Photograph: Remy Jabali
Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist. He was based in Nazareth, Israel, for 20 years. He returned to the UK in 2021.
He is the author of three books on the Israel-Palestine conflict:
- Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish State (2006)
- Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (2008)
- Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (2008)
He has also contributed chapters and essays to several edited volumes on Israel-Palestine.
In 2011 Jonathan was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. The judges’ citation reads: “Jonathan Cook’s work on Palestine and Israel, especially his de-coding of official propaganda and his outstanding analysis of events often obfuscated in the mainstream, has made him one of the reliable truth-tellers in the Middle East.”
The same year, Project Censored voted a report by Jonathan, “Israel brings Gaza entry restrictions to West Bank“, one of the most important stories censored in 2009-10.
In 2025, Jonathan was a finalist in Amnesty UK’s Media Awards, in the People’s Choice Award category.
Jonathan’s reports and commentaries have appeared in the Guardian, the Observer, the Times and the New Statesman (London); The International Herald Tribune and Le Monde diplomatique (Paris); Al-Ahram Weekly (Cairo); The National (Abu Dhabi); The Daily Star (Beirut); The Middle East Report and Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (Washington); and The Irish Times (Dublin). He has contributed to many online sites, such as Middle East Eye, CounterPunch, Al-Jazeera and Electronic Intifada.
He has been a senior consultant and lead writer on two major reports by the International Crisis Group, a leading think-tank based in Washington and Brussels dealing with conflict resolution.
- Back to Basics: Israel’s Arab Minority and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
- Extreme Makeover? (II): The Withering of Arab Jerusalem
Today he provides regular commentary and analysis on the Middle East, and blogs about the media, propaganda, corporate malfeasance, the environment and global politics.
In 2025, Jonathan was among several experts asked to submit reports, on behalf of Riverway Law, to the Home Secretary calling for an end the UK’s proscription of Hamas. Under draconian counter-terrorism legislation, anyone who expresses an opinion that might encourage support for a proscribed organisation can be jailed for up to 14 years. Jonathan argued in his report that this provision had had a chilling effect on journalists’ ability to present an accurate picture of events in Gaza during Israel’s genocide.
There is a Wikipedia page about Jonathan.
Experience and qualifications
Jonathan graduated from Southampton University in 1987 with a degree in philosophy and politics, and then earnt a postgraduate diploma in journalism from Cardiff University in 1989. He gained a masters degree in Middle Eastern studies, with distinction, from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, in 2000.
He worked on regional newspapers before becoming a staff journalist at the Guardian in 1994. He later joined the Observer newspaper. He has been an independent journalist since 2001.
