Israel

Britain in the nineteenth century pioneered the idea of the professional, impartial civil service independent of politics. In the twenty-first, that same civil service is unfortunately pioneering the notion of a body increasingly independent of the state that employs it, and apt at times to follow its own remarkably political agenda without much control from anyone. Following your conscience is a good deal less impressive when you are doing it on someone else’s dime British companies export a good deal of military equipment to Israel. To do so, they require export licences from the Department for Business and Trade (DBT). Yesterday, it emerged that a group of civil servants in

The 2024 Eurovision Song Contest – the final of which will be held in Malmö on 11 May – is the latest peculiar target of pompous virtue signallers. The hosts of the UK’s largest Eurovision screening have announced their decision to scrap the event. The reason? Israel, of course. ‘We have collectively decided not to screen the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest this year while Israel remains in the competition,’ the independent Rio cinema in Dalston, east London, said in a statement. Reminder: they are talking here, not about the fall of the Berlin Wall, or the Good Friday Agreement, but The Eurovision Song Contest – which generates

Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron is threatening to suspend arms sales to Israel. The Telegraph reports that the former prime minister demanded Israeli officials grant the Red Cross access to captured Hamas fighters or face a suspension of the export licence for defence materiel. Israel has claimed a security exemption to the Geneva Convention as the reason for blocking such access. The Red Cross has not visited Israeli hostages being held by the Palestinians. The Brits were previously reported to be contemplating an arms embargo if Israel invaded the Hamas stronghold of Rafah. Cameron has also complained about the length of time it takes for aid convoys to be allowed

Gaza’s largest hospital, al-Shifa, was once again turned into a battlefield yesterday. Five hours of fighting between Israel and Hamas at the hospital, viewed by Israel as a base used by terrorists, led to some 80 Palestinians being detained. Israel claimed to have killed about 20 terrorists in the precision raid, including Faiq Mabhouh, the head of Hamas’s internal security operations. The IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) also found a large cache of weapons, including rifles, grenades, rocket launchers and cash hidden inside al-Shifa. Mabhouh’s death follows that of Marwan Issa, deputy commander of Hamas’s military wing, last week. These killings will dramatically weaken Hamas, but Israel remains some way off the

‘Yes… But…’. It is a phrase that Jews in Britain and around the world have become accustomed to hearing since the 7 October Hamas terror attacks on Israel and the subsequent war. It is a twisted attempt to contextualise atrocities, to justify the unjustifiable. When you hear, as I have, the stories of those who survived the massacre at the Nova music festival, though, or whose family members are still being held hostage, when you see the footage from that event, you realise there is no ‘but’. In the documentary Supernova: The Music Festival Massacre, a number of survivors of that day’s horrors tell their story. They include Gali Amar

Whatever else the arguments concerning the Gaza War, none is more wrong-headed than the suggestion that Gazans were living in such straitened circumstances that they had no choice but to ‘break out’ on 7 October. Palestinian solidarity protestors routinely describe Gaza as a ‘prison camp’. Even the Foreign Secretary David Cameron has previously used that term to talk about Gaza. In the wake of the Hamas massacre, the UN Chief Antonio Guterres insisted that the events of 7 October ‘did not happen in a vacuum’. Although he later denied that this was a ‘justification’ of the murders, rapes and kidnappings of Israelis by Gazans, Guterres’s comments tied in with a

Hopes for a temporary ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas during Ramadan were dashed over the weekend, when it became apparent that no such deal would be reached before the beginning of the holy month. Weeks of tough negotiations that raised optimistic speculations about a deal have so far produced no tangible results. Hamas has hardened its position on a temporary ceasefire that would include the release of Israeli hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners. This came as no surprise to Israeli negotiators; Israel has been warning for weeks that Hamas is set to reject a deal while attempting to provoke violent clashes between Palestinians and Arab-Israelis, and Israeli security

Israel’s government has finally begun to turn its attention to what happens once the war in Gaza is over. The ‘basic contours’ of a hostage deal – and possible second Gaza ceasefire – continue to take shape, with further talks set to take place this week in Qatar’s capital Doha between Israel’s intelligence services, the United States, and Hamas via Qatari and Egyptian mediators. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan for post-war Gaza has been a long time coming, with his government constantly dogged by the question of what its goals are beyond destroying Hamas and what the endgame for the Palestinians might look like. You would think that with

Like a number of ‘anti-colonialists’, William Dalrymple lives in colonial splendour on the outskirts of Delhi. The writer often opens the doors of his estate to slavering architectural magazines. A few years ago, one described his pool, pool house, vast family rooms, animals, cockatoo ‘and the usual entourage of servants that attends any successful man in India’s capital city’. Either the Israelis weren’t committing genocide, or they tried to commit genocide but are bad at it. Which is it? I only mention Dalrymple because he is one of a large number of people who have lost their senses by going rampaging online about the alleged genocide in Gaza. He recently

In a surprising move, the United States has put forward a draft for a UN Security Council resolution calling for a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The draft also opposes Israel’s planned operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. US president Joe Biden has stood firmly by his support for Israel’s right to defend itself in the wake of Hamas’s brutal attack on 7 October. America has provided Israel with considerable munitions, as well as sent forces to deter attacks by Iran and the Iranian-backed military organisation Hezbollah. They have also thwarted attacks against Israeli targets and and others by the Houthis in Yemen. The US senate also

Following weeks of stagnation in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas over a deal for the release of Israeli hostages, Hamas has finally responded. Perhaps unsurprisingly though, the terms they have proposed are unacceptable to Israel. Hamas is demanding a long ceasefire, lasting four-and-a-half months, that would lead to a permanent truce. Their terms include the withdrawal of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from Gaza and an end to the war, rehabilitating Gaza under Hamas’s continued governance, and the release of 1,500 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails with the guarantee that they will not be rearrested for the same offences. This would include 500 prisoners of Hamas’s choosing, whose offences are

Performative sanctions have long been the last refuge of the lazy policymaker looking to ‘do something’. Take, for instance, the sanctions that are slapped on unsavoury individuals from around the world on an almost-weekly basis: Turkish assassins, Iranian guerrilla commanders, Somali pirates, and Yemeni rebels are among those who have been whacked with the sanctions stick. Unsurprisingly, nobody has repented as a result of being listed, meaning that the sanctions roster is a government naughty list and little more. After more than a decade of performative sanctions, the public is slowly cottoning onto the fact that they don’t seem to offer much. Amidst this scrutiny, policymakers are increasingly drawn to

The drone attack on a US base in Jordan that killed three American troops and injured dozens risks bringing one more country into the orbit of the war between Israel and Hamas. US president Joe Biden has blamed ‘Tehran-backed militants’ operating in Syria and Iraq for the strike on Tower 22, a US base on Jordan’s border with Syria, and has promised reprisals. Iran has denied any involvement: Tehran prefers to let its proxies do its dirty work. Watching on nervously is Jordan. Iran, whatever its denials, has much to gain by sowing instability in Jordan Iranian-backed militias in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have now launched more than 150 attacks on US positions in

Yesterday, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered an interim ruling on South Africa’s genocide case against Israel. Its decision is likely to please neither side of the debate, but seems broadly balanced: it criticised Israel, but failed to demand a suspension of the conflict.  The court, which sits in The Hague, was formed in 1945 and is one of the principal organs established by the Charter of the United Nations. It is the UN’s highest court.  On 29 December, South Africa brought its proceedings in the ICJ under Article 9 of the Genocide Convention of 1948. It claimed that Israel was engaging in genocidal acts against the Palestinian people

The International Court of Justice has handed down a preliminary ruling instructing Israel to prevent a genocide from happening in Gaza. Judge Donoghue, speaking at the court in The Hague, said the country must take ‘all measures within its power’ to prevent acts that breach the genocide convention and must ensure ‘with immediate effect’ that none of its soldiers are involved in any acts which contravene it. Israel was also ordered to take immediate action to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza. The convention defines genocide as acts committed ‘with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group’. The ICJ ruling is legally

It’s only Tuesday, and already Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has had one of the worst weeks since the war against Hamas started last October. Israelis are losing patience with him and his band of self-serving extremist ministers. Netanyahu, whose approval rates were low before the war and have only got lower since it started, is feeling the squeeze. Last night, in the single most deadly incident since the start of the war, 21 Israeli soldiers were killed when buildings collapsed on them following an RPG grenade attack by Hamas in the city of Khan Yunis, southern Gaza. Three soldiers were also killed in a separate earlier incident in the