Authors and contributors
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Bernard Spiegal
Previously I wrote, and worked in, the areas of public space, children and teenagers play, issues to do with risk in play and related areas. Articles on these and related topics can be found at www.playlink.org, and pre-2017 posts on my site https://bernardspiegal.com/.
However, I’ve had a long-term interest in Palestine/Israel (P/I) issues, most recently visiting the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in particular in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2022. Most of my articles now focus on P/I issues, and are often republished by CAMPAIN. If so moved, I discuss other matters as well.
Bernard is also a member of CAMPAIN's executive committee.
David Mond
David Mond is an Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick. Before working at Warwick he taught at the National University of Colombia, in Bogotá. He is a secular Jew, and particularly indignant at the category of self-hating Jew invented by supporters of Israel to dismiss Jewish criticism. David is also CAMPAIN's treasurer and a member of its executive committee
Sharen Green
I fell over the issue of Palestine aged 22 when I went to teach at the University of Jordan. All but two of my students were refugees from the West Bank following the 1967 Six-Day War. Instead of writing essays on My Home Town or What I did in the Holidays every single one wrote about what had happened to their lives when Israel was created.
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So they were always on my mind during the next decades when I trained as a nurse, became a camp follower, a mother and finally a journalist. Since retirement, I have served two terms as an Ecumenical Accompanier (i.e. a human rights monitor) in the West Bank. Something that fascinated me is how consecutive Israeli regimes have used – and still use – Ottoman, British Mandate and even Jordanian law to justify their land thefts. The laws of long-dead empires are sacrosanct (when it suits) but International Law? Nah! Sharen is also a member of CAMPAIN's executive committee and coordinates its Lambeth Witness Group (LWG)”.
Jonathan Coulter
Jonathan is retired after a career as an economist in overseas development, involving much travel. Since 1998 he grew increasingly concerned about Middle Eastern affairs and the way these are reported in the UK. In 2016, he led a group complaint to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) about Murdoch newspapers’ misreporting about a meeting in the House of Lords, and then lodged a Judicial Review (JR) against IPSO with the support of the Hacked-Off Campaign. While the JR proved unsuccessful, it turned Jonathan into a strong advocate for free speech and independent regulation of the British press.
He spelt out much of his thinking in a speech on 12 December 2020. In 2021 he became Secretary of CAMPAIN which he helped found that year. He frequently blogs for CAMPAIN and has had articles published by Mondoweiss, Jewish Voice for Labour, Open Democracy, Middle East Monitor and elsewhere. He also jointly authored (with Dr Jan Deckers) a concise critique of the International Holocaust Memorial Association (IHRA) "working definition" of antisemitism - published in the ResPublica journal of moral philosophy.
Rev. Dr. Peter Liddell
Peter is Hon. Canon Emeritus of St. Albans. He trained as a psychotherapist in New York and became Director of Pastoral Counselling for St. Albans Diocese 1980-2005. The same Diocese sponsored a Pastoral Foundation, which gained funding from the National Lottery, EU, and private sources to match client fees.
In 2009, Peter joined the olive harvest in Madama and Burin, villages south of Nablus that were recently in the news for ferocious settler attacks. He witnessed the burning of olive trees, contamination of water supply, confrontation with the IDF and the fear of living under daily occupation. He co-founded the Olive Harvest Trust to support local schools with additional equipment. Now (in 2024) the plea is for security blinds. In the past year, he has had five letters published in the Church Times and has just made forceful representations to the University of St. Andrews, of which he is an alumnus and member of the Chancellor's Circle, following the ousting of their Rector for her pro-Palestinian record.
Peter and his wife have just celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. They have two children and five grandchildren
His favourite activities have been orchestral playing violin and sailing.
Revd Stephen Sizer
Stephen is the founder and director of Peacemaker Trust, a registered charity dedicated to peacemaking, especially where minorities are persecuted, justice is denied, human rights are suppressed, or reconciliation is needed.
Stephen served for 35 years as an Anglican priest, most recently vicar of Virginia Water until his retirement in 2017. He is now Bishop’s Chaplain to the Right Revd Riah Abu El Assal, the retired Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem.
Stephen is chair of the Convivencia Alliance, a cross-faith, international initiative for a just peace in the Middle East, and in particular, a just coexistence in Palestine/Israel based on equal rights in One Democratic State (ODS).
Stephen is coordinator for the 2024 Sabeel International Conference on Religious Extremism. Stephen is also a member of the Kairos for Global Justice Theology Group.
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Stephen was awarded an MTh from Oxford University in 1994. His thesis examined the Ethical Management of Pilgrimages to the Holy Land. In 2004, he was awarded a PhD by Middlesex University. His thesis examined the historical roots, theological basis and political consequences of Christian Zionism in Britain and the USA from 1820. In 2024 he received the ‘Courage Award’ for his campaigning for Palestinian rights from Mardin Atuklu University in Turkey.
He is the author of three books, In the Footsteps of Jesus and the Apostles, (Eagle, 2004) Christian Zionism: Roadmap to Armageddon (IVP, 2004) and Zion’s Christian Soldiers: The Bible, Israel and the Church (IVP, 2007) – now published by Wipf & Stock. His books have been translated into Arabic, Farsi, Korean and Spanish.
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Dr. Nicola Grove
Nicola is Professor of Profound and Multiple Disabilities, Rix Inclusive Research, at the University of East London. She is also an Honorary Fellow, at the Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists, and trains in the sharing of stories, see https://storysharing.org.uk and training@pamis.org.uk.
Nicola has had a strong relationship with Israel and Palestine that she shares in the following terms.
In the summer 1967, I went to Israel to stay on Kibbutz Kfar Giladi. I had been moved by the writings of Leon Uris, and had a very romantic view of kibbutz life as a kind of benign community socialism.
I lived with a family with impeccable credentials - the father was one of the first children born on the kibbutz, one of the oldest in Israel, founded in 1916. The mother was a South African anti-apartheid campaigner and not herself Jewish. I became really close to them and their 4 children.
My stay was in fact interrupted by the 1967 war, where I was certain Israel would be annihilated. In fact, it expanded. We young volunteers were taken on tours of the captured territory, and even now my eyes prick when I hear ‘Jerusalem of Gold’. This was when I had the first stirrings of doubt.
Riding in a truck, for all the world like Roman conquerors, we swept past silent Palestinians seated by the road, their gaze unfathomable. A young reservist accompanied me to a mountain in the Dead Sea. We looked out over the desert. ‘Look at this,’ he said. ‘The Arabs did nothing with it. We have made the desert bloom’.
My boyfriend had fought, of course. One of his company had been found crucified on the gates of Kuneitra. He showed me a photograph of his group surrounding the man they believed responsible, taken just before they set fire to him. I went to Kuneitra. The road was strewn with abandoned possessions. I realised Israel was not the country I had thought it was. Since then, I have become committed to activism for Palestine.
I have been a Quaker since the late 1970s. I also work with people who have learning disabilities, specialising in nonverbal communication, storytelling, and cultural access.
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