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In Brief: Hezbollah boasts of 100,000 fighters amid Lebanese unrest

Posted 21 October, 2021 in Analysis, Antisemitism, Hezbollah, Incitement, Iran, Israel, Middle East
Hezbollah fighters at a ceremony. Image Credit: Ali Khamenei, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. The leader of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist group, Hassan Nasrallah, boasted this week that he commands 100,000 fighters. Experts estimate that the claimed figure, which exceeds the size of Lebanon’s army, is almost certainly an exaggeration of the more likely figure of…

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In Brief: Israeli govt ends residency freeze for 4,000 Palestinians

Posted 21 October, 2021 in Analysis, Coexistence, Israel, Israeli Politics, Palestinian Territories, Peace process
Benny Gantz. Image Credit: U.S. Secretary of Defense, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Israel announced this week that it had officially legalised the status of 4,000 Palestinians in the West Bank, ending a decade-long freeze in which almost no requests were authorised under Benjamin Netanyahu. The move was part of the government’s ongoing effort, led by…

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In Brief: Israeli officials express concern over rise in settler crimes

Posted 21 October, 2021 in Analysis, Coexistence, Israel, Israeli Politics, Palestinian Territories
Israeli police in Lod. Credit: Israel Police, CC BY-SA 3.0. Israeli defence officials have expressed concern over a dramatic rise in hate crimes and violence by Jewish nationalists in the past two years. Most of the perpetrators appear to be West Bank settlers. Ynet news found that hate crimes increased significantly in 2020 compared with 2019, with a…

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Westminster Hall Debate on Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA

Posted 21 October, 2021 in Analysis, Hezbollah, Iran, Israel, Labour Party, Middle East, News
LFI chair Steve McCabe MP. In the first week back after the conference recess, parliamentarians debated Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA nuclear deal in a Westminster Hall Debate organised by Stephen Crabb. A refresher The JCPOA, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was agreed in 2015 after some 20 months of negotiations. Signed in Vienna, the…

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In Brief: Iranian supreme leader’s representative calls for Israel’s destruction

Posted 5 October, 2021 in Analysis, Antisemitism, Iran, Israel, Middle East
Ayatollah Khamenei. Image Credit: Tasnim News, CC BY 4.0. Lotfallah Dezhkam, the representative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Fars province, called for the destruction of Israel in a sermon in Shiraz last week. The clerical firebrand declared, “the global arrogance led by America with complicity of Israel seeks to delay the realisation of [...] the destruction…

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In Brief: Israeli ministers meet with PA to “keep two-state solution alive”

Posted 5 October, 2021 in Analysis, Coexistence, Israel, Israeli Politics, Middle East, Palestinian Territories, Peace process
Nitzan Horowitz > Heinrich-Boll-Stiftung, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Two Israeli ministers from the left-wing Meretz party, Nitzan Horowitz and Isawi Frej, met with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday night. Health minister Horowitz said his party was working to “keep the two-state solution alive” within Israel’s new coalition government, which is led by right-wing…

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In Brief: Iraqi notables call for diplomatic normalisation with Israel

Posted 5 October, 2021 in Analysis, Coexistence, Israel, Middle East, Peace process
Iraq base map > ERCC Portal, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. More than 300 prominent Iraqis made an unprecedented plea for regional reconciliation on 25 September, as they called for their country to normalise ties with Israel. “We demand full diplomatic relations with the State of Israel […] and a new policy of normalisation based on…

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Analysis: Capacity crowd as LFI makes full return to Labour conference

Posted 5 October, 2021 in Analysis, Antisemitism, Israel, Labour Party, Middle East
Labour Friends of Israel fully returned to Labour party conference for the first time since 2018 last week, as thousands of parliamentarians, delegates and members descended on Brighton for the first physical conference of Keir Starmer’s leadership. Main takeaways The 2021 conference was a huge success for LFI, with an overwhelmingly positive response on our stall and…

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In Brief: Iranian revolutionary guards boast of their power

Posted 22 September, 2021 in Analysis, Antisemitism, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Israel, Middle East
Ayatollah Khamenei. Image Credit: Tasnim News, CC BY 4.0. Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC), boasted that Iran had “built power” to confront the US this week. “We have built power to defeat the US. When we build power [to confront] man’s largest military empire, i.e. the US, small powers like the Zionist…

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In Brief: Israel and Sweden renew ties after seven-year freeze

Posted 22 September, 2021 in Analysis, Israel, Israeli Politics, Peace process
Swedish prime minister Stefan Lofven. Image Credit: Indian Prime Minister's Office, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. The foreign ministers of Israel and Sweden held their first phone call in seven years on Monday, in a move one Israeli diplomat called a “relaunching of relations” after a lengthy period of tension. Yair Lapid spoke with his Swedish counterpart…

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