Lord Weidenfeld of Chelsea

Privileged access of grand donors to political parties to leading members of the government, and subsequent, frequent malpractice, is a constant topic amongst the British public.

Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, are heavily criticised in the press, mainly by the Rupert Murdoch controlled...

The grim question if, how or when Teheran's nuclear armament could be thwarted by using force is on the minds of insiders and observers in the free world. Gradually the theory that an end in terror is preferable to terror without end is gaining the upper hand. The gruesome scenario...

It was a heroic death in the truest sense: Marie Colvin, war correspondent of the London Sunday Times, defied all dangers in order to report about the scandalous deeds of the Assad regime in Syria.

She fell victim to a rocket attack on the specially designated press compound for...

Who are the incubators of a real democratic renewal in the Arab Spring? After talking to young Egyptians, among them many intellectuals, who returned to their homeland having studied at prestigious English universities, I feel confronted with a rather contradictory picture.

They fight against corruption, religious fanaticism, for human...

Gloomy weeks for the western world: the elections in Egypt and Russia threaten to transform the Arab spring as well as the hoped for political thaw with Moscow into an icy winter. In both cases the high expectations of a democratic development have proved to be bitter illusions.

The...

The latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency about Iran's nuclear armament exploded like a bomb onto the world of Washington think tanks.

In two high-ranking round-tables, of which one is particularly close to President Obama and the other to the Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the topics of...

The first three versions of regime change during the Arab Spring - unhindered escape of the Tunisian President, imprisonment and criminal proceedings in Egypt and mob law in Libya - have created a momentum that will be hard to stall.

The case of Libya shows that decisive action, i.e....

"February 11 was the culmination of the Arab revolution. On February 12, the counterrevolution began." This is how two Middle East experts - the Palestinian Oxford don, Hussein Agha, and the Washington political scientist, Robert Malley - are summing up the situation in the latest edition of the New York...

The bloody riots in front of the Israeli embassy in Cairo, followed by the visit of an over 200 strong Turkish delegation led by Prime Minister Erdoğan, his blazing speech against Israel and for the recognition of a Palestinian state, and finally Egypt's threats to "revise" the peace agreement with...

June 1967: on the eve of the sixth day of the Six Day War, I was the guest of the newly appointed governor of the newly conquered old city of Jerusalem, General Chaim (Vivian) Herzog, later to become president of Israel, who had earned his military spurs as major in...

The spontaneous solidarity march of 20,000 Israelis to the house of the parents of the young corporal Gilad Shalit held hostage by Hamas terrorists, and Prime Minister Netanyahu's offer to swap 1000 Hamas prisoners against one single Israeli soldier, are two gestures which confirm the value a single human life...

In a haze of uncertainty, political observers in Britain are wavering in their views about the issues in the general elections, due to take place within a few weeks. Only a short time ago commentators, spade in hand, were ready to bury Gordon Brown and the title of a political...

In London's clubs and at private dinners, parties local and transient visiting participants of the three important, elite gatherings (the World Economic Forum Davos, Munich Security Conference, and Herzliya Conference) compared notes. Some of them had all three meetings behind them. Almost all of them returned more worried than they...

Europe's attitude to the two belligerents, Jews and Arabs, is constantly undergoing subtle changes and the motives for either amelioration or deterioration can be quite complex. They may be the result of either internal shifts of public opinion or differentiated reactions to events and incidents in the region. Today without...

Sunny, only temporarily clouded - Tel-Aviv's weather at the year's start is also typical of the people's mood. The economy is healthy, booming - even the cautious guild of state and private finance experts smiles. The entourage of the by now forty-man deep Government exudes discreet optimism on the question...

2009 was certainly not a year of triumphs for mankind nor human kindliness. The world economic crisis is neither diagnostically nor therapeutically on the way to a solution. The theatres of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the caves of Waziristan and the bitter feuds in the Middle East between Israel,...

Neither rainstorms nor traffic jams dented the good mood of both the locals and prominent guests last Monday in front of Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. The rows of VIPs, had they been quizzed, would all -- like the hallowed JFK -- have called themselves Berliners.

Twenty years ago I was...

Even the most apolitical tourist in Israel cannot escape noticing the contrast between an openly displayed show of opulence in a world economic crisis -- overcrowded hotels, a healthy currency, expanding exports thanks to the inventiveness of the pioneers of the new technologies -- and an inner bitterness and doubt...

How does one feel on one's 90th birthday? Not very differently from the last 'round one' ten years ago. But the world has different rules: at 30 you are still adolescent, at 40 a grown man; nowadays men of 50, 60 or even 70 are classified just as old masters...

Originally posted in the Financial Times

Israelis can be great grumblers, yet the global economic crisis engenders fewer moaners there than elsewhere: "Our banks," said one caustic tycoon, "never liked lending anyway." Expensive clubs and restaurants in Tel Aviv are full, tourism is flourishing; one hears Russian and French...