Analysis

The good, the bad, and the very ugly - Martin Bright's 2012 political awards

By Martin Bright, December 20, 2012

As the year end awards ceremonies proliferate, it is only appropriate that the JC should make its own set of honours.

In such a time of austerity there are no gongs as such and the event will not be televised, but here are the JC Political Editor’s Awards, some serious, some less so.

Jewish and Proud Award: Ed Miliband

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Mirvis appointment: This post matters to Progessives, too

By Rabbi Jonathan Romain, December 20, 2012

The Progressive wing within British Jewry alternates between being non-plussed and concerned about the appointment of a new chief rabbi.

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Lieberman is down — but never say out

By Anshel Pfeffer, December 20, 2012

Attorney-general Yehuda Weinstein’s announcement last week that the state prosecution was dropping the main charges against Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, indicting him on only one minor charge of breach of trust, opened up yet another chapter in the never-ending legal saga.

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Israel-diaspora ties get boost in UK conference

By Stephen Pollard, December 20, 2012

Some ideas are so obvious you wonder why no one thought of them before. The annual Australia Israel UK Leadership Dialogue is one of them.

Originally a meeting of Australian and Israeli leaders — defined as politicians, thinkers and journalists — the addition of UK delegates has lifted the two-day forum into a sort of Israeli Königswinter Conference.

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‘Jewish lobby’ Hagel may be defence chief

By Jonathan Cummings, December 20, 2012

Depending on who you ask, former Senator Chuck Hagel, the front-runner for Secretary of Defence in Barack Obama’s second administration, is “hardly Israel’s first choice”, an “outspoken critic of Israel” and just plain “anti-Israel”.

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Syria: West is making one giant mistake

By John R Bradley, December 20, 2012

Is the NATO-sponsored Syrian uprising the West’s biggest Middle East foreign policy blunder since the 1956 Suez Crisis?

What is certain is that tens of thousands of jihadis are now doing almost all the fighting on the ground in Syria, whose army has not fired a single bullet in Israel’s direction since 1967.

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Did Iran bomb Amia? The evidence is clear

By Matthew Levitt, December 14, 2012

Iranian and Argentine diplomats recently concluded a first round of negotiations over the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires.

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Morsi keeps theocracy on track with aid of military

By John R Bradley, December 14, 2012

With Egypt spiralling ever more wildly into anarchy in the wake of last month’s bold Islamist coup by President Mohammed Morsi, the army has re-emerged from its barracks.

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Why Middle East is the land of the rising Sunnis

By Anshel Pfeffer, December 13, 2012

The identity of some of the foreign generals who attended a secret conference convened last month by Britain’s Chief of Defence Staff General Sir David Richards may seem, at first, surprising.

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Labour glammed-up but not hot for power

By Anshel Pfeffer, December 7, 2012

V This could have been Shelly Yachimovich’s week. With a fresh and attractive list emerging from the Labour primaries and the launch of her new economic plan, probably the most comprehensive social and fiscal manifesto ever published by an Israeli party, she should have been well on her way to setting the election’s agenda and re-establishing Labour as a viable political force.

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