It was hot and stifling in the corridors of Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital. Hundreds of people queued for hours, but no one complained. It was the afternoon of October 7 and they were waiting to give blood.
Volunteers were also …
The brutal truth about ‘Never Again’
“An innocent child who was lost has now been found and returned,” was how the Irish Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, greeted the news of nine-year-old Emily Hand being released from her Hamas hellhole. He made it sound like the poor …
Why Netanyahu finally agreed to a hostage deal
For dozens of families in Israel, this weekend will bring joy; for scores of others, it will be bittersweet. Binyamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, will have his own swirl of emotions. The Israeli prime minister will want to take credit for reuniting …
The Jewish civil war over Israel
While Jews often seem clannish to outsiders, the reality is somewhat different: we have always suffered from a divisive streak of self-destructiveness. As far back as the levelling of the Temple and the expulsion from the homeland, Jewish unity has …
Israel’s ceasefire conceals a bigger threat
While the Israel-Hamas truce will provide instant relief to both war-torn Gazans and the families of returned hostages, this is not a time for celebration. Netanyahu has made clear that the war will continue until he achieves “absolute victory”. This …
The Democratic oligarchs funding pro-Hamas nonprofits
Last Wednesday, several dozen pro-Palestinian activists, their faces obscured by keffiyehs and Covid masks, attempted to block the entrance to the Democratic National Committee Headquarters in Washington, DC. Reports of a riot may have been hyperbole, but footage showed a …
Sinn Féin’s hollow Hamas stance
The torment of Thomas Hand, an Irish man originally from Dun Laoghaire in Dublin, speaks directly to the most visceral fear of every parent: that, one day, we may find ourselves powerless to protect our child. Mr Hand lived with …
Will Israel hand America a ceasefire?
Having choreographed their October 7 assault so skilfully, Hamas clearly had no plans at all for the Israeli counter-offensive. Nor did it plan for the inevitable cutting-off of Gaza’s electricity and water supplied by Israel, or consider the people who …
Hamas has unleashed the West’s monsters
We live in an apocalyptic moment, when something truly hideous, long hidden just beneath the surface of everyday life, is breaking forth from the ground. The torture, rape, massacre, and kidnapping of roughly 1,200 Israelis on October 7 was only …
MeToo unless you’re a Jew
After accompanying British troops as they liberated Bergen-Belsen in April 1945, Richard Dimbleby produced one of the most viscerally horrifying — and powerful — dispatches in the BBC’s history. “I find it hard to describe adequately the horrible things that …
Orthodox Jews aren’t safe in New York
The other day, my husband took my middle son, who is almost five, to a Whole Foods near our home in New York. When he came back, he told me he’d felt uneasy there. Usually, strangers smile at my son …
Israel’s true border crisis
Of all the lessons to be learned following Hamas’s brutal incursion into Israel, one is so glaringly obvious that it runs the risk of going unnoticed: the attack was a failure not just of Israel’s border security systems, but of …
Why the Irish side with Palestine
When Micheál Martin visited Mount Scopus on the outskirts of Jerusalem two months ago, he struck a pessimistic tone. The Irish government’s deputy head had been taken there for a briefing by UN officials, who told him the number of …
The post-America war has begun
Less than a month ago, President Biden was asked on camera if the United States could simultaneously bring conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East to a palatable conclusion. “We’re the United States of America, for God’s sake,” he responded, …
Jews are not safe on Britain’s campuses
In my first year at university, in 2005, I vividly recall coming across a Guardian article by Luciana Berger headlined “Why I had to resign”. This was 14 years before she quit the “institutionally antisemitic” Labour Party; back then, she …