Melanie Phillips

A few days before 9/11, the UN hosted an appalling explosion of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hatred at an obscenely named 'human rights' conference in Durban, South Africa.

While the worst of these gross libels and Nazi-style caricatures were expressed by the NGOs attending the conference, the official governmental de

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Along with other British Jews, I have heard the Prime Minister speak movingly in public of his attachment to Israel, forged at his father's knee in the Scottish manse where the people of the book were revered and their attachment to their ancient land cause for sympathy and support.

Yet, at this moment of intense and

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It is an article of faith (except, of course, among those who actually have a faith) that the dethronement of God by the apostles of secularism has ushered in an age of reason.

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To judge from the screams of horror from certain Jewish quarters, anyone would think that Torquemada was about to open a branch of the Inquisition in Washington DC.

No matter that the office of Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin has been shown to have an Israeli flag stuck in the corner (ok, it could be a bigger fla

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In the world of diplomacy, things are often not what they seem. When it comes to the crisis over Iran, there is even more cause to be sceptical. Disinformation in such a stand-off is routine.

That's not to say there is any doubt about Iran's race to develop nuclear weapons.

Published in: Jewish Chronicle

In the world of diplomacy, things are often not what they seem. When it comes to the crisis over Iran, there is even more cause to be sceptical. Disinformation in such a stand-off is routine.

That's not to say there is any doubt about Iran's race to develop nuclear weapons.

Published in: Jewish Chronicle

In the world of diplomacy, things are often not what they seem. When it comes to the crisis over Iran, there is even more cause to be sceptical. Disinformation in such a stand-off is routine.

That's not to say there is any doubt about Iran's race to develop nuclear weapons.

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Last May, the Paris Appeal Court delivered one of the most momentous of all libel judgments.

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Are American Jews the equivalent of chickens voting for Shabbat*?

They have persuaded themselves that Barack Obama is a friend of the Jewish people, because Obama put his hand on his heart and swore undying friendship to the state of Israel.

The fact that for 20 years he belonged to a 'black power' church who

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Everyone is waiting. In Israel, they are waiting for the 60th-anniversary celebrations to be over and for President Bush to have visited and returned home. Then, they say, the IDF will make its long-anticipated major incursion into Gaza.

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Asymmetric warfare is normally defined as the weak pitting themselves against forces equipped with infinitely superior military power.

But in fact, unlike conventional warfare between states, asymmetric warfare conceals the real drivers of the aggression — those regimes which finance, recruit, arm and train those w

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In the torrent of criticism which engulfed the Archbishop of Canterbury after his remarks about sharia law, which united politicians, Muslims, Anglicans, Catholics, Hindus, Sikhs and atheists, certain voices were conspicuously absent, at least until today.

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Beyond the grandstanding over President Bush’s visit to Israel this week, there is an even more important concern than over what America may be pushing it to do. This is Israel’s own attitude towards its identity and history and, by extension, its right to exist at all.

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When the BBC then named Jon Mendelsohn, a former chairman of Labour Friends of Israel, as a major actor in the drama, the thought bubble swelled into a lurid neon message that started flashing: ‘Oh no, here we go again’.

And there we did indeed go, and with a vengeance.

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The recent paper written for the Tories by the Conservative Muslim Forum is a deeply troubling document.

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Is the Jewish people capable of defending itself properly? This may seem an absurd question to ask when Israel has created a formidably armed society in an explicit renunciation of the powerlessness of the Jewish diaspora.

But with Israel under internal and external pressure over its decision to designate Gaza a 'hos

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British politics no longer occupies clearly identifiable positions on the ideological compass.

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Is the BBC suffering from some kind of pathological disorder affecting its judgment about Jews? In the wake of Richard Littlejohn’s Channel Four TV programme about antisemitism (which was turned down by the BBC), the BBC Radio Five Live website displayed an entry posted by ‘Iron Naz’ on its ‘message board’—the ja

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Why Britain? As the Jewish community reels under the impact of the boycotts, the wickedly distorted Six-Day War anniversary coverage and the eruption of hatred against Israel, people are asking why this intellectual intifada has surged so strongly in Britain.

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Last week, Jonathan Freedland devoted his entire column to an attack on me.

Published in: Jewish Chronicle