IR Aficionado

Following days of intense clashes between Israeli police and far-right Jewish activists on the one side and Palestinians on the other in East Jerusalem, the tensions between the two sides have escalated with Hamas launching attacks in Israel and Tel Aviv retaliating. The security forces in the Holy City were particularly brutal in their treatment of Palestinian demonstrators against whom the forces wielded stun grenades and rubber bullets. Some videos that showed a gang of police officers setting upon a Palestinian went viral on social media. Things began to spiral out of control when the Israel police chief blocked the area around Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, an area where Palestinians gather after breaking their fast in the holy month of Ramadan. Though the order was revoked subsequently, it sparked protests with Palestinians coming out onto the streets to rail against an ‘alien’ people hurting their sensibilities. East Jerusalem had been under Israeli control since 1967 when Tel Aviv...

                                           One Palestine, Complete by Tom Segev Khalil al Sakakini, a noted Arabic teacher in Jerusalem, is accused of treason and sent off to a prison in Damascus for helping a Jewish insurance agent who was on the run for his life. The year was 1917, the war that had gripped Europe was raging with full ferocity and the Ottoman empire was struggling to save face. Whilst Sakakini awaits the gallows in Damascus, British troops under the command of General Allenby reach Palestine and the Ottomans formally surrender. Sakakini is saved. In 1926, a young man called Yefim Gordin arrives in Palestine from Vilna, hoping to make a living in the ancient Jewish homeland. His verve for Zionism comes into its own with his active participation in the activities of the Battalion for the Defence of Language, the hot-headed organisation that sought to asse...