Melanie Phillips: 'If you prick me, do I not bleed?'

"I do not enjoy the cut and thrust."

The columnist and broadcaster, who bought a home in Jerusalem in 2005, also discussed how her connection to Israel has developed over time.

Asked by Simons if she had initially enjoyed being in Jerusalem, Phillips replied: “I thought it was so religious, so introverted, so tense and everyone was basically crazy.”

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Phillips bought a home in Jerusalem in 2005 (Getty Images)

But, Phillips continued, that changed when she began to realise “how little” she knew about Judaism and the history of Jewish people.

“I had made judgments on the basis of fantastic ignorance and intolerance,” she said.



“I met a number of people through a number of different routes… and I started to become educated in what it is to be a Jew.”

As time went on, Phillips came to find the “romance of [Israel] intoxicating”, she said, though she maintained that in some ways, she could not imagine “a more insane place”.

During the conversation, Phillips also discussed her childhood and compared turning her back on left-wing British politics to leaving an abusive family.

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“For many people, because there’s so much hatred on the left, they are almost naturally set to drift into the right.”

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The JC apologises for an earlier version of this story, which gave an inaccurate impression by taking Melanie Phillips's comments out of context.