When politics doesn’t need poster children (Guardian)

Stephen Hawking, perhaps the greatest mind of our era, has backed a boycott in protest over the policy of the present Israeli government towards the Palestinians. Hawking’s decision not to attend a conference hosted by Shimon Peres has been greeted with delight by supporters of the boycott campaign. What better way to bolster their argument than a lauded intellectual refusing to stand by in the face of injustice?

The efforts of those who want Israel to be shunned – whether in culture, sport, academia or politics – garner plenty of interest, but never so much as when a celebrity gets on board.

When Hebrew-speaking thespians were invited to the Globe theatre, a chorus including Emma Thompson publicly professed indignation. The debate about Israel hosting next month’s European under-21 football championship went far beyond the blogs following the intervention of Frédéric Kanouté.

Conversely, when Rihanna or Justin Bieber perform in Tel Aviv, they suddenly attract the unlikeliest of fans. Indeed, those against the boycott jumped for joy when it briefly – and incorrectly – seemed that Hawking had cancelled for health, rather than political, reasons.

It’s natural, if you support a cause strongly, to crow when a prominent individual who is listened to far more than the average openly backs your cause. For some – Roger Waters comes to mind – preoccupation with the Israeli-Palestinian situation goes further than a signature, but for many, I’d hazard, wading in one way or the other comes not after years of study of the Middle East.

The famous have as much right as anyone to talk politics and if a prominent individual wishes to back a boycott, or rage against it, he is free to do so. The problem is the activists who seize on them as poster children.

It’s disingenuous, investing one signature with the weight of an entire political approach, and implying that because of a person’s notoriety, their pronouncements are gospel instead of what they are – the views of someone no more or less informed.

Many causes need glitter to get a hearing. The Rohingya Muslims, for example: their plight rarely makes the front page. George Clooney brought Darfur to the world’s attention. You can say plenty about Gaza, but you cannot claim it is ignored by the mainstream media.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is extraordinarily complex. It requires activists with a vested interest to focus on the facts, to aim for more than point-scoring, and consider the real questions – how to end the cycle of violence, for one, and how to educate people on both sides as to why two states is the answer – not which celebrity agrees with them.

What the Middle East desperately needs is dialogue, which is why I believe a boycott cannot offer a constructive approach. The discussion could well benefit from meaningful interventions from intellectuals like Hawking, but these must go beyond headline-grabbing.

This article originally appeared on the Guardian website. Read the original here

Yair Lapid is the kind of pro-peace politician the Middle East is crying out for (Independent)

I joked earlier that Yair Lapid is, essentially, the main character of Aaron Sorkin’s as-yet unwritten series about Israeli politics. By which I did not mean that he would inevitably find the key to the stalemate in the Middle East – as President Bartlet so memorably managed in The West Wing – but that he is attractive, charming, media savvy and media friendly (he is, of course, a former journalist), and that above all, he comes across as largely sincere in his beliefs.

As West Wing fans will know, Sorkin’s politicians tend to be the heroes, championing the right and good. If Lapid comes anywhere close to this, that surely is good news for Israel and for all those who want to see it thrive and build a peaceful, stable future with its neighbours.

On Tuesday Lapid’s Yesh Atid party claimed 19 seats, more than expected and enough to make it the second biggest player. In the run-up to the Israeli election, when Lapid’s chances of winning a substantial number of seats seemed dim, especially against the trajectory of the right-wing, uncompromisingly pro-settlement Naftali Bennet and his Jewish Home party, one of the questions was whether this untested politician could walk the walk quite as well as he could talk the talk.

Lapid is a smooth, modern politician in the Obama mould, able to make rousing speeches and engage with the everyday voter and their concerns. He is corruption-free, comes across as affable, and is well-known to voters by way of a regularly broadcast slot. And like Barack Obama, his perspective has been shaped by his personal story; he too published a memoir, Memories After My Death, telling the tale of his Hungarian immigrant father’s journey.

Israel, in common with most electorates that invest disproportionate faith in the abilities of one individual to transform the political landscape, has been disappointed before. It is not entirely surprising that after various well-intentioned dreamers ultimately failed to bring about real change, many Israelis turned instead to more pragmatic, expedient politicians like Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu.

Yet Lapid, with his commitment to working with both the most staunchly religious and the most ardently secular, and his desire to work not just for a two-state solution but for domestic progress, belongs in that first category. His victory speech – “I hope to change things for the better. For 30 years, this country has been about left versus right. Now we want to change things on the inside: national service, education, housing, a middle class that cannot finish the month” – could have been written by Sorkin, or spoken by Obama.

He is an idealist – a clever, politically attuned one for sure, but he is not a career politician (although in true Israeli style, he is the son of one). Enjoying success and stability as a journalist, he did not have to enter the muddy waters of Israeli politics.

He has not been particularly vocal in terms of foreign policy – although he vowed last year not to join any government opposed to diplomatic negotiations on the peace process – but the consensus is that he is pro-peace, and the suggestion is that he is at least aware of international opinion and how Israel can damage itself with settlements or stubbornness.

That is not to say he is only a naïve dreamer; he is aware there is no perfect solution – “we’re not looking for a happy marriage with the Palestinians, but for a divorce agreement we can live with” – but appears at least to believe an imperfect one is possible.

Perhaps Lapid is no different from the scores of other ambitious and self-serving politicians who have gone before him, flying in on an “outsider” tagline only to become as “insider” as the rest. Perhaps – and as yet it is unclear whether he will enter the coalition or become the main opposition player – all the hopes and aspirations shared on the campaign trail, from drafting the strictly Orthodox into army service to building a fairer economy, will disintegrate once the messy business of governing gets in the way.

Only time will tell. But, after months of scaremongering about a sharp rightward turn for Israel, it can only be positive that a moderate centrist who still believes in all that “hopey changey” stuff has emerged as kingmaker. For a country founded on the dreams of figures like Theodor Herzl, Rav Kook and David Ben Gurion, Lapid’s rise can only be a good thing for Israel and for the wider region.

To see the original and read the comments, click here.

My two weeks in writing

I started last week with an interview with up-and-coming band Haim, just named the BBC’s Sound of 2013 and set for stardom. The singers – three sisters – revealed their love of Streisand and told of how reporters often mispronounced their surname.

In more serious news, I did a special report on the efforts to stem sex trafficking in Israel, which have been a resounding success. Labour MP Frank Field and former Conservative MP Anthony Steehttps://jenniferlipman.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php?post_type=postn urged Britain to adopt many of the strategies that have been used so effectively there. This week I also commissioned a follow-up comment piece on what still needs to be done to challenge other forms of trafficking in Israel.

I reported on Labour pinpointing its key battleground constitencies for 2015, wrote about a controversial ban on non-Jewish names on the grave of an Orthodox man in Leeds, and spoke to Holocaust survivors ahead of the airing of a documentary by filmmaker Daisy Asquith. And, taking a look at the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, I heard about a woman who has been donating free sheitels – wigs for Orthodox women used for modesty purposes – to those who lost almost everything.

This week I also reported on a fabulously gothic Victorian drama – the story of the only policeman ever to have been killed in his office, bludegoned to death by a suspect being questioned for stealing a roll of carpet – and the move to honour him with a plaque. I also recorded ElAl’s decision to add a large number of flights out of Luton, and wrote about a push to encourage more Jewish teachers to engage with unions.

My three weeks in writing

What with Christmas and new year, I’ve been very lax at updating this. But the past few weeks haven’t been entirely quiet, and the stories that I’ve worked on have included the PCC’s ruling on the Guardian cartoon about Gaza, and the death of the man believed to be the last surviving Briton to have fought Franco. I also delved into the fascinating world of medieval astrology and found out about astrolabes – devices use to study the cosmos – and the work being done to learn more about them.

I contributed a feature on a programme bringing teenagers from around Europe together to learn leadership skills, after meeting the group for an event at the House of Commons, and, staying with parliament, investigated how many Early Day Motions were instigated on the subject of Israel in the last year. The result: 21, at a cost of £6,000 to the taxpayer.

I indulged my inner West Wing fan by writing about Josh Malina’s unusual fundraising method, and covered the news that Francesca Segal’s novel The Innocents – which I reviewed last year, as you can read here – had won its category for the Costa Prize.

With the new year came the Honours List, which we trawled through in order to speak to as many recipients as we could find. Without fail, each one said something along the lines of not deserving it, but being delighted – humility that perhaps shows why they have reached the list in the first place. I also covered the remarkable project carried out by an artistic teenager, who sketched a drawing a day based on current events for the whole of 2012.

Meanwhile in comment, I wrote on how we must not lose sight of what Israel represents and what it should be striving for, and was delighted to feature academic Tony Klug on the essay page with a piece on the two-state solutions and intransigence among leaders.

Having interviewed him last year, my piece on stage and film legend Jack Garfein went in. He was a fascinating subject to interview and I thoroughly enjoyed my times speaking to him.

My two weeks in writing

Last week’s newspaper was mainly taken up by coverage of the fighting between Israel and Hamas, and each day was spent posting up-to-date reports and news on our website. In the paper, I reported on Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell’s response to the escalating fighting in the region, which many criticised for drawing on long-established antisemitic tropes.

In more light-hearted news, I rounded-up the annual Jewish Film Festival, which it’s director said had been the best year yet, and spoke to a man whose long-lost great-uncle had been a Hollywood filmmaker in the era of the silent picture.

In Comment, I was delighted to commission Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan, to look at how other countries than Israel have responded to similar threats on their doorsteps. And I wrote a piece sharing my thoughts and opinions on the situation in Israel, arguing that while there are strong emotions on either side, balance is important.

“Mothers on both sides are seeing their children caught up in a war they did not seek. Recognising that does not draw a moral equivalence between the two sides, or absolve Hamas of responsibility for actions that triggered another devastating battle.

We can highlight where the media has fallen short and we can question a paper for printing a cartoon reproducing established antisemitic tropes, without rejecting every uncomfortable report. We can stand up for Israel and make the case for its right to protect its people – and still acknowledge the tragedy of war. For Israel’s sake, we must.”

As the week turned into the next, I reported on a Lords debate about religion, in which the Chief Rabbi suggested that faith could “act as a counter voice to the siren song of a culture that sometimes seems to value self over others”.

I also interviewed advertising star Nicola Mendelsohn, about her recent appointment as chair of the Creative Industries Council and found out why she believes the arts are so important to this country.

Continuing on the theme of culture, I reported on the plans to open an indoor Jacobean theatre beside Shakespeare’s Globe, and followed up on Beth Alexander’s ongoing campaign for custody of her two young sons in Vienna. And in what I hope is the last installment of my coverage of Batsheva’s UK tour, I spoke to Dance Consortium about why it has been one of their most successful tours yet.

My two weeks in writing

I’ve been abroad for a week, despite the best efforts of a superstorm to stop my flight from reaching the other side of the Atlantic. While I was in New York, I briefly covered the view on the street ahead of the presidential election, finding mainly that voters were somewhat disillusioned with Obama but not wildly keen on Romney either. In keeping with the spirit of the election, I also wrote a piece for Optima ahead of the vote, assessing the position of First Ladies in US political culture.

Elsewhere, I wrote about a shoe designer who truly is deserving of the label “fabulous” for his creations that resemble just about anything – anything, that is, except for shoes themselves. My personal favourite? The coffee cup stilettos; surely worth getting up and out for.

I reported on the protests against the Batsheva ensemble as the Israeli dancers began their national tour, and covered laughable comments from Lib Dem MP Sir Bob Russell, who professed his desire to see Israeli medicines labelled. But, he explained, he had no problem using them to make himself better, if need be. A coherent approach, that one.

And in an enjoyable interview with Dr Giles Fraser, the reverend told me about his agonising efforts to learn the Hebrew language; a skill I have not yet mastered to a level beyond very basic.

My week in writing

This week was our Rosh Hashanah issue, a bumper edition for the New Year.

I spent part of the week working on a follow-up to the story broken by my former colleague Jessica Elgot last year, about the historic approach to the burial of stillborn babies by synagogue authorities.

A year on, it was wonderful to find out how attitudes have changed and see first-hand that parents have been able to erect memorials after discovering the truth of where their children were buried. It is still unspeakably heartbreaking to see rows of graves for babies who never got a chance to live, but it is undoubtedly right that the families can mark those they lost in this way.

This week I also wrote about the MPs using the legacy of the Iraq war to draw conclusions about the Iranian threat, a boost to scientific collaboration between Britain and Israel and the decision to honour the founder of the Paralympic Games by naming a medical clinic in the Olympic Village after him. When I interviewed Sir Ludwig Guttmann’s daughter earlier this summer, she told me how proud her father would have been to see his dream realised in the city where it all began. If there is one (non-athletic) legacy of London hosting the Games, it is that the phenomenal story of a refugee who changed so many lives has been widely acknowledged.

I blogged about conspiracy theories, Mossad and the tragic Al-Hilli murder, concluding that “questions are not the same as ancient conspiracy theories, rolled out time and again to point a finger at the Jews”. With rumours swirling this week that the filmmaker behind the film denigrating Mohammed was Sam Bacile, an Israeli Jew – rumours that of course turned out to be nothing but a slur, with the producer identified as a Coptic Christian from California – this is sadly a point that needs reinforcing.

In Comment this week, I expressed my despair over the endless cycle of boycotts and protests that occurs, it seems, whenever an Israeli artist or performer is invited to Britain. I was also pleased to feature an essay by the British ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould, in which he argued that Israel must fight a battle of hearts and minds for the British centre. Perhaps the most poignant paragraph was when he remarked: “I wish I did not have to address the threats to Israel or reaffirm that Britain believes in Israel’s existence and legitimacy – the British envoy to Sweden never has to say that we support Sweden’s right to exist.” If only the Middle East could get beyond arguments of existence to work for concrete progress and a two-state solution. The costs of failing to do so are only to clear; this week we ran my interview with Marsha Gladstone, whose teenage son was killed by a suicide bomb on a bus in Tel Aviv ten years ago this month.

Last but not least, on Friday I received a lovely thank you letter from Lord Janner, following my interview with him about his work to transform Holocaust education in this country. He’s an inspirational figure and it was a pleasure to speak to him.

London 2012: one minute to remember 11 Munich athletes – too much to ask?

Seriously, in between all the running, jumping, swimming and sprinting, the Olympic organisers can’t spare one measly minute to remember 11 men murdered for daring to compete for their country?

You mean to tell me that there’s no room for a brief interlude during Danny Boyle’s opening extravaganza – not even when the rain is coming down from his fluffy fake clouds? Or during one of the minor events, the ones the organisers are practically giving away tickets to?

It is 40 years this summer since Ankie Spitzer’s husband, Andre, then a promising fencer, was murdered along with 10 other Israeli athletes who had come to Munich with dreams of medals, not massacre. In Olympic history, the terrible events of September 1972 remain a dark day in a back catalogue of glorious achievement.

Earlier this year Spitzer launched an appeal for the IOC to support a minute’s silence at the games in memory of the 11 who died, as happened in Vancouver as a tribute to another athlete who died in tragic circumstances.

Some 87,000 have backed her petition, as have myriad politicians and public figures, among them the German government, the US Senate and shadow Olympics minister Tessa Jowell.

Yet the IOC says no. Jeremy Hunt, the culture, media and sport minister, has refused to give his two pennies’ worth. Meanwhile Lord Coe, chair of the London Organising Committee, displayed extraordinary tactlessness in his response to Spitzer, inviting her to a memorial event she herself is organising. He has now agreed to hold a “personal” memorial during the opening ceremony, but it’s a concession that has taken far too long to make.

The Olympics are fundamentally about bringing people together, not dividing them along political lines, which is why Syrian show jumper Ahmad Hamsho can compete, despite his proclaimed loyalty to a government that is steadily butchering its people.

It’s why the Olympics were held in China, a country not known for its all-round dedication to human rights. It’s why the Saudis get to field a team, despite their reluctance to give women their turn. It’s why Iran’s hopefuls – a number of whom have in the past outright refused to compete against Israelis – get the benefit of the doubt and can still go for gold.

Now it would be naive to presume an international competition, even one that is supposedly above the rivalries of state governments, could be held in a vacuum. Athletes will arrive later this month at Heathrow, bringing with (assuming Britain’s airports can cope) more than just the baggage of their sports equipment.

Still, the Olympic charter is clear on prejudice, namely, that “any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic movement”.

But what is the IOC’s stubbornness if not discrimination? What if the athletes killed in 1972 had been American, or French, say? Would we still be having this debate?

It seems clear that the IOC is worried about rocking the boat, angering Arab nations by honouring men who were killed by Palestinian terrorists. It’s afraid to take Israel’s side; it does not see it as a gamble worth the cost.

There doesn’t have to be pomp, there doesn’t have to be ceremony. Just 60 seconds of quiet. Usain Bolt could run the 100 metres 10 times over, but the rest of us wouldn’t get much done. It’s such a tiny symbol, negligible in the many, many moments that will make up the Olympics.

Yet it could be an opportunity for the Olympics to live up to its lofty ideals, to promote tolerance and educate a new generation about one of the bleakest points in the competition’s history. And, ultimately, it could come and go, making a difference to those who care, but offering a tea break for those who don’t.

The Olympic charter claims that the games “are competitions between athletes in individual or team events and not between countries”. So let’s follow that lead, and remember 11 men, not as Israelis, but as athletes.

This comment piece was first published by the Guardian. Read it here

‘Philharmonic Four’ in Proms protest should not have mentioned the LPO (The Telegraph)

There is an episode of The West Wing in which President Josiah Bartlet gets into trouble over green beans. Word gets out that he is not a fan of the legume, and soon the White House is fielding calls from aggrieved bean producers.

His press secretary, CJ, spends hours wrangling with the problem. How can she get around it? He just doesn’t like them, she says. He’s speaking on his own behalf, not America’s.

The suspension of four London Philharmonic musicians for signing a letter of protest about the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra at the Proms brought the beans to mind.

Scarcely a day goes by without somebody, somewhere, calling for a boycott of Israel. Sometimes they want the rest of the world to take a stand on buying Israeli goods or to stop co-operating with Israeli academics and trade unionists. At other times, they simply want to say no to Israel itself.

Their default position – that Israel is such a lost cause that no good can come from working with any of its parts – makes me feel depressed, as does its reverse: when supporters of Israel say there is no hope for a two-state solution. It’s like a builder turning up at a construction site without any tools; how can you change something if you won’t engage with it?

This comment piece was first published in the Telegraph. Read the rest of it here.

September 11: waking up a generation to terrorism (The JC)

It was Tuesday afternoon and school was out. It had been an odd day. We’d had some kind of ‘skills workshop’, with the positive outcome that I had no homework. My sister drove us home, music blaring.

As we pulled up, my mum was on the doorstep, a concerned expression on her face. “They’ve hit the Twin Towers,” she said.

I should have been more shocked. I was, later, when I’d watched the looping footage of the buildings collapsing, or people jumping from burning floors without a hope of survival. I woke up even more to what had happened the following month when I visited New York for the first time and saw smoking metal being transported away from Ground Zero and missing person posters staring hopelessly across the city.

But I was 14, more interested in who was at number one in the charts than the number one news story. I didn’t have any context for what had just happened.

There were people who hated us – it turned out quite a few

I knew about terrorism but mostly in the context of Israel, where the Second Intifada had been waging for a year. But Israel was the exception, the only place I went or knew people where such things were real.

New York – America – was an exciting place I wanted to visit, not somewhere despised by the non-Western world. War happened in other places. News only occurred in isolated events and really terrible things were consigned to history.

For my generation – the millenials, the kids born in the 1980s – 9/11 was a turning point. Before, our worlds were largely about hope; we’d only experienced peace. Wide-scale tragedy was famine or earthquakes. Things happened because of natural disaster or poverty, not the deliberate actions of man.

This comment piece was first published in The Jewish Chronicle. Read the rest of it here.