis is co-founder of Nazareth-based Alpha Omega, a global high-tech company that seeks to further high-tech skills,... Read more > Autumn 2016

Book Review │ Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier's Story of a Forgotten War

By James Sorene
 Israel’s military operations always have a name. As a mark of his achievement in June 1967, Chief of... Read more > Autumn 2016

Book Review │ Judas

By Liam Hoare
 Amos Oz was 14 when, two years after his mother took her own life, he left the city... Read more > Winter 2016

Book Review | Ben-Gurion: His Later Years in the Political Wilderness

By Colin Shindler
 This latest work from Avi Shilon describes in detail Ben-Gurion’s last decade – from stepping down as prime... Read more > Autumn 2016

Lies, Damned Lies and the Academic Boycott of Israel

By Michael Yudkin
 Oxford University academic Michael Yudkin critiques the ‘Academic boycott’ promoted by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and... Read more > Summer 2016

Summer / 2016

Fathom 13 | Editorial

By Fathom Editors
 Fathom 13 examines four questions central to explaining the current impasse in the peace process between the Israelis... Read more > Summer 2016

Undeclared Wars on Israel: East Germany and the West German Far Left 1967-1981: An Interview with Jeffrey Herf

By Jeffrey Herf
 http:// Jeffery Herf is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Maryland. His books include Nazi Propaganda... Read more > Summer 2016

For peace, we need vision, hope and bridge-building: an interview with Aziz Abu Sarah

By Aziz Abu Sarah
 Aziz Abu Sarah is a National Geographic Explorer and Cultural Educator. A Palestinian from Jerusalem, Aziz has pioneered... Read more > Summer 2016

Darkenu: keeping the dream of Israel alive

By Polly Bronstein
 Israel has a new organisation. Darkenu styles itself as the movement of Israel’s moderates. It’s leader Polly Bronstein... Read more > Summer 2016

‘Where is Syria going? A Round Table with Jonathan Spyer

By Jonathan Spyer
 The Fathom editors hold a monthly invite-only round table discussion in our London office between a policy expert... Read more > Summer 2016

London Calling: Why Mayor Sadiq Khan is ‘Good for the Jews’

By Marcus Roberts
 ‘Yes, but is it good for the Jews?’ goes the classic question, often used ironically, to ask what... Read more > Summer 2016

‘The greatest emissary the Jewish people ever had’: Asaf Siniver on Abba Eban

By Asaf Siniver
 Asaf Siniver’s biography of Abba Eban tells the story of an entirely exceptional man who by the age... Read more > Summer 2016

We are weak because there is no Palestinian non-violent movement

By Ali Abu Awwad
 Ali Abu Awwad is a leading Palestinian activist and the founder of Roots – an Israeli-Palestinian project in... Read more > Summer 2016

We must not be afraid to talk about the roots of the conflict

By Shaul Judelman
 Shaul Judelman is a Jewish Israeli living in the Gush Etzion settlement and he is the coordinator of... Read more > Summer 2016

Assessing the Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Policy

By Grant Rumley and Adam Rasgon
 Has the internationalisation strategy pushed by President Abbas transformed international public opinion and diplomacy and set the Palestinians... Read more > Summer 2016

After Oslo’s failure, the two-state solution is now an international responsibility: an interview with Husam Zomlot

By Husam Zomlot
 Husam Zomlot serves as ambassador-at-large for the state of Palestine and adjunct professor of Government at Birzeit University.... Read more > Summer 2016

Sykes and Picot ignored the sectarianism of the Middle East, and we are still paying the price

By Asher Susser
 It is 100 years since the signing of the Sykes-Picot Agreement – the division of the territory of... Read more > Summer 2016

Anti-Zionism: 21st Century Avatar of the Longest Hatred

By Richard Landes
 In this bracing polemic, the US academic Richard Landes argues that the demonising anti-Zionism of what he calls... Read more > Summer 2016

Israel and the Death Penalty: Lessons from the Talmud

By Edward Rettig
 The proposal to make it easier to pass the death sentence is a troubling exercise in unsustainable moral... Read more > Summer 2016

An Antisemitic Hoax: Lenni Brenner on Zionist ‘Collaboration’ With the Nazis

By Paul Bogdanor
 The former mayor of London Ken Livingstone has defended his explosive claim that Adolf Hitler was ‘a Zionist’... Read more > Summer 2016

Book Review│Doomed to Succeed: The US- Israel Relationship from Truman to Obama

By David Lowe
 On 12 May 1948, nearly six months after the United Nations voted to partition Palestine into separate Jewish... Read more > Summer 2016

Book Review│Socialism of Fools: Capitalism and Modern Anti-Semitism

By Colin Shindler
 The Italian academic, Michele Battini examines the gradual transformation of the traditional Christian anti-Semitic charge of usury into... Read more > Summer 2016

Social Cohesion and the Future of Israel

By Mike Prashker
 Mike Prashker, author of a forthcoming book, A Place for Us All – Social Cohesion and The Future... Read more > Summer 2016

Docaviv 2016 – The Tel Aviv International Documentary Film Festival

By Gavin Gross
 This May witnessed the annual Tel Aviv International Documentary Film Festival, an event dedicated to the development and... Read more > Summer 2016

The Eloquence of Oriented: An interview with Jake Witzenfeld

By Jake Witzenfeld
   Sitting in the Green Room at JW3, the London Jewish Community’s cultural centre, a jetlagged Jake Witzenfeld,... Read more > Summer 2016

Defending Human Rights in a Nation Under Siege: A Sermon of Sorts

By Edward Rettig
 In a chaotic and morally obtuse situation, little understood by outsiders, Israel must still try to follow the... Read more > Summer 2016

Hitler and the Nazis’ Anti-Zionism

By Jeffrey Herf
 Jeffrey Herf, author of the award winning book 'Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the... Read more > Summer 2016

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