What’s it really like in Iran - for its citizens and the Jews who still live there? 

Iran’s major cities, Tehran and Isfahan still have functioning synagogues, but the communities have declined sharply since the Islamist revolution which shapes the world today. 

Let’s discuss today's Iran with someone who really knows it.

This is an interview conducted in Israel just a matter of weeks before October 7th. 

During the heady late summer days of weekly judicial reform rallies, this is Dr Meir Javedanfar.

He was born in Tehran to a family from the city of Isfahan.

Meir Javedanfar is an Iranian-Israeli lecturer, author, and commentator. He's taught Iranian politics at Reichman University in Israel since 2012. 

He is the coauthor of Ahmadinejad’s biography, “The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran".

He has published many articles on Iran and Iran-related matters for Foreign Affairs, Al-Monitor, The Diplomat, The Guardian and others.

He's guest lectured at more than 20 universities and his Ph.D dealt with Mohammad Reza Shah’s security decision-making in relation to threats posed by Iraq and the Soviet Union.

Eight months after his bar mitzvah in 1987, Meir and his family moved to the U.K as Jewish refugees from Iran. 

He remains a committed Anglophile, he never quite left the English sense of humour behind, so listen out for a Basil Fawlty joke!

Whatever the status of the JCPOA in the wake of Iran’s first ever direct assault on Israel, he told me he supported it - and said Israeli military experts in the know did too… Why? 

And he took part in the Iranian Revolution in 1979 - yes really! - but seven Jews were killed and the Persian Jewish population collapsed from 100,000 under the Shah to where it is today: a paltry and declining 7,000.

So why was there a revolution in 1979 in the first place? 

The mullahs are wary of their own people, scared of American soft power, led by the threat of feminism. 

This really is a fascinating interview which deserves the light of day, its own episode.

This is Dr Meir Javedanfar Ph.D.

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And so it’s happened. There’s now a piece of Palestine on British soil.

In Galena Road, a back street of Hammersmith.

An interesting name for a Palestinian address. It’s a Sephardi Jewish surname for one.

And archaeologists discovered a prehistoric trench under the modern office building on which this embassy now stands - the remnants of a Roman road. The Romans,conquerors of Jerusalem, destroyers of the Second Temple, which forced most of the indigenous Jews into exile.

You decide if G-d has a sense of humour.

Keir Starmer’s ill-conceived declaration of Palestine, which has led to this embassy and described by former prime minister Boris Johnson as a “fart in a gale” amounts to a staging post in the Palestinian pursuit to destroy the Jewish State.

Starmer’s unleashed a persistent stink on the British people rather than a momentary pong.

As the continuing Hamas protests ruin London’s premier shopping and entertainment thoroughfares, Starmer’s only served to embolden the keffiyeh-wearing terror supporters into Palestining our city centres on days off and threatening the daily lives of Jewish people as they go about communal prayer or dropping kids off at school.

In a stroke, Starmer’s turned an office block off King St’s one-way system from a self-proclaimed mission to a full-blown embassy, with a Palestinian flag hoisted outside.

“Palestine” has no internationally agreed boundaries, no capital and no army.

No army of course, but for terrorist militias Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others.

But now Starmer has gifted them the diplomatic credentials and privileges of every other state represented in London - now with the cloak of diplomatic protection to plan what Palestine is best known for.

Starmer’s proclaimed vision for Palestine included a governing militia he freely calls a terrorist group, whatever he now says since Donald Trump’s decisive action to bring all but one of the remaining Israel’s hostages home from Gaza hell.

So if you’re wandering down King Street in your kippah or tzitzis unlucky enough to take the wrong short cut to Ravenscourt Park tube, think twice about the route you take.

Because the Palestine Embassy isn’t a peaceful diplomatic entity and by promoting it, Starmer’s contributed to importing the intifada to Britain’s streets.

Here’s Hassan Zomlot, Palestine’s first Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Listen very closely to his words.

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The world moves on fast.

The headline ticker keeps rolling, attention shifts, and even the most brutal moments are softened by the relentless pace of the news cycle.

But for those left to mourn — and for Jewish communities across the global diaspora — the shock of Bondi has not faded.

It’s hardened into fear.

Fear driven by the perceived lack of action by western leaders against creeping Islamist incursions into the West, attacks that target Jews and threaten the very foundations of open societies themselves.

This episode is an attempt to bottle that shock.

To take you back to the moment you first heard the news — whether you woke up to it, saw it break during your day, or learned of it whichever time zone you’re in.

To remind you how it felt as you lit your own Chanukah lights on day one.

You’ll hear from eyewitnesses there as it unfolded collected from Sky News Australia. From a doctor, speaking anonymously who treated the dead and injured.

From an Australian police officer on the scene.

From Rabbi Levi Wolff of Sydney’s Central Synagogue.

And from the highest levels of leadership in Israel — President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Plus as Chanukah drew to a close Premier of New South Wales Chris Minns, on the government’s response to the tragedy.

We’ve since seen an unimaginable terror plot foiled in the UK, by Britain’s secret services for what can best be described as a Bataclan style massacre on Manchester’s Jewish communities.

This is not about letting the Bondi moment pass. It’s about remembering it — clearly, honestly, however uncomfortably.

Action on this international persecution of Jews must start now.

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As westerners, as Jews, as supporters of Israel, we should know more about the Kabyle people, the largest of North Africa’s indigenous Amazigh groups, part of the Berber people.

On December 14th 2025, Kabylia declared independence from Algeria.

With their own language, culture, and a centuries-long tradition of autonomy, the Kabyle have maintained a distinct identity despite repeated periods of foreign rule and the oppression which always follows.

Is there future at a turning point.

Rogue state Algeria has sharply escalated its repression of the Kabyle people’s political, cultural, and religious life with churches forcibly closed and leaders in civil society facing escalating intimidation. Many detained without due process, and political expression increasingly criminalized.

And now, in the midst of this pressure, Kabylia issued a Declaration of Independence.

They believe in Britain’s moral authority and so a delegation came to our parliament in London.

The delegation waited until the final hour to learn whether Paris-based President-in-Exile, Furhat Merhenni would receive his UK visa in time.

But he didn’t get it.

But the story moves forward.

To understand what this moment means for Kabylia, for Algeria, and for the region, I spoke Murad Amellal, Chief of Staff to President Merhenni and his Special Envoy.

In our conversation, he walks us through the stakes, the strategy, and the sentiment around the world as Kabylia approaches what he calls a defining chapter in its modern political journey.

But there are big questions:

* If the leadership isn’t physically there, what does a Declaration of Independence actually do in practice?

* With the President-in-Exile, what happens next?

* If the declaration were issued on Algerian soil, just how would Algeria move to suppress it?

* How does President Merhenni’s role compare to leaders in Israel’s early statehood? Who is Ben-Gurion, Begin or Herzl?

* And find out why the Kabyle people’s cultural, linguistic and religious background embrace western values not those of Islamic extremism.

All that—and more—in my rangy conversation with Murad Amellal.

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Today we explore the legacy of Joe Lieberman and the documentary movie Centered about his life. He remains to this day the only orthodox Jew to stand for vice president of the United States, on the ticket with fellow Democrat Al Gore, losing by the narrowest and most controversial of margins to George W. Bush.

And how he may have stood again as a Republican candidate alongside John McCain later in his career.

Centered, directed by Jonathan Gruber, who also made the brilliant Upheaval, the story of Menachem Begin, captures Joe Lieberman’s lifelong devotion to public service, moral conviction, and pragmatic leadership.

I was delighted to meet Rob Schwartz in London as the movie was screened here for the first time, a close friend of Joe Lieberman and a trusted partner through decades of public life.

Rob’s insider’s perspective as Senator Lieberman’s chief of staff, bring depth, warmth, and intimate understanding to his legacy celebrated in Centered.

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The BBC's top brass have lost their jobs over the institutionalised bias of their news coverage. But their news output which made them so famous and trusted around the world has let the rest of the corporation down for a very long time.

Director-General Tim Davie and CEO of News, Deborah Turness resigned over a series of scandals exposed by a memo written by Michael Prescott and leaked to the Daily Telegraph.

As a supporter of Israel, you'll have known for a long, long time how their news produced hostile output about the Jewish State - and today we meet a man who has dedicated his career to listening, watching and reading BBC Arabic's astonishingly antisemitic output.

He's CAMERA's Senior Arabic Researcher and he goes by an alias, "David Grom". CAMERA is The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.

I have bleeped out his real name both for his own protection and for the sad reality that we live in an incessant time of cancellation.

"David" talks about his editorial achievements, what he's found, particularly since October 7th and how "artwashing" is a growing part of anti-Israel sentiment in the growing arena of the podcast.

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A chunk of my background, both personal and professional, has been washed away.

I didn’t think football was supposed to hurt like this.

Banning a mere thousand or less Israeli football fans from Villa Park for a Europa League tie is a cause for deep sorrow.

But not just for me, an Aston Villa fan through my Holocaust-surviving grandfather who setup his typewriter shop bang next to Aston Station on the Lichfield Road, but for this generation of Villa fans and those to come.

Because football is supposed to be a thrilling, entertaining source of pride.

Not a dispensary for anger and shame, of imported hate and community breakdown.

Is the Beautiful Game still beautiful?

My generation and those that came before had the best of it. We enjoyed league title wins, European glory and trips to Wembley.

But it would have meant nothing without the communal joy and camaraderie it spawned.

And for this Jewish kid, it was a high voltage plug-in to the prevailing, sometimes overwhelming culture of my city beyond my upbringing.

So accepting they were of me, that by the age of 21, I was reporting my beloved team from the press box for the radio station covering the West Midlands and Shropshire.

When I returned as a national reporter to the old Trinity Road box years later, the stewards, dear old men, bowled me over with their effusive welcome back. Like that beautiful Archibald Leitch-designed stand, their unvarnished spirit is gone.

So this is my own very personal sadness about what football and the city that helped shape me has become.

The English game shunned politics, now it’s buried by it.

Snarling Islamist boycotters - an elected MP is trashing what was good here. For what?

They think it’s all over. It is now.

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The anger we feel as British Jews has reached a head as we mourn the two congregants from Heaton Park, who were killed on Yom Kippur inside the synagogue.

This episode also includes the regrettable appearance of David Lammy, the deputy prime minister in front of a furious community in north Manchester.

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Benjamin Netanyahu has called the recognition of a Palestinian state led by western nations 'sheer madness' - it shows 'murdering Jews pays off.' he added in defiant disgust.

All this as the United Nations General Assembly disgraced itself again as scores of so-called diplomats walked out en masse jeering, sounding more like a wrestling match than the highest chamber of world diplomacy - as Mr. Netanyahu began his address.

As you’ll hear Israel’s Prime Minister took apart the cowardice and appeasement which lies behind western leader’s recognition of Palestine.

Meanwhile, President Trump's 21-point peace plan for Gaza, unveiled at the UN to Arab and Muslim leaders, seeks a swift end to the October 7th war.

Listen to his first reaction to its unveiling and the Prime Minister's tough and uncompromising speech in front of the UNGA.

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As Jews prepared for Rosh Hashanah around the world, the leaders of the UK, Canada and Australia declared for Palestine.

Rounding up the reaction from London and Jerusalem on a day millions feared would come, here's a bonus episode.

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