‘Two banks has the Jordan,’ runs Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s verse of Revisionist Zionism. ‘This is ours and that is as well.’ The Betar leader’s vision of Eretz Yisrael Hashlemah exists today only in songs sung by old men who remember, barely, when the lyrics carried possibility rather than lament. Even on the nationalist Right, the EastContinue reading “Neither bank of the Jordan”
Category Archives: Israel
Song of Ascent
Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation By Yossi Klein Halevi Harper, 608 pages When the 18th World Zionist Congress met in Prague in August 1933, delegates were asked to choose an official anthem for the Jewish national movement. The two main contenders were Naftali Herz Imber’s HatikvahContinue reading “Song of Ascent”
What’s the matter with Thomas Friedman?
It’s a question Israelis and Israel advocates of all political stripes have been asking in recent months. What has caused Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist and pro-market liberal, to lurch from centre-left defender of the State of Israel to increasingly shrill basher of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli government, and the state itself? WeContinue reading “What’s the matter with Thomas Friedman?”
By their fruitcakes ye shall know them
You can always judge a politician by their followers. Mitt Romney attracts the committed, Ron Paul the committable. Grassroots campaigners are essential in American politics, in those states with lengthy caucus and primary processes, and even elsewhere thanks to the Internet’s empowerment of the ideologically energised. Politicians must rely on these people to get their messageContinue reading “By their fruitcakes ye shall know them”
Ron Paul, an unexamined phenomenon
The American primary process, a kind of elongated sweeps for the cable news channels, is a four-yearly vaudeville show that doubles as a selection process for future leaders of the free world. Imagine the aesthetics of American Idol welded to the intellectual demeanour of pro football. When it’s the Democrats, there’s also a touch of the campusContinue reading “Ron Paul, an unexamined phenomenon”
Israelophobia – the ‘new’ old prejudice
Something is rotten in the modern Left. An unhealthy segment of what likes to call itself the ‘progressive movement’ increasingly loses its mind when it comes to the subject of Israel. These people long ago allowed their objection to certain Israeli government policies to calcify into an irrational hatred of the entire State of Israel.Continue reading “Israelophobia – the ‘new’ old prejudice”
Stephen Daisley 