Israel

In Western democracies, literature no longer matters to politics. Once, literature and politics could co-exist on the same typewriter or in the same person: George Orwell in Britain, André Malraux in France. But that was a long time ago. Still, the powers of politics remain linguistic, whether bureaucratic or rhetorical: the war criminal at his desk, the elected representative on her Twitter. Amos Oz, the Israeli novelist who died today aged 79, was living proof of the political powers of literature. In Israel, which is a Western democracy most of the time, Oz is seen as a great writer but a failed politician. In the West, he is seen as

So alongside being the only country that pop stars refuse to play in, and the only country whose academics are boycotted on Western campuses, and the only country whose dancers and violinists cannot perform in cities like London without gangs of people screaming them down, and the only country whose produce is routinely avoided by luvvies and liberals, now Israel is the only country that has been politically punished by holiday app cum conscience of the Twitterati, Airbnb. Airbnb has taken the extraordinary decision to stop advertising homes for rent in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. It is extraordinary because Airbnb still advertises places to stay in Tibet, a

Midway through coffee a soldier came running in. ‘Tzeva adom!’ ‘Red colour!’ Cups clattered, chairs shrieked across slate floor. There is a calm exodus to an improvised bomb shelter — the cafe’s concrete reinforced bathroom. Soldiers at the front, paramedics behind, civilians at the back. Two dozen faces are lit by the insistent flashes of Red Alert, an app that warns of incoming fire. The foreigners quip nervously, the locals tut at the inconvenience. After a few minutes, the all clear is given and diners return to their lunch. It is 1.02pm and another rocket has just hit Israel.  We are at Yad Mordechai junction, four kilometres from the 1949

One of the joys of a world seized by identity politics is that everyone wants to let you know their self-identification: Israel identifies as a Jewish state and has passed a Basic Law explicitly saying so.  The law is, as a millennial might say, problematic, even if most of it is uncontroversial. It defines the name, flag, emblem and anthem of the state. The Hebrew calendar will still be the official calendar and Yom Ha’atzmaut will continue to be the annual national holiday. Jews will go on having the right to observe Saturday as their day of rest and non-Jews to observe their day of rest. Clause five recommits the state to promoting

Bibi Netanyahu was in London this month after meeting Angela Merkel, Emanuel Macron and Theresa May, the leaders of the three European countries which had committed most to President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Before he flew back to Israel he came to a crowded public meeting at Policy Exchange, whose director, Dean Godson, had asked me to talk with him. I asked him first what he had told the Europeans, who had reacted badly to President Trump’s unilateral action on Iran. ‘Well I’ll tell you what I didn’t tell them. I didn’t tell them to pull out of the Iran agreement – because I think it’s effectively defunct. The

‘Trump Make Israel Great’ reads the banner on the deserted hotel next to the new American embassy in Jerusalem. Unlike most of the world population, Israelis regard the US President as a big improvement on Barack Obama. In government, his decision to move the embassy here from Tel Aviv has elevated him to near godlike status. ‘We are very lucky that the strongest kid in the classroom is on our side in this crazy school,’ is how Yoav Galant, Israel’s housing minister, puts it. There is evidence for Trumpophilia all over the place. Signs proclaiming the US President a ‘friend of Zion’ are dotted around the Holy City and ‘God Bless

Gaza has a galvanising effect on Europeans. Jeremy Corbyn, for example, appeared to have no consolatory words for France after last week’s Islamist knife attack in Paris, yet on Monday he posted messages on Twitter and Facebook expressing his disgust with Israel. Likewise in France, the far-left, curiously quiet whenever there’s a terrorist attack on their patch, have this week staged protests in Lyon, Marseille, Rouen, Paris and Bordeaux to voice their opposition to Israel’s killing of 62 Palestinians, the victims including several children and fifty members of Hamas, an EU-designated terror organisation. But what do the protestors in France hope to achieve? Emmanuel Macron reportedly “condemned the violence and underlined

Oh Israel, why must you do it? Why must you make such an almighty balagan of these things? Hamas is out to provoke you and you are evidently in the market for provocation. Would it kill you to step back and find a way of resolving a crisis that doesn’t involve dead Palestinians and international censure? You could have dispersed the crowds without opening fire on them. You could have used non-lethal rounds. ‘T’nu L’Tzahal L’Natzeach’ is fair enough when you’re bombing Hamas installations but these were unarmed protestors. If you haven’t spent the past few days with these thoughts rattling around your head, you are a stauncher Zionist than

When Donald Trump pledged to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, I was sceptical. Too many presidents had given then broken their word; Trump, before he ran for the White House, was lukewarm on Israel. When President Trump issued a proclamation recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, I was still sceptical. Why would Trump the America-Firster deliver a neoconservative’s dream? Well, aren’t I just Wrongy McWrongface, Mayor of Wrongtown? Today, Benjamin Netanyahu spoke before an ebullient crowd at the dedication ceremony for the new US embassy in Jerusalem, Israel. ‘Jerusalem, Israel’. That’s how they referred to it throughout. No more mush about an ‘international

Was it, do you reckon, a felicitous birthday present from the Eurovision judges for Israel, with Netta standing in, a bit incongruously, for a 70-year old state? If so, it’s a tribute to the way that a Middle Eastern country actually counts as European to at least the same extent as Turkey just across the Bosphorus – actually probably more so. Israel seems like an intelligible outpost of our kind of culture and values in what now is the Muslim world. If Netta is Israel, she’s a terrifically attractive embodiment of its most appealing aspect; way more than the country’s embarrassing president. She’s its avant garde side: an Orthodox Jew