At Rosh Hashanah – Jewish New Year – 2011 the Jewish Chronicle gathered 5 people for a discussion on being Jewish in Britain. For our coming secular New Year, we post this round-table which ranges, calmly and crossly, over identity, Israel, God, anti-semitism, parenthood, judgmentalism, Palestine, the diaspora and much else.

President Shimon Peres has added his voice to the thousands who have rallied in defence of the right of girls and women to move and mix freely in public space. Like the settlers, the Haredim are now using violence against police as well as neighbours they disapprove of in order to get their own rule enforced.

Israel’s minister for information, who is active in the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism, has denounced all Arabs as deplorable, damaged, worthless. Ben White reports, Yossie Gurvitz adds and definitions of a few words are offered

Hannah Arendt, 1906-75, was a rare philosopher who combined deep grounding in the classics with an acute and lively appreciation of contemporary politics, 1st. Her sceptical inquiries into Zionism, Israel, nationalism, what constitutes a people remain provocative as shown in Judith Butler’s review of her Jewish Writings, 2nd

The uniqueness of the holocaust of Jews in Europe has long been the mainstay of Israeli ideology, beyond discussion or comparison. Now the Knesset is considering appointing another holocaust memorial day – for the Armenian people systematically killed by Turks 1915-18. Why? because Turkey is Israel’s ‘new enemy says Richard Silverstein.

In a interview with AP, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal (or Meshal) speaks in favour of two-state soution and the ‘tsunami’ power of non-v iolent popular protest. The interview took place in Cairo where Hamas and Fatah are having unity talks

At huge expene Israel is creating a new map of the West Bank through separate Israeli/Paleinian roads and checkpoints. The hub of the new lines of division is Jerusalem whose Palestinian residents will now come under the authority of the Civil Administration instead of the Jerusalem muicipality.

Jews for Justice for Palestinians greet all our readers at this festive season and hope that it will usher in a time of peace and justice for all

Hannukkah or Chanukah, the festival of lights commemorating the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem in 165 BCE after the Maccabees’ victory over the Greeks, and conveniently close to Christmas, prompts some iconoclastic, critical, devotional and comic responses. Anshel Pfeffer, Robert Cohen and Anon.

A Jerusalem court last Thursday ruled against the claim by Elad, a settler organisation, that Palestinian homes in E. Jerusalem belonged to them. Besides this small victory, property seizures and demolitions continue to make space for, amongst othr things, car parking and a new Israeli National Security College

In an assessment of Hamas at 24, Ramzy Baroud ponders the dilemma for an organisation whose popularity depends on showing the symbols of resistance but which also wants to come in from the cold . Reuters reports Hamas is in talks to join the PLO.

UPDATE: MUSEE DE L’ELYSEE SUSPENDS PRIZE BECAUSE SANSOUR EXCLUDED. From Tuesday – London-based Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour, whose work explores Palestinian lives through science fiction modes, was shortisted for the Lacoste Elysee Prize – until the French fashion firm demanded her work be removed as ‘too pro-Palestinian’. Lacoste’s anxiety about its brand was last evident when it tried to stop Anders Breivik appearing in court in Lacoste clothes.

A new drive against ‘normalisation’ (see also the BDS conference posting below) has forced the cancellation of a long-planned Palestine Israel Journal conference on the Arab Spring. 2nd, Gershon Baskin,queries the value of this move.

Academics from universities in half a dozen countries have signed a petition to Israel’s Council for Higher Education asking that they protect the politics department of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The Risse committee recommended its closure for bias – too pro-activist and anti-Zionist..

What did the summer’s social protest movement change? It was lauded for engaging a new generation in issues of equality and justice in Israel proper, but criticised for refusing to consider the Occupation. Avner Inbar looks back at the ‘airlessness and helplessness’ which J14 dispelled – and the oblivion that crippled it.

Controversial blogger Muhammad Jabali insists on recognizing the reality behind a right of return of all Arabs to all the states of the region whence they came and behind the Jewish Israeli myth of the new man in a secular society

The third annual conference of the Palestinian branch of the BDS movement was held in Hebron last Saturday, 17th December. Debates among the 450 participants debated encouraging, discouraging and difficult aspects of the campaign. Different reports from IMEMC and PNN, plus brief news on a London BDS event last month

Forbidden by law from saying anything which may be construed as supporting BDS, Israeli journalists are barred from public participation in this debate A video of Haaretz journalist Amira Hass speaking on the issue in Toronto raises many key issues about BDS as an effective political strategy

For Palestinians, the growth of violent settler gangs may be just another step in the established line of nationalist expansion and Judaization; for that (pro-settlement religious, military and political) establishment, the settlers have over-stepped a crucial line and something must be done. Three opinion pieces from Ynet.

Whether the IOF is pursuing revenge for the October prisoner release or choosing targeted over indiscriminate arrests, the occupying force is certainly rapidly refilling its prisons with Palestinians, mostly political activists. While settlers throw stones at the IDF with impunity , the same act by a Palestinian is a punished crime.