A French-Greek wake-up call

The recent elections here and in Europe have left Jews and all who care about freedom and democracy with many reasons for unease.

In Greece, around two thirds of those who voted did so for extremist parties of left and right. Chillingly, the neo-Nazi "Golden Dawn"party won no fewer than 21 seats.

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Leaders who lead to surrender

Readers of the Jerusalem Post have doubtless been bemused by a rumbling controversy over whether or not the Anglo-Jewish leadership comprises what Isi Leibler derided as "trembling Israelites".

Leibler suggested that both the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council were in denial over the UK's dramatic upsurge in anti-Israel feeling.

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Middle Britain's amoral drift

An invitation to appear as a Question Time panellist always sees your columnist dusting off her tin helmet, not to say donning full body armour and making her last will and testament.

Its audiences have been known to be less than universally friendly, and never more so than when Israel crops up.

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Riots reveal cracks in society

When it comes to shooting itself in the foot and other essential bits, Israel undoubtedly takes the all-time prize.

For the past few weeks, Israel has been convulsed by how women are treated by fanatics in the strictly Orthodox community. Women are being segregated on buses serving Charedi neighbourhoods.

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The future of Hebron's Jewish past

Until recently, I had never been to Hebron. In the past three months, however, I have twice boarded an armoured bus to make the journey. The first time was with a private, non-political group to visit Hebron's Jewish area and the Cave of Machpelah, where Abraham and the patriarchs and matriarchs are said to be buried.

It was a shock.

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True face of 'moderate' leaders

For many years, Professor Sari Nusseibeh has been regarded as the epitome of Palestinian moderation. The urbane president of al Quds university in east Jerusalem, he has been regarded as a "two-state solution" moderate. His actual advocacy of a one-state solution and the swallowing up of Israel has been unaccountably ignored.

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True face of ‘moderate’ leaders

For many years, Professor Sari Nusseibeh has been regarded as the epitome of Palestinian moderation. The urbane president of al Quds university in east Jerusalem, he has been regarded as a "two-state solution" moderate. His actual advocacy of a one-state solution and the swallowing up of Israel has been unaccountably ignored.

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Cameron's dismissal of Israel

Government ministers might be concerned to know quite how often I am now accosted by strangers in public places.

These strangers are usually, although not always, Jews. They accost me on the Tube, at the theatre, in the supermarket, in restaurants and in the street.

They all say the same thing: keep on saying it about Israel, keep on telling it as it is, don't ever give up.

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Crazed dinner party politics

Consider the following scenario. A church newspaper has a Jewish political editor. He reports in his paper on a troubling development. Certain churches support a voluntary body upon whose board sits a man with connections to groups that have declared their intention to wipe every Christian off the face of the earth.

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Let UK Muslims enjoy freedom

In both Britain and the US, there are now attempts to push back against the steady encroachment of sharia law. In Britain, a Private Members' Bill has been introduced in the House of Lords by the cross-bench peer Baroness Cox to curb the increasing use of sharia courts to dispense family law and settle disputes in Muslim communities.

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What makes Syria different?

It is hard to imagine a more graphic demonstration of the lamentable failure to understand the Arab world by Britain and the west than its response to the "Arab Spring".

Just about every single thing it is possible to have got wrong, it has got wrong. And nowhere has this been more obvious than in its response to the atrocities in Syria.

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How I became a hate 'suspect'

For a moment I thought it was a Purim spiel. The Guardian devoted an entire story last weekend to the claim that I was being investigated by both the Press Complaints Commission and the police. The Bedfordshire police.

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Cameron simply does not get it

David Cameron's claim that failure to arrive at a "two-state solution" to the Arab-Israel impasse has caused terrorism and instability and helped excuse authoritarianism is surely a first for a Britis

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So, regime change is now good

The reaction in Britain and America to the turmoil in Egypt has produced a number of astounding revelations.

The first is that everyone in the bien-pensant world is now apparently a neo-con. You really do have to rub your eyes very hard at this.

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Dubious claims of a peacenik

One of the great divisions among Jews is between those who believe the Palestinians are genuinely prepared to live in a Palestine state side-by-side with Israel, and those who believe that they are not. The former are scorned by the latter as dreamers or idiots, the latter denounced by the former as right-wing extremists and bigots.

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