Jonathan Sacerdoti

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Jonathan Sacerdoti is a broadcaster and writer covering politics, culture and religion

Is Hamas’s grip on Gaza weakening?

From our UK edition

The emergence of Yasser Abu Shabab and his ‘Popular Forces’ militia in eastern Rafah has become an unexpected fault line in the shifting landscape of Gaza. In recent days, a flurry of claims, counterclaims, and raw facts has begun to seep through the fog of war. Cracks are appearing in Hamas’s once unchallenged grip, and

Hamas doesn’t hold a monopoly on Palestinian terror

From our UK edition

Israeli forces operating inside Gaza have retrieved the body of Thai agricultural worker Nattapong Pinta, bringing to a close one of the many grim and unresolved chapters from the October 7th atrocities. In a joint operation by the Shin Bet and the IDF, based on intelligence gleaned from captured militants, the body was recovered in

What happened to Piers Morgan?

From our UK edition

There was great fanfare when Piers Morgan re-entered the world of television three years ago to front a new prime-time show on Rupert Murdoch’s TalkTV. Morgan framed the move as a fightback against cancel culture, a return to free speech, and a declaration of independence from the constraints of legacy media. Piers Morgan asks for

When will the BBC admit it has an Israel problem?

From our UK edition

When the White House uses a press briefing to lambast a foreign broadcaster by name, something seismic has shifted. That’s exactly what happened today when Donald Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, publicly accused the BBC of treating ‘the word of Hamas as total truth’ and challenged the White House’s description of the broadcaster rushing out

Jews in America are under attack

From our UK edition

In Boulder, Colorado, eight elderly Jews were torched alive in a park. They wore red T-shirts bearing the names of hostages seized by Palestinian terrorists over 600 days earlier. Some carried Israeli flags. Walking peacefully in memory and solidarity, they were attacked with fire as a flamethrower and Molotov cocktails created flames as high as

The rush to blame Israel is bad for journalism

From our UK edition

If the war in Gaza has taught the world anything, it is this: truth in war is rarely immediate. In the fog of conflict, facts take time, evidence can be manipulated and early narratives are often weaponised. Yet time and again, much of the international media – and too many public officials – refuse to learn this

Israel faces a brutal choice

From our UK edition

For months, Israel has faced a relentless barrage of criticism over its conduct in Gaza – from western governments, UN agencies, and media outlets that once claimed to be her allies. Central to the condemnation are the humanitarian circumstances: civilian suffering, limited aid access, and Israel’s temporary obstruction of some relief efforts. What has gone

The case for looking back in anger

From our UK edition

Last week marked the anniversary of the Manchester Arena bombing – the deadliest terrorist attack on British soil since the 7/7 London bombings. Twenty-two people were murdered, most of them children and teenagers, at a pop concert targeted with deliberate cruelty. Among them was Saffie-Rose Roussos, just eight years old – the youngest known victim of terrorism

Are British taxpayers funding Hamas?

From our UK edition

British taxpayer funds, earmarked for humanitarian aid in Gaza, may have passed through Hamas-controlled structures, according to a report on Israel’s Channel 12 over the weekend. The core of the allegation is not that the UK sought to support terrorism, but that its aid strategy operated in concert with the very machinery that sustains Hamas’s rule.

Israel is prepared to go it alone in Gaza

From our UK edition

As Israel presses ahead with Operation Gideon’s Chariots, its most ambitious military campaign in Gaza since the war began, the political landscape surrounding the conflict is shifting – and not in Israel’s favour. Britain’s suspension of trade talks, the summoning of Israeli Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely, and coordinated statements of condemnation from the UK, France and

What does Gary Lineker know about Zionism?

From our UK edition

When I was a schoolboy, on the rare occasions I was required to line up against the wall to be picked for a football team, I would be picked last. It was fair enough: my abilities matched my interest level – zero. Not much has changed in the intervening decades, and thanks to my lack

Palestine and the truth about the Nakba

From our UK edition

The Nakba – Arabic for ‘the catastrophe’ and commemorated today – marks a profound moment of trauma in the Palestinian Arab consciousness. In 1948, following the Arab world’s rejection of the United Nations’ partition plan and their subsequent military assault on the fledgling State of Israel, around 700,000 Palestinians were displaced. While Israel accepted the

The narcissism of Kanye West

From our UK edition

We live in an age of liberation, in which we are told endlessly by some that freedom of speech, taken to its furthest boundaries, is the crowning achievement of democratic culture. And freedom of speech, alongside freedom of thought and conscience, freedom of (or from) religion, freedom of the press, of movement, of assembly and

Tehran’s cruelty is closer than we think

From our UK edition

The arrest of eight men – seven of them Iranian nationals – across the United Kingdom in two separate counter-terrorism operations is a chilling reminder that the Islamic Republic of Iran is not a distant threat. It is here, embedded within our cities, probing the limits of our law, our patience and our willingness to defend

Nike’s ‘Never again’ slogan is a disgrace

From our UK edition

Fifty-six thousand runners completing the London Marathon yesterday may well have gasped the words ‘never again’ as they staggered across the finish line. I have never been a runner, but I imagine that even those who willingly endure the 26.2-mile ordeal must feel not only a profound sense of accomplishment but also, at the very