Alex Benjamin, at The Blogs

May 11, 2021, 5:58 PM

Israel is an apartheid state. Coming from the director of Europe Israel Public Affairs here in Brussels and a proud Zionist and Jew, that’s an odd statement to make. The literal translation of Apartheid is aparthood. Kept separate. And...

Jan 31, 2021, 1:05 PM

A Terror Fighter We Don’t Know, But Should

In Europe, life is finally getting tougher for Hezbollah. For decades the group has used the continent to stage and fund its terror attacks, and last year they started to face proper scrutiny in Europe’s capitals. In 2020 alone,...

Dec 17, 2020, 4:39 PM

Featured Post

The ordinariness of Auschwitz

Memorial ceremony marking 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz With the first vice president of the European Parliament and the chief Rabbi and chairman of Yad Vashem Rabbi Israel Lau
Posted by European Jewish Association on Tuesday, January 21, 2020

The Gates of Hell have a parking lot, a nearby pizzeria, and students in tight jeans and UGG boots chewing gum, waiting to have a look inside

Sep 28, 2018, 12:54 PM

Peter and Paul

Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Many of us know this expression, but not its origin from 16th-century England, when part of the estate of Saint Peter's Cathedral in Westminster was appropriated to pay for repairs to Saint Paul's in London. That brief trivia...

May 16, 2018, 1:43 PM

Einstein’s definition and the Nakba

We Jews know a thing or two about displacement. Rabbi Margolin, the EJA Chairman and founder made the point succinctly recently at an event marking the 7Oth Anniversary of Israel’s independence. His ancestors for successive generations lived in Poland,...

May 11, 2018, 5:31 PM

Is ‘not our problem’ really the EU answer to deal with Iran’s bullying?

I usually try and inject a bit of levity into what are serious topics, but this week let’s dispense with the pleasantries and get straight into it. If anyone not connected to Israel was of the view that the...

May 4, 2018, 12:38 PM

Will straight up Jew-hating hit Abbas in the pocket ? Not from the EU it won’t.

Well, this is awkward. The European Institutions are trying -- quite creatively as it happens given the difficult structures of their budget rules- to find ways of pulling the ‘illiberal democracies’ of certain Eastern European Member States into line by...

Apr 13, 2018, 4:37 PM

Why we must always ‘use’ the Holocaust

In 2007 Israel carried out ‘Operation outside of the box’ -- using the Begin doctrine of preventative first-strikes -- in Syria, taking out a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor. This operation was hitherto never publically acknowledged until very recently, although...

Feb 28, 2018, 3:10 PM

BDS and the Polish Holocaust bill: A lesson in blatant EU inconsistency

This morning (Wednesday), according to reports, a Polish delegation headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Bartosz Cichocki will arrive in Israel to attempt to reach an understanding regarding the wording of the controversial Polish Holocaust Law which has sparked a diplomatic crisis between the...

About Me

Alex Benjamin is the director of EIPA, a multi-disciplined pro-Israel advocacy Group based in Brussels, with offices in Paris and Berlin. He is also the Director of Public Affairs for EJA: European Jewish Association, a Brussels based NGO which represents and acts on behalf of Jewish communities across the EU and wider European continent, at the heart of the European Institutions and at bilateral level with Member States.