Failing the test

You are a pupil who has been studying hard for your GCSE examinations. Today you face the Religious Studies exam.

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That's democracy

It is difficult to admire Avigdor Lieberman. He holds views which many British Jews find, to say the least, difficult. He appears certain to be indicted for corruption. He behaves as if his political mission is to create enemies rather than allies for Israel.

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Come on, you Ms

For Spurs fans dreading tomorrow's Hobson's choice - supporting a German team winning the Champions League in order to ensure the Lillywhites qualify for next season's competition - there is unexpected relief.

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Saving our heritage

The 250th anniversary of Plymouth Synagogue is a remarkable event that should make all of Anglo-Jewry proud. But while we celebrate, it also highlights one of the more troubling aspects of communal life in the twenty-first century.

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Bibi, untramelled

Israeli political life has always had the capacity to surprise. And almost no one saw Tuesday's deal between Benjamin Netanyahu and Shaul Mofaz coming.

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Protesting bigots

Once again a performance by the Jerusalem Quartet has been disrupted by bigots. Things hardly started well when the director of the Brighton Festival, Andrew Comben, in an astonishingly crass misjudgment, prefaced the concert with a warning that there was likely to be disruption.

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Shock art nonsense

The principle that one should never seek to profit from the Holocaust seems to have passed by the Chilean shock artist Marco Evaristti. This week he went on to the Channel 4 programme, Four Rooms, and attempted to sell a gold and diamond sculpture of the gates of Auschwitz. Vulgar enough, you might think.

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Lansley's silence

In a normal world, the notion that a trade union would bar someone from taking part in a seminar because of his ethnic identity would be utterly implausible. Trades unions exist to promote solidarity, not to foster hatred and exclusion. But when Israelis are involved we no longer live in a normal world. Trades unions now behave with bigotry towards Israelis as a matter of deliberate policy.

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Shameless Corbyn

Last week we pointed out that the Labour Party, having quite rightly called in February for Nick Clegg to remove the LibDem whip from Baroness Tonge, had signally failed to take any action against its own MP, Jeremy Corbyn, after he backed a demand for an inquiry into "pro-Israel lobbying groups". A week on and the party's inaction is just as pronounced.

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Leadership needed

One might have thought that Sunday's record showing by the French National Front would be a matter of grave concern to the French Jewish community. Just as the BNP here has tried to repackage itself as a mainstream vehicle for protest against the status quo, so its sister party under Marine Le Pen has tried the same trick.

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Proper behaviour

Nowadays, a story often becomes news when it is caught on video - especially if that video tells a simple, shocking narrative. Add to that "when it happens in Israel", and it is easy to understand how a film of IDF colonel Shalom Eisner, swinging his M16 against the head of a pro-Palestinian Danish activist, went viral this week. It graphically retold the myth that the IDF is a brutal oppressor.

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Reacting to words

A curious phenomenon of politics is how words from some politicians that create a storm are virtually ignored when they come from others. So while - quite rightly - Baroness Tonge's various idiocies led to her having the LibDem whip removed, Jeremy Corbyn regularly comes out with equally vile comments and gets away scot free.

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Freedom’s varieties

Over the next eight days, we celebrate freedom. For some, the invocation "next year in Jerusalem" has a very real meaning. This will, for example, be the first Seder in five years that Gilad Shalit has been free to celebrate in his homeland.

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The mask is now off

Throughout his career in public life, Ken Livingstone has had an obsession. He has been careful - extremely careful - only ever to refer to that obsession as "Israel". The mask has now slipped and Mr Livingstone's attitude not to Israel but, rather, to Jews has been made plain.

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Leeds JSoc's shame

This newspaper is the first to speak up for Jewish students on campus, who can face vile prejudice and attacks. But one has to wonder what is going on in Leeds. The behaviour of Leeds University JSoc in withdrawing its invitation to the eminent 'lawfare' advocate Brooke Goldstein is not merely spineless.

It is reprehensible.

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UN acting to form

Used as we may be to the UN acting not as a forum for the nations of the world but a club for Israel-bashers, this week was nonetheless extraordinary.

A resolution due to be passed (as we go to press) by the UN Commission on the Status of Women declares that the "occupation" in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is the main barrier to the advancement of women's rights in the area.

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Tirelessly active

Activists for Israel within our community can feel rather lonely at times. Israel's enemies are many, they distort the truth with impunity and the media seems to be dominated by a knee-jerk hostility.

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More apartheid lies

If only Israel Apartheid Week, which took place in the UK last week and will move to campuses around the world in the coming days, was just another example of ephemeral sloganeering by over-excited students.

The phrase 'Israel Apartheid' has amounted to a giant rebranding success by anti-Israel activists, on a par with the best corporate marketing campaigns.

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Perspective, please

It is instructive to absorb the reaction to the many important stories from the Middle East this week.
The Iranians have denied the International Atomic Energy Agency access to their nuclear testing facilities. The Syrian government has carried on annihilating its own people while the world looks on.

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Deliberate scandal

Rarely does one come across as clear an example of institutionalised antisemitism as that at the Jobcentres in Cheetham Hill and Prestwich.

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