Popularity or principle? Which matters more?

14 January, 2021

Recently I wrote an article for another publication, dealing with an issue unrelated to Israel, in which I talked about the phenomenon of ‘virtue signalling’ – a term which has come into vogue over the past few... Read More...

What now for the Middle East?

Ashley Church

12 November, 2020

Advocate Newsletter Opeds, NZ-ISR Relations

And just like that – the chess board has changed. Whatever else you and I might think of Trump, he was an undoubted friend of Israel and during his tenure as US President we’ve seen a huge shift toward the n... Read More...

New Zealand’s changing attitude toward Israel

Ashley Church

24 June, 2020

Advocate Newsletter Opeds, NZ-ISR Relations

Last Sunday I made a presentation on ‘New Zealand’s attitude to Israel’ to the Friends of Israel Group at a meeting in Greenlane, Auckland. In many respects the presentation was a stocktake on where New Zealand... Read More...

Israel rises to the COVID19 challenge

Ashley Church

15 April, 2020

Advocate Newsletter Opeds

Back in late February when I contributed my last editorial for ‘The Advocate’ the world was a different place. Back then I wrote about the cooperation which exists between Jewish, Christian and secular organisa... Read More...

Recognising the real enemy

Ashley Church

26 February, 2020

Advocate Newsletter Opeds

In 1979 British Comedy group ‘Monty Python’ released the movie ‘Life of Brian’ about a fictitious character who was born one stable down (and on the same night as) Jesus. Over the next 30 years Brian leads an u... Read More...

The limits to free speech

Ashley Church

26 July, 2019

Sideroom

I'm a passionate believer in free speech. I'm of the view that kiwis should be free to express any opinion they wish – with the only limitation being on speech which threatens violence or is designed to incite ... Read More...

A strong kiwi voice in support of Israel

Ashley Church

3 July, 2019

News, Opinion

In our last newsletter we used the old arcade game of ‘whack-a-mole’ as a metaphor to describe advocating for Israel – noting that, just as one issue is confronted and repelled, another seems to take its place.... Read More...

Playing ‘Whack-a-Mole’ with attacks on Israel

Ashley Church

19 June, 2019

Conflict, NZ-ISR Relations, Sideroom, United Nations

If you’re over 50 you might remember an old arcade game called ‘whack-a-mole’ in which players used a mallet to hit toy moles which appeared at random. It occurs to me that this is also a pretty good metaphor t... Read More...

Author Ashley Church