Article by Michael Brenner

“Betrayal” is the appropriate word to describe what the ruling coalition in Israel is doing to the spirit of Zionism. While we hope that the end of the war in Gaza will be an opportunity for Israel to get off this slippery slope, German historian of Zionism Michael Brenner reminds us here what the founding fathers, across the political spectrum, had in mind when they envisioned the creation of a democratic Jewish state.

Can the fight against antisemitism be anything other than a parody when it is organized by the far right? By inviting members of Europe’s authoritarian and xenophobic right to parade on the stage of its “International Conference on Combating Antisemitism”, the Israeli Ministry of the Diaspora has committed a serious political error, which rings like a betrayal of its mission. Here, Michael Brenner reports on the drift represented by this move and the trap into which it is locking Jews.