Melanie Phillips: The Pogrom Against Israel and the Jews

Right now, things seem to be spinning dangerously out of control. The tempo and viciousness of the attacks on Israel in the west are running at fever pitch, especially in Britain. Even some people who previously supported Israel are now falling for at least some of the lies which are bombarding them every single day.

Israel’s defenders are no longer just getting a hard time in interviews. As Natasha Hausdorff found here when she came up against Piers Morgan, they’re now getting shouted down altogether and are being deprived of the right to speak at all.

Brendan O'Neill: After the slaughter, the victim-blaming

The idea that Israel is responsible for Hamas’s evil attack is repugnant and racist.

The politics of ‘She was asking for it’ just reached a new low. As footage emerges of the twisted body of a half-naked woman being defiled and spat on in Gaza, and of distressed mothers and their children being kidnapped in trucks, and of an Israeli student begging ‘Don’t kill me!’ as she’s dragged from a music festival by Hamas’s Islamist goons, what are some observers in the West saying? That it’s all Israel’s fault. That Israel bears ultimate responsibility for this ISIS-style slaughter of its people. That the Israelis brought it on themselves. They were asking for it.

Melanie Phillips: The barbaric war against Israel

Behind the Hamas onslaught is Iran. But the west has this blood on its hands too

I am in Jerusalem. At around a quarter past eight this morning, as observant Jews were celebrating the Sabbath and the holiday of Simchat Torah, an air raid siren started its wail, followed in short order by the boom of missiles being intercepted over the city. Many more sirens wailed for several hours. We watched the sky over the city fill with traces left by the missile defence system, Iron Dome. We held our breath in case Iron Dome failed.

Geoffrey Miller: How will New Zealand handle the new war in the Middle East?

The weekend’s surprise and brutal attack on Israel by Hamas fighters has the potential to reshape the Middle East – and will only further increase global geopolitical instability. The initial 36 hours of the assault by Hamas on Israel have already taken at least 600 Israeli lives – easily making it the bloodiest time for Israel since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In addition, dozens of Israelis have been kidnapped and taken back to Gaza to be used as bargaining chips. While there will be a range of motivations for why Hamas chose to act in the way it did now, the symbolic timing of Hamas’ assault – almost 50 years to the day after Yom Kippur – is unlikely to be a coincidence.