An estimated 250,000 people took to the streets of Tel Aviv last Friday to celebrate the city’s 21st annual Pride parade. The event is one of the few Pride events in the Middle East outside of Israel, and is the eighth largest in the world. The parade marked the culmination Read more…
Israel is undoubtedly a pioneer in the region of LGBT rights in the region with leading LGBT members of the Knesset such as Labor’s Itzik Shmuli playing a prominent role in public life. Similarly, Tel Aviv pride, which takes place this week, has grown from a few dozen protesters to Read more…
This op-ed first appeared in the Jewish News, click here to view the original. Many of us have never needed convincing about just how dangerous Hezbollah is. That’s why – alongside Jewish communal organisations and colleagues from across the House of Commons – we campaigned to have this antisemitic terror group proscribed Read more…
Following reports that the UK security services in 2015 foiled an plot by Hezbollah agents in the UK, LFI chair Joan Ryan has written to Home Secretary Sajid Javid expressing concern about the withholding of information about the plot from both the public and parliament. Until February of this year, Read more…
Israel will go to the polls on 17 September – less than six months after Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to win April’s general election – following an unprecedented political stalemate. As the midnight deadline to negotiate a new coalition approached last Wednesday, the Knesset voted by 74 to 45 to dissolve Read more…
LFI Focus provides a periodic analysis on Israel-Palestine, providing an in-depth view of the issues that affect the region. This edition focuses on the fall-out from Israel’s election in September 2019. You can read it here. There is also an accompanying analysis of the competing parties. Click here to read Read more…
Labour Friends of Israel is launching ‘Speakers for a Two-State Solution’, a grassroots initiative for activists to lead discussions in the Labour party and centre-left groups about how to bring a peaceful end to the conflict in the Middle East. LFI is providing training and resources to ensure activists feel Read more…
Israel appears to be edging towards a general election – less than two months after Benjamin Netanyahu was re-elected on 9 April. With the deadline to form a new coalition government fast approaching on Wednesday night, the prime minister’s effort to secure a Knesset majority appears to have stalled. For Read more…
The German parliament last week passed a motion condemning as antisemitic the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. The motion was the joint initiative of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and centre-left Social Democrat party, and was backed by the Greens and the centrist Free Democrats. Entitled “Resist the Read more…
Israelis and Palestinians have already paid a high price for the mounting tensions between Iran and the United States. According to The Times this week, “a key meeting” was recently held in Beirut between Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s Al-Quds Brigade, and Ziyad al-Nakhalah, leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Read more…
A weekend of violence – in which nearly 700 rockets, missiles and mortars were fired from Gaza towards Israel, purposefully targeting Israeli civilians – has given way this week to a tense ceasefire. Four Israeli civilians were killed and 142 were injured, including four in critical condition. Palestinian medical officials reported Read more…
“Small country, big dreams” read the sign affixed to the Israeli spacecraft Beresheet, which last month entered lunar orbit before crashing during its attempted landing. Despite the failure to land on the moon, Israel still became the seventh – and by far the smallest – country in the world to bring Read more…