Melanie Phillips hardly needs an introduction to most readers of Israel from the Inside, though for those who would like a quick refresher on her extraordinary career, a brief bio can be found below.
Melanie recently invited me to be in dialogue with her at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem on the occasion of her launching her most recent book, and today, we’re delighted to share the recording of that conversation, which took place just last week.
Fighting the Hate: A Handbook for Jews Under Siege, her new book, is in many ways a “bookend” to her previous book, ,The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians built the West -- And Why Only They Can Save It, which was published by Wicked Son in January 2025, and which identifies the crisis of civilization revealed by the Hamas-led atrocities in Israel on October 7 2023 and suggests a rescue remedy for the west to prevent its collapse.
As you will hear in our conversation, I struggle with Melanie’s confidence that anti-Semitism — a hate which she calls “deranged” in her book, an assessment with which I wholeheartedly agree — can be countered by the rational, cerebral responses that she suggests in her new book.
But Melanie’s responses to my questions on that subject were illuminating, as were her comments on subjects as diverse as how best to deal with virulent demagogues such as Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens; how much rhetorical ground Israel’s defenders should concede to the enemies of the Jewish state; whether self-respecting Jews should even have the New York Times in the house; and how to deal with Jews who are enemies of the Jewish people — the last issue being one that we’ve devoted significant time to in our own posts.
The full recording of our conversation can be watched below …
Melanie Phillips is a British journalist, broadcaster and author.
Her weekly opinion column, which currently appears in The Times of London, has been published over the years in the Guardian, Observer, Sunday Times and Daily Mail. She also writes for the Jewish News Syndicate, broadcasts on radio and TV and speaks on public platforms throughout the English-speaking world.
My latest book is Fighting the Hate: A Handbook for Jews Under Siege which was published by Wicked Son on March 12 2026. It provides a strategy and a route map for individual Jews and their communal leaders to help fight back against the hatred unleashed against Israel and the Jews in the west.
Phillips’ first novel, The Legacy, which deals with conflicted Jewish identity, antisemitism and the power of history, was published in 2018 along with her personal and political memoir, Guardian Angel.
Her previous books include the 2006 best-seller Londonistan, about the British establishment’s capitulation to Islamist aggression, and The World Turned Upside Down: the Global Battle over God, Truth and Power, published in 2010.
