Alan Johnson, at The Blogs

Jun 18, 2021, 2:52 PM

Luciana Berger and Labour antisemitism: A reply to Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn and Joel Rosen at in a discussion Cambridge (Via Jewish News)

Speaking to Cambridge University Debating Society last week, the former Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn was asked why he had not acted to prevent the Jewish Labour MP Luciana Berger (Liverpool Wavertree) being hounded out of the party in 2019. ‘Luciana was not hounded out...

Jan 13, 2021, 11:48 AM

Apartheid smear damages debate and the peace process

A Palestinian boy looks behind a wall separating Jewish part and Palestinian part of the West Bank. (Jewish News picture - AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Hagai El Ad says Israel is an “Apartheid state” (‘We are Israel’s largest human rights group – and we are calling this apartheid’, The Guardian, 12 January). Is that true? No. “Apartheid” is the Dutch-Afrikaans term for separation, used to describe the racial segregation and...

Apr 23, 2020, 4:25 PM

Leaked Labour antisemitism report shows the community was right all along

Jeremy Corbyn during a BBC interview. (Photo credit: Jeff Overs/BBC/PA Wire via Jewish News)

In April 2019 I wrote a 30,000 word Fathom report, ‘Institutionally Antisemitic: Contemporary Left Antisemitism and the Crisis in the British Labour Party’. I wanted to wait until I had read all 851 pages of this new (leaked and shamefully unredacted) report before commenting. As...

Nov 27, 2019, 12:50 PM

The five forms of antisemitism denial Labour must tackle

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn at the launch of the Labour Party race and faith manifesto (Photo credit: Joe Giddens/PA Wire)

‘A mendacious fiction’ the Chief Rabbi thundered, questioning Labour’s claim to have seriously tackled antisemitism in the party. In my 2019 report, ‘Institutionally Antisemitic: Contemporary Left Antisemitism and the Crisis in the British Labour Party‘ I was a little more wordy. I identified Labour’s culture...

Jan 15, 2017, 12:31 PM

Showing up to defend Israel’s right to exist (not lying in bed)

Why am I speaking at an academic conference on Israel’s right to exist at University College Cork (UCC) in March? After all, ‘International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Exceptionalism and Responsibility’ is the conference cancelled two years ago by Southampton University following protests...

Jun 15, 2016, 3:45 PM

From Cable Street to Raed Saleh, Labour must understand anti-Semitism has shape-shifted

The Labour Party Inquiry into antisemitism is due to report before the end of June. Everything depends on the Inquiry team understanding what it is dealing with: almost never old-fashioned Jew hatred, almost always antisemitic anti-Zionism – i.e. a programme to abolish Israel, a movement...

Jun 13, 2016, 6:31 PM

The twisted distortions of Ken Livingstone’s favourite ‘historian’

In the latest edition of Fathom, the quarterly journal of the think tank BICOM, Paul Bogdanor demolishes Ken Livingstone’s favourite ‘historian’ Lenni Brenner. The US controversialist was the authority cited by the former London mayor to justify his “Hitler was a Zionist” outburst that escalated...

May 15, 2016, 9:16 AM

Alternative to demonisation of Israel on campus

This is the introduction to We Believe in Israel’s booklet “Zionism, Israel and the Palestinians: towards a constructive debate”, published this week. In it, Professor Alan Johnson, senior research fellow at BICOM, tackles issues around the Israel/Palestine debate in the UK including the apartheid smear...

Sep 29, 2015, 1:56 PM

It Has to be Two: New book says no alternative to two states for two peoples

In his essay How to Talk to a Fanatic, Amos Oz wrote in praise of compromise. The fanatics on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – the ‘walking exclamation marks’ as he called them – offer only more death, while compromise, in the form of the...

Mar 10, 2014, 6:45 PM

BDS bullies at Galway University

Dissecting the reasons behind the shocking behavior of BDS activists who shouted down a pro-Israel speech

About Me

Professor Alan Johnson is the Editor of Fathom: for a deeper understanding of Israel and the region and Senior Research Fellow at the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM).