This blog by Joan Ryan MP, parliamentary chair of Labour Friends of Israel, was originally posted on Times of Israel The terrible and shocking events in Gaza yesterday require urgent and immediate action to end the cycle of violence and address the plight of its people. Like any other country, Read more…
President Trump’s decision yesterday to pull the US out of the Iran nuclear agreement deals a severe, possibly fatal, blow to the 2015 agreement which aims to prevent the Islamic republic from resuming its nuclear programme. Trump says he will reimpose sanctions on Iran, which were lifted in return Read more…
Mahmoud Abbas claimed on Monday that the behaviour of Jews was responsible for the Holocaust – the latest example of the antisemitism regularly perpetrated by the president and the Palestinian Authority. Addressing the Palestinian National Council in Ramallah, Abbas said Hitler’s murder of six million Jews was not caused by antisemitism Read more…
On the 14th May, 1948, on the termination of the British Mandate, Israel declared its independence. As the Jewish state celebrates its seventieth anniversary, here are seven defining moments in the history of the reborn Jewish state. 1948 – Israel’s War of Independence The Jewish Agency, pre-state Israel’s government-in-waiting, accepting Read more…
An Iranian drone which entered Israeli airspace in February was carrying explosives, it was revealed on Friday. The attempted attack – the explosives were sufficient to cause damage, although the precise target remains unknown – represents the first direct attack by the Islamic republic on Israel. It also indicates that Iranian Read more…
The government has admitted that British aid is helping to support the delivery of the Palestinian Authority’s new school curriculum – a curriculum which promotes terrorism and encourages children to become “martyrs”. The revelation was exposed by LFI chair Joan Ryan and covered by the Sunday Times last weekend. In response to Read more…
Sixteen Palestinians – eleven of whom were known members of terror organisations – died during clashes on the border between Gaza and Israel on Friday. The clashes took place in the context of a series of protests at the Gaza border, calling for the fulfilment of the Palestinian ‘right of Read more…
Three Israelis were murdered in a weekend of terror attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Adiel Kolman, a 32-year-old father of four, was stabbed to death near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City on Sunday. Two days earlier, two Israeli soldiers were killed and another two injured following Read more…
President Trump’s long-awaited Middle East plan is close to completion, according to reports in the US media last weekend. The timing of its release is not yet confirmed and details of its contents are highly guarded. However, the president’s enthusiasm for negotiating the “ultimate deal” – a peace agreement which brings an Read more…
The formal decision by Israel’s national police chief, Roni Alsheikh, to recommend indicting Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a range of corruption charges has many on the left heralding the end of the Likud leader. Opposition leader Avi Gabbay proclaimed “The Netanyahu era is over”. Such pronouncements may be premature. Read more…
“He does not have a public or moral mandate to determine such fateful matters for the state of Israel when there is the fear – and I have to say it is real and not without basis – that he will make decisions based on his personal interest in political Read more…
Despite the shock which accompanied it, there was an inevitability to the confrontation between Israel and Iran which took place over the skies of Syria and northern Israel last weekend. This may, moreover, be simply a harbinger of more – and worse – to come. The events unfolded in Read more…