Over the summer of 1951, there were so many visitors to a remote Irish Army facility in County Donegal, known as Finner Camp, that traffic jams were common. The crowds were trying to catch sight of a strange new aircraft, …
Hamas is playing for time
Hamas leaders know that once the Israeli counter-offensive starts, they will lose their greatest asset: their inter-connected tunnels. This vast warren conceals the vital operations for the manufacture, storage and launch of their rockets, and shieldsheadquarters and rest areas from …
Israel’s illusion of security
Two weeks on, are we any closer to explaining the catastrophic failure of Israel’s extremely expensive, high-tech Gaza border defences to stop the Hamas attack? I’ve seen a surprising number of people, on both Right and Left, argue or imply …
I watched Hamas unleash hell
Tel Aviv
A handsome man in his 20s in a military uniform zips past me on a motorised scooter. A woman with a tattoo and piercings calmly sips a cortado in a coffee shop across from me. A young family …
Why peace in Israel failed
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords, a landmark moment in the pursuit of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. And yet peace in the region has never been more elusive, as events in …
How the Democrats betrayed the Jews
I grew up in a tiny Jewish enclave on Chicago’s South Side. When I first saw New York, in the Sixties, I was awed as by no subsequent marvel of nature: stretching north from Columbus Circle, up the West Side, …
Violence stalks Gaza through history
Where does the story of Gaza begin? In this region, history — or histories, given that here there is no such thing as a singular history — is serially and violently contested. “Anyone who tells a story knows that most …
Israel is no longer Britain’s war
In the wake of Hamas’s bloody and murderous raid into Israel, as Israeli jets pulverise the Gaza Strip in advance of its looming punitive expedition, the Western discourse surrounding the century-old conflict feels both novel and wearily familiar. Familiar in …
Israel is trapped by Western guilt
“Great wars in history eventually became great wars about history,” wrote the Israeli-American historian Michael Oren in 1999. It’s hard to think of a country for which this is more obviously true than Israel, though Ireland, Ukraine or even today’s …
Israel’s enemies are blinded by the sins of America
The Nagorno-Karabakh region, between Azerbaijan and Armenia, has been the source of repeated, bitter fighting since the Nineties. A few weeks ago, following nine months of Azeri blockade of the majority-Armenian civilian population, Azerbaijan launched an offensive against the region. …
Gaza will change the future of war
Peter Drucker, the Austrian-American management guru, once said: “The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence — it’s acting with yesterday’s logic.” The unfolding events in Israel are a sharp reminder that we keep making our future …
The Marxist who recognised evil
Norman Geras, who died 10 years ago today, was an unusual figure on the Western Left: he was a Marxist who steadfastly and unequivocally opposed militant Islamism and jihadi terrorism. As a free-thinking political theorist, he was as strident in …
What Israel will face in Gaza
When conventional armies take on enemies who have neither uniforms nor overt bases, and who impolitely refuse to assemble in conveniently targetable mass formations, the inevitable problem is how to find them. Indeed, such a task is often impossible, a …
Interview 1842 – Israel’s 9/11 on The Last American Vagabond
via TheLastAmericanVagabond: Joining me today is James Corbett, here to discuss the ongoing siege on Occupied Palestine, the deadly attack by Hamas that preceded it, and the rapidly growing sentiment among Israeli citizens that this attack was either carried out …
Do Israel’s critics understand Evil?
After the Holocaust, academics and others tried to make sense of the murder of six million Jews. Historians pointed to the rise of nationalism following the First World War; the dismal state of the German economy when Hitler rose to …