A word of advice for wannabe newspaper columnists: if you want an editor to give up precious column inches to entertain your opinions, don’t be vanilla. Any publication worth its salt wants writers who provoke – even anger – to keep the title engaging and spark healthy debate on the letters page. When it comes to columnists, only knickerbocker Continue reading

He lost the plot years ago, but Ken Livingstone still hasn’t lost his party. On Tuesday night the man whose favourite obsessions, alongside his newts, are offending Jews and mentioning the war, avoided being kicked out of Labour for delivering the ultimate double whammy: claiming Adolf Hitler supported Zionism “before he went mad and ended up killing six million Continue reading

There are powerful parallels to be drawn between the unlikely transformation of an IRA terrorist turned peacemaker and the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Martin McGuinness was a cold-blooded killer, guilty of unspeakable crimes, whose journey from gunman to statesman saw him shake hands with the Queen and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with erstwhile foe Ian Paisley. Yet for all Continue reading

Today’s column is brought to you by the letter ‘J’ for jihad and number 72 for virgins in paradise. Once upon a time there was a little mouse called Farfour [Mickey’s copyright infringing twin], star of a children’s show called Tomorrow’s Pioneers on Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV. Farfour loved to tell all the boys and girls Continue reading

Complaints about the British media’s reporting on Israel are, of course, nothing new. But this week, as we witness Jews randomly slaughtered in the street by psychopathic Palestinians armed with kitchen knives, screwdrivers and vegetable peelers, the coverage has never seemed quite so chilling, so ignorant, so utterly, wilfully wrongheaded. To the casual reader or viewer, Continue reading

So it’s congratulations to Bethnal Green schoolgirl Amira Abase and her “ginger jihadi” sweetheart Abdullah Elmir on the occasion of their wedding. After all the anguish over Amira and her pals fleeing Blighty to join ISIS during half-term, finally we have the happy ending we’ve waited for. Romance isn’t dead, although the groom hopefully soon will be. MPs Continue reading

No words do justice to the debt civilisation owes Sir Nicholas Winton, so I’ll attempt very few. Sir Nicky, who passed away last week at the ripe old age of 106, was the great British hero of mankind’s darkest hour. He saved 669 precious children from Hitler, who boarded eight trains from Austria and Czechoslovakia bound for Liverpool Continue reading

It’s tricky knowing what to do with the kids at the weekend. Petting zoo? Soft play? Well, this Saturday we’re trying something different – we’re going to see some real-life Nazis. [“Yes, sweetheart. These men are silly pooh-pooh heads! No, darling. I don’t think their arms are stuck in that position.”] It seems like something Continue reading

If proof was needed of the impact and timeliness of Monday’s inaugural Jewish News Israel Policy Conference, it arrived within seconds of the start when the event’s Twitter hashtag #UKIsrael2015 began trending nationwide – alongside ‘#TaylorSwift’ and ‘#LorraineKelly’. Watch Richard Ferrer’s opening address HERE The day, which saw 40 major speakers arrive in Parliament to address Continue reading

So here I am again, moping around another Nazi concentration camp. Why do I keep taking these hellish trips? To Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Plaszów and today Bergen Belsen, as part of a UK delegation marking the 70th anniversary of the camp’s liberation by the British army. Is it a sense of duty? Morbid fascination? To Continue reading