Fathom 9

By Fathom Editors
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The resurgence of neo-traditionalism

By Asher Susser
Asher Susser explains the resurgence of tradition throughout the region and its political consequences  for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.... Read more > Winter 2015

Book Review | Making David Into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel

By Michael Allen
700 British artists have announced that they are boycotting Israel until the ‘colonial oppression of Palestinians’ ends. In... Read more > Winter 2015

Book Review | Ben-Gurion: Father of Modern Israel

By Colin Shindler
Berl Katznelson, one of Labour Zionism’s ideological founders described David Ben-Gurion as ‘history’s gift to the Jewish people.’... Read more > Winter 2015

Film Review: Dancing Arabs

By Gabriel Noah Brahm
A review of Dancing Arabs (Aravim Rokdim) by Eran Riklis (Director) and Sayed Kashua (screenwriter). The critically acclaimed... Read more > Winter 2015

The ideological roots of media bias against Israel

By Matti Friedman
On 26 January 2015 the former AP reporter Matti Friedman delivered the keynote speech at BICOM’s annual dinner... Read more > Winter 2015

Book Review | The Hilltop

By Liam Hoare
The Hilltop is the first Israeli novel to chronicle the inner lives of the settlers that has been... Read more > Winter 2015

Making Sense of the Israeli Elections

By Naomi Chazan
On 20 March 2015, three days after the Israeli election, former Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Naomi Chazan... Read more > Winter 2015

The Resistible Rise of Iran: an Interview with Michael Ledeen

By Ben Cohen
Fathom advisory editor Ben Cohen spoke with the historian and analyst Michael Ledeen about US foreign policy towards... Read more > Winter 2015

Book Review | Jews and the Left: The Rise and Fall of a Political Alliance

By David Hirsh
Social theorists sometimes enjoy treating the ‘now’ as the key turning point of history; they like it because... Read more > Winter 2015

Israel, Europe and the converging terror threat

By Amichai Magen
Dr. Amichai Magen maps the increasing interconnectedness of the Islamist terror threats faced by Europe and Israel, and... Read more > Winter 2015

The Future of the Israeli Right: An interview with Yoaz Hendel

By Yoaz Hendel
Israel’s upcoming election is being billed as a choice over the future ideological direction of the country. To... Read more > Winter 2015

‘There is no policy, we are on the edge of a volcano’: an interview with Efraim Halevy

By Efraim Halevy
Efraim Halevy was Director of Mossad from 1998 to 2002. Alan Johnson is the editor of Fathom. They... Read more > Winter 2015

An Arab Social Worker in Israel

By Lamis Shibli Ghadir
Lamis Shibli Ghadir explains the challenges and the rewards of being an Arab social worker in the Ein... Read more > Winter 2015

Anti-Judaism, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism

By Eve Garrard
An edited speech given by Eve Garrard, Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at the University... Read more > Winter 2015

Book Review | A World Without Jews: The Nazi Imagination from Persecution to Genocide

By David Cesarani
Historian David Cesarani hails Alon Confino’s triumphant demonstration that anti-Jewish policies are within the realms of comprehension and... Read more > Winter 2015

The Struggle over the Iranian Nuclear Programme

By Yossi Kuperwasser
It is incumbent on Israel to use all the diplomatic and political tools at its disposal to halt... Read more > Winter 2015

Israel’s Jane Austen: Irit Linur’s all too normal Israel

By Noga Emanuel
In 2002 the Israeli novelist Irit Linur wrote an open letter to the editor of Haaretz announcing that... Read more > Winter 2015

‘Only a blind person would ignore the gravity of the threat which is emerging’: an interview with Dore Gold

By Dore Gold
To get a contrasting view on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s national security policy, Fathom deputy editor Toby Greene spoke with Dore... Read more > Winter 2015

Fathom 8

By Fathom Editors
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After Gaza: the case for Israeli unilateralism

By Paul Gross
If the status quo is unsustainable and the grounds for a negotiated agreement are absent, at least for... Read more > Autumn 2014

Book Review | Drawing Fire: Investigating the Accusations of Apartheid in Israel

By Robert Fine
It is a feature of our times that certain aspects of what Israel has become – notably its... Read more > Autumn 2014

Book Review | The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel

By Andrei S. Markovits
The editors deserve major kudos for having compiled an impressive anthology featuring contributions in opposition to the deeply... Read more > Autumn 2014

Has Israel damaged Palestinian health?

By David Stone
An evidence-based analysis of the nature and impact of Israeli public health policies practices in the West Bank... Read more > Autumn 2014

Palestinian politics after the Gaza conflict: Ben Cohen interviews David Pollock

By Ben Cohen
Where is Palestinian politics going? Fathom advisory editor Ben Cohen talked to David Pollock. Hamas ‘It's not unreasonable... Read more > Autumn 2014

Rachel Shabi’s Mizrahi post-Zionism: a Critique

By Lyn Julius
The discrimination and injustice suffered by Mizrahi Jews in Israel has been used instrumentally by Rachel Shabi to... Read more > Autumn 2014

Alongside or instead of Israel: which Palestine is the UN in solidarity with?

By Einat Wilf with Shany Mor
Tomorrow, the United Nations marks the ‘International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.’ But which version of... Read more > Autumn 2014

How the World Turned Against Israel: an interview with Joshua Muravchik

By Joshua Muravchik
Israel was once the plucky underdog supported by Western public opinion, Left and Right. Today, it is the... Read more > Autumn 2014

Givat Haviva and the pursuit of a shared society

By Mohammad Darawshe
Mohammad Darawshe, the Co-Executive Director of the Givat Haviva Institute, spoke to a Fathom Forum in September 2014... Read more > Autumn 2014

In Defence of Zionism

By Gadi Taub
Gadi Taub is a prominent Israeli historian, author, screenwriter, political commentator and Senior Lecturer in the School Public Policy and the Department of Communications... Read more > Autumn 2014

A new Tikva for all Israelis

By Benjamin Pogrund
Benjamin Pogrund argues that revising the national anthem could be an important symbolic step towards achieving the integration... Read more > Autumn 2014

Britain’s reaction to Operation Protective Edge

By Toby Greene
The UK’s response to the recent Gaza conflict demonstrates, not for the first time, the role that domestic... Read more > Autumn 2014

Winning the media war

By Einat Wilf
Einat Wilf’s regular column – dispatches from a roving ambassador for Israel – asks how to win the... Read more > Autumn 2014

Settlements and the Two-State Solution: Lorin Bell-Cross interviews Dani Dayan

By Dani Dayan
Settlement construction is a controversial topic within Israel and is often the subject of international criticism and concern.... Read more > Autumn 2014

Settlements and the Two-State Solution: Alan Johnson interviews Lior Amihai

By Lior Amihai
Settlement construction beyond Israel’s internationally recognised borders is a controversial topic within Israel and often the subject of... Read more > Autumn 2014

IS and the incoherence of Western policy

By Jonathan Spyer
The West wants to destroy IS but it has neither allies on the ground nor a grasp of... Read more > Autumn 2014

Reflections on the Middle East’s Christians in these strained times

By Habib C. Malik
Christians of the Middle East, whether free or captive to dhimmitude, have not readily identified with the travails... Read more > Autumn 2014

Sami Michael: The Discreet Ironist of Israeli Literature

By Noga Emanuel
The Israeli novelist Sami Michael evolved from an Iraqi Jewish communist writing in his native Arabic language to... Read more > Autumn 2014

Book Review | Israel and the World Powers: Diplomatic Alliances and International Relations beyond the Middle East

By Jacob Eriksson
This volume comes at a particularly interesting time for Israel. The most recent war in Gaza has claimed... Read more > Autumn 2014

Book Review | Some of My Best Friends: A Journey Through Twenty-First Century Antisemitism

By Dave Rich
First, the disclosure: Ben Cohen is a friend and comrade who was kind enough to invite me to... Read more > Autumn 2014

Why we keep getting the Middle East wrong

By Mordechai Kedar
Dr Mordechai Kedar spoke to a Fathom Forum in London in September 2014 about why so many Western... Read more > Autumn 2014

BDS vs. conflict-resolution

By Sapan Maini-Thompson
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement ignores a key principle of conflict-resolution: severing economic ties risks perpetuating... Read more > Autumn 2014

The European Association of Israel Studies and the Academic Boycott

By Ruth Amossy, Denis Charbit and Nadia Ellis
The European Association of Israel Studies sparked controversy in September by requesting that a lecturer at Ariel University, located in a... Read more > Autumn 2014

Fathom 7

By Fathom Editors
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Shlomo Brom | Gaza Symposium: Reconstruction for Demilitarisation?

By Shlomo Brom
Part 1 Part 2 Toby Greene: We have been interviewing a number of analysts over the last few... Read more > Summer 2014

Emily Landau | Gaza Symposium: Reconstruction for Demilitarisation?

By Emily B. Landau
Toby Greene: We’ve been speaking to a range of experts about how to bring a substantial long-term change... Read more > Summer 2014

Einat Wilf | Gaza Symposium: Reconstruction for Demilitarisation?

By Einat Wilf
Alan Johnson: There have been three military operations in Gaza since 2008. Not just Israelis and Gazans, but... Read more > Summer 2014

Benedetta Berti | Gaza Symposium: Reconstruction for Demilitarisation?

By Benedetta Berti
Alan Johnson: There have been three military operations in Gaza since 2008. To avoid a fourth, Udi Dekel and Shlomo Brom of... Read more > Summer 2014

Jonathan Spyer | Gaza Symposium: Reconstruction for Demilitarisation?

By Jonathan Spyer
Alan Johnson: There have been three military operations in Gaza since 2008. Not just Israelis and Gazans, but... Read more > Summer 2014

Asher Susser | Gaza Symposium: Reconstruction for Demilitarisation?

By Asher Susser
Alan Johnson: There have been three military operations in Gaza since 2008. Not just Israelis and Gazans, but... Read more > Summer 2014

Michael Herzog | Gaza Symposium: Reconstruction for Demilitarisation?

By Michael Herzog
Alan Johnson: There have been three military operations in Gaza since 2008. Not just Israelis and Gazans, but... Read more > Summer 2014

Jonathan Rynhold | Gaza Symposium: Reconstruction for Demilitarisation?

By Jonathan Rynhold
Alan Johnson: There have been three military operations in Gaza since 2008. Not just the Israelis and Gazans,... Read more > Summer 2014

Matthew Levitt | Gaza Symposium: Reconstruction for Demilitarisation?

By Matthew Levitt
Alan Johnson: There have been three military operations in Gaza since 2008. To avoid a fourth, Udi Dekel and... Read more > Summer 2014

Gershon Baskin | Gaza Symposium: Reconstruction for Demilitarisation?

By Gershon Baskin
Alan Johnson: There have been three military operations in Gaza since 2008. Not just the Israelis and Gazans,... Read more > Summer 2014

IDF operations and the laws of war

By Pnina Sharvit-Baruch
Israel’s military operation to stop rocket fire at Israeli cities and to destroy Hamas tunnels under the Gaza-Israel... Read more > Summer 2014

Fathom 6

By Fathom Editors
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The Journey of the Kurds

By Gary Kent
The journey of Iraqi Kurdistan from dictatorship to democracy has been remarkable. Gary Kent reports on the transformation... Read more > Spring 2014

The new assault on Israeli academia (and us)

By Cary Nelson
Cary Nelson, former president of the American Association of University Professors and co-editor of The Case Against Academic... Read more > Spring 2014

A reply to The Lancet’s ‘Open letter for the people in Gaza’

By David Stone
Introduction On 22 July 2014, one of the world’s leading medical journals, The Lancet, published a letter entitled... Read more > Spring 2014

Philosophers For Hamas!

By Gabriel Noah Brahm
A leading European philosopher has declared for killing ‘Zionists’ and arming Hamas. Gabriel Brahm asks what it all... Read more > Spring 2014

The Two-State Solution: The Way Forward

By Manuel Hassassian and Raphael Cohen-Almagor
When we launched Fathom the editors declared that the journal would be ‘a partisan and artisan of the... Read more > Spring 2014

Mutual recognition is essential for a solution

By Toby Greene
The Hassassian and Cohen-Almagor document is commendable for its embrace of mutual recognition, respect and dialogue, even if... Read more > Spring 2014

Israel’s National-Religious Jews and the quest for peace

By Ofer Zalzberg
The Middle East Peace Process has often marginalised the voice of the ‘National-Religious,’ or ‘Religious Zionist’ Jews. Ofer... Read more > Spring 2014

Demarcating the Israeli-Palestinian Border

By Professor David Newman
One reason for the foundering of the recent Israeli-Palestinian peace talks was the failure of the parties to... Read more > Spring 2014

Disaster in the Levant: the Syrian Civil War in its fourth year

By Jonathan Spyer
Jonathan Spyer is one of the few policy experts to regularly visit the front lines in Syria. In... Read more > Spring 2014

Time for a Revolution in Israel’s Global Engagement

By Gidi Grinstein and Daphna Kaufman
Israel needs a revolution in how it thinks about foreign relations. To meet huge external challenges it needs... Read more > Spring 2014

Book Review: Israel Has Moved

By Jonathan Cummings
According to Michel Foucault, the French philosopher, the essence of modernity can be understood in the way in... Read more > Spring 2014

Finding the Words: a review essay

By Liam Hoare
Books under review: Falling Out of Time David Grossman, Jonathan Cape, 2014, pp.208; Neuland, Eshkol Nevo, Chatto &... Read more > Spring 2014

Book Review: My Promised Land: The Triumph and the Tragedy of Israel

By Hannah Weisfeld
As a British Jew reading Ari Shavit’s account of modern day Israel, his starting point feels particularly poignant.... Read more > Spring 2014

East meets West in film

By Yair Raveh
It is not only in politics and the street that Israel’s ethnic tensions surface. Our film reviewer Yair... Read more > Spring 2014

The Philosophy behind ‘BDS’: a review of ‘Deconstructing Zionism: A Critique of Political Metaphysics’

By Gabriel Noah Brahm
What is one to make of a volume of specialised essays in contemporary philosophy – a compilation including... Read more > Spring 2014

Jerusalem Solitudes in Early Hebrew Literature

By Noga Emanuel
As the spiritual bedrock of Judaism, Jerusalem had been a magnet for millennial longing. For centuries Jews intensely... Read more > Spring 2014

Israel and the Territories

By Ahron Bregman
Fathom editors spoke to Ahron Bregman about his new book Cursed Victory: A History of Israel and the... Read more > Spring 2014

Israeli Youth in Distress

By Simcha Getahune
Dr Simcha Getahune, Director of ELEM – Youth in Distress spoke to Fathom’s Bethany Coates about troubled youth... Read more > Spring 2014

America’s Global Dilemma

By Ben Cohen
‘Reset,’ ‘Pivot,’ ‘Leading from Behind,’ ‘Red Lines,’ – the catchphrases of President Obama’s foreign policy are now often... Read more > Spring 2014

Jews and the Left

By Philip Mendes
Dr Philip Mendes is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work, Faculty of Medicine at Monash... Read more > Spring 2014

The state of Hamas: Toby Greene interviews Benedetta Berti

By Benedetta Berti
Questions have been raised about the direction and intentions of Hamas since the signing of a reconciliation agreement... Read more > Spring 2014

Saving the Promised Land: Alan Johnson interviews Ari Shavit

By Ari Shavit
Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land: The Triumph and the Tragedy of Israel is one of the most talked... Read more > Spring 2014

Václav Havel’s legacy and the struggle for human rights in Iran today

By Ladan Boroumand
Ladan Boroumand is the cofounder and research director of The Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation (ABF), an NGO dedicated to... Read more > Spring 2014

Dispatches from the front: a quarterly report from a roving ambassador for Israel

By Einat Wilf
Welcome to Einat Wilf’s new Fathom column. A former MK and now a roving global ambassador for Israel... Read more > Spring 2014

The ISIS-Kurdish War

By Jonathan Spyer
Jonathan Spyer, a Middle East analyst, author and journalist specialising in the areas of Israel, Lebanon, and Syria... Read more > Summer 2014