Report is too little, too late

The reported "killing" of Mohammed al Dura in a hail of Israeli bullets was nothing of the kind and was instead a modern-day blood libel. So said the state of Israel this week.

What kept it?

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New rhetoric, same old policy

Right everybody, excitement over, nothing to see, move along there. After the visit to Israel by new, improved, Israel-loving President Obama, which was hailed almost as Theodor Herzl's second coming, it's back to more of the same old same old.

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Academy right on Shin Bet film

Phew! Thank heavens the Israeli film The Gatekeepers failed to win an Oscar. Maybe the Almighty is a cinema-goer and also felt like throwing up when he saw it.

Of course this film is going down a storm among liberal Jews, who are lapping up its confirmation by apparently unimpeachable authorities that Israel has slid into a pit of moral infamy.

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Lapid listened to Middle Israel

Israel has not yet got over its astonishment at the result of the general election, which saw the propulsion to power of the political neophyte Yair Lapid and his Yesh Atid party.

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A double-standard abstention

The double standard was breathtaking. The UN vote to give the Palestinians non-member, observer status has smashed the Middle East peace process to bits.

In bringing this to the General Assembly, Mahmoud Abbas was in unilateral breach of his obligation under the Oslo Accords to proceed by way of bilateral negotiations with Israel.

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Assiduous campaign? Where?

The irrationality and prejudice inherent in the vilification of Israel are becoming ever more egregious.

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Obama’s dangerous campaign

Into my inbox last week popped an email from Michelle Obama. "Thank you for an amazing week… Can you chip in $5 or more to stand with Barack today?"

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What kind of 'support' is this?

Much anguish has been expended over Jews who detest Israel so virulently they are in the forefront of the delegitimisation campaign. Such people were devastatingly satirised by Howard Jacobson as "as a Jew" Jews, who parade their identity solely to demonise Israel.

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Fatal failure to fight for right

Travelling in America last week, I found American Jews shaking their heads in amazement at what they considered to be the supine attitude of the British Jewish leadership towards Israel demonisation and the inroads made by Islamic radicalism.

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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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