Jonathan is retired after a career as an economist in overseas development, involving much travel. Since 1998 he has grown increasingly concerned about Middle Eastern affairs and the way these are being 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 an advocate for independent regulation of the British press, to ensure newspapers stick more closely to the facts and reduce editors’ and reporters’ scope for pushing preferred narratives to the point that they crowd out alternative views.

From 2016 to 2018, Jonathan was Newsletter Editor for ‘Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine’, and since then has campaigned for freedom of expression within the Liberal Democrats party and the country. Read more in Jonathan’s blog, and watch his speech of 12 December 2020 at the Launch Rally of the Campaign for Free Speech.

Jonathan frequently blogs for CAMPAIN and has had articles published or republished by Mondoweiss, Jewish Voice for Labour, Open Democracy, Middle East Monitor and elsewhere. He has also jointly authored (with Dr Jan Deckers) a comprehensive and concise critique of the International Holocaust Memorial Association (IHRA) "working definition" of antisemitism - published in the ResPublica journal of moral philosophy.