Simon Kupfer

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Apr 25, 2025, 7:32 AM

How to fix the centrism problem

Demonstrators chant slogans and gather with pictures showing cabinet members in the current Israeli government during a rally against the government's judicial overhaul plan in Tel Aviv on September 23, 2023. (The Jewish Chronicle/Jack Guez/AFP)

Israeli centrism, contrary to popular belief, is not suffering from irrelevance, but from fragmentation. The need for a credible, pragmatic centre has never been greater in a country so utterly divided over issues of religion, democracy, and security. To...

Apr 23, 2025, 12:44 PM

Interfaith dialogue requires more than words

Both Jewish and Muslim leaders sign the Drumlanrig Accord, a landmark agreement signed by prominent Muslim and Jewish leaders in the UK aimed at fostering unity and cooperation between the two communities, in February 2025 in Spencer House, London. (Ahmed J Versi/The Muslim News)

There was a time, fairly recently, when it seemed almost axiomatic that improving Jewish-Muslim relations in Britain was simply a matter of putting in more effort. More dialogue, more hummus, more workshops. But that assumption no longer holds. The war...

Apr 22, 2025, 3:48 PM

The Israeli center cannot hold unless it learns how to fight

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid leads a Yesh Atid faction meeting at the Knesset, in Jerusalem, on July 22, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

For years, center-left Zionists believed peace was inevitable, and arguably, this was their undoing. What's needed are ideas, not slogans

Apr 17, 2025, 11:29 PM

Boehler, the disgraced hostage envoy, now scrambles to backtrack

US hostage envoy Adam Boehler speaks with Al Jazeera in an interview aired on April 17, 2025. (Times of Israel liveblog/YouTube screenshot)

It is hard to overstate the strangeness of the past few weeks in the realm of hostage diplomacy. Reports now confirm that Adam Boehler, the Trump administration's former hostage envoy, made an offer to Hamas earlier this year that...

Apr 15, 2025, 7:33 PM

The NEU has a blind spot for Antisemitism

A National Education Union balloon in London, England. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Each spring, the National Education Union (NEU) gathers for its annual conference. And each spring, education quietly takes a back seat to a different obsession: Israel. The NEU is Britain's largest teaching union, with over 510,000 members. It represents more...

Apr 12, 2025, 1:44 AM

How to legalise terrorism in 106 pages

Riverway Law - L-R lawyers Franck Magennis, Farhad Ansari and Daniel Grutters. (Jewish News/X)

If you appear in court with an application signed by the first chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau, you are the terrorist

Apr 1, 2025, 2:16 PM

The surveillance state comes to campus

An anti-Israel protester wearing a Hamas headband outside the NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, January 6, 2025. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)

Use of private-sector AI technology to reveal protesters' identities amounts to a digital witch hunt to suppress dissent

Mar 31, 2025, 1:43 PM

The six political fires that could sink Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leads a government conference at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on September 27, 2023. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Netanyahu's government rests on a precarious foundation. Since his return to power in 2022, his coalition's survival has depended almost entirely upon a delicate balance between far-right and Haredi parties. Especially now, as the chains that hold his coalition...

Mar 28, 2025, 5:17 PM

The Temple Mount is a ticking time bomb

Visitors to the Temple Mount on January 3, 2023. (Times of Israel/Jamal Awad/Flash90)

The battle for control over the Temple Mount is not solely to do with religion, but with power. We know that it has always been dangerous ground - politically, religiously, literally; all of the above - but such a...

Mar 27, 2025, 2:34 PM

Hamas’ grip on Gaza is slipping fast

Palestinians take part in an anti-Hamas protest, calling for an end to the war with Israel, in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip on March 26, 2025. (Times of Israel/AFP)

The protests in Gaza are nothing short of remarkable. For years since their election - 2006 for the Palestinian legislative elections, 2007 for their military victory over Fatah - Hamas ruled with a brutal efficiency, and public dissent against...

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About Me

English writer exploring Zionism, diaspora, and what makes a democracy. Contributor to the Times of Israel, Haaretz and other platforms.

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