A Liberal Defence of Israel

A Letter to the Archbishop of Westminster

2011-12-29T10:47:00.000-08:00

Following midnight mass on Christmas Eve, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, delivered his annual homily for the occasion. In it, he made a reference to Christians in the West Bank which I and others found offensive and ill-informed. I wrote a letter to him, setting out what I believe to be the important context within which his words appear either ignorant or biased or both. His statement is quoted in the text of my letter, which I reproduce below. Is there anything I should have said or anything I should not, please let me know in your comments.

Denis

The Most Reverend Vincent Nichols DD

Your Grace,

I hope you will forgive my writing at such a busy time of year, but I have a serious concern that will not wait for expression. I am not a Catholic, but my concern is, in the main, not about your religion, but your politics. To introduce myself briefly, I am a writer and a former lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies with a serious interest in Iran and the Middle East in general. Late on Christmas Day my attention was drawn to your Midnight Mass homily. When I found a copy online, I found it well expressed and diligent in its portrayal of the mysteries you set out to expound. But since I am not a religious man, I can make no better comment on the homily and its religious content. It would be inexpressively arrogant of me to challenge you on any of that, nor did I feel compelled to do so.

As you may already have surmised, my problem lies with your departure into political matters in a manner that, I believe, exposes you to real and spontaneous criticism. You wrote a short introduction to this theme in words I find no fault with, but for which I had heartfelt agreement:

‘We are to see clearly the reality of the world around us. As we look at the real circumstances of Christ's birth so too we look with fresh eyes on the anxieties and insecurity which touch many peoples' lives. We are to be freshly attentive to the needs of those who, like Jesus himself, are displaced and in discomfort. We are to see more clearly all those things which disfigure our world, the presence of the sins of greed and arrogance, of self-centred ambition and manipulation of others, of the brutal lack of respect for human life in all its vulnerability. While recognizing how complex moral dilemmas can become, we are to name these things for what they are. We too live “in a land of deep shadow”.’

Just last week, I watched a three-part television adaptation of the Nativity story. You may have seen it yourself. It was dramatically balanced, presenting both the religious narrative and the harsh realities of life in first century Judaea: Mary’s fear of being stoned, Joseph’s anxiety about his attachment to a sixteen-year-old girl who has fallen mysteriously pregnant, Herod’s fear of the Romans, the shepherds’ distress under Herod’s rule, and much else. Your connection of the Nativity to contemporary suffering is perfectly balanced; but your later application of that principle leaves much to be desired, almost certainly as a result of your ignorance of the realities of life in the West Bank. Such ignorance is widespread, so I do not single you out for sharing in it. But your calling and stature make it vital for you to get something like this right, otherwise your words will pass on shadows of that ignorance to all who hear and read you and will darken the minds of another generation.

You say that ‘We too live “in a land of deep shadow”,’ and I don’t doubt the veracity of it. What you mean exactly by ‘a land’ is neither here nor there, since most of the world is in some kind of darkness and has always been so. It is the curse of the human race. We are in agreement. But in a moment we are not. You continue by saying:

‘That shadow falls particularly heavily on the town of Bethlehem tonight. At this moment the people of the parish of Beit Jala prepare for their legal battle to protect their land and homes from further expropriation by Israel. Over 50 families face losing their land and their homes as action is taken to complete the separation/security wall across the territory of the district of Bethlehem. We pray for them tonight.’

‘Particularly heavily’? Can you in all sincerity say that your singling out of events in Beit Jala merits that use of ‘particularly’? A difficult and misunderstood situation for some people becomes a paradigm for the shadow enveloping mankind? Of all the people in the world, you single out 50 Christian families in Beit Jala and expect those who hear you to recoil, cut to the heart by the horrors of that situation. You speak as if the world had no greater shadow to offer. Thousands have died and are dying in neighbouring Syria, but that gets no mention from you. An entire population is repressed and religious minorities are persecuted in Iran and you say nothing. Muslims who convert to Christianity in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere are put to death, yet you are silent. In Egypt, Coptic Christians are killed and persecuted and their churches are destroyed, yet you cannot find a sentence in which to condemn it. Christians are not allowed to possess Bibles or to worship or seek converts in Saudi Arabia, yet your voice is not raised. Christians are murdered and their churches burned to the ground in Nigeria, but I do not hear your voice. Yet Muslims are free to worship, open schools, have their own courts, and missionize in every Western country, yet you do not point out the anomaly.

Instead, it is the predictable condemnation of one of the world’s most democratic, liberal, and tolerant states that occupies your thoughts. You speak of a ‘separation/security wall’ without irony. Overall, this barrier is not a wall, it is a fence: it will be about 500 miles long when finished, and only about 3 percent of it will be a wall or is a wall now. There are very cogent reasons why some sections are built from concrete and are very high, unlike the rest, which is primarily chain-link fence. When the second intifada erupted in 2000, gunmen belonging to Fatah Tanzim squads went into mainly Christian houses in Beit Jala and used them as strategic points from which to fire into the Jewish civilian enclave of Gilo, a mere 800 meters away. They fired at first with Kalashnikovs and stolen M16s, then with heavy machine guns. The battles fought in Beit Jala, together with the return fire the Fatah shooting provoked, caused great difficulties for the Christians of the town, who wanted to stay apart from the Muslim-centred violence, whereas the Muslims of the Tanzim wanted to attract return fire into Christian properties. Not surprisingly, the Christian residents tried to force these terrorists (many of whom were from outside Beit Jala) outside their homes. In retaliation, the gunmen beat Christians badly. Christian women were harassed by Muslim men from a nearby village, Beit Awwad.

That violence was spread throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Hundreds were killed by terrorist attacks and suicide bombings, and hundreds more on the Arab side when Israeli troops fired back. It was the second intifada, on top of thousands of similar incidents since 1948, that impelled the Israelis to take hard action against those who wanted to kill them, to attack them specifically as Jews, and to wipe them out or expel them entirely from the Holy Land. Building the barrier was and is harsh to many who live in the West Bank, but it has cut terrorist attacks by over ninety percent. That is an achievement that must be taken into consideration before any condemnation of the wall or the fence. It was never the Israelis who started the violence, nor do they seek to continue it.

Tragically, the barrier did not prevent a hideous massacre in March of this year, when two Palestinian youths entered the Jewish settlement of Itamar, not very many miles from Bethlehem. They took knives and murdered five members of the same family in their sleep, including a five-month-old girl, whom they decapitated. The bodies of her mother, father, two younger brothers and baby sister were found by twelve-year Tamar Fogel, when she stumbled on a scene of such carnage that I flinch to describe it. It is in attacks like this that Israeli toughness begins, in which the plan for a long security barrier was born.

I know that some of the actions that have been taken to build or expand the barrier have resulted in injustice. But I weigh such injustice against several things. I weigh it against the photographs I was sent of the Fogel family massacre and the courage of young Tamar Fogel in facing up to her future as an orphan, yet still committed to her faith and her land. I weigh it against my understanding of how Israel behaves as a country. Israelis have a deep commitment to justice, something achingly evident in the number of times their Supreme Court has ruled against the government, not least in the matter of the security barrier. In 2004, for example, the Court ruled that ‘The route that the military commander established for the security fence ... injures the local inhabitants in a severe and acute way while violating their rights under humanitarian and international law.’ The route was changed. In 2005, the Court issued an injunction against the government and the Israeli Defence Forces against the building of the fence round the village of Iskaka, and in the same year forced a halt to the barrier’s construction near Ramallah. Similar rulings have continued to the present day. If the appropriation of land in Beit Jala is illegal and can be shown to have merit, the case will undoubtedly receive a hearing. It may take time for such a case to pass through the judicial system, but what country can offer instant justice save one that makes no pretence at consideration, due process, or justice? If justice is your concern – and I see no reason for it not to be – may I please ask you to direct your criticisms to Iran, where sentences of death are passed in minutes, or to Syria, where justice is firmly in the hands of the regime, or to Saudi Arabia, where a misdemeanour may take you after Friday prayers to the main square in Riyadh, where an executioner’s sword will quickly teach you manners.

Israel, by contrast, has always applied its laws fairly and justly. The only person Israel has ever hanged was Adolph Eichmann, one of the planners of the Holocaust. There is no death penalty, even for the most horrendous acts of terror. This year, in return for a single Israeli soldier, who had been kidnapped illegally and kept incommunicado even from the Red Cross for many years, the Israeli state sanctioned the release of over one thousand Palestinian prisoner, many of them with hands stained by the blood of innocents and children. Israel has well-enforced laws to protect the rights of women, homosexuals, and members of religious minorities. Although Muslims have at various times destroyed synagogues in Jerusalem and elsewhere, the Israelis have long recognized that control of their own holiest site, the Temple Mount, is vested in the Muslim waqf authority and that control of almost the entirety of the second holiest structure of the Jewish faith, the Ma’arat Ha-Machpelah is also under the authority of the waqf Council. When I visited this shrine – the resting places of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac with other patriarchs – we found ourselves squeezed into a tiny space, while Muslim visitors had full run of the place. There is a lack of balance between the two. In Iran, the regime has destroyed all the holy places and cemeteries of its own largest religious minority, the Baha’is. In Israel, the Baha’is practise their faith openly and have established their international centre in a series of dazzling buildings and luscious gardens that are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site of remarkable beauty. I ask you to judge here whether it is customary for the people of Israel to behave towards non-Jews with contumely, for it is the implication of that deep shadow that hovers over your sermon. If you do indeed mean the Israelis, if you do indeed think of them as bearers of that shadow, I must ask why. Why are Israelis thought to embody the heavy shadow of your accusation when true haters of mankind abound yet are never the targets of your anger. And if it is not the Israelis as Israelis but the Israelis as Jews, I think you will agree with my that that cannot be a helpful road down which to travel.

I write all that as a sort of prelude to a wider discussion. There is much at stake here. That muchness derives from your singular attention to a single place, or two contingent places, Bethlehem and Beit Jala. It would be easy for the uninformed to conclude that the Israelis are bent on the expulsion of Christian families, who are in your sermon portrayed as the victims of an arbitrary Israel ruling. That is not how it seems to me.

After the Palestinian Authority took control of most of the West Bank in 1995, Muslim families from Hebron (where Jews are very badly treated) and elsewhere moved to Beit Jala and illegally seized private land and property. This came on top of a long period when pressure was placed on Arab Christians to migrate from towns like Nazareth, Bethlehem, and elsewhere. In 1914, Christians constituted 26.4 percent of the total population in what today is Israel, the Palestinian areas, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, while by 2005 they represented at most 9.2 percent (Phillipe Fargues, "The Arab Christians of the Middle East: A Demographic Perspective," in Christian Communities in the Arab Middle East, Andrea Pacini, ed, Oxford University Press). But the same thing is emphatically not true of Israel. In 1949, one year after Israel was founded, the country’s Christian population numbered 34,000 souls. That figure has grown by 345 percent. It is still growing. Between 1995 and 2007, Israeli Christians grew from 120,600 to 151,600, representing a growth rate of 25 percent. In fact, the Christian growth rate outpaced the Jewish growth in Israel in the same period.

It is not a coincidence that Christians thrive in the only non-Muslim state in the Middle East and diminish in all the Muslim states. This does not surprise me, for Islam has a long history of intolerance towards Jews and Christians, and religious sensitivities take precedence for many, regardless of the nationalist and economic dimensions of the conflict. Let me cite some relevant statements by the well-known Muslim-Arab journalist, Khaled Abu Toameh, who brings a hidden problem into the open. Writing in 2009, he says:

‘Christian families have long been complaining of intimidation and land theft by Muslims, especially those working for the Palestinian Authority.

‘Many Christians in Bethlehem and the nearby [Christian] towns of Bet Sahour and Beit Jalla have repeatedly complained that Muslims have been seizing their lands either by force or through forged documents. . . .

‘Moreover, several Christian women living in these areas have complained about verbal and sexual assaults by Muslim men.

‘Over the past few years, a number of Christian businessmen told me that they were forced to shut down their businesses because they could no longer afford to pay "protection" money to local Muslim gangs.

‘While it is true that the Palestinian Authority does not have an official policy of persecution against Christians, it is also true that this authority has not done enough to provide the Christian population with a sense of security and stability.

‘In addition, Christians continue to complain about discrimination when it comes to employment in the public sector. Since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority 15 years ago, not a single Christian was ever appointed to a senior security post. Although Bethlehem has a Christian mayor, the governor, who is more senior than him, remains a Muslim.’

May I recommend you also read this valuable report written by David Raab and published by a very sound think tank, The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs? http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp490.htm

A statement by the Palestinian Authority Information Ministry makes it clear that ‘The Palestinian people are also governed by Shari’a law... With regard to issues pertaining to religious matters. According to Shari’a Law, applicable throughout the Muslim world, any Muslim who [converts] or declares becoming an unbeliever is committing a major sin punishable by capital punishment... The [Palestinian Authority] cannot take a different position on this matter.’

Such rulings have a major effect on all Christian churches and make life impossible for potential converts, who are only safe if they seek refuge in Israel or go abroad.

Let me cite a couple more passages from reports that make this same point in fresh ways.

An Israeli government report in 1997 asserted more direct harassment of Christians by the PA.

In August 1997, Palestinian policemen in Beit Sahur opened fire on a crowd of Christian Arabs, wounding six. The Palestinian Authority is attempting to cover up the incident and has warned against publicizing the story. The local commander of the Palestinian police instructed journalists not to report on the incident....
In late June 1997, a Palestinian convert to Christianity in the northern West Bank was arrested by agents of the Palestinian Authority's Preventive Security Service. He had been regularly attending church and prayer meetings and was distributing Bibles. The Palestinian Authority ordered his arrest....
The pastor of a church in Ramallah was recently warned by Palestinian Authority security agents that they were monitoring his evangelistic activities in the area and wanted him to come in for questioning for spreading Christianity.
A Palestinian convert to Christianity living in a village near Nablus was recently arrested by the Palestinian police. A Muslim preacher was brought in by the police, and he attempted to convince the convert to return to Islam. When the convert refused, he was brought before a Palestinian court and sentenced to prison for insulting the religious leader....
A Palestinian convert to Christianity in Ramallah was recently visited by Palestinian policemen at his home and warned that if he continued to preach Christianity, he would be arrested and charged with being an Israeli spy.

Another report in 2002, based on Israeli intelligence gathered during Israel's Defensive Shield operation, asserts that ‘The Fatah and Arafat's intelligence network intimidated and maltreated the Christian population in Bethlehem. They extorted money from them, confiscated land and property and left them to the mercy of street gangs and other criminal activity, with no protection.

Your fifty families – if, indeed, there are fifty families – will, at worst, face a legal battle, knowing they will be vindicated if their claims are valid. Israel will not set their homes alight, nor gun them down, nor desecrate their churches nor violate their priests nor execute their converts. It will not do to them what the Muslims of Egypt have done in a long and systematic persecution. It will not do to them what the Taliban have done to Christians in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It will not intimidate or hector or torture or kill them. It’s time this was recognized, especially by a leading churchman like yourself.

The Christians of Beit Jala are, I suspect, being used to put pressure on Israel. The protest may well be part of a long and insidious campaign to malign and weaken Israel in the eyes of the world. Thus, Israel has been described as an ‘apartheid’ when it is, in fact, free of all traces of apartheid. What racism there is is on the same level as that found in the UK. Israel has been called a ‘Nazi state’ in an attempt to hurt Jews in the most painful way imaginable. It has been termed an ‘intolerant state’ when its reputation for racial, religious, and other forms of tolerance raises it above most nations.

I believe you owe the people of Israel an apology or an explanation. They need to know why you chose to single them out, selecting their actions as particularly examples of the shadows that lie on us. I cannot see Israel as a shadow, though I have seen it as a country surrounded by shadows all its life. It is a country of hope for millions. It has been a safe hand in securing the safety of Christianity’s holiest places, places that would fall into disrepair and be threatened with ruin should Israel be replaced by an Arab state, in direct allegiance to Islamic law, which forbids the repair of Christian churches or synagogues.

I have, I fear, abused your hospitality. I hope you have been able to spare the time to read my little letter. I trust it has given you cause for thought. What may arise from that is entirely up to you. I believe I have played my part, but if you know more, I can point you in other directions. Thank you for troubling to read so far. I have trusted that you would, and I have trusted in your innate goodness to awaken in your conscience new insights into the behaviour of a country that seeks peace when others lust for war.

Yours most sincerely,

Dr. Denis MacEoin

The Iranian Human Rights Commission

2011-08-11T16:50:00.000-07:00

If you haven't been huddling somewhere since the UK riots, you will already know that the brutal regime that governs Iran (if 'governs' is the right word) has announced the formation of some putative Human Rights Commission to sort out the British. They will, I think, send a delegation to these shores to instruct us in the true meaning of human rights. What that means, if I'm not mistaken, is advice on how to shoot down protesters of any kind, especially anyone marching for democracy and freedom. We'll all appreciate that, I know, and our police will be glad to exchange their baton rounds for more lethal 9mm parabellums. Being a Belfastman by birth and training, I can see now that our Troubles need not have gone on so long if we had only applied a full dose of human rights and shot everybody who went on the street during a curfew or went on a protest march. I can still remember a friend of my father's saying (this was at the very beginning of the thing) that he (a member of the B Specials no less) was off to get his sub-machine gun in order to kill Catholics. I used to think he was a bad man, but now, enlightened by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I recognize his devotion to human rights and his willingness to put them into practice.

Of course, it isn't all guns on citizens. This Iranian commission will, I'm sure, do sterling work telling us how to handle our own uncontrollable women. As we know, Iran is in the vanguard of women's rights in the world. They have a rightful place on the UN Commission for Women's Rights, and who can gainsay that? Look at it objectively. In the West, in the UK above all, women run wild. I have seen them with my own eyes. Even my wife is out of control (in Persian, bi-bazbini). She's goes to cafés with her sister, with no man around to keep an eye on her, she never wears proper hijab (bad-hijab é, agha), she sees male patients without a guardian present. And she's not the worst. But when the Iranians get here, they will sort women like her and her sister out. Her sister knows all about this: she used to be married to an Iranian, so I don't doubt she'll be eternally grateful to be put in her place again.

Most of all, they'll show us what to do with our homosexuals. As we know, Mr Ahmadinejad made it clear while speaking to the United Nations, there are NO homosexuals in Iran. We could be like that by the proper application of human rights values: once they are gone, there will be no more human rights issues and the Anglican Church (and a large part of the Jewish community) will have one problem less to deal with.

Speaking of Jews, The commission is bound to give us all pointers on how to deal with our Jews (and any Jews reading this should be dancing in the streets at the good times on their way for them). Iran, after all, loves Jews and only persecutes an indigenous religious minority, the Baha'is. They do have some naughty human rights measures they would like to apply to all Jews, of course, such as genocide. You can't argue with that, can you.

Of course, the human rights commission is just another vicious fantasy. Laughable, but indicative of something deeply worrying, not only in Iran, but throughout the Middle East. It is the ubiquity of the lie. The enormity of it. This lie has many forms, but some of the worst relate to Israel and the Jews. The worst is the claim that there were never any Jews in the Holy Land a.k.a Palestine. No Temple. No Me'arat ha-Machpela. No David. No Solomon. Abraham? He was the first Muslim and nothing to do with the Jews. The Israelis/Jews are Nazis. The racially mixed Israeli state is an apartheid state. As someone wrote to me last week, only one of Israel's wars was a defensive war. The Palestinians go back over 3000 years. Jerusalem is a holy city for Muslims, not Jews.

You know all this and more. What these and other tropes have in common is a compulsive need to turn history and contemporary fact on their head. Barefaced lies are stated publicly and without embarrassment, on the principle that saying something over and over again results in it being internalized and believed in with greater fervour than one might believe in fact.

It starts, I think, with the Qur'an. The Qur'an gives a host of Biblical stories devious twists, Islamicizing figures like Abraham, Moses, Ishmael, Mary, and Jesus. It is generally thought that Muhammad learned a lot from the rabbis of his day and came into contact with some heretical Christians, but that he garbled what he heard and produced alternative versions of Judaism and Christianity (thus, the Jews believe Ezra is the Son of God). The Quranic stories later get mixed in with accounts called Isra'iliyat, legends and fanciful tales from Jewish sources.

Since the Qur'an is deemed the Word of God, no Muslim will ever admit that it gets these things wrong. Instead, a new culture grows up, convinced of its own perfection. The Bible (both Jewish and Christian) has been hopelessly corrupted and cannot be relied on in anything.

And so it becomes easy to deny the truth of anything the Jews say or the propriety of anything they do. The lie is buttressed by the Qur'an and the Law. And secular means of establishing historical proof, such as archaeology, are sneered at just as much as the Bible. Our opponents live in a fantasy realm, impervious to Biblical and other classical accounts and immune to the methods of modern scholarship.

And now, no doubt, they are set to re-write the history of the UK.

A Letter to the Leader of the UK Green Party

2011-07-19T09:51:00.001-07:00

To Caroline Lucas MP
Leader of the UK Green Party

Dear Ms Lucas,

I have just finished the short but intriguing interview you gave to Martin Bright for the Jewish Chronicle, and I feel there are points I should make about some parts of it. Let me say a few words about myself first, so you understand where I am coming from. I’m a former academic in the broad area of Persian, Arabic, and Islamic Studies. Politically, I describe myself as a liberal, but not a member of any party. That means there are many things about the Green Party which I admire and others I do not. For as a long as I can remember, I have been a supporter of Israel, and not a day goes by without my contributing in some small way to the debate that surrounds Israel and the Palestinians. (You may even find my blog of help, ‘A Liberal Defence of Israel’ of help: http://mid-eastplus.blogspot.com/.)

Be that as it may, let me turn to some remarks of yours in the course of Martin’s interview. I thought it impressive that you chose to speak with a local rabbi, Elizabeth Tikvah Sara about the Green Party’s approach to the boycott and divestments dialogue. That you conclude that more sensitive language is needed is commendable. However, I don’t think it’s just the language that is at fault, but thre whole thinking behind the BDS movement. That initiative is based on the conceit that Israel is a rogue state, a state that engages in actions that breach human rights, that imposes a form of apartheid on Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, that oppresses Palestinians in various ways, that impedes the economic growth of Gaza and the West Bank, that continues to occupy Palestinian land without due cause, that kills Palestinians for no good reason, that targets Palestinian children, and much more.

If you support the BDS movement, I must assume that you believe at least some of those accusations. My worry is that, if you do so, it is out of the best intentions, but very far removed from a genuine context. I will not present you with an argument that Israel is a perfect country and its people long-suffering saints. That would not be true. But I would still argue that Israel is guilty of very little of what she has been condemned for. And I would argue that you need to read at least one intelligent book about these issues, since you do seem to have difficulty with the context.

For example, when Martin asked if there would soon be a Green Party boycott of Syria or Iran, you fobbed him off by saying ‘I think the difference with Israel is that so many other tools have been tried for so many decades with such extraordinary lack of success, that people have been driven to use these these other tools.’ What on earth can you mean by this statement? What has happened over the years is this. In 1948, Israel, a democratic state (not a dictatorship like any of its neighbours) was invaded by five countries, by six armies who stated aim was to kill all the Jews and destroy the Jewish state. This took place three years after the end of the Holocaust. No other country went to Israel’s aid, despite its being a UN state. The Arabs had been offered a state in 1947 too, but chose to resort to violence instead of taking up the offer. In 1967, Arab armies massed tanks and infantry on Israel’s borders, preparing to render the region judenrein. The Israelis fought back and won. In 1973, an invasion on Yom Kippur took the Israelis by surprise, but again they fought back and again they won. Do you think they ought to have put down their arms and let their enemies, as they claimed, ‘finish wehat Hitler started’. They are still saying that, by the way. Who do you blame for all this? Israel or the Arab states.

Since the 1960s, the Palestinians have been masters of terrorism, hijacking aeroplanes, sending suicide bombers into kindergartens, restaurants, buses or anywhere else. Who is to blame for this? Who launched two intifadas aimed at killing as many Jews as possible? The Israeli solution was not to go into the Wesrt Bank and slaughter civilians, but to build a fence that has now dropped the incidence of terrorist acts by over 90%. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

In 2000, at Camp David, Yasir Arafat was offered 95% of the West Bank and the whole of the Gaza Strip. He walked out. Nobody walks out on an offer of almost 100% of what they have demanded. In business, it would be suicidal. In politics much the same. Were the Israelis to blame for this, should ‘tools’ have been used to bring them into line. The Israelis have made gesture after gesture for peace. They left Sinai, Southern Lebanon, and Gaza. None of these gestures bore fruit in peace. To this day, Palestinian leaders (such as Mahmoud Abbas) when speaking to their own people in Arabic talk of taking conrol of both their territory and Israel and of driving the Jews into exile. A future Palestinian state will, according to Abbas, will be judenrein. (Jordan is already free of Jews and will not allow Jews to enter.) The Palestinians simply will not wake up to the fact that they will have to do like anybody else in their situation and compromise. So, who do you need to put pressure on? The Israelis, who have been desperate for peace since 1947/48 or the Palestinians (and other Arabs) who are fixated by their horror of a Jewish presence on what was Islamic soil?

Further down, you say ‘I think the Naqba (sic), the occupation, that’s been going on for decades. You could say that Syrian oppression has been going on for decades but in terms of the wider awareness of what’s going on there and the particular violence we’ve seen over the last few months, it is a much more recent phenomenon.’ I don’t know where to start with this. As a minor point, the nakba (it’s a k, not a q) is not the occupation. The nakba is the ‘disaster’ of 1947/48, when the UN brought a Jewish state into being, when Arab armies were defeated, and when local Arabs were forced (as often as not by Arab armies) out of their villages. The nakba was their own doing, when they launched the invasion. In towns like Haifa, the Jewish leadership pressed their Arab citizens to stay, but Arab leaders from the Arab Higher Committee, told them to go so that Arab troops could take the town. Nothing, absolutely nothing, prevented the Arabs from setting up their own state. Now, the occupation of the West Bank has been going on for decades (though Gaza was abandoned in 2005), but the problem has been, not that the Israelis won’t give up (I’ve mentioned Begin offering 95% of the West Bank), but that the Palestinians will not give up on their idea of a Palestine from the sea to the Jordan. Even now, the Jewish settlements take up no more than 3% of the WB, and the Israelis have offered an equivalent amount of land to compensate. The Palestinian response is, as ever, no. That happened famously after the 1967 war, when the Arab League met in Khartoum and issued a declaration (the Khartoum Declaration) that insisted on ‘the main principles by which the Arab States abide, namely, no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it’. Is Israel to blame for that (it has never been rescinded and can be found in similar words in the Hamas Charter of 1988, or in this statement from Hizbullah’s 1985 Risala maftuha: ‘We vigorously condemn all plans for negotiation with Israel, and regard all negotiators as enemies, for the reason that such negotiation is nothing but the recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist occupation of Palestine. Therefore we oppose and reject the Camp David Agreements, the proposals of King Fahd, the Fez and Reagan plan, Brezhnev's and the French-Egyptian proposals, and all other programs that include the recognition (even the implied recognition) of the Zionist entity. Or, as the Fatah Constitution puts it: ‘Armed public revolution is the inevitable method to liberating Palestine.‘

These are all terrorist groups. They refuse even to negotiate, and they play games with Western politicians like yourself, convincing you that the Israelis, not themselves are to blame for the lack of progress in peace talks.

Let me go a bit further. I can’t believe what you have said about Syria. Anyone (including Western governments and intelligence agencies) knew perfectly well how horrible most Arab regimes were and are. The monstrosities of the Iranian regime have been well known since 1979: they hang their victims in public from cranes. Yet the West has never done anything serious to bring them to book. Iran’s (and Syria’s) human rights records have never been hidden. So were those of Saddam Hussein. Of Mubarak. Of Ghadhafi. Of Saudi Arabia (they don’t hang, they decapitate their victims in a public square). Of Algeria. Of Hamas (they kill opponents by throwing them off rooftops). But not till this year have we done anything (and it’s little enough) to stop the violence. Maybe you knew nothing about this till now, but in that case you and your party shouldn’t be supporting boycotts in a region you know so little about.

As for human rights, I think you’ll find that most of the people living in most Arab states would prefer to live in Israel than where they are. Some already take refuge there, notably gay men and women. Back home they can be beaten badly or hanged or thrown from a height. In Israel they can meet together openly, live together, and join in gay pride marches, should they wish. In Israel, women are not discriminated against. They have the same rights as men, they are conscripted into the army, and they suffer none of the discrimination their peers suffer in Muslim countries. Israel’s record on treatment of religious minorities is unsurpassed. I will give you a simple contrast. You may know that Iran’s largest religious minorities is the Baha’i faith, a religion that originated in Iran in the 19th century and currently has adherents in most parts of the world, but almost none in Islamic states. (I have written several books and many articles about them.) As you may have heard, the Baha’is are severely persecuted by the Islamic regime, which has executed over 200 of their leaders, which has destroyed them financially, destroyed their books, refused admission to universities for their young men and women, and has demolished their holiest places and ploughed up their cemeteries. But if you go to Israel (something I heartily wish you would do), you can visit two UNESCO World Heritage Sites belonging to the Baha’is. Here, they have their two holiest shrines (one in Haifa, one near Acco), their international archives, the seat of of their supreme administrative body, and much else, all surrounded by some of the loveliest gardens you can imagine. So, please tell me why a party like yours chooses to boycott Israel and doesn’t say ‘boo’ to Ayatollah Khamene’i and Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad about their criminal activities. Nobody is executed in Israel for adultery, or being gay, or being Muslim, or being a member of the opposition. So why the boycott? Don’t you feel ashamed to be boycotting a country that has achieved so much in such a short time to improve conditions for its citizens, yet can’t drum up the energy and interest to speak out against regimes that kill and torture and support terrorism or arm terror groups (as Iran and Syria do)? Israel is a genuine democracy that includes all its citizens, Arab and Jew. It has no system of apartheid in any part, despite wild claims to the contrary. Saudi Arabia operates an apartheid system, within which it bans non-Muslims from certain areas and forbids Jews to enter under any circumstances. Why not boycott a country that really does carry out human rights abuses? The Green Party has said that ‘There is no place for capital punishment in a criminal justice system which is compassionate, just and respectful of human rights. No country or state should retain the death penalty in its criminal justice system.’ Israel, as you should know, abolished the death sentence from the beginning and has only hanged a single person and that for good reason: Adolf Eichmann was a chief organizer of the Holocaust, and it’s hard to see who the Jewish state could have let him live. But today, Israeli gaols are filled with Palestinian murderers, chiefly terrorists. Recently, two young Arab men were placed in prison to stand trial for the sickening slaughter of five members of a Jewish family, the Fogels, in a settlement called Itamar. They stabbed to death the father, mother, two little boys, and beheaded a five-month-old baby girl. Those boys will never face a death sentence in Israel. In Gaza, people danced in the streets when they heard of the murders. That was last March. Iran hangs on almost a daily basis, Saudi Arabia has regular work for its executioner, China has the highest rate of executions in the world. But you boycott Israel.

To quote further from the interview: ‘Ultimately, Ms Lucas explained, the Green Party's support of the boycott should be seen in the tradition of activism rooted in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. "For many people I think that's what they're looking at and thinking if we did it on South Africa…", her voice trails off. "And there are many parallels that are drawn.”’ What parallels exactly? Let me remind you that, in apartheid South Africa, the regime aimed to keep blacks and whites wholly separate. There were segregated buses and trains, segregated restaurants, segregated beaches, segregated schools, segregated hospitals (and ambulances),and segregated cinemas. Blacks lived in townships, whites on farms and in the cities. Blacks were disenfranchised. And on and on, as I’m sure you well know. But here is the point: not one of those segregations applies to Israel. There are no places reserved to Jews or to Arabs, no all-Arab public transport, no Arab-only or Jewish-only cinemas or swimming pools or schools or – importantly – universities (where Arab students form 20% of the student intakes, in accordance with the Arab percentage in the general population. When I was in the Hebrew University last March, everywhere I went I saw Arab students, including a possible majority of women. So, go ahead and draw parallels, and go ahead and boycott Israel to punish Israelis for their attempt to create a rounded and balanced society, and stay shtum about countries in the region that have their own apartheid ambitions. For decades now, Christians have been forced out of Arab countries, notably the West Bank. The only Middle Eastern country that has seen a rise in the Christian population is Israel. But why not boycott Israel for that? I have yet to hear a single politician raise his or her voice to protest that exodus of Christians from their homes.

I’m not writing this letter in a spirit of antagonism, and I hope you don’t feel that I have. I wouldn’t be writing this if I felt antagonistic. We have a lot in common I too have a degree in English (before the Arabic, Persian etc.) and I greatly admire your principled support for homeopathy (my wife is a well-known homeopath and author of books on homeopathy and women’s health; I was for a long time chairman of the UK Natural Medicines Society). In so many ways, I admire what you do and a great deal of what you stand for. That’s why I’m taking the trouble to write, and at this ridiculous length! I hate to see someone who normally impresses me peddling such a tawdry notion as the boycott of Israel. I have a strong feeling that you simply don’t know much about the history of all this, or about issues such as Arab anti-Semitism. I believe that if you knew a lot more about that anti-Semitism and its corrupting influence on Arab and Iranian and Pakistani society you would begin to realize why the boycott and disinvestment campaign is driven, as much as anything, by an unyielding hatred for the Jewish people. Delegitimization of Israel has become the focus for Fatah, Hamas, and other groups, now they are prevented from taking suicide bombers into Israel proper. It’s not a case of taking my word for any of this, and hoping I’m not a nutcase after all. You can delve into website after website to read for yourself how far the Nazi defamation of Jews has merged with older Islamic hatred. Not many years ago, anti-Israel marchers, composed of both radical Muslims and far-left activists appeared on the streets of London, Amsterdam and elsewhere chanting ‘Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas’. The boycott is a major strand in the delegitimization campaign, and it has its roots in anti-Semitism. Such actions are carried out by much the same people as though who define the UK or the USA as ‘terrorist states’, who see dark conspiracies everywhere, who state in a matter-of-fact way that Jews were behind 9/11 and that thousands were warned to stay away that day. It is not Israel that these agitators and conspiracy theorists hate, it is the presence of Jews on Islamic territory, and they will do all they can to suborn honest politicians like yourself into believing their upside-down world view, by manipulating your best intentions to their ends.

Forgive such dramatizing. I only want to get across to you just how vile this hatred for Israel has become, to give you a quick glimpse into what it does to the truth. I have written enough for one sitting. If you have read thus far, thank you for taking the time to do so. Beyond this, there are two things you should do. The first is to read more about this topic. To start with, why not read Robin Shepherd’s excellent and recent study A State Beyond the Pale: Europe's Problem with Israel ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/State-Beyond-Pale-Europes-Problem/dp/0753827131/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310943586&sr=1-1). After that, perhaps any of the Israel texts by Alan Dershowitz, such as The Case for Israel ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/Case-Israel-Alan-Dershowitz/dp/0471679526/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310943761&sr=1-1). This book is much hated by the anti-Israel brigade, but I have always found him sane and reasonable.

More importantly, perhaps, you have to spend some time in Israel. There are two ways to go: the Israeli embassy will happily get you there (and may even cover the cost of your trip), but you may not like to go about with an official guide. So just book yourself on a flight to Tel Aviv and have a holiday.

There, that’s it. I’m more than happy to answer any questions you may have (provided I can answer them!). Forgive my impertinence in making this demand on you, but I deem it too important to let lie. A forest of lies surrounds Israel like great Birnam wood. I want to help you see through the thickets in order to make the most moral and ethical decision you can.

Dr. Denis MacEoin

Newcastle upon Tyne

A Letter to the Secretary of State for Defence

2011-05-20T15:57:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday (15 May), I was at a wonderful conference called 'We Believe in Israel'. It was held in London, and almost 2000 people were there. The choice of sessions was overwhelming: it seemed hard to miss a good one.

The plenary session in the morning was opened by a speech by Dr. Liam Fox, Secretary of State for Defence, a man rightly praised for his pro-Israel attitudes. However, on this occasion, he said a number of things that sparked a very negative response on the part of half or more of his audience, who booed him. I'm sure he was taken aback, thinking that most of what he had to say was designed to please a Zionist crowd.

Afterwards, I felt he needed a briefing on what had gone wrong, but I wasn't sure where he'd get one. Whoever had advised him when preparing his speech had got several points badly wrong, and I wasn't sure that he would turn to the Israeli embassy or anyone else who might explain things. So I wrote a long letter in an attempt to bring some clarity into his life. The letter is on its way to the Ministry of Defence, and I hope he reads it.

It won't do any harm to spread knowledge of this letter more widely, so here it is. Any comments will be helpful. And, no, my timing was wrong, so there's no reference to Obama's horrendous call for Israel to return to the Auschwitz borders.

Rt. Hon. Dr. Liam Fox
Secretary of State for Defence

Dear Dr. Fox,

I have just returned from the ‘We Believe in Israel’ Conference, held in London on Sunday. Your opening speech to a large and sometimes hostile audience was impressive and, for the most part, nuanced, and I want to congratulate you on it and, rather belatedly, on your address to this year’s Herzliya Conference, which was outstanding. Your love for Israel and the support you offered her were obvious from the outset. If only more politicians could see this matter as you do…..

But you must have been dismayed and somewhat puzzled by the reception some of your remarks received. It may have seemed unfair to have such a pro-Israel speech countered in parts by hostile voices, and that is to be regretted. But there is, I think, a silver lining, in that this provides an opportunity to explain why those matters were deemed contentious by fifty per cent or more of your audience. Given the overall composition of that audience, it’s clear that they enjoyed and agreed with the largest part of what you said. I don’t doubt that, if asked, everyone would have agreed that your heart was in the right place, but that you had been misled, as often as not by nuggets of received wisdom which most or all of us think mistaken. So, what about the other passages?

The first one to draw my attention was your eulogy of British treatment of Jews and then Israelis during the Mandate and around the time of Israeli independence. I don’t have access to your text, but I remember that you spoke highly of British support for Jews and unprejudiced assistance in the creation of Israel. In fact, the truth is quite the opposite, and I say this with sorrow as a British patriot willing to defend this country on a broad front. After the White Paper of 1939, Britain closed Palestine to almost all Jews. This had an immediate impact, since it prevented thousands of European Jews trying to flee the impending catastrophe in their homelands, shutting off what might have been their safest place of refuge. After the war, Britain imprisoned many thousands of concentration camp survivors in camps on Cyprus and turned back attempts by other Jews to land on the shores of the Mandate. In 1948, as the Israeli war of independence was about to break out, Britain threatened to intervene on the side of Egypt. At the same time, Britain left forts, weapons and ammunition for the Arabs and nothing for the Jews, with the strong implication that they hoped for an Arab victory, which would drive the Jews out of the country. During that war, Transjordan’s army was led by thirty-eight British officers. And there has long been a perception that, like the Quai d’Orsay, Britain’s Foreign Office has always been strongly pro-Arab.

I’m sure you can appreciate why your expression of a rose-tinted picture of British-Jewish and British-Israeli relations did not go down too well with those parts of your audience who were aware of these more negative facts. However, let me add that, in the many years I have been privy to Israel advocacy circles, I have never come across anti-British sentiments. You are doubtless aware of that yourself. All I would ask, then, is a greater measure of consciousness on your part. Some measured affirmation of the difficulties Britain has caused the Jews down the years would go a long way to winning approval from similar audiences in future.

Now I must address those three issues about which Sunday’s audience grew vocal in disagreement. These were three areas on which your listeners felt you had misrepresented the facts, not about past history, but about matters that touch more nearly on the present day and the hopes for a valid peace process. I hope I did not misunderstand you in any of these.

1967 borders
At one point you stated that any final settlement would require Israel to return to her 1967 borders. That is not true. The relevant UN resolution 242, whose chief author was the British peer Lord Caradon, affirmed the principle that there should be ‘withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict’. That resolution was accepted by Israel but flatly rejected by the PLO, a rejection that lies at the root of later conflicts. As you may know, Caradon and his fellow drafters deliberately omitted the definite article before the word ‘territories’, leaving the interpretation of which lands should be vacated by Israel to future negotiations. He did so because he knew the 1967 borders were ‘inadequate’ and exposed Israel to attack on its eastern flank. No Israeli government will ever accept a return to those borders, nor will they be compelled to do so in any future negotiations.

Famously, the late Abba Eban referred to the pre-war 1967 lines as ‘Auschwitz borders’, because they exposed Israel to attack: ‘We have openly said that the map will never again be the same as on June 4, 1967. For us, this is a matter of security and of principles. The June map is for us equivalent to insecurity and danger. I do not exaggerate when I say that it has for us something of a memory of Auschwitz. We shudder when we think of what would have awaited us in the circumstances of June, 1967, if we had been defeated; with Syrians on the mountain and we in the valley, with the Jordanian army in sight of the sea, with the Egyptians who hold our throat in their hands in Gaza. This is a situation which will never be repeated in history.’

Settlements
Certainly, there are few topics in the Israel-Palestine debate more contentious than this one. There is almost universal condemnation of Jewish settlements, from the White House to the UN to the EU. Your statement on Sunday that called the settlements as ‘illegal’ and an ‘obstacle to peace’ was not therefore unusual in that context, but you will recall how much disagreement it provoked in the hall. You can hardly be blamed for expressing an opinion that is so widely shared, but I do think you should pause to ask if what you said is true.

A close examination of the claim of illegality will show where the fallacy lies. The settlements are not illegal. Controversial, certainly, and, in the case of the tiny, trailer-camp units, as much condemned in Israel as outside. The legal defence is simple. When Israel entered the West Bank (Samaria and Judaea) in 1967, it did so to protect its own citizens from attack by Jordan. In such a situation, occupation is provoked and justified by enemy aggression. British occupation of part of Germany in 1945 was, by the same argument, wholly legal, and has never been challenged. The West Bank had previously been illegally annexed by Jordan in 1950, following its conquest in the 1948-49 conflict. Thus, in 1967, the Israelis did not occupy Jordanian sovereign territory. Nor did they occupy sovereign Palestinian territory since the Palestinians had not acted on earlier resolutions to establish an Arab state alongside Israel. This means that the West Bank is merely ‘disputed territory’, not illegally occupied sovereign land.

Apart from this, it should not be forgotten that the Jewish people have a long connection to Judaea and Samaria, a connection that long precedes Arab conquest in the 7th century. In the 20th century, several settlements were set up with full legal recognition, in places like Neve Ya’cov and the Etzion Bloc, or older habitations like Hebron. Neve Ya’cov was forcibly abandoned when it faced attack from Jordanian troops in 1948 and was occupied by Jordan. Only when Jews returned there after 1967 was any question raised about legality. The same is true of the Etzion Bloc (Gush Etzion).

I do recognize that, in your position as a member of the UK government, you cannot say that the settlements are not illegal’, but on Sunday I think a more nuanced expression might have helped allay people’s fears that, despite your public Zionism, you subscribed to the accusation of illegality. This is not easy territory, but it is territory about which Israel cannot afford to back down. It is all but certain that any future agreement between Israel and the Palestinians will result in an acceptance of the major settlements as part of Israel, in exchange – it has been suggested – for unoccupied areas of comparable size.. More worrying than the Israeli retention of little more than 5% of Arab land is the current Palestinian position, which refuses to have even a single Jew living in its territory. This may prove a major obstacle in the case of Hebron, where the small Jewish population is already subject to severe restrictions. In Israel, of course, Arabs form some 20% of the population, with equal rights under the Constitution.

Jerusalem
A touchier topic, on the whole, than settlements, and with the potential to upset an audience like Sunday’s. But this is less clear-cut than the other issues, since the future status of Jerusalem is entirely negotiable. In some ways, the issue revolves less around legality and more around religion and emotion on both sides, though more, I think, the city’s centrality to Judaism, I suggest, is more relevant than its historical character for Muslims. I should, perhaps, explain that I’m a former lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies and that I have a keen sense of what is involved here. For Jews, it is not just the division of the city (something you consider necessary) that is hard to contemplate, but the way that division would take place. By taking East Jerusalem, the Palestinians would gain complete control over the Temple Mount, the holiest place in the world for Jews. Despite cries to the contrary, neither Jerusalem nor the Temple Mount have ever had much importance for Muslims or Arabs. In the early phase of his mission, the Prophet Muhammad and his followers prayed towards Jerusalem, following the practice of the Jews in Medina. But about ten months after his move to Medina, he abruptly swung right round during prayers to face Mecca, literally turning his back on Jerusalem. There is even a verse in the Qur’an which records this change of direction and states that it is preferable to the previous one. By contrast, Jewish worship has focused on the city from the time of King Solomon, and remained firmly fixed there throughout the long years of the diaspora. Given that Muslims have Mecca and Medina (both cities closed to Jews), Muslim control over east Jerusalem would be unjust and might lead to renewed conflict over the mere fact that it had fallen into non-Jewish hands.

In Jewish hands, Muslims would enjoy the same rights they already have of access to the twin mosques on the Mount, the al-Aqsa and the Qubbat al-Sakhra. Israeli treatment of non-Jewish holy places has always been exemplary. Haifa contains an extraordinary UNESCO World Heritage Site, which contains the gardens, shrines, and international headquarters of the Baha’i religion. In Iran, by contrast, all the Baha’i holy places have been bulldozed and built over, and their cemeteries trashed. That alone causes me to consider Israeli control preferable to any by the Islamic waqf authorities. The Waqf authorities are guided by shari’a law, whose principles form the foundation of the Palestinian Authority’s Basic Law. In general, shari’a rulings are deeply prejudicial to the rights of Jews and Christians, and give no status at all to the followers of any other religion. By contrast, the Israeli Law for the Protection of Holy Places (1967) provides a more equitable basis for the control of Muslim, Jewish and Christian sites throughout the Old City.

There is another reason for Jewish concern. In Hebron, you can visit the Ma’arat HaMachpela, the Tomb of the Patriarchs, secondary only to the Temple Mount in Jewish affection and veneration. I visited it in March, and was deeply impressed by this large building dating from the days of King Herod, i.e. the same period as Herod’s Second Temple, of which the Kotel or Western Wall remains. Because Hebron is chiefly Arab and Muslim, the Tomb, which is believed to be the burial place of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Rebecca and Leah, comes under Islamic control. The result is pitiable. Jews are allowed to use only 20 per cent of the edifice and are not allowed to improve or develop it in a seemly manner. Nor is any form of historical or archaeological research permitted. This naturally gives rise to concern for the Jewish and Christian sites in east Jerusalem should they be made subject to shari’a law, which is harsh regarding churches, synagogues, cemeteries, and other sacred sites.

This is difficult to put into political words, but it is immensely important to Jews who, after some two thousand years have regained a measure of access to their holiest sites only to see them at risk of being repossessed by the same people who banned them from entering the Tomb of the Patriarchs for 700 years. There has to be a better solution to the issue of Jerusalem, therefore, than a crude division of the city, which, incidentally, is mentioned some 700 times in the Bible but not once in the Qur’an.

I did not at first intend to write at such length, but the subjects demanded their say. I hope you will not interpret this as a letter of criticism: it is not. I understand that official UK policy on these matters makes it hard for you to introduce another note, however correct that might be. But I believe your work in this field would benefit from closer discussions from a representative grouping of pro-Israel activists, both Jews and non-Jews like myself. There is no shortage of organizations, and just about as many opinions. Nonetheless, I think the points I have made do come close to what most of us believe.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Denis MacEoin

A Letter to the Quakers

2011-04-08T14:57:00.000-07:00

Teresa Parker
Middle East Programme
Society of Friends

Many years ago, I came very close to joining your ranks and becoming a Quaker. I have generally admired much of what you do and some of what you believe. But I am now thoroughly grateful that I did not become a Quaker then, for I fear I would have to abandon you now. I find myself frequently disappointed in the Quaker attitude to Israel, and more so given your recent decision to boycott settlements in Samaria and Judaea, which you regard as illegal under international law. That is, of course, highly inaccurate. There is no firm position in international law concerning these settlements, and authorities veer from one side to the other and will do so until the matter is resolved by a future peace treaty or other instrument. The only point I wish to make in this regard is that, so long as the legal position remains unclear, you have no right to declare the illegality of the settlements, particularly since you are not a properly constituted legal body with the authority to pronounce on such matters. There is something high-handed about your position, which clashes with traditional Quaker belief in the virtues of humility.

I have spent much of the past week composing a letter to a 12-year-old girl called Tamar Fogel, and distributing it to people around the world, who have written in support of the letter and the sentiments it expresses. The letter will be delivered to Tamar before Passover next week, by her grandparents. Even for a professional writer like myself, it proved a difficult letter to write. Tamar is the oldest of the three surviving children of the Fogel family. On returning from her Sabbath youth club three weeks ago, she found her parents and three of her siblings murdered in a bath of blood. Her mother had been stabbed to death, her father and two brothers had had their throats slit, and her 3-month-old sister had been beheaded in her cot. The perpetrator or perpetrators have so far remained in hiding. When news of this atrocity was made known, Palestinians in Gaza handed out sweets and danced in the streets of Gaza City.

The massacre of this harmless family, all residents of one of the settlements you so despise, is only the latest in a long line of atrocities that have been carried out against Israeli civilians. Palestinian terrorist attacks have no excuse, yet I have never seen a supporter of the Palestinians march or protest against the very great evil they represent. A website entitled ‘Quakers in Israel and Palestine’ says almost nothing about Israel, but records a long list of activities you have undertaken in the Palestinian territories. An American website called ‘Quakers With a Concern for Palestine-Israel’ has a series of links, not one of which presents the Israeli point of view, but most of which reiterate a pro-Palestinian position. Does that seem balanced to you? Fair? Helpful? Likely to work towards peace? Another site, entitled ‘Quakers in Britain’ has a page named ‘Israel-Palestine’. It shows a photograph of part of Israel’s security barrier, to be precise a section of the barrier which is a wall. Only 3% of that barrier is a wall, the rest is a fence. Why did Quakers choose to show the wall when the fence would have been more representative? Does that match Quaker ideals of fairness and justice? The barrier has reduced terrorist attacks within Israel by around 90 percent. Might it not have been appropriate to have made that clear? You will know that images of this wall sector are routinely used by groups and individuals who seek to defame Israel and who mischaracterize the barrier and the reasons it is there. Can you explain how Quaker ideals sit alongside those of groups motivated by anti-Semitism and hatred for the Israeli state?

Palestinians have done much to worsen their position. While sympathizing with their plight, fairness demands we take notice of their many acts of self-defeat and hatred. They have fought wars against Israel and killed thousands in terrorist actions. They continue to do so, and their boldness in semi-military action grows year by year. Israel has done much to help them and for over 60 years has appealed to them to accept the legal status of Israel and to build their own state alongside it. Yet their newspapers, their school textbooks, their radio, their television and their mosque sermons are filled every day with exhortations to kill Jews, with appeals to young children to grow up to become suicide bombers, with blood-curdling cries to launch a jihad once more against the Jews, ‘those sons of apes and pigs’. Speaking in English, Palestinian politicians preach peace, but in Arabic they deliver a message to their people of ‘No surrender’ and predict a day when there will be no more Jews and no more Israel. Does it not seem to you that Quakers might be better employed in trying to break down these dreadful barriers of hate and militancy? But do Quakers have the courage to do so? You have made many friends with Palestinians, but fewer, to my knowledge, with Israeli Jews or, for that matter, Israeli Arabs.

If the Quaker movement stands, in the eyes of non-Quakers, for anything, it is the pursuit of peace. Your efforts, when directed to that end, have been commendable. We all hope and work for peace. It is an essential quality of civilized human life that all of us, be we religious or secular, should make efforts in the path of peace and reconciliation, for without them civilized life is not possible. I do not, however, believe that boycotting one side in this conflict is conducive to peacemaking. Through her tears, the little girl Tamar, whom I mentioned above, told an interviewer that she was resolved to continue in the path set by her parents. Her surviving family, her grandparents, aunts and uncles are all religious people, much like yourselves. They work hard to build something that symbolizes the survival and endurance of the Jewish people against the odds. No people in history have gone through the persecution, brutalization, and contempt that he Jews have done. We all thought that, when the Holocaust had ended, its horrors would speak to mankind and mark the end of hatred of the Jews. And yet it is clear today that anti-Semitism is as strong as it ever was, perhaps stronger. Hatred of Israel has become a mask for hatred of the Jews. Why else would the one Jewish state be singled out for the daily opprobrium that is heaped on it? Why do ordinary young people march in the streets chanting ‘Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas’? Not in Berlin in 1939, but in London in 2009. Having survived the Holocaust and returned to their homeland after 2000 years, the Jews are not going to cave in to your boycott or any other trick that singles them out for punishment, much as Hitler singled them out.

For over 60 years, the Jewish people have done all in their power to make peace with their neighbours. They have given up Sinai and Gaza, and they will give up most of the West Bank when a reasonable deal has been made with their enemies. What have the Palestinians given in return? In 2000, Yasser Arafat walked away from an offer at the Camp David Summit that gave him 97 percent of what he had asked for. He then started a pre-planned second intifada, in the course of which over 1000 Israelis and over 4000 Palestinians were killed. While Israeli hospitals continue to treat Palestinians of all kinds, the Palestinians have offered a steady diet of violence, from suicide bombings to bullets to car bombs. They fire rockets on civilian communities, they target children, they teach their children to kill. No Israeli school teaches violence. So why do people of peace like yourselves prefer to boycott Israelis and to leave untouched the men of violence? Perhaps you will say you work among the Palestinians to inculcate a love for peace. If that is so, may I say in sorrow that your efforts have borne no fruit? As time passes, the Palestinians grow more violent, not less, more dismissive of gestures for peace, not less.

You have a role to play in the Middle East, but at present I believe you are playing the wrong one. The settlements are a prickly subject that will be settled in its own time. It is fairly certain that most of the settlements there now will remain. The Palestinians and the Jordanians say that no Jew will be allowed to remain on Arab soil. Yet 20% of the population of Israel is Arab. Racism against tolerance, surely. I think it would be better if you could agree not to interfere in the settlements, for which you seem ill-equipped. Work with both sides, by all means. Give comfort to the Jews and good counsel to the Arabs. Associate yourselves with activities like Israel’s Save a Heart Campaign, which gives heart transplants to Palestinian children. Much good can come of that, and your help would be much welcomed. Go to Hebron and see for yourselves how the small Jewish population is restricted to 3% of the town, on pain of death. Much reconciliation is needed there. Visit Givat Haviva's Jewish-Arab Center for Peace, the Parents Circle-Families Forum, the four Hand in Hand schools in Israel and the West Bank, and many, many more. Such projects offer a positive response to alienation and fear. Boycotts only exacerbate enmity.

I do not doubt your motives, your sincerity or your commitment. I only ask if you are properly informed about the realities of the Middle East and whether you do not take your information from tainted sources. You must act by your own lights, but I fear that is exactly what you are not doing. You have a mission to the Palestinians, and that is essential. But I believed you also have a mission to the people of the settlements, to children like young Tamar Fogel and her two brothers. The horror she witnessed will never leave her. But nor will the determination she has to build on the foundations left by a loving mother and father. If it is possible, I would ask you to visit some settlements and to sit in silence with the people who live in them. But do not boycott them or the produce they work so hard to grow.

Yours sincerely,

Denis MacEoin

Letter to Edinburgh University Student Association

2011-04-06T12:16:00.000-07:00

The following letter was written to the EUSA following their vote to boycott Israel because of its 'apartheid'.

The Committee
Edinburgh University Student Association

May I be permitted to say a few words to members of the EUSA? I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic and Islamic History in Buccleuch Place under William Montgomery Watt and Laurence Elwell Sutton, two of Britain’s great Middle East experts in their day. I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge and to teach Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University. Naturally, I am the author of several books and hundreds of articles in this field.

I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs and that, for that reason, I am shocked and disheartened by the EUSA motion and vote. I am shocked for a simple reason: there is not and has never been a system of apartheid in Israel. That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality by any Edinburgh student, should he or she choose to visit Israel to see for themselves.

Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that those members of EUSA who voted for this motion are absolutely clueless in matters concerning Israel, and that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby. Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I’m not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel. I’m speaking of a hatred that permits itself no boundaries in the lies and myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a ‘Nazi’ state. In what sense is this true, even as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nüremberg Laws? The Final Solution? None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel, precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for. It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When? No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt it deserves. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is as basic a way to subvert historical fact as anything I can think of.

Likewise apartheid. For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled things in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Unfortunately for those who believe this, a weekend in any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous the claim is. That a body of university students actually fell for this and voted on it is a sad comment on the state of modern education. The most obvious focus for apartheid would be the country’s 20% Arab population. Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha’is, severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel, where they have their world centre; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan and elsewhere, are kept safe by Israel; the holy places of all religions are protected under a specific Israeli law. Arabs form 20% of the university population (an exact echo of their percentage in the general population). In Iran, the Baha’is (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any university or to run their own universities: why aren’t your members boycotting Iran?

Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa. They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas alongside Jews – something no blacks could do in South Africa. Israeli hospitals not only treat Jews and Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank. On the same wards, in the same operating theatres.

In Israel, women have the same rights as men: there is no gender apartheid. Gay men and women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays often escape into Israel, knowing they may be killed at home. It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel and say nothing about countries like Iran, where gay men are hanged or stoned to death. That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief. Intelligent students thinking it’s better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?

University is supposed to be about learning to use your brain, to think rationally, to examine evidence, to reach conclusions based on solid evidence, to compare sources, to weigh up one view against one or more others. If the best Edinburgh can now produce are students who have no idea how to do any of these things, then the future is bleak. I do not object to well documented criticism of Israel. I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations. We are going through the biggest upheaval in the Middle East since the 7th and 8th centuries, and it’s clear that Arabs and Iranians are rebelling against terrifying regimes that fight back by killing their own citizens. Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations and call for no boycotts against Libya, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iran. They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world’s freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the Middle East that gives refuge to gay men and women, the only country in the Middle East that protects the Baha’is.... Need I go on? The imbalance is perceptible, and it sheds no credit on anyone who voted for this boycott.

I ask you to show some common sense. Get information from the Israeli embassy. Ask for some speakers. Listen to more than one side. Do not make your minds up until you have given a fair hearing to both parties. You have a duty to your students, and that is to protect them from one-sided argument. They are not at university to be propagandized. And they are certainly not there to be tricked into anti-Semitism by punishing one country among all the countries of the world, which happens to be the only Jewish state. If there had been a single Jewish state in the 1930s (which, sadly, there was not), don’t you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to boycott it? Of course he would, and he would not have stopped there. Your generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism never sets down roots among you. Today, however, there are clear signs that it has done so and is putting down more. You have a chance to avert a very great evil, simply by using reason and a sense of fair play. Please tell me that this makes sense to you. I have given you some of the evidence. It’s up to you to find out more.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Denis MacEoin

An Open Letter to Tamar Fogel

2011-03-31T08:11:00.000-07:00

Dear Tamar,

We have never met, nor are we likely to. I am not a Jew nor an Israeli, though for many years I have defended both Jews and Israelis from the physical and political attacks that are made on them. I live in England, though I'm Irish. The Irish used to be great enemies of the English, who did bad things to us, but who gave us their language, something in which we excel. But many years ago, long before you were born, the enmity between the Irish and the English faded. We are not the same people, but we no longer hate each other, and the English Queen will soon make her first visit to Ireland, in a gesture that the past is past, that we are now allies, not enemies.

The most important for you is to be sure that the only guilty parties were the terrorists who carried out the slaughter. And I need not tell you that these were not the first Palestinian terrorists to take out their hate, their resentment, and their jealousy on helpless Jews living on Jewish land.

I have watched you in two videos, the first time when Binyamin Netanyahu came to visit you and your grandparents, and I still remember the force with which you challenged him, such an important man and such a young girl. And after that your tears. It seemed to me then, and it seems to me now that the dead are at peace, and your two living brothers may grow up with less dark memories, but that you above all are old enough and aware enough to carry the most terrible memories through the rest of your life. But I also saw a second video in which you spoke to a reporter from Israeli National Television, and here your tears gave way to a most articulate, awesomely mature, and moving assertion of your right to live in Samaria. I wish every Palestinian could watch that video with an Arabic voice-over. Perhaps there and then they might see that their fight against Israel is worthless, that you will never surrender, that you will not let yourselves be led to the slaughter as happened all those years ago. Rabbi Chaim Potok once wrote that there are no more gentle Jews. He did not mean that Jews are no longer kind or good, but that they now know how to fight back. Kol Hakavod for every word you spoke.

You will grow up among strong people, and you will finally marry and have children of your own. That may seem far off to you, but to someone much older like myself, it will happen in no time at all. When that happens, and when your two brothers find wives and have children, there will soon be more Fogels than before. They cannot substitute for the dead, but they can stand up and speak for them down the long years to come. Your life, however much you may wish it otherwise, will be overshadowed by the terrible event that has fallen on you. You will ask questions and you may find answers. After the Shoah, many rabbis tackled the question of hester panim, asking why HaShem had seemed to turn his face away from his people. I am not a Jew, and I cannot provide easy answers to those questions. You must seek your own answers from your rabbis and in your scriptures. One answer may be found in a short sound recording that was made in Belsen shortly after its liberation by British forces. It was made by the BBC and contains at the end description of a Shabbat service held by a British rabbi, at the end of which the survivors stand and sing HaTikva. They are weak, they are out of tune, some of them will still die: but they are singing in open defiance of the very great Nazi evil that had overwhelmed them and their families. Three years after that, the state of Israel was established.

I'm writing, first because I'm a writer and that's how I express my feelings best. But also because I want to convey just how many people's thoughts are with you. You have your grandparents and aunts or uncles, and after that you have your small and concerned community of I'timar, but beyond that you have a world of people, Jews and non-Jews, who stand with you in your grief. We feel helpless, not knowing what we can or should do to help, yet longing to do so. How many people can say they truly love the murderers who came to your house that night? Some may hand out candies and dance in the streets, but how meaningful is that? They love themselves and their own dreams of glory, but who can truly love men of blood, people who kill infants in their cradles?

For you the greatest problem of the next few years may be this: you are still a child and you deserve to be reading funny books and watching films and playing games and going to your youth club; but many will treat you as an adult before you are entirely ready for adult responsibilities. You do seem older than your years, but you should not be rushed into adulthood. I am sure your grandparents and others will understand this and will do their best to protect you from those who want to take your childhood away from you.

Enough of the advice! Everyone likes to give advice. You don't have to listen to any of it, and advice isn't really the reason I've written. You are in my thoughts and in the thoughts of millions of other people because the murder of your family has gone so deeply into so many people's hearts. The list of atrocities carried out on Jews, not just in Israel but beyond, is very long. As a result, it's easy to let them all blur together into one mass. But every so often one death or a group of deaths stands out and demands special attention. One day there will be a memorial to the sacrifice your family made. People from far away may come to visit it. Photographs of it will appear in the press. But the true memorial will be you, an ordinary girl, with a torn heart and a wounded soul, going to school, going to shul, making friends, baking bread, sewing, cooking, reading, blushing when a certain young man comes to speak to you, going to Kever Yosef to marry him, giving birth to your first child. I just mean to say that no-one expects from you heroic deeds, no-one wants you to have to shoulder resistance to all the evils you know better than most. It is your ordinary deeds, the day-to-day living of an ordinary life that are for the creators of horror the most painful thing of all, that Jews will continue to live on land sanctified by Jewish blood. At the end of that recording made in Belsen, someone calls out 'Am Yisrael Chai'. By living, the killers only bring eternal disgrace on themselves, their families, and everyone who shelters them. By living, you make clear to everyone that the People of Israel live, that their light will not be snuffed out, and that when your enemies have gone to dust and seen a darkness beyond measure engulf them, the light of the Jews will illuminate the nations. Grow and be happy and tell us what you see on your journey.

Loosening the belt

2011-01-17T16:30:00.000-08:00

I’ve been thinking this through for some time. Think, think, think. It clears the brain and makes all things evident: I recommend it to all my friends and relatives. What I’ve been thinking is simple: why don’t we destroy Israel? I don’t mean some mild redrawing of Israel’s fascist boundaries, or putting all those shameless Israeli women in burkas. They should be so lucky. No, I mean the hot patootie, wipe it off the face of the earth, off the map, off the pages of time, as my little chum Mahmoud There Are No Gays in Iran Ahmadinejad keeps telling us to do. I’m inclined to let him do it himself, because he has almost got the wherewithal, but I have some misgivings about putting everything into his hands.
For one thing, half a dozen nuclear bombs on the Zionist Entity would take care of it. No more Israelis, no more Nazi Zionists, no more fascist Jews, no more Christians, no more Baha’is, no more apartheid, no more gays. What’s not to like? There’s only one teensy drawback: Fifty megatons will take out all the Palestinians as well and probably contaminate Gaza and the West Bank. Sorry, Judaea and Samaria. No, that’s not right. Filastin.
Think about it as I have done. It’s not the land we hate. In fact, we love the land, we’ve loved it since 1964, long before the Zionists even heard of it. Before there was ever such a thing as a Jew. So the land is kosher. Actually, no, it’s halal or something. There were Palestinians on this land from before the Flood. It’s in the Qur’an, you just have to read it. Naturally, all this changed when the Jews invaded, following the Holocaust they caused in Germany and the deaths of millions of German Muslims and the SS Peace Corps. They drove all the Palestinians out and created another Holocaust, just like that. So all we have to do this time round is drive the Jews out, back to Germany, to their comfortable gemütlich homes given to them freely by the German Reich. There are many old SS men who will jump at the chance to help them settle in again.
Once the Palestinians return to their homes and take possession once again of those places so dear to their hearts, the homes they left in tears all those thousands of years ago, in the ancient Palestinian city of Tel Aviv and towns and villages everywhere, they will take possession of the lot. Think of that! The shops, the swimming pools, the universities, that neat little network of electric cars, all the businesses and technology centres, the farms, the electric cars, the widescreen high-definition TV sets, the restaurants, the falafel stands, the hospitals, the garden centre on Mount Carmel (we’ll demolish the shrines, of course, just to keep Mr Najdi Ahmadi-Mahmoud happy), the schools, the libraries (I’m not quite sure what those are, but they sound worth a look), the IT centres, Yad Vashem (which we will turn into a museum of the Palestinian Holocaust, which we will name Tadhkar wa Ism), in fact the whole bloody lot.
I got to about this point in my thinking, and I shared my thoughts with all the brothers and sisters out there. It’s not exactly rocket salad, is it, getting rid of the bad guys and putting the good guys in. There’d be an overnight transformation, wouldn’t there? Palestine would be Seventh Heaven, graced by pictures of the shuhada’ and nasheeds chanting everywhere you go. Why worry? But one of the sisters came up with a small problem that needs a bit more thinking. How the f*** do we run the place? She pointed out that the Jews were some sort of geniuses.
‘Geniuses?’ I guffawed. ‘You mean Jewnesses?’
She shook her head. Then she explained to me what a genius is. I must say, I was taken aback. It wasn’t a concept I had come across before. I had heard of martyrs, naturally. But not this. But not to worry, I said. ‘The glories of Arabic and Islamic civilization fly like banners before us….’ She let me go on for a while in similar vein, then she explained about the Noble (or is it Nobel?) prizes. ‘Nearly one hundred and seventy for the Jews,’ she said. I laughed out loud. ‘Is that all? The Muslims pick up Nobel prizes every other day.’
She looked rather worried when she answered me.
‘Actually, Ahmad, they don’t. Even at the most generous, they have only won nine Nobels. Ever.’
‘Well, that’s obvious,’ I told her. ‘Stands to reason. There are far, far more Jews than Muslims. Always have been. And the Nazi Jews are really, really rich. You just have to look around.’
‘Ahmad, there are about thirteen million Jews in the entire world.’
‘So, a couple of million Muslims? We win hands down.’
She shook her head.
‘Actually, we don’t. There are one point six billion Muslims, Ahmad. One point six billion.’
‘But if we throw all those Israeli Jews out or put them where the sun doesn’t shine, there’ll be none left, right?’
‘Not in Israel, no.’
‘So the Arabs and the Muslims get to take over.’
‘Yes.’
‘And they run the hospitals and the laboratories and the science institutes and the IT centres for research and development, and they win a lot of Noble prizes. We could even introduce Noble prizes of our own. We could call it Al-Ja’iza al-Nabila.’
‘Maybe,’ she murmured. ‘Maybe not. And it’s Nobel, not noble.’
‘Why maybe not?’
‘Ahmad, the Muslim world is a mess scientifically.’
‘How can that be?’ I asked, a little sarcastically, because I could see which way this particular wind was blowing. ‘We produced al-Khwarizmi and al-Farabi and Avicenna and Galileo….’
She stopped me, and for a moment I thought she was going to lay a hand on my arm, but I gave her a warning look and the moment passed.
‘Galileo was a Christian,’ she said. ‘As for all the rest, they lived in the middle ages.’
‘Well,’ I defended myself, ‘there’s no reason we can’t become great again.’
‘Ahmad, the countries belonging to the Organization of the Islamic Conference have an average of 8.55 scientists per every 1000 people.’
‘See, what did I tell you?’
‘Ahmad, the world average is 40.7. And the OECD countries have an average of 139.3. The OIC contains some of the richest countries in the world, like Saudi Arabia. Where are the Palestinians going to find the expertise to run all the enterprises you mention?’
‘We’ll patent everything we invent and catch up that way.’
‘I don’t think there have been any Palestinian patents. Now, Pakistan is one of the most active Muslim countries in terms of science. It has produced 8 patents in forty-three years. Israel has more companies quoted on the high-tech NASDAQ stock exchange in New York than any other country outside the United States. In innovation it outshines all its neighbours. Between 1980 and 2000 our neighbours the Egyptians registered 77 patents in the US. Our rich friends the Saudis registered 171. Israelis registered 7,652.’
‘But we have universities,’ I clamoured. ‘And lots of young people, and even more when they no longer have to blow themselves up to show the Israelis who’s the boss.’
‘Ahmad, not a single university from an OIC country is in the top 500 universities list. Did you know that in 1000 years the Arabs have translated as many books as Spain translates in a single year?’
‘All right,’ I said, ‘you’ve made your point. We work slowly but surely. But where can we find help to replace all the Jews once we’ve kicked them out? I mean, Palestine will have to be proud and free. It’s our destiny.’
‘Ahmad, the Jews are the ones with the destiny. All we know how to do is blow ourselves up in public places. That’s not a destiny, that’s mass suicide.’
‘What then? We’ll have to create a new country, a what-do-you-call-it? A Goldene Medina. Won’t our friends help? The Saudis, perhaps.’
‘The Jews were our friends all along. If you kick them out, you’ll just have to grovel and ask them back in again and let them get on with what they were doing in the first place.’
‘And I’ll get a Fa’iza Nabila for that?’
‘I expect you will, Ahmad. You certainly deserve one.’
She squeezed my hand. Quite forward, really, but I let her go on squeezing.
‘Can we give Fa’izat Nabilat to people who blow themselves up? If they kill people, that is?’
‘I expect they’d like that, Ahmad. But you’re forgetting already that we want the Jews to stay. Permanently.’
This time I squeezed back. Impure thoughts went through my head. For the first time in my life, my suicide belt felt heavy. Maybe she would take it off for me.

2010-07-21T14:59:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to a concert by the Russian-Jewish-American singer and songwriter Regina Spektor. I was probably the oldest person there, but I was delightful to see so many grey heads among a bunch of teenage fans – a tribute to the range of Regina's writing. It wasn't as great a concert as it might have been: Regina seemed distracted and almost unfriendly throughout; but at the end she revealed that her cellist had died earlier in the tour and that she found it hard to perform with her usual grins and chats with the audience. He'd drowned by accident on the 6th of July (this was the 20th).

Well, that was my evening. I don't know why, but when I looked round the magnificent auditorium, it struck me that there weren't any visibly Muslim women there. Thinking of the same concert hall, one of the finest and most welcoming in Europe, I realized I hadn't seen anyone wearing hijab at the Patti Smith gig I'd been at not long before, or the tango orchestra just after that, or even at the not very good concert of Iranian music I'd attended in a different hall. I've never seen any at an opera performance, or plain old classical music concert.

Now, this may all be quite misleading. After all, I don't go to that many concerts or to many different venues, so it could all be happening elsewhere. But here's the problem: I shop in town once a week, on Friday. 'Town' is Newcastle upon Tyne, which is a small city in the North East of England. Newcastle doesn't have a large Muslim population compared with places like Birmingham or Bradford, yet on a Friday afternoon I will see dozens of Muslim women in hijab of some sort. Two weeks ago, I counted sixty-four. Some wear the niqab, others look pretty in coloured headscarves and tight jeans or even a short skirt and stockings. I wouldn't expect the niqabi types to turn up at a Regina Spektor concert, but why not a teenager who doesn't look as if religion is the first thing she thinks of when she wakes up in the morning.

Am I being reasonable in wondering where these young women are? Well, yes, I think so. Although they are fairly visible in the main shopping mall, in shops, and even in the Costa's Coffee café my wife and I frequent, they aren't noticeable at cultural events. Does this matter? I think it does. When I carried out my research on Muslim schools, I found on several school websites a prohibition on pupils taking part in music, dance, even gym and games. In one case, a boy was criticized for wanting to play cricket for Pakistan, since cricket is one of the most disgusting things anyone can waste his time in. In several other cases, I read that playing chess is forbidden, because he who plays chess, it is as if he has dipped his hand in blood.

Why does this matter, and how is it related to Israel? First of all, I deplore the fact that very few Muslim girls will become ballet dancers, or boys and girls with talent for music ever come to develop that talent, or children who might become great cricketers or footballers or gymnasts or swimmers or divers, ever aspire to take part in the Olympics. This abstention from most forms of popular or elevated culture takes a ghastly toll on young Muslims, both men and women, but particularly women. This self-deprivation is inspired as much as anything by a doctrine known as al-wala' wa'l-bara', which translates roughly to 'Loyalty and Enmity': loyalty to Islam and enmity to everything that is not Islam. Strict Muslims should not make friends with non-Muslims. Muslim women may never marry non-Muslims. A Muslim should not give a Christian workmate a Christmas card or a Jewish boss a Rosh Hashana card. Nor should he attend a Christmas party. Because to do any of these things would be to imitate the unbelievers, the kuffar, and put the Muslim on a par with corrupt and evil non-Muslims.

In the early days of the Yishuv, the original Jewish community in Palestine, relations between Arabs and Jews were not altogether bad. From the 1920s or so, inspired in part by men like Hajj Amin al-Husseini, that began to change, and much of that change was due to the attitude, based on the al-wala' wa'l-bara' doctrine, that the two communities could not and should not live together. The 1948 onslaught against the newly-created Jewish state was frequently defined in these terms. In his recent book, 1948, historian Benny Morris shows that the invasion of Israel was understood as a jihad. It is still regarded that way today. Underlying the Arab rejection of a two-state solution and the demand for a single state, is a belief that Muslims can only live with Jews or Christians when the latter are decidedly in the minority and are under Muslim control.

Israel is one of the most culturally developed countries in the world. Most Jews found it easy, not simply to integrate into Western society, but many became important figures in just about every field of human enterprise, including the arts. Some Muslims have done the same in traditional modes like Persian classical music or calligraphy, others in Western art forms like literature. But overall, the Muslim contribution has not been on the scale one might expect from a world population of 1.6 billion. In Israel, there have been excellent projects to bring Muslims and Jews together through art and other means http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projects_working_for_peace_among_Arabs_and_Israelis, notably Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan, a musical group. But Muslim antipathy to the arts (apart from architecture and calligraphy) limits the work that can be done, since young Muslims often have to get through three barriers, first that antipathy, second issues around al-wala' wa'l-bara', and thirdly the huge resistance to Israel, Jews, and Zionism.

Not long ago, a Muslim woman, Rima Fakih, was elected Miss America. A lot of Muslims thought it was the best thing to happen in a long while, and they were right. The more Rima Fakihs on the Muslim side and the fewer Yusuf al-Qaradhawis the better for everyone. The misery men of the Islamic clergy bring nothing but misery, with their total inability to understand the world around them.

This was a major factor in what went wrong after Israel's founding. The main five Arab states that invaded Israel after the declaration of independence were either members of the UN or in line to receive its recognition. Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria were all UN members states, while Transjordan had been created by the League of Nations and would join the UN in 1955 as Jordan. The shame of the invasions lies precisely in the refusal of those Arab states to recognize the authority of a body to whose principles and authority they subscribed. The United Nations was the best expression at that time of a new world order that was brought into being following the Second World War, and membership brought with it both benefits and responsibilities. This was the way countries worked together, the way they obtained their legitimacy in the world community. But many of the Arab states (and others later) wanted to have it two ways: they belonged to the UN and used it as a platform for their speeches and accusations, but they also belonged to the Arab League, a body brought into existence a few months before the UN. When Israel was established by the UN, the Arab League turned its back on it and announced a war intended to destroy both new UN member states. The result of that selfish decision has been catastrophic for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. When I think of the good that would have come of cooperation, I want to weep. A more vibrant Israel, a prosperous Palestine, and no violent deaths on either side, young men and young women becoming singers and dancers and artists and writers and actors, not suicide bombers, not hate-filled monsters who love death more than life, who throw away their own lives and the lives of all those other young people who have died so innocently and so undeservedly down the long years of conflict.

And why? Because of al-wala' wa'l-bara', because Hajj Amin al-Husseini had been chairman of the Palestinian Higher Committee and he loved Nazis and hated Jews, because the Arab League states only pretended to want a new order and really wanted things to stay the way they had been for generation upon generation, and because the UN states were mostly kuffar, and integration into the international community, true integration was unthinkable, because Muslim women won't get into bed with non-Muslim men (unless they want to have their throats cut), and Muslim men will get into bed with Jews and Christians (and never Hindus or Buddhists or Baha'is), but if there are babies they will be brought up as Muslims, because faith and hope only travel in one direction, and the wives must convert too, because love changes nothing and everything, because going to a concert doesn't kill you, and swimming in a swimsuit in a swimming pool doesn't kill you, and playing cricket for Pakistan won't kill you, and all of these innocent, life-affirming things have been banned or denatured until all the beauty is gone, and the longing for beauty too. I want to see a pretty young Muslim woman in a bikini on a beach and to feel desire for her, because that is one of the affirmations of life and beauty. I want this pretty young woman to meet a Jewish man and love him and marry him, and for nobody to turn up at their door with a gun or a knife to kill them. I want a world without niqabs and burqas that make beauty seem like something sick, something to be hidden, because the flesh is corrupt and the body is vile and if a man sees so much as a woman's thumb he will be driven to unfathomable depths of liquid desire, and he will rape her, and she will deserve to be stoned because she let him see her thumb. As a man, I believe a woman's face, the face of a pretty, a beautiful woman, is the loveliest thing there is. I want to see a Muslim woman high up on a diving board at the Olympics, soaring through the air with perfect elegance and grace. If her body is beautiful, that's part of the perfection. A burkini would make her and the sport absurd. I want to see a Muslim woman in the orchestra at my next concert. I have a video of the Algerian singer, Souad Massi singing in French in concert with Marc Lavoine in Paris. She could pass as French, but when she sings in Arabic she's Algerian. The only way she will die will be because her enemies have finally got to her. But if they kill her, they kill themselves in part.

The more that Muslims break from the narrow, bigoted, and maladjusted clerics who try to enforce the principles of al-wala' wa'l-bala', the closer we will be to the day when common sense takes over. Under the Meiji emperor, Japan adopted the principle of Japanese spirit with Western know-how, and the Japanese took full advantage of it. It's time for some Islamic reformer to step up to the plate and start the ball rolling towards integration.

Lies, lies, and lies about lies

2010-07-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start this by talking about anti-Semitism. You're probably all aware that anti-Israel activists, when told they are anti-Semites, hotly deny the charge, saying they are just opposed to Israel and its policies. I don't believe them, any of them. Let's start with anti-Semitism itself. We know that for some 2000 years, Jews have been persecuted across Europe and the Middle East, and that this persecution culminated in the Holocaust. The Holocaust had all sorts of knock-on effects, especially in Europe. I was brought up in the shadow of it. All my generation were. One thing the Holocaust did was to make anti-Semitism unpopular. You couldn't admit openly you were an anti-Semite. Only ex-Nazis in the comfort of their private homes in South America or Cairo could get it off their chests, that they still hated Jews, that they still longed for another Holocaust. Everybody else avoided any association with the Nazis and far-right politics. Of course, as time passed, little groups of far-right lunatics stood around in wet fields making the Hitlergrüss and saying Seig Heil, because it made feel better to be absolute nonentities in funny suits. People on the left became pro-Jewish and, for a time, pro-Israeli.

But gradually, mainly in the past twenty years or so, there came a point when people couldn't keep their hatred of Jews pent up any longer. These weren't fascist thugs any longer so much as self-proclaimed liberals and leftists. They became infected with anti-Semitism because they wanted someone to pity and the Jews were no longer pitiable. In Wanderings, Chaim Potok's very readable history of the Jews, he says 'there are no more gentle Jews'. This time round, he argues, the Jews will not let themselves be herded onto railway trucks and shepherded into gas chambers. The young men and women of today's IDF exemplify Potok's declaration perfectly. Pity the Nazi who tries to herd them anywhere.

For some reason, a lot of people don't like this. But they still don't like to be called anti-Semites, because anti-Semitism is a form of racism, and they aren't racists. They think they aren't racists because anti-racism is the keystone of modern right-on politics. But they are racists, so they have a problem. They have a lot of circles to square, and to do that they have employed a range of lies that cast a spell on the media and most of the general public. It goes something like this. The Jews are no longer suffering, but someone must be suffering in order to deserve our pity, and the obvious candidates for victimhood are the Palestinians, because those nice Arabs I met at our conference tell me they are. This must mean that the Jews are... A hard think here, I suppose, then the obvious answer. The Jews, sorry, the Israelis are Nazis. Not 'like the Nazis'. They are Nazis. That sweet young Israeli girl doing her first year in the IDF and feeling pangs of homesickness every night is a Nazi. That boy with a kippa dovening in a field full of tanks is a Nazi. Gilad Schalit is a Nazi.

Next, if there's to be some sort of equivalence, there has to be a Holocaust. What? you say. What? But it's obvious, they reply. There has been a Holocaust of the Palestinians. If this makes you feel nauseated, I don't blame you. You ask, when, how many, where? They sneer and talk about Jenin (51 dead) and say it's worse than gas chambers. And to make this worse, a lot of them deny the real Holocaust, aided and abetted by a UN member state, Iran.

As a result of this warped style of thinking, we are living in a fantasy world. It doesn't matter how many rockets Hamas fire, they are some sort of friendly prank. The separation fence isn't a fence but an 'apartheid wall'. And it doesn't matter how racially mixed and free and democratic Israel is, it is, as we all know, an apartheid state. It's unimportant how many times the Palestinians say they refuse to recognize Israel and to make peace, because we know they are the true peace-makers, and it's the Israelis who are the obstacles to peace.

The thing is, this is all so transparent a three-year-old could see through it. It's like those Visible Man dolls, all its veins and organs and bones on display. Why do so many people fall for all this? A lot of them are students. Where on earth are they studying, what subjects, with whom? Because something basic is wrong with their education. Two weeks ago I went to a lecture on Islamophobia by a rabid anti-Israeli speaker. This man was in his 40s and dressed as if he was sixteen. He spoke in a very loud voice, and he thundered home the message that racism was wrong and islamophobia was wrong. He is a senior lecturer at a university near me. He could not tell the difference between racism and feelings of disquiet about a religion. This is the standard that passes for rigorous across the board today. Nobody wants to think any more, least of all about Israel. They hate Israel with a viciousness that can only originate in dark psychological problems with Jews. I don't know why that is, and I don't know how to solve it, but it's the most dangerous single thing in the world today. I mean it. Hatred of Israel is going to provoke another war in the Middle East, and that war is capable of spreading to Europe, America and beyond. Iran is in the hands of lunatics, and other lunatics have made hatred of Israel the only political issue of any importance in the world. If we don't do something to stop this, a lot of people are going to die. And they won't all be Israelis.

The man in the photograph

2010-05-21T16:18:00.000-07:00

It's time I wrote a new blog: the last one is dated August 2009, whenever that was. This evening, I chaired a panel at an event held by the Anne Frank Trust (the UK partner of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam). This evening's discussion was part of a month-long festival being held by the Trust in Woodhorn Museum, near Ashington in Northumberland. The main focus of the festival is an exhibition (one of several) devoted to Anne Frank, her family, their fate, and the events taking place in the world around them. Of her family, only one person survived, her father. She and her sister died in Bergen-Belsen, not that long before the end of the war.

During the discussion, people spoke of ways in which bigotry and hatred could be eliminated, and many worthy things were said about education and asylum seekers and terrorism. But before joining the panel, I had gone round the exhibition again, and two images out of hundreds had stayed in my mind this time. One, which many of you will have seen, shows a man standing half-way in a pit while a bunch of German soldiers idle and chat. One soldier stands next to the man, holding a pistol pointed at his head, and we know that once the picture has been taken, he will shoot his prisoner and let his body tumble into the pit on top of others, no doubt to be followed by many more. It is a disturbing photograph, not least because the prisoner – a Jewish man, we presume – stands awaiting death without cringing, with what little dignity is left to him. There is no-one to bid him farewell, no-one to whisper a prayer in his ear, only the soldiers, who have lost their humanity. Perhaps some of those soldiers are alive today, old men, near enough to death themselves. Are they riddled with guilt? Will there be someone to say comforting words to them and hold their hands on their deathbeds? Who knows? I just know that I wouldn't want to be one of them.

Another photograph in the exhibition is less well known. It shows a Jewish man with a beard. Behind him a German soldier is laughing. Unseen except for his hand, another soldier holds a long razor against the man's neck. Did he cut his throat with it? Or did he let him walk away, secure in the knowledge that, sooner or later, all Jews would die, that he would not even have to stain his uniform with Jewish blood because neater, more humane ways of killing had been introduced? Who knows?

Looking at those two photographs, I come away, like any normal person, with mixed feelings of pity and rage. And I come back to the discussions we had tonight and the assumption that all can be put right so long as we adhere to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. All well and good, but I know that being kind to these thugs, seeking to enlist their help in educating their fellow Nazis, or (had it been written then) reading to them slowly from the Universal Declaration would end in raucous laughter and, quite probably, a bullet in my brain. The raw truth is that the only thing that would stop those killers as they go about their duty would be exactly that: a bullet in each of their heads. Against all my normal qualms about killing, I set the fact that, behind the man with the pistol, there is a long line of men, women, and children, each of whom will be made to stand in that pit, and that he means to kill them. And after him, another man with another pistol will down another hundred or thousand until the pit is full and the bodies are buried from sight. Like most of you, I would happily fire the gun.

Chaim Potok once said 'There are no more gentle Jews'. Of, course, there are, millions of them. But what he meant is clear. The next time a thug with a pistol sets out to snuff out Jewish lives, he must reckon with Jews who will not just stand waiting for the bullet, but who know how to use guns themselves. And this, more than anything, is the logic behind Israel. Every time the IDF takes on Hamas or Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad, it makes a statement, that Israel was created as a safe haven for Jews.

Israel is not a nation founded on brute force, but it is a nation made up of individuals who, should they see others at the mercy of brutes and sadists will step up and bat. And every time someone sheds a tear for a Hamas gunman cut down or a suicide bomber put out of action or a missile-firing child-killer shot before he can send his missile aloft, I think to myself that they would not have shed a tear for that man teetering in the pit or that other trying to stop screaming as the razor caresses his neck.

The Land of Mordor

2009-08-28T15:09:00.000-07:00

I was sitting in town today, waiting for my wife to return from shopping in Marks & Spencer. To keep things balanced, I now do a second round in Waitrose, so we get the best of both worlds. I was sitting on a bench opposite a window of John Lewis, where they were displaying large-screen televisions, and the televisions were playing clips from films. The first one was that bit during the siege of Helm's Deep, where the Riders of Rohan, led by Gandalf (returned from his fight with the Balrog), charge down upon the massed orcs of the Uruk Hai. Stirring stuff. I first read Lord of the Rings when I was thirteen, forty-seven years ago. It was my first real book, and it gripped me night after night for week after week. It's not great literature, but that's not what JRR Tolkien set out to write. He was a specialist in Old and Middle English. I also specialized in Middle English as part of my first degree. There are great books from that period, but they don't all set out to be literary masterpieces. Many of them, from Gawain and the Green Knight to the Arthurian legends, are about myth, and that's what The Lord of the Rings is about too.

Tolkien's masterpiece tells a myth of great power. In the simp;lest terms, it describes a battle between good and evil, between the Dark Lord Sauron and the forces of good (exemplified by the future king Aragorn, the Elves of Rivendell, and the Hobbits of the Shire). Good wins in the end, as it does in all great myths. The Land of Mordor is ruined and the Shire cleansed. There are echoes here of the Bible, of Arthur, of the Mabinogion.

From the beginning, we know how things stand. There is no mistaking the goodness and strength of Gandalf, the evil of the Ringwraiths. Sauron is evil through and through, as are his orcs, as are the nine Nazgul. The Hobbits epitomize goodness and simplicity, and Aragorn (despite a rocky start) reveals himself as a dedicated enemy of the Dark.

Real life is not as easy, of course. What appears good often turns out to be evil, what seems ill often turns out well. We spend our lives tussling with moral dilemmas, learning who to trust, who to be cautious with. more often than not, people get it wrong. The Germans fell in love with Nazism, learned to hate the Jews, came to put their trust in brute strength and murder. Throughout Europe, communists extolled the People's Paradise of the Soviet Union even as Stalin sent millions to their deaths. Misplaced faith hurts and kills, leads whole nations to commit crimes they will later regret.

I don't have to explain the relevance of this to Israel. Today, millions across the globe self-righteously wish the worst possible harm to befall this small nation. It is not mild criticism, it is a global effort to portray Israel as Mordor, a land whose soldiers, dressed as orcs, march from the Iron Gate to slaughter innocent Palestinians (and harvest their organs). Of course, the myth has been created in reverse. Just as it isn't hard to know who, in The Lord of the Rings, is a good guy or a bad guy, so it should be clear to anyone with a working moral compass who is on the good side or the bad side of the Middle East conflict.

I'm not talking about perfect evil set against perfect good. The real world isn't like that. I'm just looking at the broad picture and our ability as human beings to recognize good and evil within it. When one side uses suicide bombers and bombs set in cafés, buses, and restaurants, rants about how much they want to kill their foe, rejects all forms of peace-making, trains its children in hate, and turns its guns on its own people; and when the other side treats its enemies in its own hospitals, willingly departs from territory, builds a security fence that keeps the bombers out, and supplies its enemy with goods, fuel, and equipment, why is it so hard to tell which side of the border Sauron is on and which Aragorn? When one side has struggled through war and terror to destroy the other, and the other has offered its enemy a state of its own again and again, does it take the brain of a genius to see which way the horses of Rohan are riding?

Tragically, many of the world's finest brains keep failing this moral test. Intellectuals in America, Europe and elsewhere have come and continue to come to the startling conclusion that Israel is the one truly evil state in the world. This astonishing notion marches alongside many other failures of the moral compass. Intellectuals, the media and government are more and more often apologists for radical Islam. Feminists defend female genital mutilation and round on other feminists (like Phyllis Chesler) who condemn it. I recently took part in a TV debate in which one person after another spoke up loudly for a woman's right to wear a full face veil, despite the very obvious disadvantages this has for the woman and the society round her. Just looking at a woman in a burqa or a niqab, it's clear she is being treated as an inferior being, yet plenty in the audience applauded her 'choice'. Intellectuals (rightly) condemn the Transatlantic slave trade, but no voice is ever raised to condemn the larger and longer-lasting Arab and Ottoman slave trade. It has become commonplace to denounce Western empires and colonialism, but when did anyone last speak out about the many Islamic empires and their often devastating impact on countries like India.

Political correctness and multiculturalism have wrought and continue to wreak havoc in our universities and in government. Anti-racists parade their credentials everywhere, but not one of them will ever be seen to condemn Arab and Islamic anti-Semitism. Movements for the establishment or re-establishment of nationalities, from Sri Lanka to Ireland tell us that every people, however small, has right to its own homeland; but the Jews are denied that same right.

During World War II, there was never any doubt where one's loyalties lay. Apart from a few self-serving individuals, like Oswald Mosley and Lord Haw Haw, everyone knew who the enemy was. When bombs were falling every night on British cities, it was hard for anyone's moral compass to swing far off north. The more we knew about the Reich, the more obvious it was that we could not afford to lose the war, because Hitler was a Dark Lord who would enslave or kill us.

And that's the puzzling thing. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict isn't going on in someone's backyard. It's out there for everyone to see. Hamas rockets fell on Sderot, and any visiting journalist (if any had cared to visit) could have been there when they landed. But when Israel moved in to stop the barrages after many years, the world seemed not to know of any provocation and portrayed Operation Cast Lead as an unprovoked attack. All the photographs and film of destruction in Gaza made the front pages and TV screens; but there were no shots of the Gaza that had not been harmed. We all know about this, about this dishonest reporting that is more interested in keeping wounds open than in telling the truth.

But aren't these the same reporters who have been in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv in the aftermath of a terrorist attack? Don't they look at the walls in Gaza and the West Bank and see the posters making heroes of young people suborned into killing Jews? Don't they ask themselves, who hero-worships a murderer? What mother sends her children to die in this way, and hands out sweets afterwards? Desperation? Devotion to Palestine? Or simply evil? Not the mother, perhaps. But the men (and women) who send children out with bombs round their waists and who put remote controls in the package so they can detonate the vest should the child have second thoughts. Why should anyone experience a moment's hesitation in calling such people evil?

Frodo carried the ring of power to the Crack of Doom, and Gollum's greed finally carried it into the depths of the mountain, where it was destroyed and Sauron's power lost for ever. If only we had a ring like that and a Crack of Doom to throw it into. What we have instead is Israel itself. Whatever its flaws, it's a healthy country. It stands for values like democracy, freedom, human rights, and a balance between secularism and religion. Set beside its neighbours, it stands out. Good amidst evil may be overstating it. But it needs to be recognized for what it is: a land that promotes good and stands against evil.

The One-way Street

2009-06-14T02:39:00.001-07:00

In his next speech, at Bar Ilan University, Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu is expected to make little or no reference to establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel, something the new American administration is pressurizing him to accept. His preference is to return to the earlier 'Road Map', in which demands are made on both sides before they even think of a two-state 'solution'. To many or most observers, it will seem yet another confirmation of Israeli intransigence if the Knesset and the Israeli public continue to deny Palestinians their right to a state of their own. In principle, of course, the Israelis have not and have never had qualms about an Arab state on its borders: they are, after all, already swimmers in a sea of Arab states. So why not just a shrug of the shoulders, a murmured 'davka', and a passport to freedom for those poor dispossessed Palestinians?

If it were only that easy. The problem, of course, is one that anyone with his eyes fully open can see: the Palestinians are intent on the destruction of Israel and the elimination of any Jewish presence in the Middle East (or anywhere else, if they could). Asking for a second state, however desirable, is, at this stage in the game (and perhaps for ever) about as sensible as asking a man whose house is surrounded by gangs of thieves to open all his doors and windows on the grounds that thieves have human rights like anybody else. Thieves do, indeed, have their rights, but not the right to steal other people's possessions. Murderers have alienable rights, but not the right to kill their fellow citizens. But surely, Obama and others may fairly ask, once the Palestinians have their own state, they will settle down and become good neighbours, allowing two countries to live side by side as part of a Mediterranean economic union that will bring prosperity and goodwill to all. And surely Syria and Hezbollah and the good people of Egypt and all those other moderate Muslim of North Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, and the re-elected Mr Ahmadeinejad and that cuddly Ayatollah Khamene'i, and those peace-loving Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia will all put down their arms and put an end to their hate speeches and anti-Semitic sermons, they will turn their missiles away from Tel Aviv and Haifa and all the cities of Israel, they will beat their proverbial swords into ploughshare and harness the shares to oxen and plough the fields to bring food and affluence and tolerance to all.

It is, of course, all hooey. Gobbleygook. Balderdash. Bosh. Tosh. Piffle. Bilge. Flapdoodle. Flimflam. Poppycock. Bunkum. Boloney. To expect anything like it, to imagine that the die-hard members of Hamas or the Iranian-controlled fighters of Hezbollah or the committed warriors of al-Qa'ida would mutter some platitudes about 'There is a Palestinian state at last, We can all go back to our lives as teachers and philosophers' would confront the stark reality of human nature with a naivete that would be funny if it were not so very dangerous. Perhaps nothing characterizes the attitude of most Western states towards the Islamic world, its governments, its institutions, its religious groupings, its religious leaders, and its entirely ineffective political parties more than an inability to think beyond the limitations of their Western equivalents. For most Westerners, and particularly Western politicians, Islamic ways of thought are counter-intuitive, and yet we cling to to fairytale that they are, at heart, just like us inside. They are, so statesmen and churchmen and journalists proclaim, as amenable to rational thought and the usefulness of secularism as their Western brothers and sisters. And that would seem plausible because there are many Muslims why have adopted Western ways of thinking, who place reason before the dictates of the Qur'an, who stand in orderly queues at the cinema, who work as doctors, lecturers, and restaurateurs, who vote for our favourite political parties, who treat women as equals. But such Muslims are, as often as not, partly or entirely secularized. I'm thinking of the majority of Muslims, for whom such accommodations with Western mores are either unthinkable or forbidden.

An Iranian friend of mine was paying a visit home some years ago. She had official documents to be stamped and had to visit a government ministry. She dressed herself in the obligatory hijab, took off all make-up, made sure her hair was tucked well inside her veil, and made to go through the checkpoint. The guard stopped her and said she had to remove her Western shoes. She pointed to the ground, showing that her shoes were covered entirely by her chador, which reached the ground. He answered that he could hear them. That is what Israel is up against. We have a Palestinian state. We have a peace treaty. The sun is smiling sweetly on us all. God is in Heaven. But there are Jews across the border, there are synagogues, the Temple Mount belongs to us, the Kotel belongs to us, Jerusalem belongs to us because it is an ancient Palestinian capital, a city that the Jews have no connection with at all, and weren't we ethnically cleansed, hasn't our vice-president Ilan Pappe explained all that?

One of the reasons it is a mistake to observe the Islamic world through European or American lenses is that it remains so much closer to the Middle Ages than any of our cultures. I don't mean chronologically, and I'm not even sure that the term 'Middle Ages' fits most Arab, Iranian, or other Islamic societies. But it expresses a mood, a mood that explains why even a technologically advanced and wealthy country like Saudi Arabia resembles nothing more than, let's say, Portugal or Spain under the Inquisition. The need for change, for political, social, and religious reform that grew in European in stages has never taken hold of people's hearts in Islam. Many of the great religious 'reformers' in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, men like Muhammad 'Abduh in Egypt, sought nothing but to return Islam to its pristine form, removing all traces of later accretions. The Wahhabis, the Salafis, the Taleban, the Mawdudists and their like are all committed to preserving the ancient order at any cost. And that cost can be very high indeed. Take the Wahhabis, whose clergy are the co-rulers of Saudi Arabia. Their king is popularly described as the Guardian of the Twin Holy Shrines (Mecca and Medina), much as our dear Queen is the Defender of the Faith. In order to protect the two holiest Muslim cities, the Saudi authorities have demolished 80% to 90% of them. The oldest buildings, the sacred graveyards with the graves of the Prophet's family and companions, houses Muhammad lived in. Their have been talks about destroying the grave of the Prophet himself. In its perverted and blinkered way, this makes perfect sense to the Wahhabi mind. More than anything, strict ~Muslims fear idolatry, the worship of anything but God. In the early days of Wahhabi/Saudi rule, they made a fetish out of destroying Sufi and Shi'i shrines at which pilgrims worshipped. But it later occurred to them that people who came to Mecca or Medina while on the hajj pilgrimage were going to these graves (some of which had domes built over them) and praying. So the domes and the other buildings had to come down. When Cromwell's men defaced the statuary in British churches and cathedrals, they were doing much the same, but at least they left the buildings standing.

In a very real sense, the Islamic world remained in all respects closely comparable to Europe in the Middle Ages through to, say the 16th century. Apart from sections of the Ottoman empire (Hungary, Romania, the Balkans, Greece), this world was almost entirely isolated from Europe, and Muslims remained unaware of social, political, scientific, and religious changes taking place elsewhere. It was only from the late 18th century that this changed, with the French invasion of Egypt or the growing British dominion over India. During the 19th century, European powers (Britain, France, and the Netherlands) created colonies that imposed Western rule on Islamic lands. Out of this emerged movements for change, pleas for constitutional government through parliaments, for religious freedom, for Western-style education and much else. By the 20th century change had taken place. In Turkey and Iran, the clergy's power had been greatly diminished. Women started to throw off the veil. And then, around the 1970s, all this progress was slammed into reverse. Islam has rushed backwards, like no society in history.

Part of the problem is that Islamic law postulates that any form of innovation is heresy and will lead to hell. The most minor things have been seized on as indicators of innovation, condemned, and used as the basis for rulings for legal cases out of which a man or woman may be flogged or even executed. In Tudor times, a butcher might be hanged for selling meat in Lent. Among the Taleban it can be as little as wearing one's trousers below the ankle.

But there's something else more relevant to Obama's grasp of what a two-state 'solution' would really mean for Israel. It is this. A distinguishing feature of Islam from the beginning has been a commitment to Muslim supremacy. And that keen sense of superiority (to Jews, to Christians, to pagans, to atheists, to secularists) creates a one-way street. Thus, Muslims demand the implementation of shari'a law in Western countries, and some (like the UK) allow them to act on rulings from shari'a tribunals, in matters like marriage and divorce or childcare. But if a Westerner were to demand a reciprocal arrangement in, say, Saudi Arabia, they would soon find themselves on a one-way flight home or doing time in the local chokey. In the West, Muslim women demand the right to wear veils, even all-enveloping ones, everywhere they go, and, naturally, we grant them that freedom. But should a Western woman turn up on the streets of Tehran dressed as she might at home, it will only be a matter of minutes before one of the Blood of God patrols turns up in a white Toyota, grabs her, and pushed her into the minibus that will come behind them. No reciprocity.

From all sides come cries for Israel to do this or that. Demolish the 'apartheid wall', grant every Palestinian on earth the right of 'return', pack up and go home. But when Israel pulled out of Gaza, things only got worse. When Israelis hand back hundreds of terrorist prisoners, they will be lucky to get a couple of corpses in return. When Israel says it will recognize a peaceful Palestinian state, Mahmoud Abbas gets uppity and says he will never recognize a Jewish state. So everybody gets uppity, not with Abbas, but with Israel. Obama hasn't even mentioned that particularly dirty little trick.

So what's a girl to do? Her tormentors openly declare their intention of raping and murdering her, and all the police can do is say 'Open your legs, dear, and let them get on with it, you know it won't hurt, or grit your lovely white teeth if you need to, just don't let them see you smiling'.

The consensus is that Muslims can always have it their way. If they don't want to make peace, what right have we to force them to? If they say black is white, that the Holocaust never happened, that the Jews are the worst human beings on the face of the planet, that no Jews set foot in the Holy Land of antiquity, that Abraham and Moses were Muslims, that if only they could have a little land, they'd behave better, that murderers are martyrs, that Yasser Arafat was a man of peace, that Islam is a religion of peace, that submission to Islam is the highest form of peace -- if they say all these things and more, all we should do is bow, as Obama bowed to the obnoxious Saudi king, and say 'what else can I do for you, honoured sir?' and then shut up in case we inadvertently offend them again.

The Power of Imagination

2008-12-25T05:18:00.000-08:00

When Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad (today's superstar guest on Channel 4, where he's delivering an 'alternative Christmas broadcast) or Mahmoud Abbas or David Irving or that vast body of soi-disant leftwing anti-Semites play down the Holocaust or deny that it took place or seek to replace it with the falsified narrative of a 'Palestinian Holocaust' or some such fiddle faddle, something is going on that bears strangely little relation to the ideologies to which they separately belong.

Ahmadinezhad and other members of the Iranian regime are all Shi'i Muslims. Abbas is a Sunni and a professed secularist in politics. Irving belongs to the far right, and leftists stand to the left, many to the far left (albeit it with a variety of philosophical, ethical and political takes on everything). Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism/anti-Israelism are great unifiers of the otherwise deeply divided. There are even self-hating Jews in there. Hitler and Stalin both treated their Jews as scarcely human rubbish, even when they were at one another's throats. The broad Islamic position is that, if Jews are not wholly subservient to Muslim rule, bowing beneath the weight of legislation designed to humiliate and control them, they must be dealt with more harshly, for they are the quintessential enemies of the prophets and of Islam. Neither Hitler nor Stalin would have keep a single member of al-Qa'ida or Hamas alive. They would have hunted down and summarily executed Osama bin Laden, and done the same to any Muslim calling for the building of an Islamic state.

Yet Hitler was happy to enter into an anti-Jewish deal with the deeply anti-Semitic Muslim cleric, Hajj Amin al-Husayni. Al-Husayni was eventually listed as a war criminal, yet he cheated the condign punishment that lay in wait for him and was fêted in the Arab world long after the end of World War Two. And today, a large swathe of the left, alongside groups of anarchists, postmodernists, the middle-class chatterati, and many others, thinking themselves champions of the oppressed and guardians of human rights and human dignity, willingly acquiesce in plans for the genocide of Israel. They don't think that's what they're doing, but when they cheer on Hamas or turn a blind eye to Hizbullah, when they cheer on anti-American, anti-Zionist Iran and close their eyes to the horrendous human rights abuses taking place under Mr Ahmadinezhad's nose, and when they forge and bolster lies about Israel, false narratives about the West Bank and Gaza, that is exactly what they endorse. They have lost their moral compass. Utterly.

I won't attempt to try to explain all this in the present blog. Whole volumes have been written in which writers more learned and percipient than myself have hurled themselves at the gates of explanation, often to fall back winded. One part of any explanation must lie here, that those who deny or play down the Holocaust suffer from a severe lack of imagination. Or perhaps it's more that a different kind of imagination is in play. When I was a little boy back in the 50s, somebody tried to persuade me that there was no Santa Claus, that our parents did it all. I, however, being a staunch believer, vigorously defended the beautiful dream, and at one point fancied I could hear the jingling of sleigh-bells in the sky. Later, I learned that one must muster logical arguments, backed by evidence in order to defend what one believes to be truth. And part of that is a willingness to discard what one believes when the evidence shows a different truth.

When I speak of 'a different kind of imagination', I'm not talking about the levels of fantasy used by novelists and film-makers. I mean something less elevated yet essential to any understanding of the human state. What I mean is an emotional insight into the lives and feelings of other people. This ability, which we all have in some measure, is the capacity to imagine another's person's thoughts and feelings. Most of us develop that insight through literature, film, ballet, painting, music, and the other arts. We learn it in childhood via fairy stories, in our teenage years through more adult fantasy, science fiction, horror, and, if we're lucky, good quality ghost stories. Better still, we have our first encounters with Shakespeare, our first ventures into Jane Austen and her perfectly-formed world. Above all, we learn empathy through our close ties to friends and family. As adults, the greatest empathy of all comes in the form of a lasting attachment to another adult — a wife, husband, or partner.

This is why novels, the stage, cinema, and television drama are such a large part of most people's lives: they provide well-imagined characters as props for our empathy. Who has not shed a tear for Anna Karenina or Tess of the D'Urbevilles as they go to their undeserved deaths? Or let fall a little tear of gladness when Colin Firth asks his Portuguese cleaner to marry him, and she says 'Yes' and tells him she'd like that very much? These are invented figures, but the skills of the novelist or the film-maker convey so much of their circumstances, their feelings, and their thoughts that we feel we know them better than all but the best of our friends.

But if that sense of empathy — let's call it the empathetic imagination — is absent or atrophied, we would see no point in fiction, we would never adopt the orphan or feed the hungry or visit the sick or think imaginatively about the lives of our ancestors. It's not optional. Its absence is responsible for all the murders, wars, massacres, pogroms, and genocides in history. On Christmas Eve, a man dressed in a Santa outfit shot an eight-year-old girl in the face when she opened the door to him, and proceeded to kill seven other people. In Israel some years ago, a Palestinian terrorist called Samir Kuntar smashed the skull of a little girl and shot her father. Today, rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel are timed to take advantage of the 15-minute period during which schoolchildren are walking from home to school in Sderot. We are programmed to protect little children. We don't have to be parents to experience this. I could no more hit or kill a child than I could hit or kill my wife. Yet some people do all that and worse. In many countries, mostly among Muslims, though sometimes in other communities, honour killings are carried out by fathers, brothers, cousins, even mothers in order to regain the family 'honour' by punishing women for 'crimes' as serious as having a boyfriend. That a father will slit his daughter's throat while her mother holds her down runs counter to all we hold sacred. It is an abomination, yet large communities consider the men who do these things to be heroes. Entire cultures have so far abolished empathy that they have carried its absence into the most intimate areas of the family. When a man beheads his wife and slaughters their children, and all because she would not wear a headscarf or wanted to wear jeans, he has breached what should never be breached. That such a man could not imagine the feelings of his own wife and children to the point where salvaging his honour over something trivial became more pressing than his natural instinct to protect them from harm must be the very epitome of an absence of real love and empathy.

The Nazis and those who collaborated with them also lacked love and empathy to an appalling degree. What's worse, they were able to slaughter and torture their fellow human beings, not in the heat of sudden rage, not from a commitment to a distorted sense of 'honour', but routinely, just as so many of us go to work in their offices and factories every day. Despatching someone to a gas chamber seems to have caused no more damage to the conscience than pulling a lever on a car assembly line. We know roughly how it works, of course. Everyone has heard of the probing experiments carried out in 1961 by Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University. Milgram used volunteers to operate a simple switch that delivered increasingly severe electric shocks to unseen individuals. In fact, the shocks were fake and the 'victims' actors. An experimenter in a white coat would order the volunteer to increase the 'voltage', and every time it went up, there would be sounds of pain. A very high number of people were so willing to obey the authority figure that they took the voltage up so high they thought it was causing actual damage. Later replications and a meta-analysis showed that between 61% and 66% of volunteers took the 'voltage' up to its maximum level when ordered to do so by the authority figure, even when the actors banged on the wall or talked of their heart condition. Only one person in Milgram's experiment walked out at a point lower than 300 volts, well below the maximum.

Milgram's experiment explains a lot of things. Primarily, it shows that a high percentage of people anywhere (the replications were spread over several countries) are capable of harming others when under the influence of authority figures. But I think it also shows that, under these conditions, empathy for victims is made subservient to the priorities of whatever belief system the authority figures subscribe to (in Milgram's case, it was 'the advancement of science').

I can't imagine killing another human being under ordinary circumstances, and certainly not when the situation is under my control. If someone was wielding an axe, however, and was about to attack my wife, and if I had a gun, shooting him would be
simple, if my attempts at persuasion had fallen on deaf ears. I've even found it difficult at times to kill off a beloved character in my novels. But in real life to kill a stranger who posed no actual threat to me would be impossible.

To herd frightened, naked children into a gas chamber and then press the button or pull the lever to release the gas is, surely, not simply bestial, cruel and sub-human, actually untermensch. It finally represents a total failure of the imagination, a dee-seated incapacity to put oneself in someone else's shoes, to realize their fear, to share it, or to grasp the ultimate consequences of one's actions both for the victims and for oneself.

Most of us, I am certain, come away from the contemplation of such undiluted inhumanity with a sense of shock and disbelief. When we hear of an unrepentent Nazi (and there have been so many of them), we wonder how they can live with themselves, in the full knowledge of what they have been, of what they have done. I have never met anyone like that, never known someone who would ever commit that sort of evil. But if Milgram's experiment is to be believed, we must be surrounded by such people. We all know how common it is, when someone (our Santa killer, say) has just killed a large number of people, has massacred his fellow students, or been captured and exposed as a serial killer, or has immolated himself on the London tube or elsewhere — we all know that we will very soon hear his friends, room-mates and family tell us what a lovely person he was and how shocked they have been to learn what he has just done. '"He was just the nicest guy," said Jan Detanna, who worked with Pardo [the murderous Santa] as an usher at the Holy Redeemer Catholic Church.' The chances are they are telling the truth. Anyone who has watched the video of Mohammed Siddique Khan, the ringleader of the 7/7 bombers, saying farewell to his baby daughter, sees, not a crazed suicide bomber, but a gentle, loving father expressing genuine love for this tiny person he is about to leave behind. Read all accounts of the four bombers, and you'll see, again and again, that they are described as 'nice boys', popular, keen sportsmen, contributers to the community, and so on. It was not, in a sense, goodness that they lacked, but a proper awareness of what goodness is about. Goodness cannot really be about loving your baby girl yet not giving a damn about the babies who may be on that train when you set out to murder at random. Real goodness is closely linked to real perception, to an insight into our common humanity.

Hannah Arendt set out for us the concept that evil can be banal, that even the masters of genocide were not visibly 'monsters'. I happen to think that that makes the horror much greater than it might be where it otherwise. Someone who is deeply mentally disturbed may be frightening, but my next-door neighbour with a chainsaw in his hand makes me lose hope. I can make some sense of the paranoid schizophrenic, but my neighbour on a rampage has no place at all in my moral universe. Once we humanize our monsters, we no longer know where they get that monstrosity from.

I won't attempt to psychoanalyze Hitler or Himmler or Saddam Husayn: I'm not a psychologist, and it's been done before anyway. But if I had to opt for one thing, I'd say again it all stemmed from an absence of imagination. None of them could internalize their victims to the point where it would have hurt them more to kill than to save. But I think they may also have had an excess of imagination. That faculty worked well for Hitler when it came to picturing the Thousand-Year Reich in his mind's eye. All those plans and diagrams and models by Albert Speer that Hitler so much admired were part of his inner landscape, in the same way that Paris came alive for him once he had conquered it. He could not empathize with a Jew in striped pyjamas, but he could see a new Berlin take shape on paper, beneath the shadow of the swastika.

I seem to have come a long way from Israel here, but Israel is really at the heart of this piece. Israel is not just a living reality, but a land of the imagination, a country two thousand years in contemplation. Theodor Herzl and all the early Zionists imagined a city of Zion in the heart of desert, the first and later yishuvs populated that land in their imaginations, built Tel Aviv in their minds, created the Knesset and the IDF and a united Jerusalem in their hearts. Without those early visions, Palestine would still be desert and marshland. Those dreams have, in one way or another, become reality. It's not important that the Knesset is divided between warring factions or that the IDF didn't defeat Hizbullah or that Ehud Olmert was a bad prime minister. What matters is that there is a Knesset, that Israelis all have the vote, that the IDF won so many wars and will win again, and that Olmert will soon step down and will be succeeded, not be his son or another appointee or an army general, but by a democratically elected Israeli citizen.

Imagination and reality have achieved something amazing in Israel. No other country has been envisioned or moulded in this way. And no other country has been born (nor should any more be born) out of so much suffering. Two thousand years of persecution crowned by the Nazi Holocaust. How dare anyone sneer at this? How dare anyone proclaim there was no Holocaust, or invent a fake Holocaust to replace it, or call Israel's sons and daughters murderers and terrorists? How do terrorists and their fellow travellers denounce Israel as a Nazi state or an apartheid state or a racist state? It's clear to me that they lack all imagination. Not once have I heard from a Palestinian or Arab or Iranian source a dream of Palestine, a vision of prosperity and tolerance and progress. I have heard and read dreams of violence, dreams of genocide, dreams of a God grown so crazed with a lust for blood that he has exiled all other divinities and replaced love and mutual respect as the bases on which human society is to be erected. The G-d of Israel faces a God of the suicide belt, a God with hands lifted, smeared with blood, a God who smiles on child martyrs and gunmen and rockets, and whose face is reflected in the martyr's smile. This Arab God is a false God, even to those who worship him, for he brings them only greater suffering. He is a God without imagination, for he shows no signs of love and understanding for the Jews and Christians.

The world is filled with people who hate Israel. I have to ask, what is their problem? Don't they admire human rights, don't they care for free speech, democracy, the rule of law, a stable culture? Can't they imagine what it was like in the death camps? I was never in one, but the very thought chills me. I know what it is to be cold or hungry or frightened or anxious, because I'm human, and we all experience those things from time to time. However little our suffering when compared to that endured in the camps, it's enough to let us get a glimpse and to construct a more complete image on the strength of it. Can't they use their imaginations to picture what it's like to be a woman or a homosexual or a member of a religious minority or, above all, to be a Jew in modern Israel, and then to shift that imagination to grasp what it is to be any of those things anywhere else in the Middle East? It needs to work the other way around, of course. But, contrary to myth, not that many Israelis want to see the end of any Palestinian state, or a genocide of the Palestinian people. It is more urgent than ever that the Palestinians and other Arabs start to use their imaginations so they can picture what it is like to be threatened with extinction, and not for the first or second time. And there is no excuse for Westerners opposed to Israel not to access the vast imaginative resources of their own culture. Their only imaginative endeavours, like those of the Palestinians, have been focussed on a mythic vision of Israel, in which everything is topsy turvy: a rights-based society becomes an apartheid entity, the survivors and children of survivors of the Nazi genocide are given Totenkopf badges to wear and jackboots to strut in and are told they are the thing they most detest, the most liberal of Middle Eastern countries undergoes a dark change to become the most repressive. All in their imagination. They tell stories about Muhammad Dura and uranium weapons and dead children in Lebanon, and such are their skills at narrative that the world believes them without evidence, or in spite of the evidence. This is imagination on a grand scale, yet it achieves nothing because it tells a false narrative. That is a great fault, for the imagination thrives best on truths. However much they may be fiction, no great stories are untrue. Not a word of Shakespeare is untrue, however fanciful his stories may be, because they are faithful to a level of truth that begins where fantasy ends.

The proper use of the Arab imagination today is to create in minds and hearts a true vision of a Palestine in which all citizens participate in a culture that is far removed from today's culture of death as possible. The Palestinians and their aiders and abettors here in the West must start picturing happy, smiling children to whom they can entrust their futures. No mother should have to imagine handing round sweets to celebrate when her daughter or her son has killed herself or himself. She should instead do what mothers all round the world do, and picture her children being educated, going out to play, making friends, reading, painting and playing music, laughing, growing up, becoming useful and happy citizens of a stable state. Israel has not prevented such a vision from coming into being. The opportunity is permanently there. When will the Palestinian imagination seize it?

Academic fictions

2008-11-15T10:41:00.000-08:00

I have just posted the following on the Engage website. It follows several pieces there on a recent talk at Goldsmith's College by a certain Suzanne Weiss, entitled 'From the Warsaw Ghetto to the Gaza Ghetto', in which a false analogy was made between the situation in the Nazi-controlled Warsaw ghetto and that in modern Gaza (a region not controlled by Israel but by cuddly, peace-loving terrorist enterprise, Hamas).

This tiresome series of analogies (Jews=Nazis, Israel=apartheid South Africa) are, in one sense, remarkable. They are manifest fiction, yet large numbers of well-educated academics, writers, intellectuals, and commentators believe in them with an almost religious fervour. This Warsaw/Gaza comparison strikes me as particularly painful. It has also alerted me to where the root of this may lie. If I put on my hat as a fiction writer, I can see it straight away. Putting a plot together can be great fun, especially if you are writing stories that incorporate fact (I write thrillers, but this is true of other genres, notably historical fiction). I may take one fact, then read more about the subject and stumble on another, unrelated, but fictitiously useful fact, then be led to a strange Wikipedia article that draws my attention to something else that can be fitted in. As the plot itself develops during writing (and this is the crucial thing), it acquires richness, and this richness allows me to embed quite disparate information within it. For the purposes of authorship, the writer 'believes' in his characters and plot elements, and as new 'facts' enter the story, the whole thing acquires a believability that makes the novel resonate with readers. More than once, I've had letters from readers declaring how wonderful I am in 'knowing the truth'. It's pure fiction, of course, but if it has been crafted well, there is a verisimilitude that provokes the classic suspension of disbelief.

This happens with conspiracy theories, in which often genuine fact is blended with hearsay (4,000 Jews stayed away from the twin towers) to persuade the gullible to screw up their lives trying to secure 'justice' or retribution for a supposed crime. While some conspiracy theorists may be intelligent, it is rare to find mainstream academics, lawyers, scientists and others among them (I think I'm right in saying that).

But the IDF soldier/Nazi stormtrooper analogy and all the others that cluster around this trope have become the conspiracy theory that has been made respectable by intellectuals and academics worldwide, to the point where patently false history has been allowed to replace archived records as the basis on which political decisions are take. I have worked with historical controversies in the past, and I believe I know how to distinguish between, say, hagiographic accounts and those formulated on the basis of eye-witness statements an do on. The processes that have taken Benny Morris from his earlier positions to his present views (based on a more complete engagement with archive resources) are ones I recognize. Whatever debate emerges from all that is a manageable academic debate. But where can we go when academics stray so far from the standards of debate that they use fantasy to bolster their views, much as religious believers use hagiography?

The most worrying aspect of these analogies is their very deliberate juxtaposition of extreme images. Logic tells us that 'Jew' and 'Nazi' belong at opposite ends of a spectrum. Or that Israel and apartheid South Africa have nothing in common. A balanced approach would say, perhaps, that Israelis sometimes do bad things to Palestinians (how bad depending on debatable emphases) or that anti-Arab discrimination in Israel is a form of racism. But Israel's (or, more plausibly, Jews') detractors are not context with a normal discourse. They must grow perverse. And that perversity extends to making the sufferings of the Palestinians hagiographic, even iconographic (especially in the extreme Christian belief that makes Palestinians the body of Christ, crucified by Jews once more). Large numbers of Palestinians are terrorists who commit dreadful deeds, yet their defenders can only portray them as innocent victims.

Again, this is novelistic. Making the Palestinians victims 'fits' a perverted theology, combining the old view that the Jews killed Jesus with a new dimension, all of which meshes in the believer's mind because it feels somehow 'right'. As a novelist, I can make you believe half a dozen bizarre things before breakfast. But at the end of the book, you should awaken from the fantasy and smile a wry smile and move on to the next story. Our anti-Israel academics seem unable to do this. What academic has not made some sort of journey, from the views adopted for his/her PhD to those in his last article? That journey is made by recognizing our mistakes, whether these be misreadings of factual information or misinterpretations of a text or an experiment. Since the arguments currently being used to demonize Israel are patent falsehoods, what is preventing these academics seeing them for what they are and at least moving on to more rational criticisms? Instead, they give lectures at academic institutions, ennobling their conspiracies and doing untold damage to impressionable students. That is where I believe we should focus: on convincing university authorities that students are being subjected to a level of argument that is not a centimeter above the conspiracy theorists that claim Jews and the CIA destroyed the twin towers. Surely someone has a duty to insist that all such talks come with a health warning at least, or a proper rejoinder at best.

The annihilation of the Jews

2008-10-28T13:12:00.000-07:00

Here's the transcript of a clip that appeared recently on al-Aqsa television, a Palestinian channel. It's conventional enough stuff, I suppose. I've certainly heard and seen it all before. But it got me thinking.

'Following are excerpts from an interview with Palestinian cleric Muhsen Abu 'Ita, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on July 13, 2008:
Muhsen Abu 'Ita: Naturally, the Koran chapters conveyed to Muhammad in Mecca only rarely deal with the Jews – like in "those who incur Allah's wrath," which appears in the Al-Fatiha chapter. Hence, it is strange to find an entire chapter bearing the name of the Jews, or Bani Israil. It is even more peculiar that this chapter does not talk about the Jews of the Qaynuqa, Nazir, or Qurayza tribes. It talks about the Jews of our times, of this century, using the language of annihilation, the language of grave digging. Note that in this chapter, the Jews were sentenced to annihilation, before even a single Jew existed on the face of the earth. This Koranic chapter talked about the collapse of the so-called state of Israel, before this state was even established. From here stems the importance and oddity of this chapter.
[...]
The blessing of Palestine is dependent upon the annihilation of the pit of global corruption in it. When the head of the serpent of corruption is cut off here in Palestine, and its octopus tentacles are severed throughout the world, the real blessing will come. The annihilation of the Jews here in Palestine is one of the most splendid blessings for Palestine. This will be followed by a greater blessing, Allah be praised, with the establishment of a Caliphate that will rule the land and will be pleasing to men and God.'

Before I make the comment I originally wanted to make about Abu 'Ita's remarks, let me do a little Qur'an interpretation here, because that will also be revealing. Take the following: ' the Koran chapters conveyed to Muhammad in Mecca only rarely deal with the Jews – like in "those who incur Allah's wrath," which appears in the Al-Fatiha chapter'. If you have read the first chapter of the Qur'an, which has only seven verses, you will know why this is dangerous nonsense. Here's Sura 1 (my translation):

'In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds. The Merciful, the Compassionate. King of the Day of Judgement. Thee do we worship, and to thee do we turn for help. Guide us upon the straight path. The path of those upon whom Thou hast shown blessings, not those who have incurred thy wrath, and not those who have gone astray.'

Where are the Jews? This is the first sura, so there is no reference to Jews before it. This is a generalized reference, like the one before it and the one after it. Anything else is speculation. The rest of his interpretation is even more bizarre: 'in this chapter, the Jews were sentenced to annihilation, before even a single Jew existed on the face of the earth. This Koranic chapter talked about the collapse of the so-called state of Israel, before this state was even established.

It's bad enough that the Qur'an does have many negative things to say about Jews, but it's beyond toleration to see Muslim clerics glossing every negative remark in the book as 'Jews'. I have a Qur'an right next to me. What's to stop me going through it verse by verse, and every time it refers to 'unbelievers' or 'enemies' or whatever, arguing 'this means the Jews, and it prophecies the fall of Israel'?

That is the level to which discourse has fallen for many Muslims. It makes any attempt to break out of the present impasse well nigh impossible.

But what I wanted to say is this. What if he's right and Israel does succumb? After all, the forces arrayed against her are greater now than they have ever seemed. If Hizbullah, Hamas, and Iran (for starters), aided and abetted by the UN, the Islamic world, and many Western countries achieve their ends, whether by force or by imposing a one state solution, where will that leave things? The Palestinians will, of course, tear themselves to pieces, Hizbullah will take over Lebanon, and Iran will try to conquer Iraq. The Middle East will be in greater turmoil than ever.

And how will that be resolved? With no more Israel to focus on, the Middle East will need someone to take her place. How long will it be before Surat al-Fatiha is re-interpreted? God's wrath will fall upon the Christians and those Jews who live outside Israel. And this will be a different struggle to the present one. If the Islamists can claim a victory over the Jews, their fervour will be picked up everywhere. It will be obvious that God is on their side. After all, didn't God prophesy the fall of Israel in Surat al-Fatiha? And in every other sura. And does he not now prophesy the fall of America or Britain or anywhere else?

None of this is preposterous. There is no rationality here. Islam has no room for reason or freedom or conscience. It could have, but today's clerics have set their faces hard against those things. Reason is profoundly dangerous to an Islam based on heartfelt acceptance of every word of the Qur'an and the Hadith, dangerous to the clergy who survive by presenting a hardline interpretation of the texts.

People ask why Israel has to defend herself by force. This is the reason, that the forces of moderation in the Islamic world are still too weak to serve as a defence for anyone against jihadist extremism, and jihadist extremism derives much of its inspiration from irrational readings of the Qur'an. The Salafis, Wahhabis, Mawdudists, and many others prefer a literal interpretation of scripture above any nuanced or modernizing commentary. In most countries, Britain included, there's a tendency to pretend that the real risk comes from 'violent extremists' (we're not allowed to call them Muslim extremists any more). But it doesn't. It comes from clerics who provide interpretations like the one we've just had, who extol martyrdom, who condemn terrorism while encouraging suicide bombing in 'Palestine', or who just create a hardline Islam that serves as a breeding ground for every kind of crazy hope and unbalanced fear.

Going to sea in little boats

2008-08-30T16:36:00.001-07:00

The following is a letter I have just written to Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, a leading light in the Free Gaza Movement. I have made a few small corrections.

Angela Godfrey-Goldstein
Media Team
Free Gaza Movement

Dear Angela,

You don’t know me, and perhaps you never will. I’m just a British-Irish writer and academic with a lifetime’s interest in and knowledge of the Middle East. As your small flotilla of boats wends its way back to these islands, I thought I would share with you some of my thoughts on your endeavour. Perhaps you will ignore them, perhaps they will help.

Here in the UK, where I live, we have, as you will know, a proud tradition of sailing small ships into dangerous waters, in times of great danger. The Spanish Armada was brought low by smaller English ships and high winds. Off the northern Irish coast, divers still bring up shining treasure from sunken galleons. Dunkirk was a victory of small boats against the ruthless might of the Nazi state and its military strength. Over in Ireland, we remember the little corracles who plied the high Atlantic waters off the west coast and out of the small fishing islands of Inis Mór and Inis Beg. Many seafaring nations have memorialized their nautical past in prose and verse: the great Lusiades of the Portuguese poet and adventurer Luis de Camoes stands out, Moby Dick is one of the greatest works of North American fiction, Synge’s Riders to the Sea was one of the first realistic depictions of Irish life and death in tiny boats.

In the United States a few years ago, work was started on the rebuilding of the famous slave ship Amistad, and today the ship sails from continent to continent telling the tale of the slave trade and building a community for students and disadvantaged young men and women. Other great ships of historical significance are moored in harbours across the world, telling their stories, educating children and adults in the histories they carry. Others lie in greater numbers beneath the sea, ships sunk in battle or in storm or lost on voyages of discovery.

They are a source of pride, these ships. All those sunken merchant vessels downed by German U-boats while bringing precious cargo to a beleaguered island. Those wooden ships holed below the waterline in wars with France and Spain. Those rusting hulks that once brought my Irish ancestors out of famine to a new life in America. Those little boats that didn't make it on their errand of mercy out of Dunkirk.

There’s one ship, though, that stirs my imagination for the profound symbolism of its voyage and the shame it brings on Britain even after all these years, and that is the Exodus 1947. I’m sure you know the story of this little ship, well past its best days, that set sail from France carrying Jewish refugees, Holocaust survivors for whom Palestine had become a beacon of hope and a promise of resurrection. Boarded by the Royal Navy, the Exodus was towed to Haifa and the refugees sent by force back to Europe, where they were placed in internment camps, mostly in Germany, and enclosed behind barbed wire. That was a day of shame for Britain that the country will always bear.

I know you feel a deep love for the Palestinian people. There can be no harm in that, though I wonder that you seem blind to the deep veins of hatred, rejection of compromise, and genocidal longing that have for so many years perverted the Palestinian leadership and ruined the lives of so many Palestinians. About the time the Exodus left port in France, the Arabs of the Middle East were planning to wipe out any future Jewish state. They planned, not just to turn Holocaust survivors from their shores — a startling inhospitality when set beside the record of France or the UK, countries that have taken millions of refugees from all around the world — but to massacre those who did reach the country of their dreams. The Arabs spoke of massacre and acted in 1948 to commit just that.

If you have no sympathy for those Jews fleeing concentration and internment camps and bringing their skills and energies to a country badly in need of them, if you cannot feel your heart break when you contemplate what they suffered, yet what a great thing they achieved, I find it hard to believe that your compassion for the Palestinians is real. Compassion is a single, an indivisble thing. If you feel for the Palestinians, why do you not feel for the Jews, who have suffered more greatly since the 1930s than the Palestinians ever have? One love does not have to drive out the other. I certainly do not despise the Palestinians simply because I love the Israelis. What I do despise (and it horrifies me that you and other pro-Palestinian activists seem to be in harmony with it) is the vein of terror, the utter ruthlessness that runs through Palestinian history.

Your recent project to sail two boats to Gaza went badly wrong for one simple reason: you seriously misunderstood the Israelis. You created an image of them as demons, Nazis, ruthless fiends bent on harming the people of the West Bank and Gaza. You also invented notions of international law that anticipated conflict, and perhaps you and your colleagues even looked for a martyrdom of some kind. In the end, the Israelis reacted quite differently, because their history has shown them to be tough when necessary but capable of compromise and more when appropriate. To have blocked the entry of two ships carrying hearing aids and balloons would have been high-handed and pointless. You were allowed through. But somewhere a young Palestinian woman is strapping on a suicide belt; if she gets through the checkpoints, she will head for a restaurant or a hospital or a nursery school, and she will kill the innocent. That’s the sort of thing the Israelis try their hardest to block, and it is morally blameworthy to complain that they do it.

The Jews who set sail on the Exodus 1947 did so out of desperation, just as the first Jewish settlers headed for a backwater of the Ottoman empire, to desert and marshland, not because they were evil Zionists bent on conspiracy, but because they had fled pogroms and massacres in order to reach a promised land. It matters little how they understood that promise. Today, there are Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Punjabis, Jamaicans, Poles, and countless others who have found their promised land in the UK. This country does not threaten to massacre them or to kick them into the sea. We live together, not always comfortably, but in peace.

Hamas and other organizations in Gaza and the West Bank do not think that way. They would not have turned the Exodus back, they would have torpedoed her. Their founding documents — which I suggest you read, for I really can’t believe you have done — describe jihad as the only solution to their problem, and the expulsion or slaughter of the Jews as their proper fate.

Jews make good neighbours. You really should know that. I’m not a Jew, but a lifetime has taught me that that is true. Israel is a country that attracts tourists and investors. It is a good place to live and work. It is one of the most successful multicultural countries in the world. Minority religions like the Baha’is are given refuge there. Gay men and women from Arab countries go there for shelter. Ethiopians have made new lives there, and Russians, and, most recently Indians. It should be the Palestinian dream to live shoulder to shoulder with the democrats, the entrepreneurs, the inventors, the writers and artists and musicians on the other side of the fence. With Israeli help, a Palestinian state could grow in stature in a matter of years. There would be a peace dividend like no other. Instead, all some Palestinians seem to do is parade and scream and honour men and women whose only achievement was to murder children and survivors of the Holocaust. I don’t believe ordinary Palestinians are really like that at all. I was born in Belfast, and I grew up with bigotry as part of the scenery. Just as left for university, that bigotry exploded into violence and a deeply divided society. Today, that bigotry is receding. And that’s because both sides have learned lessons from the path and have built something new out of compromise. But Hamas and Fatah refuse to compromise. Each wants everything and gets nothing. Where is the sense in that?

Desperation is no excuse for hatred. Those Holocaust survivors had greater desperation than the Palestinians ever have done. They set out to kill no-one, but, as history so very clearly records, they were attacked by five armies and barely survived a second time. Today’s Palestinians do suffer, but they are not defending themselves against genocidal attack. There are no Israelis left in Gaza (though there are plenty of Arabs in Israel). But Hamas builds its arsenal, Islamic Jihad builds another, and every so often Israeli border guards detect and arrest another would-be suicide bomber.

You thought you were taking a risk sailing to Gaza, only to find nobody in Israel was much interested in your stunt. To the extent that you may have believed you would be arrested and imprisoned or worse, I commend your courage. But there are better forms of courage, less negative ones. If only you and your colleagues could sustain the courage to speak to men and women of merit in Gaza, community leaders, even perhaps leaders of Hamas, explain to them how dedicated you are to the Palestinian people and its emergence from the long tunnel it has been in for 60 years and more, and tell them that compromise will bring benefits, that even if they don’t take Israel back (and destroy it with inter-factional fighting) they can have what they were promised all those years ago, and that compromise will result in peace, and that peace will lead to prosperity, and that prosperity will give their children what they never had: a future.

And if you get turned down on all sides, or threatened or beaten — and I hope none of those things will happen to you — will you please admit that the Palestinians, or their leadership at least, are bringing their humiliation and poverty on their own heads? Will you make this your new mission? To show solidarity, not with the men of violence who rule Gaza today, but with moderate Palestinians, men and women of good heart, and to show that solidarity means compassion for the people you hope to free, and that freedom for the people of Gaza will come when there is a will towards peace? For if you and other pro-Palestinian organizations persist in support for the status quo, in which violence dictates a life without a future, then lovers of peace like myself will understand you better. And however many boats you sail, however many hearing aids you carry, however many brightly-coloured balloons you distribute, you will never convince the world that you mean anything but the destruction of Israel and the ruination of the Palestinian people.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Denis MacEoin

The Holocaust and its impersonators

2008-08-25T11:09:00.000-07:00

I've just finished proof-reading my forthcoming academic book, The Messiah of Shiraz. Weighing in at just under 800 pages (with the index to come) it's going to be sold in hardware shops as a doorstop. Deathless prose it may be, but it's filled with transliterations from Arabic and Persian (dashes over 'a's, 'i's and 'u's, dots under a whole range of consonants), so going through it checking for errors has left me squinting and drawing sharp breaths.

But out of all that verbiage, one thing and one thing only has stuck in my mind. This is a short passage that includes two quotations relating to events that took place after the 1852 assassination attempt on the life of Nasir al-Din Shah, the Iranian monarch who reigned till 1896. George Curzon called him philo-uxorious, meaning that he had a lot of wives. After a trip to Paris, he made his harem dress in tutus and, given that most of these ladies were, shall we say, large of stature, the results were, let's just say, spectacular. But that's not why someone tried to kill him. First suspicions fell on a militant sect, the Babis, who form the main topic of my book. Some Babis were killed, others imprisoned, but a combination of reports by European travellers and diplomats gave rise to the myth that there had been a serious massacre. Later histories by members of the Baha'i religion (who have their roots in Babism) perpetuate this myth. Here's the passage that stood out for me:

According to a later writer, the 1851 killings were ‘a blood-bath of unprecedented severity,’ ‘a holocaust reminiscent of the direst tribulations undergone by the persecuted followers of any previous religion,’and ‘the darkest, bloodiest and most tragic episode of the Heroic Age of the Bahāʾī Dispensation.

This is strong stuff. One wonders why, if it was the equal of the worst things suffered by the followers of any religion, a holocaust no less, an unprecedented severity, we didn't all read about it in our school history books. Actually, the tally of Babi dead was 37. Believe me, I have conducted extensive researches on all cases of Babis killed between 1844 and 1852, and 37 is correct.

Well, this is just exaggeration by a writer who was no stranger to the genre, but in recent years he has found himself in good (or not so good) company. Since the 1980s, the 'Palestinian Holocaust' has become a badge for left-liberals everywhere, a rallying cry for the Islamic world, an internet 'reality' that could have stepped out of Second Life, a cause for much wringing of hands, a matter for public lamentation, a summons for vindication, a justification for 'retaliatory' violence, an explanation for Palestinian intransigence and failure, a texture woven through the cloth of Arab policies, an incantation ringing out in Islamic sermons, on the voices of little children, in the streets and suqs, a banner waving beside the Palestinian flag.

Enough with the purple prose. The Palestinian Holocaust never happened. We are living in the real world. We are, if you like, living in history, and history has no record of a Palestinian Holocaust.

But let me take this beyond mere assertion. The term 'Holocaust' as applied to the Palestinians is derived directly from the same word in English, corresponding to the Hebrew Shoah. Writing in Arabic or Farsi, the word is hulukast (with three of those long-vowel dashes on the vowels, neatly avoiding any Arabic, Persian, or other term that might have been more appropriate.

So, the Palestinian 'Holocaust' is modelled on something that happened in Europe, the slaughter of some 6 million Jews by the Nazis before and during the Second World War. Of the reality of the Jewish Holocaust, there can be no doubt. It is recorded lavishly in the memories of survivors, on film, in photographs, and, above all, in mile after mile of German, Russian, Hungarian, Polish, and other archives, archives whose multitudinous files contain vastly more evidence of murder and bestiality than the police records of any country on earth. No other crime or set of crimes have been so meticulously recorded.

In face of this overwhelming evidence, many Muslims -- notably the Iranians -- have joined forces with a much smaller number of right-wing extremists (and not a few on the far left) who flatly deny that the Holocaust ever took place, who insist there were no gas chambers and who would have it that not a single Jew died as a result of Nazi brutality. Or who argue that the Nazis looked after the Jews well, and that it was disease, not lethal gases, that killed them. Better still, never content with one explanation when three or four will do, they argue that the Holocaust was a dastardly Zionist plot, a conspiracy between Nazis and Zionists to imprint the deaths of Jews on the world's conscience in order to guarantee the creation of Israel once the war was over.

This denial -- egregious, sickening and degenerate as it is -- matches claims that there was, that there is, a Palestinian Holocaust. No Jews died, but, hey, look at the slaughter of the Palestinians by the Jews. It also matches the transparent nonsense that Israel is a Nazi state and, what's more, a Nazi state built on that non-existent Holocaust.

It does not need saying that no serious person would fall for any of this, except that so many have. The Palestinian Holocaust, a vast massacre for which not a shred of evidence exists, is passing fare at polite middle-class dinner tables, it is fodder for intellectuals of a certain ilk, it passes for historical fact among well-educated people who find it easier to sneer than read a book of properly-researched history.

Why has this happened? Why has history been stood on its head, and, with it, terminology? If I call Israel a Nazi state, am I not obliged to demonstrate this by reference to Israeli doctrines, policies, and actions that parallel those of the German National Socialist Party? If I pontificate about a Palestinian Holocaust, am I not bound to cite places, dates, and numbers? And since there are no such facts to bandy about, just as there are no Israeli apartheid laws, what do I have to do? All it seems to take is repetition. Say it often enough and people take it in and give it shelter, a lie big enough to choke them.

Some of these moral degenerates, like Ilan Pappé, say they aren't interested in facts, that it's the progressive argument or something, whatever it's called, that counts. But as every criminal knows when he's dragged to court, the facts will grind you down. However much you fudge and cover, slip and slide, a good barrister will wear you out, because there will be demonstrable facts to expose your lies.

Beneath the surface (though not far beneath) is an abiding anti-Semitism, a moral failing that drives its exponents to lies. Far-right groups like Stormfront have no compunctions about being anti-Semitic. They aren't ashamed of it, in fact they're proud to be Hitler's successors. But what about the European and American left? Not all the left, not all the liberals, but a large body who are not really liberal at all. After the Holocaust, it became a shameful thing to speak ill of Jews and, for some time, to condemn Israel. But there gradually came into existence a new kind of left-winger, someone for whom everything Western was anathema. So, America is the devil, the UK is the devil, Israel is the devil, imperialism, colonialism, and all the rest are part of Satan's attack on the poor and wretched of the earth. One problem, of course, for this approach is that you have to turn a blind eye to Islamic imperialism (especially the late, great Ottoman empire), or Arab and Turkish slavery, and all those other things the non-Western world has been responsible for. That means re-writing history, and that's the direction chosen by leftist intellectuals. Israel has been of particularly value for this, allowing liberals to cry 'I'm not anti-Semitic, I'm anti-Israel'.

The antidote to these arguments may be found in a remarkable book by Bernard Harrison, The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism. Harrison's an academic philosopher, and his analysis of this problem about anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism is outstanding. Slowly, painstakingly, he subjects articles, individuals, and arguments to a critique to which they have never been subjected before. His discussion of Tom Paulin alone makes the book worth buying.

Rather than digressing into his complex arguments, I'll leave this post here and possibly return to it another day.

What to do about Iran?

2008-07-13T09:18:00.000-07:00

It’s not just that he Iranians were faking photos. American experts have now concluded that they may well have fired only one rocket (and multiplied the shot) and that it may have been a Shahab II, about ten years out of date and capable of reaching only about 750 miles. Iranian society is still one in which exaggeration, bluff, and subterfuge go a long way. It’s hard to speak in standard Farsi without using all manner of honorifics and polite phrases (chashm-e shoma, may I be your eye; qurban-e shoma, may I be your sacrifice, Jenab-e ali, your excellency etc.). Ahmadinezhad is a master of cirumlocution. I don’t doubt his intentions when he says they will wipe Israel off the face of the map (echoing, as that does, Ayatollah Khomeini); but I’m very unsure of the immediacy of that, particularly if they don’t really have the capacity even to try.

All the same, I am really sceptical about either the US or Israel starting a war. Iran is too big, too varied in terrain (mountains, desert, poor road and rail infrastructure, unstable borders) to make it a safe place for a ground war. The country has a large population of over 70,000,000, much of it concentrated in and around Tehran, and a standing army, navy, and air force of 420,000, with pasdaran contingents of around 125,000. However, the voluntary militias of the Basij have a claimed membership of over 12 million, with some 3 million combat ready. In addition, they can call on the Lebanese Hizbullah, Iraqi Shi’i forces including the Jaysh al-Mahdi, and volunteers from the jihadi world, including many with combat experience from Chechnya, Bosnia, and Afghanistan.

If I were a commander, I would not want to take troops into that situation, especially since Iraq and Afghanistan are still undecided. The result would be disaster with not even a WMD to show for it.

An air war would be easier to fight, especially since the Iranian Air Force has never recovered in materiel or personnel from the purge that took place in 1979. They would not offer any real resistance to combined US and Israeli forces. But bombing nuclear installations would leave the Iranian armed forces intact (but for the IRIAF), and the consequences could be just as bad if they retaliated in Iraq or cut through northern Iraq (the Kurdish part) and across Syria to attack Israel.

At the same time, stopping them with diplomacy won’t work either. If the world community can’t get its act together to remove Robert Mugabe from his stolen presidency, how much harder it will be to act against a country that has some of the world’s largest oil resources, at a time when shortages of oil are having severe domestic effects in the West.

Some very good compromises have been offered, to allow Iran to build nuclear facilities to be used for internal energy applications, but they have all been turned down. Their talk about centrifuges may just be more bluff (some say they may only have 900, not the 3000 they claim. I still believe they intend to have a nuclear bomb of some kind and that, if they thought they could get away with it, they would nuke Israel (probably just Tel Aviv and maybe Haifa, but not Jerusalem, which would lose them Muslim support) and use Hizbullah to finish off what remained with rockets or even a ground assault.

None of us has a crystal ball, which means any decision about what to do to prevent this eventuality has to be based on very careful thinking about outcomes. But that is the situation as I now see it. Can anyone see a way to move forward?

When academics stray

2008-06-06T10:46:00.000-07:00

Every year an assembly of British academics gathers to pass a motion condemning Israel and attempting to introduce a boycott against academics, universities, and colleges in Israel. It never goes off the agenda, not even after last year's fiasco when the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU) passed a boycott motion only to be told by their national executive that it would be illegal to implement it. Nothing daunted, they have come back this year with another variation on a tired but increasingly racist theme. Things have been worse ever since the more moderate Association of University Teachers (to which I used to belong) merged with the more left-wing and radical National Association of Teachers in Higher and Further Education, producing the UCU.

This singular evil, this smug, politically-correct hatred of one tiny country has, for reasons I do not fully comprehend, become more serious in the UK than anywhere else in Europe, North America, or Australia/New Zealand. Since the 1960s, when I first attended university, a sea-change has overcome academia across a range of subjects, but mainly English literature, sociology, philosophy, politics, history, geography, anthropolgy: indeed, most areas within the humanities. Several things happened. Many subject areas became politicized as Marxists and feminists (and radical feminists) slowly took over departments. Later, with the decline in support for Marxism, two new sources of radical thought were introduced, post-colonialism and post-structuralism. What characterized these disciplines and philosphical stances — feminism, western Marxism, phenomenology, nihilism, post-structuralism — was criticism of and even hatred for dominant Western philosophy and culture. Alongside this came political correctness, which sided with the view that the ideas of the Enlightenment were contemptible, that Westerners were all racists and colonizers, and that 'victimhood' conferred a status that elevated people above those who were more successful. Edward Said's 1978 book 'Orientalism' started the ball rolling for post-colonial studies. We were all crazy about it at one time. When it appeared, I had just been trained as an orientalist, and like others in my field I read it avidly. We didn't see the flaws in his arguments back then. Like Marx and others, he had sensible things to say. But like Marx and others, he turned his general observations into a form of ideology (which later grew into post-colonialism). Said's ideas were first aimed at the orientalist enterprise of observing and recording the Islamic east, but now they are applied to quite different situations, such as the Spanish/Portuguese conquests of South America or colonial congtrol of Africa.

Significantly, Said, though himself not much of an expert on the Middle East, concentrated on Western portrayals of the Islamic world. He showed how writers distorted the realities of people in Muslim countries, either romanticizing them (mainly in the 18th and 19th centuries) or defining them as irrational, obsessed with sex, or fanatical (particularly in the Middle Ages). He argued that Orientalist painters idealized their subjects, making Eastern scenes colourful and infused with unWestern passions. And that novelists and poets (like Moore) drew on sources like the often-translated Arabian Nights to create fantasies that passed for realism. Well, some of this was true, so we all started looking more critically at our writing, which was, on the whole, a good thing. However, Said's emphasis on the Islamic world or, to be more accurate, the Middle East elevated the region to the status of primary victim of Western imperialism. This was further emphasized in Said's other writings about the Palestinians and his proclamation of himself to be victim number one. Even if 'Our house in Jerusalem' had actually belonged to an uncle, while Said was brought up in Cairo (where his father owned a prestigious business) and educated at an English-speaking school (and went on to use the conqueror's language to forge a successful career for himself within the Western university system), Said manoeuvred his own character as a Palestinian to front stage. And with himself, the Palestinians as the doyens of refugee-hood, passive under the cruel yoke of Israel subjugation, innocent vicitims of the imperialist carve-up of the Ottoman empire. No word of criticism of Ottoman colonialism: the bad boys were the British and French, because they had an agenda, and that agenda was to bring the Crusades back and to take control of the Middle East for ever. Israel was their secret weapon, the ultimate colonializing power.

I think it was through Said and the later success of post-colonial studies, alongside the theories of Derrida, Foucault, Lacan, and other post-structuralists, that gifted the wow factor to modern academic thinking about Israel and the Palestinians. Academics are often sad creatures, not readily sociable, many of them personifiations of nerdiness. English literature was once a domain for the study of obsure and uninteresting texts from the Battle of Maldon to the Book of Marjory Kempe to unreadable modern novels of angst, self-loathing, and social deprivation. Suddenly, in the 1970s, there came from several directions ample opportunity to be interesting and controversial. You could claim that a play by Shakespeare was no different in substance from the telephone diretory; you could apply radical feminist theory to literature and get rid of the canon of DWDs or Dead White Males (Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Dryden, Yeats, Blake, Keats, Wordsworth, Dickens, Hardy, Joyce, Lawrence... it went on and on). And with a little extra effort you could get rid of Jane Austen because she didn't make a grovelling apology for slavery in Mansfield Park or write female characters who spurned the attentions of male oppressors right to the end. In fact, you were obliged to look out for every obscure African, Indian, Pakistani, Chinese or Algerian author in order to show your credentials as a right-on postcolonialist. Then, studying texts could be equated with studying film, and film studies got taken on board as another discipline within which to oil all the same prejudices.

There was something else as well. Ideology became more important than the factual basis of the topic under scrutiny. On coould scarcely find a more perfect example of this distortion than in the work of the anti-Zionist Israeli writer (I won't call him an historian) Ilan Pappé. As Janet Levy and DR. Roberta Seid put it: 'Pappe's scholarship is questionable and subject to much criticism by respected historians. He dismisses the legitimacy of historical facts and rewrites history to support his ideologically determined agenda. He has admitted to the predominance of the Marxist worldview in defining conclusions and outcomes, by asserting that "we do [historiography] because of ideological reasons, not because we are truth seekers.' '(Ilan Pappe, Advocate of Israel's Destruction', Front Page Magazine, 24 November 2004). Likewise, Seth J. Frantzman calls Pappé's work "a cynical exercise in manipulating evidence to fit an implausible thesis."

I have come across this sort of thing often enough in the past, not so much with Marxist or post-structuralist writers, but with writers belonging to different religious groups, notably Islam. It is impossible to find a Muslim narrative about the Prophet or Islamic history or religious leaders that does not twist historical fact to fit a 'higher' narrative. Given that much writing about Israel and much condemnation of the Jewish people today comes from Muslims, and given the growing centrality within departments of Middle East Studies of committed Muslims, it is easy to see how new narratives have been written, narratives that blind that very large portion of academia which knows next to nothing about Islam, Judaism, or Middle East history, including the history of Israel.

There's another thing that stands out in much modern academic discourse, infected as it is by the content and style of the French theorists, and that is the obscurantist quality of writing in the humanities. Often, writing is simply impenetrable. And, as Nick Cohen so cogently puts it: 'Writers write badly when they have something to hide'. If you had sat, as I have sat for three years, in a room with a string of undergraduates, postgraduates, and academic staff, you would know that the hardest thing to get across is that you don't have to over-elaborate your writing to get your ideas across, that simple English using short sentences and plain words is much more effective. It's easy to write jargon and its easy to imitate the meaningless bletherings of a Foucault or a Derrida, and it's easy to fool people into thinking what you say makes sense. It's much harder to understand what you want to say and to explain it to someone who knows nothing about the subject. Clarity of thought precedes clarity of diction, muddled thought expresses itself in vague and pretentious language couched in long words and neologisms. Read Derrida and then read someone like Karl Popper. Many regard Popper as the greatest philosopher of the last century, and I would agree. But he was also a great prosae stylist who could explain difficult propositions without getting himself or his readers in knots.

I think these things all join up. A lack of respect for facts, a lack of respect for language, and a lack of respect for simple morality. When academics find it hard to condemn terrorism as terrorism, praise hatred and call it legitimate political expression, and single out for vituperation the only democracy in the Middle East, it's a sure sign they aren't thinking straight. Surely this is the irony of these boycotts, that they should be spearheaded by academics of all people. Academics are supposed to have been taught how to use their minds. A great many do. But a host of left-wing post-structuralists and post-colonialists, who have been taught how not to think by thinkers whoi love obscurity, have forged ahead to be the standard-bearers of a new ignorance. The hatefulness of radical Islam doesn't faze them in the least. Just as Ken Livingstone was able to give the finger to his gay, feminist, and Jewish allies when he decided to embrace the notorious anti-Zionist, anti-gay, and anti-feminist Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, so these hardcore illiberals abandon all pretence to morality and progress. They admire a group like Hamas that would eat them alive if it got the chance. They defend Iran, a country that bans some religious minorities from its universities and calls it freedom. They condemn Israeli actions without once citing the context within which those actions take place. But what do facts matter? They make their minds up, despise open debate, and clamour to break the law against discrimination.

The oddest thing of all is why this is such a British thing. After all, there's plenty of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism on US campuses (see the excellent study Uncivil Society), yet US academic organizations, including the heavily Saidean Middle East Studies Association, have condemned British excesses. The French actually produce the sort of philosopher I've been talking about, and they have a very active left wing, but they haven't called for a boycott. Nor has anyone else in Europe, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. Now, I really can't explain this. If anyone who reads this can, I'd be grateful for their views.

A photograph

2008-05-30T10:06:00.000-07:00

I have a photograph in my gallery that makes me feel wretched every time I loook at it. It is a poor quality photograph in black and white, taken in the early 1940s. The image is fuzzy, but stark. It shows three figures, etched against a vague background. Three human figures: a woman, whose body is bent at her hips and knees; a small child in her arms, cradled protectively; and, behind them, an SS soldier with a rifle pointed at this helpless pair, ready to fire. The woman and child, if I am right, were Jewish. Well, that doesn't take much guesswork. We don't know for sure what happended in the seconds or minutes after this photograph was taken. But we can all too painfully hear the crack of the rifle, and perhaps a second shot as the soldier despatches the little boy or little girl. It is a photograph to haunt us. It speaks directly to us, because we know only too well the context.

A photograph like this raises a lot of questions. Seeing it, every decent-minded person wishes someone had been there to save the woman and child. In all likelihood, we are witnessing part of a mass killing by an einsatzgruppe, a detachment responsible for killing Jews in the days before mass killings in the camps were developed. There will have been other soldiers present, including officers, and they will have been acting on orders from higher command. No mercy will have been shown to any of the victims. Now, here's the hard bit. Those who disapprove of the use of violence (and they aren't wrong in abhorring the taking of life) would ask permission to negotiate this killing with the soldier or his superior officer. Now, it is far from impossible that is someone — a priest, say — were to speak with the soldier and set out the revulsion with which most men would regard his intended action, the soldier might have a change of conscience and set down his rifle. In doing so, however, he would know that he has added his own life to those already threatened or snuffed out. He might die on the field, or be arrested and sent to headquarters to be hanged. Few men have the courage to adopt such a position. And, admirable as such a sacrifice might be, it would be ineffective. The officer would order another soldier to carry out the deed, or would carry it out himself. Under such circumstances, lives cannot be saved.

Which takes us to the other possibility, that had the einsatzgruppe been surrounded by Allied troops or partisans, they would have been forced to surrender or would have been shot. Shooting men engaged in the taking of innocent life does n ot awaken sentiments of outrage except in the minds of those who are already morally corrupt.

After the war, many Jewish rabbis and intellectuals engaged in a debate focussing on the Hebrew phrase hester panim, which I understand to mean 'the covering of the face of G-d'. The Holocaust presented the world's surviving Jews with a theological dilemma of masssive proportions. How could a loving Creator have allowed his chosen people to go to the gas chambers, yet (apparently) protected Hitler from several suicide attempts? Had God broken with the Jews, severed his covenant with them, abandoned them? I can't answer any of those questions, but I am very aware that the general response among Jews was to re-assert the connection. Two thousand years of persecution had innured them to a sense of abandonment while giving them the strength to find meaning in the indifference or cruelty of the world through which they journeyed.

But something had changed. That something is best expressed in the words of American rabbi and novelist, Chaim Potok, in his history of the Jewish people, Wanderings. Writing of the post-Holocaust era, he writes: 'There are no more gentle Jews'. Now, there are plenty (especially on the left) who take that badly. They don't much like Jews getting uppity, and when they see Jews fighting back against military attack or terrorist assault they take the moral high ground and declare it to be something unnatural. Jews, they seem to think, are G-d's and the world's victims. Whichever, they are born to be victims. To walk to the auto-da-fe reciting the Psalms or to the gas chamber with the Shema on their lips personifies, for many, the Jew of their choice.

That takes us back to the woman and child. This, when we add it together, is Potok's referrant. The gentle Jews did not, could not save those innocents. A troop of Sayaret Matkal fighters might well have done so. And given the SS a bloody nose into the bargain. The truth is that the Allied troops didn't turn up until it was too late for most of those who had gone through the camps. As we all know, the Allies placed the Jews very low on their list of priorities. Anyone who has read Tom Bowers's A Blind Eye to Murder or The Allies and Auschwitz will have seen in detail how stopping the killing in the camps carried no weight in the eyes of those responsible for prosecuting the war. Now, some of that failure may be set at the gate of anti-Semitism among politicians and civil servants, and some of it may have been due to a sincere belief that the defeat of the Third Reich was the priority, whatever the cost. That's not what concerns me here. Whatever the motives and whatever the correctness of saving all firepower for the Russian or Italian front, the fact is that the Jews could see that it wasn't just G-d who had hidden his face, it was much of humanity. And subsequent British antagonism to Holocaust survivors entering Palestine and the decision to keep survivors in camps on Cyprus brought many up with a jolt. How could those who had fought so hard to bring down the most evil empire in history, knowing now that 6 million Jews had died in death camps, now turn aside from those whom they and their allies had saved, turn their boats back from the shores of the Holy Land, let them drown only a short distance from the one place they had longed to make their homes in?

And then God took the veil away from his face and the state of Israel came into being. I'm not a believer, but I write that with full awareness of how the creation of a Jewish state was seen by a majority of the Jewish people. It was — and perhaps this is pushing things a little — almost a divine reward for the suffering the Jews had just passed through. And one of the many things Israel allowed was the creation of an army, an air force, and a navy. Time and again, when Israel's enemies have attacked her, threatening genocide, they have had their noses bloodied. Many have died, but there has never been a second Holocaust, however much the Arab and Muslim worlds may long for one. A strong Israel is the answer to the horror of that photograph. Today the world whines about the actions Israel takes to defend herself and her people. That same world would have stood next to our woman and child and told her to take it and not complain.

Today, rockets land in Sderot and Ashkelon. Hizbullah and Hamas amass armaments that would pose a threat to any country on earth. Their leaders echo the Nazi-speak of 1930s Germany. Back then, Jews felt powerless, and sat and waited for an indication that the worst was over, that Germans would come to their senses, that the rhetoric would come to nothing, that Der Sturmer was a sick joke at best. Who can blame them? But today, who can blame the Israelis for thinking their lives and their nation are at serious? Who can deny that, once again, the nations will look on, will pass by on the other side of the road, will deny they are anti-Semitic while they shake hands with Hamas and Hizbullah and the rulers of Iran? Today, Israel is a women, bent at the knees and hips, a child in her arms, waiting for the bullet that will pound through her head. But today, she will put the child on his feet and turn to face the SS soldier, and she will hold an Uzi sub-machine gun in her hand. Is it grotesque for that to happen? So many left-wingers, Jews and non-Jews together, say that it is, that Israel has less right to exist than our woman in the photograph. If rockets were landing in their back gardens, they mightg well ring for the police and ask for some sort of action by the military. They would not be supine in the face of an existential threat. But they will not go out there, sniper's rifle in hand, to shoot the SS guards who threaten innocent women and children. That will be their eternal shame.

Myths and Historical Fact

2008-05-26T09:38:00.000-07:00

The following was sent recently to the Irish Times in response to a long letter that had appeared there. I don't know if the Times ever published my reply, but it's long enough to fit this blog, so here it is.

Despite Tomas McBride (Letters, 22 May), supporters of
Israel do not need to resort to myth in order to
justify the existence of a modern Jewish state. Let's
leave the Torah to one side for a moment. Israel came
into being, not from a mythical 'Jewish invasion' of
British mandate Palestine, but as the result of a long
political process that started in the late 19th
century as the Ottoman empire drew to its end. After
the second world war and a long debate, the United
Nations voted by a majority for the creation of a
small Jewish state alongside other mandate or
ex-mandate states. In other words, Israel was carved
out of the old empire much as modern Iraq, Lebanon,
Syria, or Jordan. This happened in part because
post-war re-apportionment of land in general is
commonplace, but for the greater part because the UN
was a new way to administer international law and the
necessary adjustments between nations. The nearest
parallel was the resettlement of 2 million people
following the partition of India to create Pakistan
(and, later, Bangladesh) — oddly enough, no Muslim
voices are raised to complain about this.

Unfortunately, nations in the modern form, modelled on
the concept of the Westphalian state, had never
existed in Islam (though various forms of Arab
nationalism, like Jewish nationalism, were being
advocated in this period). This is why the Arab states
who invaded Israel with the expressed intention of
driving all Jews into the Mediterranean simply refused
to behave like UN member states at all. That Jews had
taken control of even a tiny sliver of Islamic
territory was anathema, giving rise to what was in
essence a religious animus calling for genocide. By
that time too, Palestinian politics had been
irredeemably tainted by association with the Third
Reich. The Reich's leading Arab collaborator, Hajj
Amin al-Husayni, the Palestinian leader, had fled
after the Nazi defeat and was feted in Cairo as a hero
of the Arab people.

To dismiss Jewish longing to return to Israel as
merely a myth-centred nonsense displays an absolute
insensitivity to aspirations, whether religious or
national. All peoples, religions, and nations have
founding myths. The Jews have one of the strongest.
Their belief in a land that was given them by God may
or may not be historically true, but it is a vivid,
enduring, and necessary expression of the significance
Jews have placed in Israel for thousands of years.
Jerusalem is sacred to Jews much as Mecca and Medina
are to Muslims. It is certainly much better attested
than the historically invalid attempt of modern
Palestinians (a hybrid group) to assert Palestinian
occupation of that land for a similar length of time;
or to claim a link between modern Palestinians and the
ancient Philistines; or, most glaringly, that the Jews
have never had a historical connection to the land.
Pull the other one.

For two thousand years, Jews have expressed a daily
hope of return to the Holy Land. That sense of
belonging, that connection to history, are something
greater than myth, though often inspired by it. We do
not mock other religions for holding non-rational
beliefs, we do not try to make political capital out
of national struggles based on a longing for a return
to a Golden Age. The statue of Cuchulainn outside the
General Post Office is there for a reason. Or consider
the opening words of the Proclamation of Independence:
'IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of
the dead generations from which she receives her old
tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons
her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.'
Or all those murals of King Billy crossing the Boyne.

Jews trace their origins back as far as that and
further. That is why they chose and were given a
homeland where every town, every hill, every river,
every archaeological excavation, and every stone in
the Western Wall resonates. And given the momentous
horror of the Holocaust and how close mankind came to
witnessing an extermination of the Jewish people, that
resonance could not have been greater. Persecuted
though we may have been by the British occupation, we
were never in danger of being wiped out. Since 1948,
the Palestinian Arabs have increased from 1,700,000 to
2.5 million (with claims of over 3 million). That is
the truth of the 'Palestinian Holocaust', another myth
that is swallowed too readily. If I am to believe in
the right of the Irish people to a homeland where
Cuchulainn may or may not have walked, how can I deny
the Jews their unarguable right to seek refuge for the
first time in two millennia in a land they have prayed
for every day of their lives? By contrast, Jerusalem
has little resonance in Islam: soon after migrating to
Medina, the prophet Muhammad, who had prayed towards
Jerusalem in imitation of the Jews, turned his back on
the city and chose instead to pray towards Mecca, as
all Muslims do today. Jews recite the words of the
Psalm: 'If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right
hand wither, let my tongue cleave to my palate if I do
not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my
highest joy'. The Qur'an doesn't even mention
Jerusalem.

The Arabs cannot have it both ways. They cannot belong
to the United Nations and work to undermine its very
principles. Their states are dictatorships and absolute
monarchies, they deny their citizens basic human
rights, they reduce women to an inferior status, they
deny religious minorities the freedoms called for in
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet they
denounce Israel, the only country in the Middle East
that implements those rights in a democratic state.
What are we looking for, in the end? Stability,
democracy, the rule of law, rights for everyone
regardless of colour, sex, or creed? Or genocide by
Hamas and Hizbullah, followed by theocratic rule that
will bring executions, stonings, and the minimum of
rights for any remaining religious minorities? Israel
has achieved great things. It has some way to go, but
every time we attack it or snipe at it or give
terrorists succour, we undermine the very things we
claim to stand for.

The stand-bys

2008-05-13T11:30:00.000-07:00

We Westerners have become the stand-bys, the people who protest about everything and never actually do anything useful. In Burma, where over a million may die in an epidemic, the government refuses to let aid agencies and aid into the country. Cue photographs of Western diplomats smiling and shaking hands with members of the ruling junta. There is much wringing of hands, but nobody actually does anything. A great crime is being committed, but its perpetrators know all too well that no international policeman will arrive to arrest and imprison them. In Lebanon, Hizbullah threaten to take control from the legitimate government. UN troops, sent there to prevent Hizbullah re-arming, whistle through their teeth as they watch the rockets being shipped in. Hizbullah captures a southern village that gives them a vantage point over northern Israel and thus betokens another war; and the United Nations does sod all. I have just watched a gruelling video of four men being stoned to death in Iran. I had to switch it off. No-one stepped in to prevent this vile act, an act that debases a great nation and all humanity. James Bond did not arrive by plane or supercharged sports car, no-one took a pistol and shot the mullah in charge of the event, I don't think a question was asked in the House of Commons or in Congress, and I don't recall the Iranian ambassador ever being hauled in to explain these or any other deaths.

What are we scared of? World opinion? We are the world, or at least the richest and strongest part of it. What do we care about some two-bit tinpot dictatorship in Africa or the Arab world? Why should they outvote the democracies in the General Assembly or the UN Commission for Human Rights? Robert Mugabe destroys an entire country, its economy, and the lives of its people. We shake our heads because it would be improper to assassinate him or even go in and arrest him. If we apply that logic to Britain or any other country, the police would stand back from arresting drug dealers and criminal masterminds. Israel is the only country that says, if someone is a mass murderer and threatens to kill more innocent people, it is ethical to go in and take him out. If Saddam Husayn has built a nuclear reactor, it is for everyone's benefit to blow it to pieces. If terrorists have taken a plane-load of your people and threaten to kill them, you send hard men in after the terrorists, you kill them, and you rescue the hostages.

It is a mockery of the international system that Israel, a member state of the UN, has fought wars and terrorist attacks for 60 years, yet not one other member state has come to its aid. Nato was founded on the basis that an attack on any member country was to be considered an attack on everyone, and that retaliation would follow from all member states. That is still true. Similar alliances exist elsewhere. Of course, the UN is not a military alliance; but it still makes no sense to me that there can be no role for the UN when Israel is attacked by wholly illegal entities like Hamas or Hizbullah. It's not even a case of asking the UN to send in fighting troops to go into battle alongside Israelis, simply wondering why the UN chooses not to enforce international law when it is so blatantly broken by a group like Hizbullah that was founded and is backed by a regime who record in human rights or in international relations is consistently black. What do you have to do to get the UN, to which you pay your membership dues, to do what it was set up to do?

It matters hugely to the West that Hizbullah does not set the Middle East alight, that Iran and Syria do not take joint control of Lebanon, that they do not use their alliance with Hamas to engage in another war with Israel, and that Syria does not try to drag Jordan into it. But surely this is the point. It is precisely because the West (like the UN) stood aside during the last war in Lebanon, and put heavy pressure on Israel to end the war prematurely, that Hizbullah was able to come out of the conflict ready to re-arm and re-group. thereby creating the present situation. To be honest, if the West (or the UN) had acted years ago, Hizbullah could have been flattened before they got the missiles they now use. The same with Hamas.

Everyone is afraid — and rightly afraid — of starting a war with Iran. Attacking Hizbullah could lead to that. Taking out Iran's nucleaer installations could lead to it. Iran is a big country with difficult terrain and a large population. A war would be foolish and Western troops would get even more bogged down than they are now in Iraq or Afghanistan. US blunders in Iraq have made life easier for Ahmadinezhad and his generals. I cannot suggest the right course of action. Perhaps no-one in the West really cares: if Israel is all that's at stake, no doubt a lot of people can live with that. We don't reward heroism any longer, not if it ruffles feathers in high places. We are politically correct, which means we hate Israel and love the terrorists masquerading as freedom fighters who want to destroy her body and soul. They want to destroy Israel's spirit, and they know no-one out there has a spirit like it, and that no-one dare trespass the laws of 'do not speak', 'do not call on others to speak', 'do not act', and 'do not urge others to take action'. Let us prove them wrong.

Reflections on the Nazi State

2008-03-15T19:37:00.000-07:00

I’m afraid. Let me try to explain why. I was born four years after the end of the Second World War. Throughout my childhood and early youth, I was taught about why that war had been fought, why it had been essential to defeat Nazi Germany, and why we must never let something like that happen again. Above all, it was instilled in me that we must never allow a second Holocaust to happen. It had been the greatest crime in human history, and the Nazis had been the greatest criminals of all time.
The worst thing about the Third Reich was that it came to power in a modern nation, a nation that prided itself on its culture, its science, its legal system, its religious and social values. This was the horror, that something primitive, bestial, and anti-human came out of what both Germans and their neighbours considered a civilized and progressive people. Even today, when we read or watch newsreels about the Reich, the Nazi Party, the SS, the vast apparatus of that singular evil, we are confronted by a cold-hearted wickedness that has no parallel in modern history. It remains the supreme evil of modern times, despite the emergence of many tyrannies and tyrants since its time.
When we think of German fascism, we think of the ruthlessness of the blitzkrieg, the extermination of villages, the destruction of Warsaw, the mass killings of Jews by einzatsgruppen, the torture and murder refined by the Gestapo, the utter abuse of innocence by a conscious option for evil, and, above all, the death camps. To my generation, the swastika and the totenkopf, the chic black uniforms, the rallies, the goose-stepping formations, the diving stukas, the barbed wire, the piano-wire hangings, the gas chambers, the watchtowers, the jackboots, the Hitlergrüss salutes, the lightning-flash SS badges, the black coats of the secret police, the U-boat packs, and the overweening arrogance all spoke of one thing: an evil so removed from good that it should never be repeated, however long the human race endures.
I began by saying I am afraid. Afraid of what? Of the truth that, just over sixty years after the end of that long and costly war, after the Nuremberg trials that laid bare Germany’s infamy, after the sorrow and grief that consumed Europe and Russia, I hear our understanding of that evil abused. It is as if a new generation has forgotten what Nazism was all about, as if all our common understandings have been twisted until they are no longer recognizable.
In what way? In the repeated statements found among sections of the left and centre that describe Israelis as Nazis, that speak of a ‘Palestinian Holocaust’, that define Israel as the new Reich and its actions on a par with those of Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. It is scarcely possible to say how sick and frightened it makes me to read such remarks, not least when I realize that they are often made by seemingly intelligent, well-educated people. What is worse, they have become part of a wider distortion of historical truth that denies the Holocaust, blames the Jews for having provoked Hitler and everyone who ever persecuted them throughout history, and finds an excuse for its anti-Semitism in mealy-mouthed declarations of guiltlessness: ‘I am only anti-Zionist’.
So let’s put some of this to rest. Leaving aside the Suez debacle (in which Britain and France were also involved), Israel has only ever fought defensive wars. Again and again, Israelis have fought, not just for their own lives, but for the life of their nation — a nation created to provide a haven for Jews in a world that had just disposed of six million of them. They have never used the total war tactics of the Nazis, nor have they once envisaged the genocide of the Palestinians. If they had really been Nazis, does anyone imagine they would have left a Palestinian alive? If they really used Nazi military tactics, do you think the death toll in the recent war in Lebanon would have been around 1,000, most of the dead Hizbullah guerrillas?
There’s simply no point in using derogatory terms like ‘Nazi’, ‘genocidal’, or ‘racist’ if they don’t fit. And such language doesn’t fit Israel. Criticize Israel by all means — Israelis do it all the time — but play fair. Too many people on the Left have betrayed their own ideals of honesty and justice by demonizing a people whose only wish is for peace and security. There are things wrong about Israel, and you should take care to identify them and write to your nearest Israeli embassy about them: you’ll find a listening ear, and maybe your criticisms will do real good. But there’s no point in standing on street corners with a megaphone, yelling to the general public that Israelis are Nazis, because only someone as badly informed as yourself will listen to you.
What frightens me more than anything, though, is the hypocrisy. Left-wingers and liberals always had an honourable history of opposition to anti-Semitism. They stood up for Jews, in the same way Jews in the 60s were among the most active figures in the American Civil Rights Movement. Back in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, it was a matter of honour for liberals to defend the Jews in their own countries and Israel abroad. But now? The Left has sold out totally to the lure of anti-Semitism. ‘We only hate Israel, not Jews,’ you say? Then why have so many left-wingers and liberals joined forces with the Palestinians and other Arabs, or with Iranians or Pakistanis, whose cultures are saturated with the most obnoxious anti-Jewish imagery and rhetoric that has existed outside the Third Reich? I’m not talking here about something half-hidden, some dirty secret that you might well not have come across. I’m talking about mainstream TV shows, broadcasts on a variety of national radio stations, children’s cartoons, school textbooks, mosque sermons, and large political rallies.
It’s all there: the hooked noses, the grasping hands, the conspiracies, the sacrifice of Christian and Muslim children, the mixing of their blood with matzo flour, the secret cabals, the sheer Nazi-like horror of the filthy, blood-sucking, world-dominating Jew. If you think you’re a liberal, then what in God’s name induces you to throw in your lot with real Nazism, pour scorn on Jews who have been fighting for their lives for well over sixty years, and then gallingly call those same Jews Nazis?
You say you haven’t seen any of this? Then you really are a fool to give your support to a society you know next to nothing about. You consider Hamas ‘freedom fighters’: have you noticed the salute they give in rallies? You think of Hizbullah as ‘heroes of the resistance’: have you ever seen how they salute? If it was Hitler up on the podium, no-one would be surprised.
This all requires a more detailed discussion. For the moment, I will only say that this link between modern Arab anti-Semitism and the Third Reich variety is not accidental. While Jews were dying in Auschwitz and Buchenwald and Birkenau, the Palestinian leadership was collaborating with the Reich, recruiting troops for the SS, and planning to build a death camp in Hebron. Jew-hating fascism did not die with the overthrow of the Third Reich: it moved to the Arab world where, believe it or not, the world’s liberals now sing its praises, thinking they are fighting for Palestinian freedom. If you are still in any doubt about how sick this is, read the Hamas Charter, which openly calls for the slaughter of all the Jews in Israel, or early documents of Hizbullah, where the same aim is made explicit, or the more recent calls by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad, to wipe Israel from the map. They want to finish the job Hitler started. Don’t take my word for it, read any of the books and pamphlets in which just this claim is made. I forgot, you probably don’t read Arabic. I do. Don’t you think that you, as an intelligent and open-minded liberal, might actually base your view of this on something more solid than a couple of articles in The Guardian? I read The Guardian too, but I don’t swallow everything its extraordinarily biased op-eds say about the Middle East.
Where does this leave us? You, the anti-Israel liberal, me, the pro-Israel liberal. At loggerheads, I suppose. But there is a difference: I believe in your inherent goodness because some sort of love of humanity must inform your political options, your love of free speech, of human rights, of the right of all peoples to independence and nationhood. I know you are impelled to support the Palestinian cause because of such imperatives, and I admire your impulse. But I also think — or, rather, know — that you are ignorant, perhaps profoundly so. Otherwise, I cannot in all conscience imagine why you would so freely give your voice and your actions to support a people who seek only genocide, and withhold your support from the very people that has suffered the greatest act of genocide in the last or any other century.
If you believe in the self-determination of peoples, why do you condemn the establishment of the single state of Israel, the only Jewish state in two thousand years? From the very beginning, the people of Israel have sought for the creation of an Arab state next to theirs. Given peace and security, there are few limits to what Israel would do to make a Palestinian state an economic and social success. They have never talked of genocide. The Palestinians talk of little else. Hamas explicitly rejects peace treaties, peace conferences, compromises, and negotiations. Why would a peace-loving liberal extend the hand of greeting to such intransigence and spit on the hand that offers all of that and more? If liberals can support the worst sort of anti-Semitism, doesn’t that open the way to forces that will crush us all, Jews and non-Jews alike?
Now do you understand why I am afraid?

Israel, the dirty little virus...

2008-03-08T17:51:00.000-08:00

Israel, the filthy germ
Denis MacEoin

One of the first things that strikes the visitor to Iran is how polite everybody is. Hands go on chests (male chests anyhow) in a gesture of humility, it is commonplace to address someone as jenab, ‘your excellence’, to call oneself ‘your sacrifice’, and much besides. It’s an old fashioned society in which interpersonal relations are valued at all levels.
But ever since the revolution of 1979, there are more and more ways of insulting anyone perceived to be the enemy of Iran or Islam. Almost the first slogan of that revolution was marg bar-Amrika, ‘death to America’. Later, marg bar-Isra’il was added to the chants after every Friday prayer meeting. Verbal insults were matched by vicious disrespect for the most basic human dignity, in the parading of the US embassy hostages, the broadcasting of film of the US pilots burned in their helicopters during the failed Eagle Claw operation to rescue those hostages, the 2006 exhibition of cartoons mocking the Holocaust and its victims, or the conference on Holocaust denial held later that year.
Now, Ahmadinejad has made a speech in which he describes Israel as ‘a filthy germ’ and ‘a savage beast’. A few days earlier, Muhammad ‘Ali Ja’fari, commander-in-chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards wrote to Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah, saying ‘In the near future, we will witness the destruction of the cancerous germ of Israel by the powerful and competent hands of the Hezbollah combatants’. Clearly, Ahmadinejad’s words are not just the expression of some personal pique. They could even spark a war.
All of this talk of germs and viruses is disturbingly old hat, but none the less vicious for that. In 1942, Adolf Hitler declared that ‘the discovery of the Jewish virus is one of the greatest revolutions that have taken place in the world’. Elsewhere, he says Jews are like ‘tubercles which can infect a healthy body’. You find this everywhere in Nazi discourse. German has been infected by the Jews, their destruction will bring it back to health. Dr. Fritz Klein, one of the infamous Nazi doctors, said ‘The Jew is the gangrenous appendix in the body of mankind’ and continued ‘whether you want to call it an appendix or not, it must be extirpated (exterminated, eradicated: ausgerottet)’
Familiar? On many occasions, Iran’s outspoken president has called for the destruction of Israel. Don’t be misled by attempts to water this down: in one speech he calls on the Islamic nations to ‘exterminate’ Israel (qal’ o qam’ kard). His aim, like that of Hezbollah and Hamas among others, is the total elimination of Israel. Since Hezbollah’s apparent (though only apparent) victory in the 2006 war with Israel, Iran and its allies have grown in confidence. They now think they are only a short time from total success. Yet the international community does next to nothing to prevent a second Holocaust, a second cleansing of the Ewige Jude, the eternal virus.
One might ask some pointed questions. For one thing, in what way does the existence of Israel threaten Iran, whether in the short or long term. In all the years it has existed, there have been no signs of the Israeli virus passing on infection to its surrounding states — quite the contrary, in fact. Some virus. Some threat. Does Israel plan to expand aggressively beyond its current boundaries? If that had been the Israeli scheme, they would have done it many years ago. Israel doesn’t border on Iran, and the countries between them are all hostile to Israel.
The only way Iran would ever benefit from Israel’s death would be to raise its own esteem among the anti-Israeli nations. Given that Iran’s theological position is many football fields away from that espoused by other Muslims except the Iraqi and Lebanese Shi’a, that boost to Iran’s status would be undeniably welcome; but it would do absolutely nothing to expunge the taint of being a Shi’ite country.
But let’s just look at what Ahmadinejad is saying about Israel in another light. The fact is that Israel is the only genuine democracy for a long way about. There is no other country in the Middle East that is a successful multi-party state, that has a democratic system of law, that gives full rights to religious and ethnic minorities, women, and homosexuals; that does not censor its press or book publishers; that has such high numbers of university graduates; that participates so seriously in international aid provision; and that has such an international standing in medical and technological research, producing the most vibrant economy in the region.
If this is indeed a virus, we must surely expect democracy and human rights to spread like a benign plague across the region. In fact, Israel’s Arab (and Iranian) neighbours have proved remarkably resistant to every strain of the virus that has reached them. Surely any decent-minded person should be hoping for the Israel virus to get its teeth into Egypt or Syria or Jordan.
If there is a virus, it has to be the curious one that has infected so many in the West, notably on the left. No matter how strong the moral and rational arguments in Israel’s favour, this benighted group persists in mouthing slogans, calling for boycotts, boosting terror groups like Hamas (freedom fighters even when they are attacking kindergartens), and denying any rights to Israel whatever. And when the Islamic state has been established, and they start stoning women and hanging gays and killing the Baha’is, and imprisoning the socialists, no doubt our brave enemies of Israel will slink off to find another cause. May that day never come.

An Open Letter to PM Gordon Brown on anti-Semitism

2008-02-03T14:50:00.000-08:00

The following is the text of a letter I shall be posting in a few days. It is addressed to Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, asking him to take more serious steps, both domestically and internationally, to tackle the rampant evil of anti-Semitism. I originally intended to send it to him after he came into office, then realized that that was probably the worst time to do so. With Tony Blair seeming to do nothing in the Middle East, I think it's still worth raising the subject. Perhaps this could spark off a concerted approach from all of us and all our contacts. A torrent of letters, all with different texts, all from different people, all on this issue might communicate why, at this juncture, this is such a pressing matter.

The Hon. Gordon Brown
Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
London

Dear Mr Brown,

I seldom write to politicians. I am not much of a lobbyist, nor am I someone who gets a kick from writing letters that may be unwelcome or that may simply be overlooked. But I have started this letter on the day after you became Prime Minister with the thought that I will send it later, when you have had time to settle into your new job. Following last month's parliamentary debate on the Holocaust, I think the moment has come to send it.

I would not be writing this at all were it not that I feel something untoward is happening in modern Britain. Not, I hasten to say, a plot, a conspiracy, or anything of that kind. It is more tangible than that, but I see little sign of widespread recognition that it exists at all.

It is, quite simply, the recrudescence of anti-Semitism, both in its old forms and in new ones that make it palatable to wider and wider sections of the British public, an anti-Semitism that conflates all too easily with anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism. I'm not a Jew, and I could well distance myself from all this and sit at my desk reading or writing something else. I am a busy person, the world has much to preoccupy me. But the Jewish problem troubles me, if only because anti-Semitism has been at the heart of so much evil down the centuries in Europe and because it still flourishes here and abroad in increasingly dangerous forms and threatens to grow into something ever more tangible, nestling as it does with such ease among the rising wave of Islamic radicalism and terror. They have become part of a single thing, nourished from abroad and suckled within, by the far right and the far left alike.

You and I were born two years apart. I grew up in Northern Ireland, you in Scotland. As you were growing up, did you not experience that strong awareness of a war that had been fought not that long ago, a war in which our parents had been involved? And with that awareness, a consciousness that grew in childhood and over our teenage years that the greatest crime in history had taken place only years before we were born? I can remember it vividly. Photographs and films of the concentration and death camps, bodies piled like images from Bosch, revelations about Nazi atrocities, movies like the Diary of Anne Frank. It was all part of our consciousness, was it not? I have never forgotten the moment when one of my teachers at the drama school I attended rolled back her sleeve to reveal the numbers tattooed on her arm at Theresienstadt. Like me, I'm sure you will remember feeling that it was no longer possible for people to hate the Jews the way so many had done, in that smug, uninformed way typical of my parents' generation, the conviction that the wickedness of the Nazis had been so vast, so all-encompassing and so past common humanity that anti-Semitism had been consigned to oblivion for good.

And then I remember, as I do not doubt you do as well, a growing awareness that not everyone felt as decent people felt, that there were old and new Nazis, that there were still men and women whose dearest wish was to carry out the extermination of the Jews. The Neo-Nazis were then incomprehensible, for the defeat of Nazism in Germany and Fascism in Italy, indeed of fascist groupings and ideologies throughout Europe had been so complete, so devastating, and so damning that it was hard to understand just what would motivate people to dream dreams that they surely knew would turn to nightmare. But so it was.

I went to university three times and emerged with qualifications in English, Arabic, Persian, and Islamic Studies. I got to know the Middle East. I visited Israel three times and found it an exciting and beautiful country. In the course of my studies, I discovered something that remains unknown to most people in Europe, that anti-Semitism is alive and well in the Middle East.

Almost without anyone noticing, anti-Semitism has shifted its course. As you will be aware, and as last year's Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism
http://thepcaa.org/Report.pdf
clarified, much of the threat to Jews in this country now comes from within the Muslim community. This point has been emphasized in the unpublished 2003 EU report, Manifestations of anti-Semitism in the European Union: 'The data of the CST show that an increasing number of incidents are "caused by Muslims or Palestinian sympathisers, whether or not they are Muslims". This indicates a change of direction from which anti-Semitism comes, which is closely connected to the tensions in the Middle East conflict.'
http://haganah.us/hmedia/euasr-20.html

As you will know, the forces of liberal democracy faced a threat throughout the Middle East during World War II, when Britain and its allies were waging a battle against Germany in North Africa. Widespread anti-British feeling created a fifth column throughout the region, in particular in the 1941 Rashid 'Ali coup in Iraq, the strong anti-British feeling in Egypt, and the activities of the Grand Mufti of Palestine, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, a major war criminal who escaped justice after 1945 and died in his bed many years later.

It was during this period and with considerable help from al-Husayni that the milder anti-Jewish sentiments of Islam came to be blended with Nazi-style racism. As a result, that anti-Semitism has infected whole parts of the Middle East and may be seen today in newspaper cartoons, children's TV shows, or soap operas.

Those are, perhaps matters your predecessor, Tony Blair, will want to look at in his new role as an envoy to the Middle East. But this singular evil is not restricted to that region, or even to wider parts of the Muslim world. It is, as I have pointed out, here with us, in Europe and here in the UK. And it is being met half way by a left-wing (and sometimes right-wing) coalition of anti-war protesters, pro-Palestinian activists, and generic anti-Western campaigners.

Middle East anti-Semitism has from its inception been linked to anger over the creation of the state of Israel. In the Islamic theory of international law, Israel, despite having been brought into being by a majority vote of the United Nations, remains illegitimate. This is for two reasons: one, that Islamic international law is based on jurisprudential outcomes from jihad regulations, which do not permit Islamic territory to be made non-Islamic (as happened to Islamic Spain and Portugal); and two, that Jews, as inferior 'People of the Book' are not entitled to rule over Muslims.

Out of this comes the now common conflation of anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, and anti-Israelism that now infects a substantial part of Britain's non-Muslim left. It is, in other words, a political combination that sits well with exactly the same people who are most bitter about this country, about America, and about democratic societies in general. Fighting against terror and extremism has become something despicable in the eyes of those who proclaim 'we are all Hezbollah now' and who march for the destruction of the Jewish state. Their banners describe Israel as 'a Nazi state', 'a terrorist state', and 'an apartheid state', making horrors of those who survived the Holocaust and their offspring.

Last year witnessed a rapid increase in the number of British organizations threatening to boycott or actually boycott either the state of Israel or parts of it (such as Israeli universities and their staff). The NUJ, the UCU, and now UNISON have passed votes that show deep prejudice against Israel and, by extension, Jews. They condemn an open democracy and say nothing of the dictatorships that surround it; they focus on Israeli behaviour and make no comment on the human rights abuses that are so common elsewhere; they see Zionism as an unprecedented evil, yet support every other claim to national identity. Such outrageous imbalance passes for justice today. So common has it become to talk in these terms that it's clear we are sliding towards an easy acceptance of language and actions that might have caused our generation to blench. When the United Nations Humans Right Council seems to exist for no other purpose than to issue resolutions against one state, Israel, and when that body is itself made up in part of regimes that abuse human rights on a daily basis with impunity, we may conclude, may we not, that something is afoot that may yet tear down the very bases on which the UN itself is based: democracy, justice, and liberty for all.

The fight against terror focuses increasingly on these islands, as the first days of last July brought home yet again. For the security services, there are many doors into that struggle. For politicians, however, it is often too easily forgotten that the battle against anti-Semitism and its proxy, anti-Israelism is itself a crucial part of that wider battle against internal forces that seek to damage this country, often in conjunction with elements of radical Islam.

I would like to ask you to take whatever action you deem fit to tackle this multi-headed evil before it gets out of control. It threatens me, my Jewish friends, my moderate Muslim friends, indeed, everyone I know. You don't have to be Jewish to be deeply affected by this new form of anti-Semitism, mixed as it is with loathing for British liberal values, a preference for dictatorships over democracy, and sympathy for terrorists as 'freedom fighters' rather than for their victims. If unchecked, it will poison British politics beyond remedy. As the principal guardian of British values, I address this letter to you in the hope that you may find ways to encourage the Home Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the Commission for Racial Equality to prioritize this most important of issues and to work to bring an end to all its manifestations in this country. I also implore you to become more frank than has been the custom in your talks with Arab and other Muslim leaders, and to draw their attention to the unacceptability of such lies and distortions as anti-Jewish speech or Holocaust denial on their TV and radio channels, their print media, and in political speeches or mosque sermons. They must be made to understand that anti-Semitism, in whatever guise, cannot be tolerated among civilized nations.

There was such a terrible price to pay when anti-Semitism was allowed to get out of hand in the first part of the 20th century, when countries, the UK included, turned a blind eye to so many threats and so much violence. It seems we have to defeat this evil for a second time. But we cannot let the torch fall from our hands lest the poison of Jew-hatred seep deeper and deeper into the hearts and souls of the British people, lest it spread through Europe again and bring dreadful consequences in its wake. You have my trust in this matter. Please take action to honour that trust.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Denis MacEoin
Royal Literary Fund Fellow
Newcastle University
Author 'The Hijacking of British Islam'

An example of Israeli/Jew elision and modern anti-Semitism

2007-09-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

Please read at least some of the following. The piece came from a comment in today's Scotsman online, a respectable newspaper that assumes an intelligent readership. I've reported it as anti-Semitic, but it's actually more than that. I've put all of it here, obnoxious though it is, to ilustrate an important point, that, when anti-Israel activists claim they are not anti-Semitic, they ared for the most part lying. It could not be clearer: the writer shifts between Israelis and Jews with gay abandon. Add in some gratuitous anti-Americanism, and you have in its full glory the modern answer to knowing anything about anything. Apart from the eliding of Israelis and Jews, we can see the use of exaggeration and outright falsehood typical of much earlier anti-Semitism, now re-expressed in terms of Israel. Thus, Israel is a tyranny that oppresses Europeans and Canadians, the President of the US takes his orders from the Israeli PM, the US is a 'slave state' of Israel, and so on. In other words, the Jews/Israelis possess almost supernatural powers and are simultaneously the most powerful people on earth yet the most persecuted and hated. The author is clearly not well educated, but he's not entirely ignorant either. I present it to you as a particularly vivid example of the new anti-Semitism (on which, do read Walter Lacqueur's The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism). It appeared, as I said, on the website of a very respected paper, showing just how far this bigotry is spreading. I had to object to another anti-Semitic posting on The Washingon Times today as well. Here it is:

'Talking about blood on the hands and lying I thought you might want to reflect on the following.
Bush invaded Iraq on the strength of his lie that Iraq possessed WMD. According to the New England Medical Journal some 100,000 civilian Iraqis died as a result of co-lateral damage in that initial rape of Iraq. American troops and foreign mercenarie hired by the Americans continue to add to the Iraqi death toll. "Baiting" of Iraqis seems to somehow ligitimise the murder of these suspects by American snipers.
In 1953 Iran had its first democratically elected government headed by Mohamed Mosaddeq. He soon gave notice that he would not be an American puppet like Maliki. The CIA covertly engineered a coup and the compliant American puppet, the Shah was installed. He kept power by torturing the Iranians on an industrial scale as in Abu Ghraib under the American occupying forces. This led the Iranian people to turn to their religion and thus fall prey to the mad Mullahs. On 3August1988 an American Captain on a state of the art warship murdered 290 Iranian civilians by shooting down their Jumbo jet. Americans talk about freedom, why then do you not "liberate" Europe and Canada from Jewish oppression? Israeli tyranny does not allow Europeans or Canadians the intellectual freedom of thought to critically and analytically investigate what the Jews force us to believe is history! If you demand the right to question what the jews dictate we must believe then prison awaits. The Jewish population of the Western world have become the new Spanish Inquisition dictating what the world will be forced to believe regarding the theology of the Holocaust. The joke is ultimately on America as the President of the USA has to take instructions from the Israeli Prime Minister. Israel will never allow the USA to leave Iraq! What is more you will be forced to invade Iran and Syria or whoever Israel wants you to. You are a slave state of Israel. The only way you will regain your freedom is by armed revolt against your slave-masters. You are mislead by the fact that you worship the son of the bloodthirsty Asian god that the Jews worship. The Jews exploited your religious guillibility and effected the intellectual equivalent of a pre-frontal lobotomy on you. Return to the worship of of the gods that are indiginous to the European people and the Jewish hold on your collective minds will weaken. The Muslims were content to practice their barbaric religion on their own people until the terrorist state of Israel was established. On 22July1946 Jewish terrorists blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem killing 90 people. Begin was the head of the Irgun gang that perpetrated this introduction of terror to the Middle East. Israel was established by terror, ethnic cleansing and genocide.'

Hajji Baba of Natanz

2007-07-15T07:55:00.000-07:00

In his 1824 picaresque novel of Iran, Hajji Baba of Isfahan, James Morier has his principal character say ‘If it wasn’t for the dying, how the Persians would fight’. No modern Hajji Baba would say that, of course. Anyone who has witnessed the alacrity with which Iranian fighters have embraced death during the Iran-Iraq war, or last summer in Lebanon, or currently in Iraq doesn’t have to be told that a desperate courage informs the warriors of the Islamic Republic. The centuries-old Shi’ite obsession with martyrdom has in recent years inspired a death cult that now embraces Sunnis as well, from Palestinian Hamas homicide bombers, to the threatened wave of Taleban martyrs. Hezbollah General Secretary Hasan Nasrallah, expresses this mood in chilling words: ‘We have discovered how to hit the Jews where they are the most vulnerable. The Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them. We are going to win, because they love life and we love death.’
Imagine you’re an Israeli Jew. You see boasts about ‘martyrdom operations’ translated into real attacks on children. Then you hear Iranian leaders call for your extermination. Let’s not be in any doubt about this: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and others are not talking about regime change. He has spoken of Israel being ‘exterminated’ (qal‘ o qam‘ shavad). Last year, Ayatollah ‘Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, declared ‘There is only one solution to the Middle East problem, namely the annihilation and destruction of the Jewish state.’ In 2001, Ahmadinejad’s predecessor, ‘moderate’ cleric ‘Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was explicit about what this annihilation could mean: ‘… the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality.’
If you go to www.myspace.com/teapacks, you can listen to ‘Push the Button’, this year’s Israeli entry to the Eurovision song contest. ‘The world is full of terror, if someone makes an error, he’s gonna blow us up to kingdom come.’ It takes me back to 1965 and Barry McGuire singing ‘We’re on the Eve of Destruction’. The threat back then was real enough; but today it has become commonplace to say that the Israelis are exaggerating the threat posed to them by Iran.
It’s hard to understand why anyone should think Israel has nothing to fear. For almost sixty years, the Jewish state has had to fight off enemies bent on its destruction, and it still faces daily peril from foes who prefer to train their own children to die than accept the reality of a Jewish state on their borders. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you. And Israelis aren’t paranoid, they’re as worried as you and I would be in the same situation.
In northern Europe, we may no longer feel we’re on the eve of destruction, but Israelis know that, should anyone launch a nuclear weapon, they are the most likely targets. Either an upgraded Shahab 3 or Shahab 4 missile could carry a heavy nuclear warhead as far as Tel Aviv. Iran’s nuclear programme is on course to develop such warheads over the next few years. Having completing the nuclear fuel cycle, it’s just a matter of time before the system delivers weapons, somewhere between 2007 and 2015.
The Iranian regime is unstable by nature. Pragmatists and hardliners rub shoulders at all levels. No-one imagines the pragmatists want to embroil the country in a nuclear mess. But for others, an attack on Israel is very tempting. It would serve to reinforce Iran’s credentials as the state wiling to fulfil Muslim dreams. It would solidify Iranian ambitions to be the regional superpower. That in turn could trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
Israelis cannot rely on the Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine to feel safe from attack. Leave Iran’s nuclear installations alone, and they have to live with uncertainty every time the political wind shifts in Tehran. If they do go in, they will find themselves at war again, possibly without US support.
Since 1948, all the Israelis have wanted is security. It may be chic in some circles to wink at the claims of Holocaust deniers, but Jews know better. The Middle East is awash with Jew-hatred of a kind we in Europe haven’t seen since the Third Reich. Literally. Mainline newspapers praise Hitler and say it’s a pity he didn’t finish the job with the Jews. Former Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, put Israeli fears succinctly last year: ‘It’s 1938,’ he said, ‘and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs.’

Arabic newspapers

2007-06-20T16:52:00.000-07:00

One of the things that Brian Whitaker, one of the Guardian's Middle East editors, objected to about my Comment is Free piece was that he thought all the anti-Semitic stuff was to be found in little, minority-interest papers. I prepared the following list for him, showing how mainstream it is. He didn't reply. (gov. means 'government', of course).

Akhir Sa‘a, Egypt, gov. weekly
Akhbar al-Khalij, Bahrain, gov.
Akhbar al-Yawm, Egypt, gov. weekly
al-‘Ilm, Egypt, gov. science magazine
al-Ahram al-‘Arabi Egypt, gov.
al-Ahram, Egypt, gov.
al-Akhbar, Egypt, semi-official, 2nd.-largest
al-Ayyam, Bahrain, gov.
al-Ba‘th, Syria, Baath Party
al-Bayan, UAE, gov.
al-Dustur, Jordan, gov.
al-Ghad, Jordan, ind., one of biggest
al-Hayat al-Jadida, PA, semi-official
al-Ittihad, UAE gov.
al-Jazira, Saudi, gov.
al-Jumhuriyya, Egypt, gov.
al-Khabar, Algeria, the top-selling daily
al-Khalij, UAE, pro-gov.
al-Liwa’ al-Islami, Egypt, ruling party
Al-Madina, Saudi Arabia, pro-gov.
al-Mawqif al-‘Arabi, Egypt, Nationalist
al-Mustqbil, Lebanon, mouthpiece for late Rafiq al-Hariri
al-R’ay, Jordan, gov.
al-Rayah, Qatar, royal family
al-Riyadh, Saudi gov.
al-Sha‘b, Egypt. Labour Party
al-Sharq, Qatar, semi-official
al-Thawra, Syria, gov.
al-Thawra, Yemen, gov.
al-Wafd, Egypt, ‘opposition’
al-Watan, Oman, pro-gov.
al-Watan, Qatar, royal family
al-Watan, SA, semi-official
al-Watan, Saudi gov.
al-Wifaq, Iran
al-Yawm, Saudi Arabia, pro-gov.
‘Aqidati, Egypt, ruling party weekly
Arab News, internet
Arab News, Saudi Arabia, pro-gov.
Kayhan, main Iranian daily, gov.
Oktobir, Egypt, gov. weekly
Rawz al-Yusuf, Egypt, gov.
Riyadh Daily, Saudi Arabia, pro-gov.
Syrian Times, Syria, gov.
Tehran Times, Iran, Foreign Ministry
Tishrin, Syria, gov.

Middle East Anti-Semitism

2007-06-20T16:48:00.000-07:00

Here's a piece I tried to have placed as a Comment is Free article in the Guardian, wh dismissed it as exaggerated. What a surprise. I may start posting more such articles here: over the years I've built up quite a few.

‘First they came for the Jews…’

In front of me is a cartoon of a stereotypical Jew, black hat, long beard, hooked nose, glaring eyes. Grinning, he holds up a goblet filled with skulls and blood, labelled ‘the Lebanese people’. Forget the politics for a moment. This is the blood libel in modern garb. Is it from a neo-Nazi publication sold under the counter to die-hard anti-Semites? Far from it. This is in al-Watan, one of Qatar’s five mainstream daily papers. Al-Watan is jointly owned by a member of the royal family and the country’s foreign minister.
This Jew is only one of thousands who, over the years, have leered and still leer out of the pages of the mainstream Arab and Iranian press in a chilling reflection of the imagery of Der Stürmer. When I say ‘the mainstream press’, I mean prominent, state-controlled dailies and weeklies like Egypt’s al-Ahram and al-Jumhuriyya, Jordan’s al-Dustur, the Palestine Authority’s al-Hayat al-Jadida, Syria’s Tishrin, Lebanon’s al-Mustaqbal, Saudi Arabia’s al-Watan, and dozens more. Even Egypt’s state-sponsored science journal, al-‘Ilm, has featured articles claiming that Jews are spreading AIDS as part of a conspiracy. In October 2000, Ibrahim Nafi‘, editor of al-Ahram, the Egyptian equivalent of The Times, was subpoenaed by French legal authorities for the paper’s support for the blood libel.
There is no subtlety about it: Jews are horned demons, pigs, puppeteers, child killers, lechers, greed-driven financiers, snakes, cannibals, and, worst of all, Nazis. Not Israelis, mark you, but Jews, all Jews.
And it isn’t just the press. Arab and Iranian television air shows that make your hair stand on end. Egypt’s 41-part TV series, Horseman without a Horse, aired in 2002 to audiences on at least 17 channels throughout the Middle East; using the famous Tsarist forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, it convinced viewers that Jews were plotting to take over the world. Syria’s 2003 $5.1 million al-Shatat (The Diaspora), screened 30 episodes of vicious propaganda, portraying Jews as depraved killers in pursuit of Christian and Muslim blood. Just last year, Iran staged a Holocaust denial conference and an exhibition of cartoons mocking Jewish suffering in the non-Holocaust.
Mosque sermons in many Middle Eastern cities feature the sort of anti-Jewish language you might have expected to hear at a Nuremberg rally. The world’s leading Sunni cleric, Shaykh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, the rector of Cairo’s al-Azhar, has called Jews ‘the enemies of God, descendants of apes and pigs’. The imam of Islam’s holiest mosque, the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, has preached that Jews are ‘the scum of the human race, the rats of the world’. Ken Livingstone’s favourite radical preacher, Qatar-based Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, said in a Friday sermon in 2005 ‘Allah, [harm] your enemies, the enemies of Islam. Allah, [harm] the treacherous and aggressive Jews.’
Hitler is widely regarded as a hero (translations of Mein Kampf, like those of the Protocols, are best-sellers) whose only offence was not having finished the job of wiping out the Jews. Some of the worst anti-Semitic sentiments and images may be found on children’s TV and in textbooks. Both Hezbollah and Hamas use the Nazi salute as a matter of course. Welcome to the Fourth Reich.
It would be comforting to say that all of this is inspired by anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist sentiment. Much of it is, of course, though it’s hard to see how that makes it any better. But this new style anti-Semitism begins before the foundation of Israel and is clearly directed at Jews, not just Israelis. We should not forget that even Nazi propaganda against enemies of the Reich like Britain never reached depths like these. When the Nazis wanted to portray people as vermin, they did not use the English: they singled out the Jews. The same thing is happening in the Middle East.
Islam has never been anti-Semitic in the racist sense. The treatment of Jews in countries like Morocco, Egypt, or Yemen was generally more tolerant and less prone to outright violence than that of Christian Europe. Even as late as the 1920s, the condition of the Jewish communities of Cairo and Alexandria was well in advance of that found in Russia, Poland, or France.

In the 1930s and 40s, however, many Arabs were drawn to German fascism, hoping the Nazis would defeat the French and British and drive out the Jews. Hajj Amin al-Husayni, the infamous Mufti of Jerusalem, spent most of the war in Berlin, broadcasting to the Arab world and building the largest of the Reich’s SS divisions. Escaping arrest, he continued his propaganda work long after the war. In the 1960s, this imported style of anti-Semitism started to hold hands with a vicious strain of religious Judaeophobia coming from radical Islamic movements like the Muslim Brotherhood. Since then, this hybrid has entered the mainstream, where it has taken hold everywhere from universities to kindergartens.
But this is probably the first time most of you will have read about any of this. Despite its obvious newsworthiness, it’s a subject routinely ignored by reporters, journalists, and documentary makers in Europe and North America. This allows most Westerners to go on fantasizing that anti-Semitism is the strict preserve of the loony right.
Would that it were so. Anti-Semitism has always known how to mutate, moving from one culture to another with the greatest of ease. Just as the medieval European blood libel slipped into the Arab world in the 19th century and survives there today, so the new Middle Eastern anti-Semitism has moved back to Europe, where it has taken up residence among two groups, extremist Muslims and sectors of the Left.
Last year’s All-Party Parliamentary Report on Anti-Semitism showed that hatred of Jews in the UK is growing, just as an earlier European report showed the same phenomenon across the continent. The UK report said ‘We received evidence of an increase in antisemitism within certain fringe elements of the Muslim community. In many cases, these are the actions and words of a small yet radical minority whose views do not represent those of the mainstream majority. However, this cannot simply be dismissed as insignificant and the views of radical Islamists do seem to be entering mainstream discourse.’
Arabic translations of Mein Kampf and the Protocols can be found on sale on the Edgware Road. Foreign-language videos on sale at some mosques contain anti-Jewish incitement. Internet sites carry anti-Semitic material. But nothing much is done. A 2006 Pew poll found that 68% of British Muslims disliked Jews, compared with 29% in France. A Populus poll showed 46% of UK Muslims believe Jews are in league with Freemasons to control the media and politics, while 37% think Jews are ‘legitimate targets’.
Meanwhile, liberals like myself are betrayed by an increasingly disturbing rise of left-wing anti-Semitism. Having built up an unbalanced hatred for Israel (for many, it’s the only country in the world they condemn), many leftists have carelessly conflated anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, and pride themselves in doing so. Here’s a considered remark by University of Massachusetts professor Helen Cullen: ‘Judaism and the Jewish identity are offensive to most human beings and will always cause trouble between the Jews and the rest of the human race’.
Fair and honest criticism of Israel is one thing, but many on the left have left rationality behind to march alongside radical Muslims whose views on women, homosexuals, and Jews should send a chill down any liberal spine. It seems that the destruction of Israel, the very likely slaughter of its Jewish population, and the near-certain establishment of a deeply illiberal Islamic state have become goals for too many leftists who haven’t thought things through. Or simply haven’t thought. For too many, anti-Zionism acts as an excuse for anti-Semitism in a manner quite divorced from normal political argument.
This vicious circle, from the European right to the Middle East, back to European Muslims and the European left, to a leftist fascism and so back to radical Islam must be stopped now, before it corrupts liberals beyond hope. It’s time the silence was broken and a proper debate opened up. When liberals join forces with people who train their children to become suicide bombers and teach them to call Jews ‘apes and pigs’, something is wrong. It won’t be put right until the liberal left sorts itself out on this litmus test of a true liberal conscience.

A Day in the Life of the Guardian

2007-05-28T09:30:00.001-07:00

One day in the Guardian
Guardian readers (like myself) are curious folk. There's no doubt that they have decent liberal values: they sympathize with the poor, with the downtrodden, with the dispossessed. They hate bigotry. They hate racism. They are feminists of varying styles and persuasions. Their hearts are in all the right places. Except for three things: they hate complementary medicine with a loathing bordering on fanaticism. (I have my own prejudice here: I used to be President of the Natural Medicines Society, and my wife is a homeopath.) They hate Israel. And they can't find it in their hearts to call terrorists terrorists, unless they explode themselves on the British transport system. This won't come as a surprise to anyone likely to read this blog.

I don't want to take up your time analysing all this. I just want to draw your attention (especially if you are a Guardian reader) to today's (28 May 2007) edition.

On page 14, a report on the disgraceful neo-fascist attack on European MPs and others protesting a ban on a gay rights parade in Moscow. The mayor of Moscow dubbed gay rallies as 'satanic'.

Page 15 carries a full-page report on the coming Syrian referendum, in which Bashshar al-Asad is the only choice. This is dubbed in the headline: 'Democracy Damascus style'. 'There is no legal opposition. Tellingly, the event is described in Arabic as "renewing the pledge of allegiance" as if this young, British-educated ophthalmologist and computer buff were a medieval Calip'. I imagine the Arabic reads something like 'tajdid al-bay'a', which takes us back to the times of the Prophet and the very first caliphs. The seventh century, not the Middle Ages.

Page 17 heads witgh a piece on how 'Riot police on alert as anti-Chávez TV channel taken off air'. Ahmadinejad-loving Chávez is the darling of the Left and a hero to Guardian readers. As Radio Caracas Television prepared to be closed because of its opposition to Chávez, its director, Marcel Granier, said 'This marks a turn toward totalitarianism'.

Let's skip to page 21 (18-19 are taken up by a huge photograph of a ship amidst Arctic ice, 20 is an advert): 'Mugabe ready to seize foreign companies' — 'a move that economists warn would be as damaging as the widespread land seizures in the country'.

Now, it's fair to say that, even if they don't always occur in so concentrated a form, stories like this do feature in the Guardian on a more or less daily basis. So Guardian readers are well aware of some of the unpleasant things that happen in some foreign countries. And they know how some of these things impinge on their own most cherished beliefs (Peter Tatchell was among those beaten in Moscow). I don't doubt they feel outrage when they read such stories. But for some reason whatever indignation they feel doesn't, in Forster's words, 'connect'.

Here's a gay rights parade banned in Moscow (and dubbed 'satanic' by a politician), here's a group of European gay rights protesters badly beaten by neo-fascists. I expect there may be murmurs of protest (in fact, I hope there will be plenty). But over there in Tel Aviv (don't mention the bigots in Jerusalem) they openly hold gay rights parades. They offer sanctuary to gay men and women from Gaza and the West Bank. And Guardian readers proclaim loudly that Israel is an 'apartheid state'. Perhaps one group of gay Guardian readers might like to go to Moscow and another bunch to Tel Aviv, and write a piece for G2 six months later, telling us their experiences.

Here's a country run by yet another Arab dictatorship, a state under one-party rule. One-party rule is anathema to Guardian readers. This dictatorship gives aid to terrorist groups like Hizbullah, who threaten Israel, but clamps down on others (notably the Ikhwan al-Muslimun, the Muslim Brothers) who threaten the Baathist state. When did Guardian readers last march in the streets to protest Syrian clamp-downs on a free press, free elections, or, among others, gay rights? Never, I think. When did they take to the streets to condemn Syrian interfreence in Lebanon, or Syrian support for terrorism? Never. When did they last complain bitterly about Israel, the one democracy in the region, calling it a 'fascist' state? As far as I know, every day of the week.

Guardian readers refuse to say a word about censorship in the Middle East. Two years ago, Human Rights Watch published a report on the extensive clamp-downs in Egyptian universities. Guardian readers on the march? Not likely. An Israel-based agency publishes TV clips and press transcripts showing anti-Semitic material from Iran and the Arab woirld. The Guardian's Middle East editor takes exception to an agency based in Israel and set up by an Israeli, and dismisses all this material out of hand. Who are we dealing with here? Guardian readers? Or Goebbels? And I don't expect to see anyone on the streets protesting about censorship under the increasingly-autcratic Chávez. Though the anti-Israel lobby, many of them Guardian readers, does like to claim that Israel, a country that has no censorship beyond what we have here in the UK, covers up, hides, harasses journalists etc.

I don't suppose anyone will complain about Mugabe, bearing in mind that many of the foreign companies he will take over are multi-nationals, whom Guardian readers hate anyway. But they will be quite comfortable in calling for a boycott of Israeli products, putting at risk, among others, joint Jewish-Arab businesses, solo Arab businesses, socialist kibbutzim, and honest, hard-working Israelis of all backgrounds.

So let me say it clearly. I am a Guardian reader. I love Israel. I am a contradiction in terms. Or maybe not. Maybe I just read what's in there and draw unusual conclusions. Unlike so many of my fellow readers, I am, I believe, consistent.

Barriers

2007-05-06T14:36:00.001-07:00

Few things have damaged Israel's international reputation more than the security barrier it has been constructing to prevent Palestinian terrorist crossing into its territory and commiting outrages against innocent civilians. Invariably — and inaccurately — portrayed as a wall ('The Apartheid Wall'), the barrier has been pillored in the media almost everywhere. I've written at some length about this issue on an earlier blog, so I won't repeat myself here. One of the points I made in that blog was that, although the Israeli barrier is portrayed as egregious, even unique, it is, in fact, just one of many similar barriers around the world. Human rights activists protest about the Israeli barrier, however, yet remain silent about fences and walls that are longer, higher, and, in some cases, deadly. We need to protest this for its imbalance. By a great irony, the Guardian recently published a map of security fences round the world. It won't reproduce easily, so I have tabulated the basic data, which I reproduce below as a resource for anyone who has to talk about this issue.

Security fences or barriers to peace?
Information taken from a map published in The Guardian 24 April 2007

(Reformulated Denis MacEoin 4 May 2007)

US/Mexico Proposed. 3,360km. Several barriers already exist with Mexico (California, Texas, Arizona). This would cover the entire border. Anti-immigration.

Belfast, N. Ireland. Built early 1970s. Average 500m. Number around 40. Anti-terror.

Padua, Italy 2006. 85m. 3m-high, round mainly African Anelli estate. Internal.

Ceuta, Morocco 2001. 8km. €30m. EU-funded. Anti-immigration.

Mellila, Morocco 1998. 11km. Anti-immigration

Morocco/Western Sahara 1987. 2,700km. To keep out W. Saharan (Polisario) insurgents

Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt 2005. 20km. Anti-terror

Botswana/Zimbabwe 2003. 500km. Anti-immigration.

South Africa/Mozambique 1975. 120km. Anti-immigration. Carries 3,300 volts. Has killed more people than Berlin Wall

Israel/West Bank Under construction. 703km. Anti-terror.

Adhamiyya, Iraq 2007. 5km. Anti-terror.

Cyprus 1974. 300km. Conflict zone barrier.

Kuwait/Iraq 1991. 193km. Conflict zone barrier.

Saudi Arabia/Yemen 2004. 75km. Anti-terror.

United Arab Emirates/Oman 2007. 410km. Anti-immigration.

Russia/Chechnya Proposed. 700 km. Anti-terror

Kashmir 2004. 550km. Anti-terror (India).

Pakistan/Afghanistan Proposed. 2,400km. Anti-terror (Pakistan).

Uzbekistan/Kyrgyzstan 1999. 870km. Conflict zone.

China/North Korea 2006. 1,416km. Conflict zone.

Korea Demilitarized Zone 1953. 248km. Av. 4 km wide. Patrolled by 2 million soldiers. Most heavily border in world. Conflict zone.

China/Hong Kong 1999. 32km. Internal barrier.

China/Macau 1999. 340km. Internal barrier.

Brunei/Limbang 2005. 20km. Anti-immigration.

Thailand/Malaysia Proposed. 650km. Anti-immigration.

India/Bangladesh Under construction. 3,268km. Conflict zone.

Israeli despair

2007-03-21T13:20:00.000-07:00

In a recent article in The Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick argued that Israelis have started to feel despair for their future and the future of Israel. The Zionist dream is fading, she says, in a desperate dawn of stark reality. Despite a soaring economy, a world-class educational system, a high standard of living, and the glories of the land itself, Israelis are losing their patriotism. The Zionist hope of bringing an end to the persecutions of the Diaspora centuries through the creation of an autonomous homeland in which Jews would be able to defend themselves from aggression rings hollow in the aftermath of wars, terrorist attacks, and last summer's rain of Hizbullah rockets. In the greatest irony of two thousand years, the most dangerous place on earth for Jews is the Jewish state of Israel.

One can hardly blame Israelis for experiencing despair under such circumstances. In Northern Ireland, where I'm from, the violent phase of the Troubles went on for about 30 years, and people despaired then of it ever ending; even now, with the violence largely under control, it's still proving hard to negotiate a political solution. Israelis have been coping with much greater levels of violence for about 60 years, or longer if you go back to the 1920s. Even at their height, the Irish Troubles never threatened the existence either of Northern Ireland (the worst thing that would have happened would have been integration in the increasingly properous Republic) or the UK mainland. What Israelis are experiencing is an existential threat, to themselves, their families, their townships, their houses, the places they walk in, the city and country views they admire, the cafés they frequent, the secluded places they go with their lovers, the graveyards that hold their dead, the sense of place brought home by long memory and reading the Bible. You can't just pick that all up and take it somewhere else, not when you have a bitter memory of having done it before, and of the suffering that came with the state of being in a diaspora.

More and more people are saying 'it's a pity Israel was ever established' — most recently London's obnoxious mayor, Ken Livingstone. The argument goes that, if there had been no Israel in the first place, and if the Palestinians had been given a state instead, there would be no unrest in the Middle East, no radical Islamic violence anywhere else, no war in Iraq or Afghanistan, no war on terror, and—who knows—even universal peace.

Of course, that's unbelievably naïve. Without Israel, things would have been and would now be different. But that's a bit like my saying, 'if I hadn't married my wife, things would have worked out differently'. Some writers use this concept effectively, developing a theory of the 'shadow self', the 'me' who would be a totally different person if this or that hadn't happened. For myself, I know with considerable accuracy the one tiny decision, a last-minute thing, that influenced the rest of my life totally and irrevocably. Most of us can do this, especially as we get older. The idea was very well expressed some years ago in a film called Sliding Doors. We may sometimes regret this or that choice, but we know that a different choice might have worked out even worse. (My wife worked out as an excellent choice, by the way!)

If Israel hadn't existed, the Middle East would have fallen into disarray anyway, thanks to the collapse of centralized Ottoman rule and the existence of numerous mainly religious divisions across the region. When empires collapse, their constituent parts inevitably fragment and turn on each other. The tensions the Ottomans kept in check have become vicious since 1918, and they would have been so Israel or not.

Of course putting a Jewish state down in the Arab world may not have been the most judicious thing. With hindsight, it can seem to have been unwise. But if we think about it, might it not also have been a very positive thing? After all, there were Jewish communities throughout North Africa and the Middle East in those days, and these communities often played major roles in the lives of the countries they lived in (Egypt, especially Alexandria, being perhaps the best example). When we look at somewhere like Alexandria around the turn of the century and for many decades later, not only was there a thriving Jewish community, but there were Greeks, Armenians, Iranians, Lebanese, Turks, and British. Nowadays, all that cosmopolitan vigour has gone. Was that the fault of Israel? What would someone like Nasser have done without Israel to focus on? What would the Muslim Brotherhood and other Salafi religious groups have done without Israel? In the case of Nasser, he might have taken his pan-Arabist ambitions and gone on to conquer or try to conquer other Arab countries. The Brotherhood might have concentrated on cleansing the Muslim world of its heresies and decadence. Who knows?

A positive Arab response to Israel, based on an understanding of the contributions made by the region's Jews (remember how hard the Moroccans tried to get their Jews to stay?) might have led to the creation of two viable, mutually reinforcing states with alliances across the region and beyond. Without al-Husayni, without the Muslim Brotherhood, without the German thrust for Palestine, how different it all might have been.

Is this reason to despair? Yes and no. To feel threatened, to feel afraid, to feel despondent because nobody seems to love you — all these are valid emotions. But if we give in to negative emotions, they can destroy us more effectively than our enemies. And if Israelis capitulate to their enemies, if Hamas et al one day establish a Palestinian theocracy, can anyone believe it will be the end of the story? For Jews, it will spell the end, exposing them to international obloquoy and the threats that will stem from it. For the rest of us, it will be a triumph for intolerance, for the rule of violence, and for hardline fundamentalism. Doctors tell patients suffering from depression that they have to do hard things, from forcing themselves out of bed in the morning, to going to work, to eating properly. It's tough, but the alternative is tougher. Israel's daily struggle isn't helped by the mood of despair. Now, I firmly believe, the only thing that will raise Israeli spirits will be a total victory over Hizbullah, whether that's this summer or the next.

A poor showing by Leeds university

2007-03-21T10:21:00.000-07:00

Further to my post about the Matthias Küntzel affair, here are two letters, one from the university, giving rather weak excuses for their action, and my response to that.

On 19 Mar 2007, at 19:03, Roger Gair wrote:

Dear Dr MacEoin,

As the responsible officer, I write in response to your messages to the Chancellor and the Vice-Chancellor.

Dr Kuentzel's proposed public lecture last Wednesday evening was cancelled neither for any reason of censorship nor because of pressure from any interest group. It was cancelled because the organisers did not give us enough notice to provide the normal level of portering, stewarding and security (around twenty people in total) for such an event.

It is simply not true that we somehow capitulated to threats or complaints. As a matter of fact, we received no threats, and only a handful of complaints – fewer indeed than for a talk delivered on our campus the previous evening by an Israeli diplomat. The talk by the Israeli diplomat went ahead; the difference was that the organisers (the University’s Jewish Society) told us about that talk the week before and worked with us to make the necessary arrangements.

Assuming that we are given enough notice, and appropriate logistical information, I know of no reason why Dr Kuentzel should not deliver his lecture in Leeds at a future date.

For the record, and despite press reports to the contrary, the University did not in any way seek to prevent two other talks by Dr Kuentzel on (I believe) the same theme: as internal academic seminars, they did not require the same level of support as a large public meeting.

Yours sincerely,

Roger Gair

MY REPLY

Dear Mr Gair,

I have had now had a chance to garner further information about the cancellation of Dr. Küntzel's lecture and seminars, and I have to say that I do not find your explanation of the university's action at all convincing. Nothing you write adds up. You speak of security matters, yet deny any threats or menaces that might make such measures necessary. You suggest that the need for such security came up entirely at the last minute, on the day Dr. Küntzel arrived in Leeds to give his lecture, yet it is patently clear that the university had known of this event for four months and had advertised it for three weeks. That can only mean that something fresh must have intervened some very short time before the 14th. Since I know that e-mails from Muslim students had been received by the university administration during that time gap, and that these messages might easily have been interpreted as indicators of possible protest or worse, I find it remarkably easy to connect the two things as cause and effect.

If those messages (and perhaps other communications to which I am not privy) did not serve as prompts to suggest a need for a very high level of security, I would like to know what other factor or factors did in fact prompt you. I have studied and worked in universities for forty years, teaching, among other things, Islamic Studies, yet I have never once known a situation in which a university has felt it necessary to provide other than the most regular level of security for an event — a porter usually, or notification of the university police. Dr. Küntzel's lecture was to have been on a valid academic subject, one on which I have myself written and talked, and to whose validity and urgency I can testify. The subject matter of Islamic anti-Semitism is neither unacademic nor, frankly, particularly controversial except to some (and by no means all) Muslims. Why should this one lecture out of a series have been singled out at the last minute for such draconian attention? It really isn't good enough to say that the department had not arranged for proper security soon enough, since I have to imagine that the same problem would then have applied to all lectures in the series. Or did the department only forget to do so for this one lecture?

I think the university did something disgraceful in cancelling this important lecture. I think veiled threats were made, or an assumption of threat was deduced (it would be naïve in the extreme to believe that a university based in Leeds of all places would not be sensitive to the potential results of Muslim grievance), and that the result was a denial of academic freedom. That it should be more important to give in to someone wishing to censor the dissemination of information than to grant a responsible academic the freedom to pass on the fruits of his research is to act in direct contravention of all standards of academic responsibility and, I am sure, the charter of your university itself.

Although I am not a member of staff at Leeds, I concern myself with this issue because I have known other examples of such pressure and am seriously frightened of the consequences of letting extreme Muslim opinion dictate what happens in academia wherever something seems to touch on radicalized sensibilities.

In conclusion, may I ask if it might not be appropriate for the university to hold or allow to be held an enquiry into the circumstances that led to this sorry business? You have a responsibility to everyone involved to provide better explanations than you have done so far and, should my interpretation or an approximation of it turn out to be correct, you owe an apology to all concerned. Such an apology must, without question, include a formal invitation to Dr. Küntzel to deliver his lecture and hold his seminars at a later date, the event to be given full and appropriate publicity.

I hope action can be taken to restore the university's integrity and to make it clear that censorship, threats, and bans form no part of Western academic norms.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Denis MacEoin

The censorship of the study of anti-Semitism

2007-03-17T12:08:00.001-07:00

I will reproduce here two letters I've written this week, one to Lord Melvyn Bragg, cultural icon and Chancellor of Leeds University, and an earlier one to Professor Michael Arthur, the Leeds Vice-Chancellor. As many of you will know by now, a lecture and workshop that were due to have been given in Leeds last week by Dr. Matthias Küntzel of the Hebrew University's Vidal Sassoon Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism, were cancelled by the university on the grounds of 'security'. The subject was to have been Islamic Anti-Semitism, a keen research interest of my own, and tghe event would have taken place over three days in the university's German department. Some Muslims (possibly students, it isn't clear), perhaps a couple, perhaps many more, had objected to the sessions being given, and it looks fairly certain that the university administration, fearful of a protest and perhaps violence, caved in without even so much as a consultation. It is hard to understand what these Muslims thought they were protesting about in the first place. That a university should dare fulfil its obligation to provide a safe environment in which ideas can be explored? That someone in a university was going to say, heaven forbid, that many Muslims in the Middle East are flagrant anti-Semites? That this might somehow impinge on the dignity of Islam? That Dr. Küntzel might in passing refer to Qur'anic verses and hadiths of a less-than-friendly disposition towards Jews?

My own experience in researching and teaching in the field of religious studies has given me many memories of how easy it is to offend some religious people. My job as a teacher of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle was terminated when my sponsors, the Saudi Ministry of Higher Education, decided they didn't like me teaching two 'heretical' subjects, Shi'ism and Sufsim (as well as half of a course on the sociology of religion, which I devoted to my own 'expert' subject of Baha'ism). I've had flak from the other side as well. That's because the academic study of religion must, by definition, pass the limits of what believers may feel to be proper.

But Dr. Küntzel's seminar wasn't even about Islam as such. It was about a genuine evil, namely the ubiquitous presence of anti-Semitic tropes and images in parts of the Muslim world, especially Egypt, the Palesinian Territories, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and, of course, Iran. That is exactly the sort of subject any respectable university should wish to encourage. It is topical, it involves detailed analysis of history (links between Islamism and the Third Reich), it offers possibilities for serious textual analysis and theory-based commentary on film, television, and cartoon imagery (why, for example, do Arabs, who are Semites and share Semitic features with many Jews, choose to depict Jews with hooked noses, a trope taken directly from the Third Reich, where the hooked nose was an exaggerated emblem of non-Aryan status?), it leads into a discussion of the differences and similarities between anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, and anti-Israelism. It is a valid academic subject, but, without warning, a university chooses to remove it from its campus.

Does any of this relate to Israel? You bet it does. Understanding this legacy involves a study of the way the Muslim Brotherhood and some of the Palestinian leadership (above all Hajj Muhammad Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jersualem) chose to ally themselves with the Nazis and how, after World War II this support for fascism mutated into bitter anti-Zionism and imitation of fascist methods. Today, members of Hamas and Hizbullah use the Hitlergrüss salute, something only neo-Nazi groups do in Europe or North America. Knowing this helps us place a different interpretation on anti-Israel rhetoric and behaviour. To say it's a pity Hitler didn't finish the job and kill all Jews in the world, and then to claim 'I'm only anti-Israel, not anti-Semitism' is to stretch credulity. Yet Western journalists and politicians seem to fall for this line every time. Unless and until we learn to see through this smokescreen of 'anti-Israelism' to the underlying Judaeophobia, we will go on praising some of our very worst enemies. Because these people aren't just anti-Semitic. They are fascists, who hate democracy, freedom, and the rule of law in sovereign states. They are as much enemies of Western civilization as Hitler and his mafia were in the 1930s and 40s. When a British university thinks it better to avoid controversy than to open up debate about a reality that threatens its core freedoms, then it's time to ask just where we are all headed.

Here are the two letters, for what they are worth:

FAO
Lord Bragg of Wigton,
Chancellor,
The University of Leeds.

Dear Lord Bragg,

I am copying here a letter (via e-mail) that I sent some days ago to Professor Michael Arthur, the Vice-Chancellor of Leeds University, on what is now becoming a notorious instance of capitulation to outside pressure to cancel a legitimate and (many may say) crucial academic venture. As my letter to Professor Arthur points out, I had myself given a lecture under almost exactly the same title last Saturday, and have researched in this area myself, so I feel qualified to argue the appropriateness of Dr Küntzel's research and lecturing.

I fully understand your non-administrative position within the university, but I'm convinced that the implications of this ban for the wider world of academe and culture are so great that the incident threatens to bring the university into disrepute (and, indeed, has already done so in some circles). Hence my writing to you in the hope that some form of intervention on your part may lead to a fresh invitation being extended to Dr. Küntzel and, should he accept, a three-day workshop being held on the Leeds campus, followed perhaps by a public lecture on this vital subject. Should this be done with appropriate publicity within the university, and if both the workshop and the lecture (or lectures) should be attended by larger numbers, it would serve both an academic and educational purpose, by alerting audiences to the existence throughout the Middle East of a virulent form of anti-Semitism that is ubiquitous, mainstream, popular, and derived in its largest part from the tropes and images of the Third Reich. It is inconceivable to me that any university should seek to favour objections to such information and to put a gag on the bearer of what may be an unwelcome message, yet a hugely relevant one for modern society. Forms of Islamic anti-Semitism have already moved to Europe and North America, making all the greater the relevance of this message to a British university in a city that has bred Islamist terrorists.

I hope you will at least speak to the university authorities on this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Denis MacEoin
Royal Literary Fund Fellow
Newcastle University

LETTER TO PROFESSOR ARTHUR

Dear Vice-Chancellor,

May I begin by introducing myself as a former lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University, where I am currently the Royal Literary Fund Fellow.

I have just received news of a decision made by Leeds University to cancel a talk and 2-day workshop series by Dr. Matthias Kuentzel of Hebrew University, both under the title 'Hitler's Legacy: Islamic Antisemitism in the Middle East'. Having myself given a lecture on Islamic Antisemitism a few days ago, I am horrified and outraged by this decision. As an academic who has struggled with religious pressures to censor and exercise control within my field, I place a high value on academic freedom within Western universities. I appreciate those freedoms the more for having studied at Shiraz University in Iran and taught at Mohammed V University in Fez, Morocco, where such freedoms are absent. An academic book of my own has recently been blocked from publication due to pressure brought on the publishers by a religious group. That is how keenly I feel about censorship contaminating the realm of academia, and why, in part, I am spurred to write to you in these terms. Academic freedom is the very foundation of all work carried in universities and colleges, and without it, as I know you must be very well aware, the entire project of unbiased, free, and honest academic teaching and research slips into degradation and abuse.

Since it is a research interest of my own, I can testify that the subject on which Dr. Kuentzel was due to speak is one of considerable importance, both academically and as a topic for public and governmental interest. Not to study it and not to debate it opens up a glaring gap in our knowledge of the Middle East, our understanding of Islam, and our analysis of Muslim relations with the West and with the Jewish community in particular. Anti-Semitism is in itself a subject studied internationally in numerous centres, and one about which innumerable books and articles have been written. Much of that latter work has originated in the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, at which Dr. Kuentzel works. It is beyond my comprehension that a scholar with his credentials, affiliated to such a centre and such a university, speaking on a topic of vital academic and general interest should be barred from speaking simply because a pressure group with blatantly vested interests has complained. What will be next? No lectures on Iranian nuclear strategy because someone in the Iranian embassy made a phone call to someone in your office? A lecture on animal research in your faculty of biological sciences cancelled because an animal rights group threatens to stage a protest?

I cannot believe that you yourself would for one moment consider letting outside interests exercise the least influence over the content of academic courses or guest lectures in any other context. Yet it has happened at your university, and I for one feel betrayed by that. If someone invites me to lecture at Leeds on this or a related topic, will I now be automatically persona non grata? Will I have to submit the text of my lecture to a censorship committee beforehand?

I wish to be reassured as to what action you and the university propose to take to remedy this serious breach of academic principle. I intend to forward details to the Council for Academic Freedom and Academic Standards, of which I am a long-standing member. They may in due course contact you as well. I do hope you can find a way to put this matter right, regardless of pressure from within or without your institution. I place my trust in you to do so.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Denis MacEoin

Supporter, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
Patron, Friends of Israel Academic Study Group on the Middle East

The core issue between Israel and the Palestinians

2007-02-18T09:49:00.000-08:00

In my last post, I talked about delusion. I want to take that concept further by admitting that it's not all delusion. Most Muslims are living through a different reality to the rest of the world, not through any form of insanity, but because their worldview differs radically from that of the West or, for that matter, much of Africa or the Far East. This, I believe, is the core issue between Israel and the Palestinians (and, indeed, the Arabs, Iranians, and the Muslim world in general). Of course, it's obvious that we all have differing worldviews, views we take from our society or our religion or our political party or the zeitgeist. It's human and it's inevitable, and most of the time it does no harm. But when two worldviews clash, things can go badly wrong. I play fado music all the time while I work at my computer, but I don't imagine it would go down well at one of the nightspots just up the road from me. There would be arguments and, if some of the clubbers were very drunk (which most of them probably would be), there could well be violence. Fortunately, that sort of showdown doesn't happen often, because most of us learn to keep our worldviews separate. In a civilized society, worldview clashes don't often lead to violence: even if a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon tries to push their (to me bizarre) view of the universe in my face, the most will they will suffer is yet another blow to their well-accustomed pride as I close the door. But when we move out onto the international scene, clashing worldviews often lead to wars. This is at the root of the Israel-Palestinian conflct, but because observers like to think its just a clash over territory, it is seldom seem for what it really is and what it has been from the start.

The best way to examine this—and the most relevant for our purpose here—is to talk about the Westphalian System. We're in disputed territory here (in more ways than one), and I'm not a political scientist or a political historian, so readers will have to go easy on me. But, for what it's worth, this is my understanding of the heritage of the Peace of Westphalia. Back in 1648, two treaties were signed, ending both the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War. The resulting peace came to be called the Peace of Westphalia, and until recently it was generally thought to be the case that it brought into existence the modern system of relations between sovereign states, the so-called Westphalian System, that has governed international relations down to the present day. Of course, it wasn't that simple: European states had to develop much further. Italy and Germany took much longer to coalesce into their present shape, the monarchical system had to bend to the emergence of democracy, and imperialism had to give way to independence for nations outside Europe. The two biggest advances, like the Peace of Westphalia itself, came after major wars: the creation of the League of Nations and then the United Nations.

It was the League of Nations that developed the mandate system as a sort of half-way house between colonialization and independence, turning the Ottoman Empire in a group of states or embryonic states throughout the Middle East. This was how several Arab provinces were transformed into autonomous states, such as Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, and this was how a Jewish state was to be built on what had been southern Syria and was now the British mandate of Palestine. All the actors, Europeans and Arabs alike, had been brought into the Westphalian system, even if the Arabs found it impossible to accept democracy.

The rub lay, of course, in the Jewish state. Created by the mandate and in accordance with a majority vote at the United Nations, it was conceived and created as a child of the Westphalian system, and designed by its own makers to be a liberal democratic entity unlike any other state in the region. The Arab reaction, as we all know, was to attack it with the aim of destroying it utterly. The European nations had, in the main, taken lessons from the Second World War and the Holocaust, and had helped create Israel as a haven for Jews who wanted the right to defend themselves. The Arabs had, of course, taken advantage of the Westphalian mandates to create their own sovereign states; but it was impossible for them to extend this privilege to Israel, even to live side by side in harmony with the Jewish state. Arab nationalism became an important feature of Middle Eastern political life in the coming years, but Jewish nationalism was declared unacceptable from the start.

This intransigence is, in part, due to the existing Islamic theory of international law, predicated on two things: the notion of a supernational Islamic entity known as the umma, and existing Islamic law concerning jihad. Rudolph Peters puts this succinctly: '... modernist authors have argued that the doctrine of jihad offers a theory of bellum justum [just war]. Some of them have elaborated this point and have interpreted this doctrine as Islamic international law or as Islamic law of nations.... Christian as well as modern international law are (sic) founded on the fact that they are regarded as binding by all states concerned. On that basis, they give rpescriptions for international intercourse, which, in the case of Christian international law, is confined to the Christian nations. Islamic law, on the other hand, is not interested in the relations between the Islamic states as, ideally, there is but one [the umma]. Its object is to provide Moslems with a code of behaviour in their relations with non-Moslems. Thgus, its prescriptions are only binding for Moslems.... Because of the Islamic claim to universality, it does not recognize non-Moslems and non-Moslem states as legal subjects equal to Moslems and the Islamic state.... With the exception of treaty obligations, non-Moslems, in as far as they are not protected by aman [surety] or dhimmah [being a Jew or Christian subject to a Muslim state], cannot, in general, claim any right under Islamic international law.... An important characteristic of the writings on Islamic international law is that in nearly all of them the point is stressed that Islamic international law, at least in its principles, is superior to positive international law.' (Rudolph Peters, Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History, pp. 135-39)

Where does this leave us? With the seemingly unstoppable rise in Ilamic radicalism, it means we face a greater struggle than ever to stabliize the situation in the Middle East and achieve recognition and toleration for Israel. Hamas and Hizbulah, unlike the PLO and Fatah, rest their case on a rigid adherence to Islamic law and principle. Until such time as this brand of Islam receives a serious check, and Islam itself undergoes a major reformation, we all have to live with the fact that many Muslims live in a different mental world in many matters. It's not delusional to hold to a particular religious belief or ideology; but when clinging to a belief that puts very large numbers at odds with the majority, it can be seen as disfunctional to persist. In most cases, of course, holding to one's belief despite external pressure to conform is a noble, even empowering thing: one just has to look at the history of Judaism to see that. But when the result leads, not to the shedding of one's own blood, but to the shedding of that of others, persistence grows dangerous. The Palestinians and their suppporters do harm to Israelis, but also to themselves. They, more than anyone, have suffered from their intransigence. No-one has tried to deny them a state. No-one wishes them harm. But if their new government cannot abandon their obsessive belief that God will grant them an Islamic state in a Palestine built on the ruins of Israel, who knows what hardships are in store for them?

Sane delusions and the Temple Mount

2007-02-14T10:57:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, when I look at the issues Israel's enemies bring up either to condemn the Jewish state, or to justify their own position, I think many of them are delusional. That's come up in this past week during the controversy (still simmering) about building work near the Temple Mount. Palestinians, Egyptians, and others have been taking to the streets, tearing their hair out in despair because the evil Jews are plotting to undermine the structure of al-Aqsa Mosque. On February 13, Khalid Mish'al, the leader of Hamas's political wing (their Gerry Adams, if you like) wrote in an overwrought piece in the Guardian: 'Meanwhile, excavation resumed last week in the compound of al-Aqsa mosque, and on Friday the mosque, to which access is denied to Palestinians below the age of 45, was invaded by Israeli troops who wounded scores of worshippers.' Speaking to al-Jazeera television, Taysir al-Tamimi, the Palestinian Authority's Chief of Judges and chairman of its Islamic law high council, said 'Israel is now carrying out wide excavations under the mosque and is building a synagogue in front of the Dome of the Rock'.

Come again? 'In the compound of al-Aqsa mosque'? Has Mish'al ever visited Jerusalem or the Temple Mount? Did he take the elementary trouble to look at a map. The essential building work is being carried out well beyond the Temple Mount, let alone al-Aqsa. '...wide excavations under the mosque'? What excavations? Where? The only people doing anything on the Temple Mount are workers from the Islamic Waqf organization, which controls everything up there (and underneath). '...building a synagogue in front of the Dome of the Rock.' What synagogue? There were implausible plans for one, but Israel preferred to let the Muslims build a minaret there instead, which they are doing.

In other words, everything these people are saying is a lie. And the people in various Muslim countries demonstrating and calling on God for vengeance are deluded. Not in the way a paranoid schizophrenic is deluded, which is mental illness, but because they have bought into a culture of shameless half-truths, brazen lies, and mind-boggling conspiracy theories. It is incredibly easy to look at a map and examine photographs in order to see how the land lies on and around the Temple Mount. All the Palestinian Arabs have to do is walk to the walkway and then stroll over to al-Aqsa, whereupon it will dawn on them that talk of excavations under the mosque is pure poppycock. But they know it's poppycock anyway, and prefer to go with that than to deal with the reality in front of their noses. That is to choose delusion, because it serves a greater political or religious interest. It's what Hitler and Stalin did when they told the Big Lie in its various forms. It's what the Palestinian Arabs do when they say there is no evidence for a Jewish presence in Jerusalem two thousand and more years ago. That there was never a Second Temple. Nor a First Temple.

The standard of education in the Middle East is poor. Even universities expect students to learn what they are told, and discourage questioning. This establishes a mindset that permits even the best educated to trot out balderdash as if it were Gospel truth. The Israeli security fence is a wall for mile after mile after mile. 9/11 was a US-Jewish plot that had nothing to do with al-Qaeda. The Zionists encouraged the Nazis to kill as many Jews as possible in order to force Jews to flee to Palestine. There was a massacre in Jenin. Hizbullah were innocent bystanders in a violent war started by the Jews with the aim of destroying Lebanon. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an authentic historical document. The Holocaust never happened. Or, if it did, the Jews started it. There was a state of Palestine on what is now Israel, and it was destroyed by the evil Jewish settlers.

It goes on and on. Read Daniel Pipes's book The Hidden Hand to get a broad picture of how far conspiracy theory eats into the soul of the Muslim world. It poisons both politics and religion. Statesmen in the Middle East believe in things no self-respecting seventh-year schoolboy or girl here would take on board for a moment. Making a walkway safe for visitors (including Muslims) is a diabolical plot to destroy the Islamic presence on the Temple Mount. Muhammad al-Durra was shot by Israeli troops whose bullets made 90-degree turns.

If the educated believe some of these things, there's no hope for the illierate and semi-literate who take their cues from their religious and political leaders. The waters are constantly muddied by this almost blanket refusal to come to terms with historical, geographical, or political reality.

Protest is Fine, Balanced Protest is Better

2007-01-12T11:31:00.000-08:00

It's easy to form the impression that anyone who defends Israel comes from a right-wing, even a far-right, political viewpoint. Because a majority (or what seems like a majority, but may well be only a vocal minority) of people on the Left, most of the liberal and left-leaning press, most liberal and leftish intellectuals, journalists, TV producers, and political activists have become anti-Israel in their sentiments and actions, it is too easy to assume that defence of Israel is automatically a right-wing matter, and a matter for shame at that. But it really isn't that simple. There are Labour MPs who belong to Labour Friends of Israel, there are pro-Israel, Left-oriented pressure groups like Engage, and there are plenty of vocal Israel advocates from the centre of politics, like myself.

There are, naturally, many people who defend Israel who do take conservative and neo-conservative positions on related issues. Some of them are very hawkish indeed, and they frighten me as much as they do you. But they are not representative. For one thing, there are many liberal-minded people on the right whose concern for social justice is equal to that of those on the left and centre. For another, there are probably more on the extreme right who consider Israel and Jews with contempt or outright hatred. It's also important to remember that, until not that long ago, Israeli politics and Israeli government were dominated by the Left. Israel's history is more socialist than that of the UK. Israelis protest about many of the same things other liberal-minded people protest about. Israeli liberals anguish about much the same things as liberals everywhere: poverty, war, injustice, freedom of speech, torture, abuse of human rights, the environment, racism, the impact of giant corporations, prisoners of conscience, and other, often related, issues.

This is not to suggest that people on the right, in Israel as elsewhere, do not anguish about these matters or take action to improve them. But the centre and left are more likely to be seen on the streets marching, carrying placards, or shouting slogans, writing letters to the press, creating pressure groups. And such activities, it must me said, are vital to the health of any democratic society. We all have to care about the oppressed, the disappeared, the imposition of capital punishment, the waging of war, the massacre of innocents. If liberals and the Left take up their cudgels on behalf of such causes more visibly than those on the Right, then we must all be grateful for that. If left-wing feminists have advanced the cause of women's rights in the teeth of opposition from conservatives and traditionalists, they deserve the thanks of women (and men) everywhere. If liberals have put apartheid or sex trafficking or the exploitation of workers and farmers in the Third World on the agenda, and have challenged the Dutch Reformed Church or women traffickers or big business to do so, they can be credited for many legal and political reforms that enhance the rights of us all. Their predecessors, who brought about the abolition of slavery, the end of child labour, the curtailment of capital punishment, or the introduction of legislation granting homosexuals the same rights as other citizens no longer seem the enemies of propriety, morality, and social cohesion they did all those years ago.

But over the past couple of decades, liberal and left-wing politics have undergone an unprecedented, even bizarre, change of direction, a sea change that has distorted and disfigured much of its original world-view. Much of the natural sentiment of liberal politiics remains: a bias towards the underdog, a determination for justice, a belief in humanity and the rights human beings deserve as a natural heritage. But this has often been obscured — and, as time passes, is ever more obscured — beneath other messages. Political correctness, from valid beginnings, has transmogrified into something so far removed from its original purposes as to be unrecognizable. This is nothing new in politics or religion, of course: human minds and institutions seem to have an instinctive drive towards extremes. Thus Marxism, starting as an ideology based in justice and the equitable distribution of wealth and resources, helped create some of the least just societies in history, some forms of Christianity, though rooted in the teachings of a man of peace who loved the poor and the dispossessed, became illiberal and violent expressions of militancy and aristocratic contempt for the poor, the French Revolution, situated in the Rights of Man, devoured its children and brought forth a megalomaniac emperor. We can all add examples from history and current affairs, from both the left and right of politics.

Political correctness and related political attitudes have turned several otherwise honourable endeavours into extremist onslaughts on moderate and balanced democratic discourse. For example, feminism achieved great things then turned sour in part with radical feminists made men culpable for all the ills of human kind, declared that 'all sex is rape', and became as intolerant of the male sex as men had ever been of women. Similarly, where Martin Luther King took black people on a great march to freedom and equality, black power ideologues became racists in reverse. Listening to the boxer Muhammad Ali pour out venom on the white race was to me as sickening as giving ear to a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan spew forth hate speech against blacks.

The current vogue for post-colonial studies, introduced in part by the Egyptian 'Palestinian' intellectual Edward Said, consists for the most part of criticism of the colonial enterprises of the great Western empires — the British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese conquest of most of the world, or the later US neo-colonialism by proxy. Much of that criticism is entirely valid, if we bear in mind the multitude of wrongs done to native peoples and their cultures. But less is said about the benefits imperialism sometimes brought, nor do we hear much about non-Western imperialism, its vices, and its benefits. The many Islamic empires — the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Mughals, the Safavids, the Ottomans — seem to be blameless, the Arab conquests, with their devastating impact on the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia are passed over in silence. The imperial history of Africa, the exploits of the great jihad states of Nigeria and elsewhere, the Chinese empire, the depradations of the Mongols and Timur Lang, the empires of the Byzantines and Sasanids, the military exploits of the Tartars, the Cossacks, the Turks, and the rest are seldom referred to.

In political terms, this approach translates into an all-consuming hatred for our own culture, for Western civilization in general, and for specific parts of the Western world, notably the United States, Israel, and the United Kingdom. That other civilizations have oppressed subject people, committed atrocities, established totalitarian ideologies, carried out vast and long-lived trading in slaves (notably the Arabs and Ottoman Turks) seems to escape liberal reproach. Meanwhile, the great achievements of the West are swept under the carpet: the abolition of slavery, the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Human Rights, the spread of advanced education, science, medicine, tolerance for different creeds, democracy, and the very creation of left-wing and liberal political thought.

What has turned an entire generation of young people, committed to great ideals, desiring the well-being of their fellow men and women, well educated, enquiring, the recipients of the greatest material comforts bestowed on any generartion in history, with hearts burning for good and peace, dedicated to make poverty history and discrimination a thing of the past into what seems at times a gang of thugs whose hatred for Israel — and sometimes Jews in general — a driving force in their lives? Is it not that same sense of imbalance, that absence of measure that has been imposed on them by the strident demands of political correctness, that numbing sense of righteousness and rightness that has come to pervade the liberal world, that political absolutism that resembles so greatly the unswerving will of the Third Reich, that black-and-white Manichaeism of the Stalinist empire, or that fixed division of the world between Dar al-Harb and Dar al-Islam that characterizes all Islamic political thought?

The demonization of Israel has reached proportions that none of us have seen since the days Hitler and his propagandists made Jews the scapegoats of all the ills of mankind. It is everywhere accompanied by a dogged refusal to see harm in the thoughts and deeds of the PLO, Hamas, Hizbullah, or any other of the terrorist armies whose knives seek Jewish throats, to acknowledge the feverish anti-Semitism of the Palestinians, the Egyptians, the Iranians, and others throughout the world, to contemplate, however briefly, the possibility that Israelis are like other human beings, and that they may have sound reason to defend themselves from a second genocidal attack on their race. Not seeing things like that, that's what hard to understand. How can a liberal not see it? How can members of the International Solidarity Movement pose with Kalshnikovs and still insist they work for peace? How can Muslim liberals read anti-Semitic texts and see anti-Semitic images every day in their press and on television, and turn aside from it, and say and do nothing to call their societies — the very societies they purposrt to condemn for their absolutism and intolerance in every other field — to account? How come the left-wing president of Nicargua, Daniel Ortega is even now embracing Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad, the president of a deeply conservative theocratic state, and claiming they have much in common?

How is it possible for a man like Jimmy Carter to abandon his own principles so thoroughly as to seek in the Middle East, not a righting of wrongs, but a down-and-dirty fight with Israel and a whitewashing of Palestinian obstinacy and violence? He knows better than that, I'm convinced; but in a world where value is seen only in the underdog, however ignobly he may have barked or bitten, where strength against intolerance is seen as the iron fist of an apartheid state, and where terrorism becomes the moral equivalent of heroism and a struggle for freedom from 'colonial' oppression, perhaps he felt he had no other choice, if he was not to lose all credibility with the credulous centre of American politics.

Why does no-one march against al-Qa'ida? Against female genital mutilation? Against forced marriages? Against honour killings? Where are the protests about the Burmese dictatorship, the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the Turkish denial of the Armenian massacres, the continuing Arab slave trade, Mugabe's robber regime in Zimbabwe, Pakistan's nuclear bomb, North Korea's state-created famines, and all the other glaring injustices that drag on just above or, more often, just below the headlines? Could it be that none of these involve Western states? Could it be that liberals have come to believe that any sort of injustice or violence may be excused so long as it is the work of non-Westerners, whom we must never condemn? Is that not a form of reverse racism?

When I see ISM members stand in Palestinian streets to place their bodies as shields between Palestinian suicide bombers and Israeli children; when there are banners outside Parliament calling on Hizbullah to disarm in accordance with UN resolutions; when I hear the sound of tramping feet and shouting voices calling for an end to terrorism; when I open my morning Guardian and read a letter signed by hundreds, calling for a boycott of Iran — then, and only then, will I start to believe that the liberal left and the liberal centre have regained their sense of proportion. Until then, I despair, not that there may be peace and justice and kindness in the world, but that political correctness will have blinded so many to where they may find them.

The new Christmas myth

2006-12-30T09:58:00.000-08:00

This Christmas, the international charity War on Want saw fit to print a seasonal greetings card on which Mary, Joseph and the Christ child were depicted as Palestinians subjected to oppressive treatment by Israeli soldiers beneath the shadow of the security 'wall'. I wrote to them, and then submitted a complaint to the Charitiies Commission, who will respond in due course. Here is the text of my covering letter to the CC, followed by the longish letter that went to War on Want.

Covering message:

I'm writing to ask whether the Commission does not agree that a Christmas card produced by the charity War on Want contravenes the Charities Act in respect of politicization. The card shows Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus being subjected to a security check by Israeli soldiers, and seeks to draw some sort of parallel between their plight and that of Palestinians in the West Bank. That such a link can be made I would not quite deny, but I am profoundly conscious of the imbalance such a linkage may create (and doubtless has created) in the minds of the uninformed, in that no context whatsoever is given for the security check. Inasmuch as IDF security checks are aimed at preventing terrorism and, in particular, suicide bombings, it is unlikely that a reasonable person would object to them, even though they do cause hardship to some. The UK has used similar checks for the same purpose, notably in Northern Ireland (where I have experienced them at first hand), but War on Want directs its message against Israel only, without regard for the actions of other countries and without reference to the homicidal nature of Palestinian terror attacks. Nor does the card even hint at the fact that much Palestinian poverty has come from high levels of corruption within the Fatah party when it was in control, or the blockage of funds by the US and EU because the current government of Hamas refuses to recognize Israel, cease violence, or enter peace negotiations. All this and more seem to me to make the political message conveyed by the War on Want card highly controversial and unbalanced. I have covered these and several other points in a letter to Payul Collins at War on Want, a copy of which is attached to this e-mail. Assuming that War on Want still seeks to combat poverty worldwide, their adoption of a biased political agenda rooted in one side of the political spectrum must surely be questioned. It fits, I fear, with War on Want's recent report on the 2006 war in Lebanon, where it is stated that they found no evidence that Hizbullah placed rocket launchers, redoubts, or other military positions within civilian areas — a conceit that has since been exposed as a serious falsehood and one that flies in the face of overwhelming pictorial and testimonial evidence. It seems that War on Want has a political agenda, and that that agenda is to condemn Israel while lending support to a notorious terrorist organization. I trust this troubles you as much as it does me.

Thank you

_____________________________________

Letter to Paul Collins at War on Want:

Dear Mr Collins,

I realize you will by now have seen more e-mails on the subject of
your Christmas card than you would like. I don't know whether you
have any intention of replying to them, or even of reflecting on what
many of them say, but I do hope you will try to take them into
consideration for your future policy in this matter.

I have always admired War on Want and its work, but in recent years
have been disturbed by the growing politicization of the
organization. This is not because I do not make the link between
poverty and politics, but because I think you have in many cases
become one-sided in a way that is not helpful. This refers, in
particular, to your treatment and portrayal of Israel, and is
exemplified in the card you have produced showing the Holy Family
being searched by IDF soldiers. While I do understand what you meant
to convey by this, I cannot be persuaded that the parallel you draw
is anything but factitious and, in the end, meaningless.

The correct parallel is this: Christians, Muslims, Druze, and the
followers of other religions are treated better in Israel than in any
other country in the Middle East. That is a fact (and I say that as
an Arabist/Persianist who has spent some forty years studying the
region). Let me give you a very simple example of what I mean when I
speak of Israeli tolerance. The largest religious minority in Iran is
that of the Baha'is. As you may very well know, they have never been
liked in that country, but since the Islamic Revolution they have
been subjected to severe forms of persecution: some 200 members have
been executed and many others imprisoned and tortured, while their
most sacred shrines have been bulldozed to the ground. They are
forbidden to meet for worship, to hold jobs in teaching or the civil
service, to attend university, and much else besides (receiving
pensions, for example). This same religion is banned in every Muslim
state, and the punishment for membership is, strictly speaking,
execution. Hatred of Baha'is reaches levels that are only surpassed
by hatred of Jews. In Israel, however, not only do Baha'is have full
rights, they have been permitted to build their two holiest shrines
and a string of gardens, terraces, and highly visible religious
buildings right along the front of Mount Carmel, in Haifa. Their
supreme body has its centre there, and pilgrims from all round the
world visit the holy places on a regular basis.

That is, in a nutshell, the difference between Israel and the
countries surrounding her. Complete tolerance in one, total absence
of tolerance in the others.

Why, then, would you choose to portray an intolerant Israel through
the images you chose to put on your Christmas cards? No doubt, you
will say, because IDF soldiers search peace-loving Palestinians at
check-points throughout the year. But your use of Christmas
iconography to make that point is inflammatory and profoundly
misleading in more ways than one. Perhaps there is a message to be
conveyed here, but I find it troubling that, of the messages that
might have been communicated, you have chosen one that lacks context
and uses a deliberately emotive imagery. Why is it more important for
you to tell recipients of your card that IDF soldiers search
Palestinians than to tell the story of Palestinian suicide bombings
that prompt such searches? Bombers have been carried to their
destinations in ambulances, or have dressed as pregnant or veiled
women, or have tried to pass security checks as children. Given that
each successful attempt at penetration by terrorists brings in its
wake death and injury, often on a massive scale, can you please
suggest why the Israel Defence Force should not attempt to police
their borders? Perhaps you would be willing to go on television here
in the UK and announce that you regard all attempts to prevent acts
of terror as something despicable, that you mock the work of our
security forces, that harassing would-be terrorists is somehow
equivalent to maltreating the Mother of God?

There are so many stories you might have chosen, but you chose this
one, distorted and decontextualized fable. You might have told the
story on your card of the abuse of Palestinian children, children
taught in school to hate Jews, children trained to become suicide
bombers and to aspire to the status of martyr from an early age,
children given Kalashnikovs instead of bicycles. Or perhaps you think
that is all something to admire, plucky kids trained by plucky
parents. You might have told the story of how innocent young women
are murdered in the PA territories in honour killings, by their own
mothers, fathers, brothers, and cousins: just holding hands with her
fiancé was enough to end the life of a young Palestinian woman shot
by a Hamas morality patrol earlier this year. Or do you just dismiss
all that as 'tough love'? No doubt passing through an Israeli
checkpoint is many times worse than having to watch every moment in
case you look at the wrong young man in the wrong way and are caught
doing it. You might have told the story about how gay Palestinian men
and women face death and beatings on a regular basis. Or that those
who can flee to Israel, where they are taken in and given protection.
Instead, you chose to say that instituting checkpoints to prevent
terrorist activity is a foul and dishonourable thing. I was born and
brought up in Belfast, and I can still remember having to pass
through military checkpoints just to go shopping. On the other hand,
I remember how my entire family came within inches of being
slaughtered when a bomb exploded beneath a train they were travelling
on. I never once complained about the checkpoints, because, like
everyone else, I didn't want to be in a shop when a bomb went off.

You might, indeed, have told the many stories of Israelis of all
ages, from all walks of life blown to shreds while out shopping,
eating in restaurants, attending bar mitzvahs, having lunch in their
university cafeteria, taking the bus home. The people who planted
those bombs or who turned themselves into bombs were motivated by
hatred, not a love of peace and justice and tolerance. I take it War
on Want condemns killings such as those. Why, then, does it hold up
for contempt an image of peace-keeping soldiers doing their best to
save lives?

There are many other stories you might have told: anti-Semitism
straight from the Third Reich on Arab and Iranian TV screens, calls
for the slaughter of Jews in Friday sermons from PA mosques, the
clauses from Hamas's Charter that describe all efforts at peace-
making, all international conferences, all negotiations, all attempts
to compromise as 'a waste of time'.... Or the story of how Israel is
one of the most racially mixed countries in the world (whereas most
Arab countries are not), or how Israel is one of the most
economically successful countries on the planet, helping the Third
World (remember the Third World) with its technology and medicine....

You need to do some hard thinking, and you need to start by examining
your own heart. I am a liberal, probably very like you, and, also
probably like you, I believe in taking a moral stance in public
matters. We probably want the same things, including a prosperous
future for the Palestinian people. You seem to think that this will
happen if we support Palestinian intransigence, force Israel to
abandon her defences, and maybe even allow Hamas and Hizbullah to
fire rockets onto Israeli towns without hindrance. Maybe you don't
think that, maybe you really would like to see both sides make peace
and live together. If that's so, then please think twice before you
make another card that condemns Israeli security measures and says
nothing about the reasons why they have been put there in the first
place.

Thank you for reading this.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Denis MacEoin

Letter to Tony Blair

2006-12-22T11:25:00.000-08:00

Here's a copy of an open letter I wrote to Tony Blair during the Lebanon conflict this summer, and which was later published in the Jerusalem Post. It calls for Mr Blair to continue his support for Israel, and sets out the reasons why I thought then (and think now) that such a stand was appropriate and moral. Sadly, the international community betrayed Israel and, through that, itself in letting a terrorist organization target rockets on innocent civilians then walk away from that, not just to survive, but to regroup, arm itself with even larger numbers of weapons, and become strong enough to threaten to overthrow the democratically elected government of Lebanon. I thought at the time, and I still think, that the international news media were malicious in their representation of the war, given the myths that were created and the relative absence of good reporting from the Israeli side. Something strange happened then, something almost unprecedented in the history of warfare: a terrorist organization armed and financed by a meddling foreign power and abetted by another, in breach of UN resolutions, and acting out of a total commitment to the destruction of a UN member state won the sympathy of the world's media and a majority of democratic states. Meanwhile, a small country that has lived from its inception under the threat of annihilation by its neighbours, retaliating against attacks on its civilian population, and acting in fulfillment of a UN resolution (that it vacate Lebanon, something it had done 6 years previously) became the object of opprobrium from all sides. How did Hizbullah pull off that remarkable piece of sleight-of-hand? By placing its fighters and terrorists bang in the middle of civilian population centres or within yards of UN posts. What a clever move that turned out to be: if the Israelis killed civilians when firing on bunkers or rocket launching pads, Hizbullah won a PR victory. If the Israelis held back from taking out a launch pad for fear of harming civilians, Hizbullah could stay in place in order to fire more rockets on — guess whom — Israeli civilians. By some perverse calculus, the international community thought the Israelis were the bad guys and Hizbullah must be terrific defenders of civilized values. Most of my fellow liberals thought the same thing. To them, as always, Israeli lives (be they Jewish or Arab) don't matter. Two terrorist organizations (Hamas and Hizbullah) and two ugly dictatorships (Syria and Iran) are the good guys now. At least the Mosleys and all those other supporters of Hitler used to have the basic honesty to define themselves as fascists, and thought it a good thing to march for the; today's fellow travellers tell us they are left-wing and liberal activists for peace and justice, and don't have any honesty at all when it comes to their essential racism (Palestinian lives are worth more than Jewish lives), their hatred of peace (keeping a terrorist group in business is better than forcing them to the negotiating table), and their insouciance in matters of justice (a country that obeys a UN resolution is to be condemned, an organization that breaches one is applauded).

For what it's worth, here's my letter to the man who is now in the Middle East on a mission to sort it all out.

4 August 2006

The Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
London
SW1A 2AA

Dear Mr Blair,

I’m writing to encourage you to continue to do your utmost to see a just and realistic end to the fighting in Lebanon, and to support you in your determination to ensure that Hizbullah, an organization with a long history of terrorist activity against Israeli and Western targets, be not allowed to emerge from this conflict still intact and capable of regrouping, re-arming, and, in the end, growing strong enough to accomplish its long-stated goal of destroying the state of Israel.

Let me say, very briefly, that I take a particular interest in this conflict. I used to teach Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University, but my specialization has always been in Iranian affairs, specifically aspects of Shi’ite Islam. I am also a regional coordinator for the Israel Peace Forum, and much involved in presenting an accurate and nuanced picture of the Middle East conflict as a whole.

I believe that your analysis of a wide arc of terror is entirely accurate, and that failure to act now against the spreading evil of radical Islam may expose this country, its allies, and many other nations round the globe to increasingly severe acts of terror that will shift, given time, to more conflict of the kind now seen in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

I know that international pressure for a ceasefire in Lebanon is intense, and I realize that time must be running out for you and those few nations who have seen the real danger Israel now faces. Please stand firm. To leave Hizbullah largely intact would be to guarantee greater and bloodier fighting in the years ahead. The danger, as I am sure you are aware, is not only to Israel, but for the people of Lebanon, who may find themselves at Hizbullah’s mercy. Not only that, but a perceived victory for Hizbullah would permit both Syria and Iran to extend their baneful influence further through the region. If Hizbullah is seen to be capable of fighting with reasonable success against one of the world’s best armies, how may that not be interpreted elsewhere in the Islamic world? It would certainly be a boost for recruitment to radical jihadist ideology, to active jihadist groups, and to international organizations like al-Qaeda.

Here in Britain, support for terrorism among large sections of the Muslim population is an alarming trend that must surely be cut off before it grows to unmanageable proportions. I believe you are right to call for the glorification of terrorism to become an offence, but I also believe you have been taking advice from sections within the Muslim community that are committed to an anti-Western, anti-British, and anti-Semitic view of the world. If Hizbullah should proclaim even a partial victory, I would expect to see more young Muslims here flock to the banner of jihad, whether to fight abroad or here in the UK.

In the Middle East, force alone will not solve a deeply embedded problem. But one thing I am certain of and that is so long as its neighbours do not recognize Israel and her right to exist, there will never be peace. With a terrorist organization in control of Gaza and dominant in the West Bank, with a terrorist army on its borders, and with an apocalyptic Iranian president determined to wipe her from the map, Israel is faced with the greatest threat ever suffered by any nation since these islands faced the armies of the Third Reich.

In the 19th century, a sectarian group of Shi’ite Muslims in Iran, believing the advent of their Messiah, the Twelfth Imam, to be imminent, purchased and made arms and prepared for the final jihad. They made ready to fight in order to bring the Imam to earth. Today, there are reliable reports that President Ahmadinezhad holds an identical belief, that he anticipates the return of the Imam in a short space of time, and that he may be preparing to force his hand by initiating the holy war necessary to his advent.

Given that context and the knowledge that the destruction of Israel would win its author acclamations from every quarter of the globe, I fear for Israel. I have seen documents that suggest al-Qaeda already possesses nuclear materials. I know, as you do, that Iran is bent on the acquisition of nuclear weapons. Even a small number of such weapons in the hands of Hizbullah could wreak untold calamity on the people of Israel and open up chaos in international affairs. Unlike Mr Ahmadinezhad, I do not wish to sound apocalyptic. But I do believe that the elimination of Israel is planned, plotted, and even scheduled with great care and seriousness in more than one country. And I am convinced that, if Israel disappears, the consequences for all of us will be fearful.

You are a resolute politician, and I think you see this threat more clearly than most. If there was ever a time to act, I think this is it. If an international force does enter Lebanon, can you ensure, in tandem with the United States, that it will have teeth, that it be empowered to implement UN Resolution 1559, that it be capable of disarming Hizbullah with or without the cooperation of the Lebanese government, that Israel, which has never been the aggressor in the wars it has fought, be enabled to contribute to the downfall of this fascist-like group, and that both Israel and Lebanon finally enjoy secure borders across which they can work together to mend the breaches that have opened up between them?

Backed by an ideology of martyrdom through suicide or fighting — an ideology with deep Shi’ite roots, now disseminated from Tehran — radical jihadist Muslims have come to seem invincible. Whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Lebanon, they are starting to believe they can triumph over the forces of democracy, reason, and justice. They are starting to think they can destroy Israel, win back Spain, and impose shari’a law in Europe.

Just as our parents and grandparents fought the dark ideology of Nazism in the 1930s and 40s, so I believe this generation has the heaviest of responsibilities face to face with this growing threat to all civilized values. Not just the West, but the peoples of the Islamic world too may see their way of life changed for ever should the totalitarian spectre impose itself and its deadening hatred of life on all we and they hold dear.

I don’t like to speak in terms of historic moments or symbolic conflicts, but I’m afraid that, as this struggle intensifies, I am bound to do so. Civilization itself is at stake. The values of democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and the open society are as much or more at risk today than in the decades when we confronted, first German fascism and then Russian communism. It may or it may not be your destiny jointly to lead the free world in this clash of civilizations. But I ask you to hold firm now and in the future, not just here in Britain, but in the Middle East, where a sort of Armageddon is being fought on the television screens of the world.

Excuse my prolixity and my overwrought language. I intended something simpler. I wanted to say in a few words what I have now written in four pages. By all means ignore most of this, if, indeed, it ever crosses your desk. But promise me one thing: that if it is your destiny to stand up for Israel in the time of its greatest peril, you will not prove fainthearted.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Denis MacEoin

Anti-Israel=Anti-Semitic?

2006-12-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

The most common defence used by many anti-Semites on the left is that they are not anti-Jewish but anti-Israel, that criticism of Israel is not the same as hatred of Jews. In principle, of course, they are right. Many Jews are critical of Israel, and non-believing Jews are often critical of Judaism. There is no automatic connection between anti-Israel feeling and anti-Semitic sentiment. And yet it often feels like that. Anti-Israel activists on the left often come perilously close to conflating these two attitudes, particularly when their 'criticism' of Israel passes the limits of vigorous political discourse and emerges as hate speech. It is a real conundrum for leftists to get caught in this particular dichotomy. As leftists and liberals, they are committed to anti-racism and the promotion of the rights of all people to self-determination. The left has had a long and honourable history of fighting anti-Semitism, and many liberals today still combat it, especially when it's far-right anti-Semitism they have to deal wth.

But many more — a majority, it seems to me — find no trouble in so identifying with the Palestinian cause that they turn a blind eye to the virulent anti-Semitism that chokes Palestinian society, Arab society in the surrounding states, and the Muslim world in places like Iran or even secular Turkey. They never speak out against it, as they certainly would do if it were anti-Semitism of the BNP or Le Pen variety. Now, I find this both curious and frightening. If they are unaware of Middle Eastern anti-Semitism, they must be staggeringly ignorant of the region. You don't have to be able to reads Arabic or Persian to grasp what goes on: you just need to look at newspaper cartoons, TV shows (including children's television), or the imagery used in school textbooks. If they do know about it and don't speak out, they have clearly jettisoned their leftist and liberal principles. They might as well join in the calls for a second Holocaust.

But it's not just the manifest anti-Semitism or left-wing support for it that demeans anti-Israel activists. It's the way in which so many of the accusations they make about Israel or the pro-Israel lobby follow in a straight line from anti-Jewish diatribe throughout the centuries. When they claim, as so many do, that Israel lobbyists control the media or exercise a controlling influence in the politics of Western countries, or that wealthy Jews back Israel (as if this is particular to Israel, and not to many other countries, notably the Saudis and other oil-rich states), or that Israel is the greatest threat to world peace, or that Israelis target Palestinian children, then they are simply echoing many of the standard anti-Jewish accusations of the Third Reich and earlier. The grasping Jew, the Jewish cabal, the sacrifice of Muslim or Christian children are now incantations of the left, masquerading as criticism of the Jewish state.

When Georgetown professor Hisham Sharabi says 'the Jews are getting ready to take control of us', he would be more at home in pre-Nazi Germany than the United States. When Jewish students are specifically and often rudely excluded from conferences or expelled from classrooms, that is no longer political debate, that is anti-Semitism. Here's what a University of California students had to say about her experiences when campaigning for a student union post: 'People spit [sic] on me and said "Zionist" and kept on walking. I was spit [sic] on a couple of times. I was called a conservative Zionist bastard, a f**king Jew. There was another girl helping me out who happened to be Catholic, `and a guy said "Hey, are you a Jew girl?"' Left-wing pro-Palestinians or the world's new brownshirts? My sentiment here is echoed in the following statement by Laurie Zoloth, a former Professor of Jewish Studies at San Francisco State: 'I cannot fully express what it feels like to walk across campus daily, past maps of the Middle East that do not include Israel, past posters of cans of soup with labels on them of drops of blood and dead babies, labeled "canned Palestinian children meat, slaughtered according to Jewish rights under American license", past poster after poster calling out "Zionism=racism" and "Jews=Nazis". This is not civil discourse, this is not free speech, this is the Weimar Republic with brown shirts it cannot control.'

Here's Professor Norton Mezvinsky of Central Connecticut State University: '[Jews believe] the blood of non-Jews has no intrinsic value'. This, he says, allows Jews to consider that the killing of non-Jews does 'not constitute murder according to the Jewish religion'. 'The killing of innocwent Arabs for reasons of revenge is a Jewish virtue'. Criticism of Israel? I know exactly how any Jewish readers of this blog will be feeling as they read those words. Here is part of a letter by emeritus professor Helen Cullen in the University of Massachussetts student paper: 'Judaism and Jewish identity are offensive to most human beings and will always cause trouble between the Jews and the rest of the human race'. Neither Mezvinsky nor Cullen has been arrested for a crime of hate speech. As Tobin, Weinberg and Ferer put it: 'The fusion of anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism inevitably takes one beyond the borders of Israel and im[plicates any Israel supporter, group of supporters, and Judaism as a religion.'

It seems to be a fact that the current growth in anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic violence is in part fuelled by anti-Israel sentiment and the demonization of Israel. Were this to be a plain political argument (as we might argue about a Kurdish state, or Tibetan or Xinjiang independence, or the situation in Northern Ireland), it would be unlikely to cross over into racist statements, slogans, or physical abuse. If I were to attend an anti-Israel rally and kept my mouth shut, I would suffer no abuse. If an orthodox Jew wearing kippah, pe'ot and tzitzit turned up, I rather think he would be sworn at or worse. But I support Israel, and he might not.

I have just been reading Tobin, Weinberg and Ferer's book The Uncivil University, from which I have taken many of the examples above. It makes frightening reading. I recommend it, above all to those of you on the left and centre who do not yet understand how closely anti-Israelism is linked in the minds of many. Some, particularly those within the Muslim community, are aware of the link and do not think it matters. Others, I imagine, may feel uneasy at times, but may exclude the anti-Semitism from their thoughts because they feel that, in their hearts, they are not anti-Semites, or sense that their left-wing views preclude anti-Jewish feeling. Thinking like that, however, makes it all too easy not to see that denial of the Jewish right to a homeland (and only the Jewish right) is itself a manifestation of anti-Semitism. Yet others may not see any of this. They may think their votes against 'occupation', 'Israeli apartheid', and 'Zionist conspiracies', or their support of Palestinian s right or wrong, even their recreation of Palestinian terrorists as 'militants' or 'freedom fighters' all add up to nothing more than a rigorous protest against a rogue state. They need to think again. And the last two groups need to ask themselves a hard question: if anti-Israelism is, in fact, a substitute for the oldest hatred in the world, if it really echoes the views and expressions of the Third Reich, if it allows Arabs to kill Jews because they are Jews — then what am I doing here, holding this placard, printing this leaflet, cheering this Hamas speaker?

All the problems of the Middle East go back to 1948?

2006-12-15T14:45:00.000-08:00

Recently Swiss journalist Pierre Heumann interviewed the editor-in-chief of Al Jazeera, Ahmed Sheikh, a man of Palestinian origin. Here is a short extract from that interview (thanks to Ratna Pelle)

(Ahmed Sheikh:) In many Arab states, the middle class is disappearing. The rich get richer and the poor get still poorer. Look at the schools in Jordan, Egypt or Morocco: You have up to 70 youngsters crammed together in a single classroom. How can teachers do their jobs in such circumstances? The public hospitals are also in a hopeless condition. These are just examples. They show how hopeless the situation is for us in the Middle East.

(Pierre Heumann:) Who is responsible for the situation?

(Sheikh:) The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most important reasons why these crises and problems continue to simmer. The day when Israel was founded created the basis for our problems. The West should finally come to understand this. Everything would be much calmer if the Palestinians were given their rights.

(Heumann:) Do you mean to say that if Israel did not exist, there would suddenly be democracy in Egypt, that the schools in Morocco would be better, that the public clinics in Jordan would function better?

(Sheikh:) I think so.

(Heumann:) Can you please explain to me what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to do with these problems?

(Sheikh:) The Palestinian cause is central for Arab thinking.

(Heumann:) In the end, is it a matter of feelings of self-esteem?

(Sheikh:) Exactly. It's because we always lose to Israel. It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego. The Palestinian problem is in the genes of every Arab. The West's problem is that it does not understand this.

I have seldom read anything quite so fatuous. In the second half of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth, numerous Arab, Turkish, and Iranian reformers bemoaned at length the state of their countries, the backwardness of the people, the despotism of their governments, the sclerotis afflicting every element of their societies, from religion to education to politics to trade to their legal systems. Universally, they expressed wonderment at the extraordinarty progress the infidel nations of Europe had made while the Islamic world basked in an unwarranted belief in its own eternal supremacy. Students and diplomats travelled to Europe and returned home dismayed, and wrote in books and pamphlets of their dismay. They told of how Europeans had parliaments that made laws suitable for social change; of how kings were constrained by constitutions; of how universities transmitted the most modern forms of leaning; of how scientists made daily discoveries concerning the nmatural world and the heavens; how medicine was changing people's health; of how courts handed down justice; and they made a sharp contrast between this dynamism and the sluggishness that had overtaken every inch of their own world. Not only that, but the Europeans were steadily colonizing the lands of Dar al-Islam. The shock at finding such a great disparity was exacerbated by the long-standing conviction that God's will was being carried out through the spread of Islam and would be completed in the eventual dominion of that faith in every corner of the earth. To find that a people utterly despised in the Qur'an and the Traditions, abetted in many places by that most debased of all infidels, the Jews, had advanced so far beyond the Muslims as to make it unlikely the latter would ever catch up or ever surpass the world of unbelief again was a massive blow to the collective ego of Arabs, Iranians, Turks, and the other peoples of the Islamic realm.

The repsonse to this varied. To begin with, secular reformers like Malkum Khan in Iran or the Young Turks within the Ottoman empire argued that Muslims had to break free from the stifling burden of tradition that had been preserved by the religious establishment. With time, new laws were made based on Europen law, schooling was refashioned along Western lines, universities were established and modern disciplines were taught in them, books were translated from French, English, and German, military standards were overhauled by instructors and advisors brought from Europe, constitutions were drafted and in some places adolpted, parliaments were brought into being. As this process got under way, some religious reformers got into the act: men like Jamal al-Din Afghani, Muhammad Abduh, and the latter's disciple Rashid Rida agreed that Islam had fallen behind, but believed that things would only improve when Islam was reformed from within, in the conviction that the Qur'an, the Traditions, and the shari'a still held the answers to men's problems. During the 1920s, Rashid Rida set out a doctrine that would eventually send all this effectively into reverse. 'Abduh had expounded the notion of a return to the ways of the first three generations of Islam, the Salaf, but had seen this in a reformist fashion. Rida turned Salafism (as this movement came to be known) into something stultifying: Muslims had to restrict themselves to the world of the 7th century, had to reject Western ways, and had to revive Islam, not so much to reform it, as to make it greate again by fighting back against Western influences and modern thinking.

There's no need for a history of Salafism here, but it was this style of Islam that started to win followers through organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Mawdudist movement in India and Pakistan, and it was this deeply traditionalist approach that stood waiting in the wings while Arab, Turkish, Iranian and Pakistani nationalisms ran their course. As nationalism, whether through Nasserism in Egypt or the Ba'athist Party in Syria and Iraq or the state-sponsored Aryanism of Pahlavi Iran stumbled and broke down, the Islamists were ready to make their bid for power. How far they have advanced since the Iranian Revolution in 1979 is manifest everywhere today: al-Qa'ida, Hamas, Hizbullah, Tablighi Jamaat, Hizb al-Tahrir, and dozens of other groups, some terrorist, some politically radical exponents of Salafi Islam, have embarked on a last jihad against the West.

In Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, wealth beyond the dreams of avarice has been squandered on spreading deeply conservative Wahhabi Islam throughout the world, or in building palaces for princes on a scale unprecedented in the history of the world. Politics, education, the law, culture itself have all been boxed inside the restrictive practices of the shari'a. Everywhere else, the Muslim world remains economically, educationally, religiously, and politically behind the rest of the planet. When the oil money runs out, the theocracies and monarchies will still stay be in place, and things will get progressively worse.

What has any of this to do with Israel? Theodore Herzl was a babe when the first glimmerings of Islamic backwardness pierced the clouds of centuries of tradition. Things were already bad back in 1848, one hundred years before the state of Israel came into being. But everywhere you go in the Islamic world, you find the same complaint: put things right in Palestine (i.e. drive out the Jews and create a radical Palestinian state) and suddenly all those problems dating back to the 19th and 18th and 17th and 16th centuries, those years of stagnation and lost enterprise, those centuries of incuriosity about the wider world, that long interregnum during which the glories of the Islamic Middle Ages were allowed to fade into obscurity and lie forgotten — all those problems will go away. Palestine will become a world-class economy, Saudi Arabia will become a world-leader in political and educational freedom, Egypt will build industries to match those of China, Iran will become a haven for political and religious refugees.... And that nasty, filthy, 'shitty little country', Israel, with its Nobel prizes, its world-ranking universities, its vibrant democracy, its tolerance, its dynamic cultural and social life, it respect for human life — that will be gone, and we will all be able to breathe peacefully again. It stands to reason, doesn't it?

The well-meaning road to a deep injustice

2006-11-07T06:01:00.000-08:00

Most liberals are well-motivated. We decry injustice, we deplore tyranny, we protest at the loss of innocent life in wars, we condemn wrongful imprisonment and the use of torture, we make what Liberation theologians call 'an option for the poor', we hate racism, we are never easy with bigotry, intolerance, or discrimination of any kind, we make a moral stand against religious fanaticism, we defend the weak, we try to do good in the world. Some of us derive our inspiration for these positions from a religious belief, others, like myself, are inspired from more secular convictions.

Of course, we are not always the best of people, whether in our personal lives or in public, but we do try to place ethical considerations above other concerns. In our innocence, we are inclined to believe that the human situation is redeemable, though the more cynical among us tend to accept the lessons of history and just seek to make the best of a bad case.

Yet there is something about Israel that seems to bring out the worst in some liberal people. Their motives are often laudable, but the results can be less than a real liberal might like. I know why most liberals support the Palestinians and condemn the state of Israel, and I have sympathy with those feelings. I just happen to think they are, in large measure, misplaced. The Palestinians have no state, they are a displaced people who suffer poverty, their lives are restricted, many of them die as a result of Israeli military intervention. Internationally, they have acquired a reputation as the world's great resisters, nobly fighting against a brutal occupation, coerced by superior military force to use their own bodies as weapons in their anti-colonial struggle. This presses all the right liberal buttons, and I have to admit that, if I didn't know any better, I might fall for that same representation of Palestinian virtue and Israeli evil. In fact, I do not.

Before I say more about that (and some of this will have to wait for further postings), let me just glance at the most egregious instance of what I consider to be a broad injustice about Israel. Let's for a moment assume that Israel really is the beast she is painted, that Israelis really are brutal occupiers and sadistic oppressors. Fine, you have every right to protest in the streets and put pressure on your governments to do something about this. But wait a moment. Almost every day, liberals and left-wingers are holding solidarity protests, initiating boycotts, signing petitions, and even travelling to the occupied territories to join hands with the Palestinians. Yet when did you last see a protest about the brutal Chinese occupation of Tibet? When were you last asked to sign a petition condemning human rights abuses in Iran? Who last button-holed you about the monstrous regime in North Korea? Who travels to Darfur to show their solidarity with the Christians and animists who are being slaughtered by Arab Muslim forces? Or to other parts of Africa, where cruelty and corruption mar the lives of millions?

In Bangladesh, a journalist called Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury has just gone on trial for his life. His crime? To ask Bangladesh to recognize Israel and to take steps to end religious extremism before it leads to further acts of terror. Neither The Guardian nor The Independent have run so much as a news item about this brave man and the likelihood that he will be sentenced to death for seeking peace and non-violence. Nor has the BBC, that great defender of human liberty (and opponent of Israel) mentioned him or the system that may condemn him to death for such horrid 'crimes'. In fact, none of the liberal press has spoken out. Yet these same newspapers and broadcasting organizations feed us a daily diet of anti-Israel propaganda.

That's only one example. It's very hard not to get the impression that much of the left and centre,

urged on by a series of post-modern political convictions (some of merit, others not), has actually become negligent in its commitment to justice and human rights for all, using a heavy-handed approach to the Middle East problem as an excuse for a collective loss of vision when it comes to other parts of the world. What is worse, to make the Palestinians the only truly worthy cause and commitment to them the only real badge of honour on the left and middle ground, serves to erase much if not all of the moral capital that such convictions may have built up.
There is no consistency in any of this. Left-wing academics call for a boycott of Israeli universities, despite the fact that Israeli universities operate a policy that allows entry to all races and religions, do not accept government censorship, encourage open debate, and are not used as centres for Zionist propaganda. They do not seek to boycott Arab universities that forbid entry to Jews, or Iranian universities that are closed to the Baha'is, the country's largest religious minority, Egyptian universities that are (according to a report by Human Rights Watch) drowning in censorship, Muslim universities in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere where the very idea of open debate is anathema, Chinese universities that control what students can and cannot learn and what teachers can and cannot teach, or any of the genuine human rights abuses affecting higher education worldwide. Only Israel. Only Israeli institutions. Only Israeli academics who refuse to condemn their own country.
Israel has an internationally-criticized security fence. It was built for one purpose only: to reduce or eliminate incursions into Israel by Palestinian terrorists, including suicide/homicide bombers. In that respect, it has been eminently successful, cutting attacks by 80 percent and more where it has been built. Even the Palestinians admit that it now forms a virtually insuperable barrier to their murder operations. In an interview with Hizbullah's al-Manar TV channel (15/11/06), Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shalah stated that the Palestinian terror organizations had every intention of continuing their suicide missions, but that there were factors that interfered with this. 'For example,' he explained, 'there is the separation fence, which is an obstacle to the resistance, and if it were not there the situation would be entirely different'. In other words, the fence saves lives. Why any liberal would want to see it torn down is quite beyond me.
But there's another aspect to this fence issue. This is that — whatever the media might want you to believe — it's not the only security barrier in the world. I don't know exactly how many there are, but the first one I ever became aware of was in my home town of Belfast, where the 'peace wall' kept Protestants and Catholics apart (and, asd far as I know, still does in places). Another is the concrete and barbed wire barrier being built by the Chinese government along part of its border with North Korea. Then there's the extensive fence being built by India to keep out terrorists operating from Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, and which will eventually stretch to several hundred killometres. Closer to Israel, the Saudis are building a 550-mile fence to shut their border with Iraq. This will consist of a barbed-wire topped fence, backed by barbed-wire pyramids, sand berms, underground movement sensors, command posts, sniffer-dog patrols, and all manner of other surveillance techniques. At 550 miles, it will be considerably longer than the 73-mile Hadrian's Wall a couple of miles from where I'm writing. And, if any American liberals should be reading this, do please note that your government is about to start work on an even longer (700-mile) barrier along the Mexican border, not to stop terrorists, but to prevent illegal immigrants getting into US territory. An earlier barrier built in the 1990s near San Diego is a ten-foot high wall of welded steel.
Yet one fence and one fence alone figures in news stories, on banners of protest, in political speeches. One fence and that one fence only is forever on the lips of liberals, not in praise of its life-saving properties, but in condemnation of its very existence. A fence designed to save the lives of innocents has become an 'Apartheid Wall', an affront to civilization, a symbol of oppression and racism. Why? Given so many fences (and those I have listed are by no means the only ones), why does the one fence that has shown itself capable of keeping terrorists away from schools and cafés and shopping malls come in for this disproportionate criticism? Why would liberals be so discriminatory? Is it not racist to say that, of all peoples in the world, the Jews have no right to defend their lives and homes? It's fine for Indians, it's fine for the Chinese, it's fine for the Saudi Arabs, it's fine for the Northern Irish, it's fine for the Americans to build their fences, but not for the Israelis? Now, I don't doubt that many liberals may find some fault in those other barriers; but they never say so. They never take to the streets waving placards denouncing those fences. Just the one in Israel. They call the other barriers fences, but the one in Israel a wall. If you can't see that this is ugly, racist, discriminatory, and offensive, I must ask just what sort of liberal you take yourself to be.
In the same way the fence is singled out, so the very state of Israel is singled out. As a liberal, I don't doubt that you support the whole post-colonial enterprise, whereby peoples round the world have asserted their independence, created autonomous states, and now govern themselves, some well, some badly. We Irish know this better than anyone, for we were the first people in the world to throw off the yoke of imperialism. We started our battle for independence a couple of centuries before anyone else. So I sympathize with all people who seek to create viable states for themselves. It is, indeed, a matter of honour for liberals and left-wingers to speak out on behalf of all legitimate nationalist aspirations.
But it seems that sympathy for nationalist aspirations ends when it comes to the Jews. Only the Jews, it seems, have no right to build a nation state on their ancestral and religious homeland. Only the Jews are to be condemned to wander the earth for ever, persecuted, driven from land to land as the mood takes one territory or another. Hooray for the IRA and their bold struggle for a united Ireland, hooray for ETA and the claims of the Basques, hooray for the Tamil Tigers and the Tamil people, above all, hooray for Hamas and Hizbullah and their noble endeavours to take back all the lands that ever belonged to them, historically or mythically, it doesn't matter which. But to oblivion with the Jews for even daring to create a national home where they might be safe from persecution. Let's march with banners that say 'We're all Hizbullah now', condemning Zionism as the greatest evil that ever walked the earth.
So everyone is allowed to have a state except the Jews. If you will take care to read their literature, you will see that the Palestinians do not just want a state of their own. They want the Jews out. Every last one of them, from every inch of Israel. If the Jews won't leave, they will kill them. They will leave no trace of them, their synagogues, their kibbutzim, their hopes, their aspirations, their love for their Holy Land. And all those people-supporting left-wingers and liberals out there shake hands with that aspiration, saying Israel has no right to exist, denouncing the very idea of Zionism as fascist and evil, endorsing the idea that the Jews are behind every conspiracy, that Zionists control the media, tell the US how to frame its foreign policy, and are the masterminds behind the global economy.
If you think that, or half of that, or a quarter, let me explain something to you, very calmly, very quietly, and in short words. You may think you are a liberal, but you are not. You may think you are an internationalist, but you are not. You may think you are a socialist, but you are not. You are an anti-Semite. Think it through. How much of your anti-Israel rhetoric would Adolf Hitler have found hard to stomach? How would the notion that Jews alone of all the earth's peoples have no right to govern themselves or to protect themselves from those who seek to kill them run in the far reaches of the far right? How would the Palestinian aspiration to commit a second Holocaust play in the degenerate middens of totalitarian fascism?

Why I am afraid

2006-11-06T10:27:00.000-08:00

I’m afraid. Let me try to explain why. I was born four years after the end of the Second World War. Throughout my childhood and early youth, I was taught about why that war had been fought, why it had been essential to defeat Nazi Germany, and why we must never let something like that happen again. Above all, it was instilled in me that we must never allow a second Holocaust to happen. It had been the greatest crime in human history, and the Nazis had been the greatest criminals of all time.
The worst thing about the Third Reich was that it came to power in a modern nation, a nation that prided itself on its culture, its science, its legal system, its religious and social values. This was the horror, that something primitive, bestial, and anti-human came out of what both Germans and their neighbours considered a civilized and progressive people. Even today, when we read or watch newsreels about the Reich, the Nazi Party, the SS, the vast apparatus of that singular evil, we are confronted by a cold-hearted wickedness that has no parallel in modern history. It remains the supreme evil of modern times, despite the emergence of many tyrannies and tyrants since its time.
When we think of German fascism, we think of the ruthlessness of the blitzkrieg, the extermination of villages, the destruction of Warsaw, the mass killings of Jews by einzatsgruppen, the torture and murder refined by the Gestapo, the utter abuse of innocence by a conscious option for evil, and, above all, the death camps. To my generation, the swastika and the totenkopf, the chic black uniforms, the rallies, the goose-stepping formations, the diving stukas, the barbed wire, the piano-wire hangings, the gas chambers, the watchtowers, the jackboots, the Hitlergrüss salutes, the lightning-flash SS badges, the black coats of the secret police, the U-boat packs, and the overweening arrogance all spoke of one thing: an evil so removed from good that it should never be repeated, however long the human race endures.
I began by saying I am afraid. Afraid of what? Of the truth that, just over sixty years after the end of that long and costly war, after the Nuremberg trials that laid bare Germany’s infamy, after the sorrow and grief that consumed Europe and Russia, I hear our understanding of that evil abused. It is as if a new generation has forgotten what Nazism was all about, as if all our common understandings have been twisted until they are no longer recognizable.
In what way? In the repeated statements found among sections of the left and centre that describe Israelis as Nazis, that speak of a ‘Palestinian Holocaust’, that define Israel as the new Reich and its actions on a par with those of Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. It is scarcely possible to say how sick and frightened it makes me to read such remarks, not least when I realize that they are often made by seemingly intelligent, well-educated people. What is worse, they have become part of a wider distortion of historical truth that denies the Holocaust, blames the Jews for having provoked Hitler and everyone who ever persecuted them throughout history, and finds an excuse for its anti-Semitism in mealy-mouthed declarations of guiltlessness: ‘I am only anti-Zionist’.
So let’s put some of this to rest. Leaving aside the Suez debacle (in which Britain and France were also involved), Israel has only ever fought defensive wars. Again and again, Israelis have fought, not just for their own lives, but for the life of their nation — a nation created to provide a haven for Jews in a world that had just disposed of six million of them. They have never used the total war tactics of the Nazis, nor have they once envisaged the genocide of the Palestinians. If they had really been Nazis, does anyone imagine they would have left a Palestinian alive? If they really used Nazi military tactics, do you think the death toll in the recent war in Lebanon would have been around 1,000, most of the dead Hizbullah guerrillas?
There’s simply no point in using derogatory terms like ‘Nazi’, ‘genocidal’, or ‘racist’ if they don’t fit. And such language doesn’t fit Israel. Criticize Israel by all means — Israelis do it all the time — but play fair. Too many people on the Left have betrayed their own ideals of honesty and justice by demonizing a people whose only wish is for peace and security. There are things wrong about Israel, and you should take care to identify them and write to your nearest Israeli embassy about them: you’ll find a listening ear, and maybe your criticisms will do real good. But there’s no point in standing on street corners with a megaphone, yelling to the general public that Israelis are Nazis, because only someone as badly informed as yourself will listen to you.
What frightens me more than anything, though, is the hypocrisy. Left-wingers and liberals always had an honourable history of opposition to anti-Semitism. They stood up for Jews, in the same way Jews in the 60s were among the most active figures in the American Civil Rights Movement. Back in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, it was a matter of honour for liberals to defend the Jews in their own countries and Israel abroad. But now? The Left has sold out totally to the lure of anti-Semitism. ‘We only hate Israel,’ you say? Then why have so many left-wingers and liberals joined forces with the Palestinians and other Arabs, or with Iranians or Pakistanis, whose cultures are saturated with the most obnoxious anti-Jewish imagery and rhetoric that has existed outside the Third Reich? I’m not talking here about something half-hidden, some dirty secret that you might well not have come across. I’m talking about mainstream TV shows, broadcasts on a variety of national radio stations, children’s cartoons, school textbooks, mosque sermons, and large political rallies.
It’s all there: the hooked noses, the grasping hands, the conspiracies, the sacrifice of Christian and Muslim children, the mixing of their blood with matzo flour, the secret cabals, the sheer Nazi-like horror of the filthy, blood-sucking, world-dominating Jew. If you think you’re a liberal, then what in God’s name induces you to throw in your lot with real Nazism and pour scorn on Jews who have been fighting for their lives for well over sixty years?
You say you haven’t seen any of this? Then you really are a fool to give your support to a society you know next to nothing about. You consider Hamas ‘freedom fighters’: have you noticed the salute they give in rallies? You think of Hizbullah as ‘heroes of the resistance’: have you ever seen how they salute? If it was Hitler up on the podium, no-one would be surprised.
This all requires a more detailed discussion. For the moment, I will only say that this link between modern Arab anti-Semitism and the Third Reich variety is not accidental. While Jews were dying in Auschwitz and Buchenwald and Birkenau, the Palestinian leadership was collaborating with the Reich, recruiting troops for the SS, and planning to build a death camp in Hebron. Jew-hating fascism did not die with the overthrow of the Third Reich: it moved to the Arab world where, believe it or not, the world’s liberals now sing its praises, thinking they are fighting for Palestinian freedom. If you are still in any doubt about how sick this is, read the Hamas Covenant, which openly calls for the slaughter of all the Jews in Israel, or early documents of Hizbullah, where the same aim is made explicit, or the more recent calls by the Iranian president, Mahmud Ahmadinezhad, to wipe Israel from the map. They want to finish the job Hitler started. Don’t take my word for it, read any of the books and pamphlets in which just this claim is made. I forgot, you probably don’t read Arabic. I do. Don’t you think that you, as an intelligent and open-minded liberal, might actually base your view of this on something more solid than a couple of articles in The Guardian? I read The Guardian too, but I don’t swallow everything its extraordinarily biased op-eds say about the Middle East.
Where does this leave us? You, the anti-Israel liberal, me, the pro-Israel liberal. At loggerheads, I suppose. But there is a difference: I believe in your inherent goodness because some sort of love of humanity must inform your political options, your love of free speech, of human rights, of the right of all peoples to independence and nationhood. I know you are impelled to support the Palestinian cause because of such imperatives, and I admire your impulse. But I also think — or, rather, know — that you are ignorant, perhaps profoundly so. Otherwise, I cannot in all conscience imagine why you would so freely give your voice and your actions to support a people who seek only genocide, and withhold your support from the very people that has suffered the greatest act of genocide in the last or any other century.
If you believe in the self-determination of peoples, why do you condemn the establishment of the single state of Israel, the only Jewish state in two thousand years? From the very beginning, the people of Israel have sought for the creation of an Arab state next to theirs. Given peace and security, there are few limits to what Israel would do to make a Palestinian state an economic and cultural success. They have never talked of genocide. The Palestinians talk of little else. Hamas explicitly rejects peace treaties, peace conferences, compromises, and negotiations. Why would a peace-loving liberal extend the hand of greeting to such intransigence and spit on the hand that offers all of that and more? If liberals can support the worst sort of anti-Semitism, doesn’t that open the way to forces that will crush us all, Jews and non-Jews alike?
Now do you understand why I am afraid?

Is Israel an ‘Apartheid State’?

2006-11-04T10:34:00.000-08:00

This is an old piece, from 2005. Nevertheless, it addresses in brief some of the 'Israel is an aparheid state' issues. I shall post something more detailed on this later.

Last week, the UK’s Association of University Teachers, a body to which I was once proud to belong, did a very strange and unacademic thing. By a slim vote of 96 to 92, with opposed voices still to be heard, they passed a resolution to boycott two (possibly three) Israeli universities.
Come again? I hear you say. Academics boycotting universities and their fellow academics who teach and research in them? Have they gone quite mad? Probably.
There is supposed to be a reason for all this, a reason much trumpeted by Birmingham lecturer Sue Blackwell and her politically correct entourage of wreckers and spoilers. The problem is that the reason — ‘Israel is an apartheid state’ — is so far from the truth as to be hideous and laughable simultaneously.
So intent is the monomaniacal Ms Blackwell on promoting the Palestinian cause that she forgets there is an Israeli cause as well, and certainly cannot see that it might be better. Academics aren’t supposed to do that sort of thing. They’re supposed to weigh both sides of any argument and reach a rational conclusion. To conclude that the Israelis are just as evil as Nazi propaganda made the Jews out to be, or equating them (as is often done) with Nazis, while pretending that the suicide-bombing Palestinians are pure victims, innocent actors in a drama during which they have done no wrong, is as anti-academic a pastime as any I’ve ever seen.
Is Israel what its detractors claim it to be, ‘an apartheid state’? Let’s look at intentions first. Apartheid was written into the old South African constitution, and covered just about every walk of life. Israel (like the UK) doesn’t have a constitution, but it does have a very explicit Declaration of Establishment and perfectly clear Basic Laws that make any form of racism, religious discrimination, or abuse of human rights illegal.
‘The State of Israel… will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.’ Not many sentences like those in the pre-Mandela constitution. Or perhaps we misunderstood the poor souls.
The Israeli Supreme Court, reckoned by many to be among the best in the world when it comes to human rights, has repeatedly opposed the army and the government, demanding and securing Arab rights. I don’t remember that happening in apartheid South Africa, but maybe I just have a bad memory.
In Israel, the rights of women, gays, the disabled, religious minorities, and all races are secured by law. Palestinian gay men and women frequently flee to Israel to escape persecution and possible death. There is as much press freedom, free speech, and political dissent as you will find in the UK, sometimes more. All citizens have the right to vote. Again, I don’t remember any of this in the old South Africa. More to the point, I hadn’t noticed any of these rights and freedoms in any of the Arab states, including the region under the Palestine Authority.
In Israel, Arabs vote, are elected to the Knesset, serve on the Supreme Court, and attend university. Thirty percent of students at the Hebrew University are Arabs, although Arabs form only eighteen percent of the population. The proportion of Arab students at the school rises every year. In the Givat Ram campus, almost half of students in some courses are Arab. Why on earth is the AUT boycotting Arabs?
Arabs run businesses, work in the civil service, teach across the educational spectrum, worship in mosques and churches without restriction, enjoy a free press, and retain Arab culture. The Centre for Jewish Arab Economic Development in Herzliya works to improve conditions for Arabs and help them set up businesses. There must have been a lot of organizations like that under apartheid.
Oddly enough, a Jew wishing to do any of these things in an Arab country would run severe legal and physical risks. Mosque sermons in the West Bank and Gaza often urge worshippers to go out and kill Jews. Of course, there aren’t any Jews in Arab countries now, since they were all expelled years ago. If Sue Blackwell’s so hot on refugees, one wonders why Jewish refugees don’t count for her.
It hardly needs saying that Israel is not a paradise. What country is? There is discrimination there, as there is in Europe or North America. But that is not apartheid, otherwise the AUT should boycott almost every country on earth, especially Muslim countries that practise religious discrimination as a matter of course.
The AUT has placed itself in a ridiculous position by seeking to enforce a boycott against a country that is actually one of the freest and most just in the world. By calling white black, by harming the very people they claim, by ignoring the astonishing record of human rights abuses throughout the Arab world, by providing emotional support for Palestinian terrorism (no condemnation or boycott there), they have given notice that they honour no academic principle, least of all the truth. By making a racist gesture (82% of Israelis are Jews), and by instituting a political test (Israelis who condemn their own government may avoid the boycott) they have brought slime and muck into the universities for which they work.
Here’s a simple test. Sue Blackwell should visit Israel, and, specifically Haifa. There she will see a remarkable array of gardens, terraces, white neo-classical buildings and a golden-domed shrine that are the world centre for a small religious group, the Baha’is. In Israel, the Baha’is enjoy an exceptional level of tolerance and support. In Iran, just after the revolution, the holiest shrine of the Baha’is (Iran’s largest religious minority) was razed to the ground by bulldozers. There and elsewhere in the Arabo-Muslim world Baha’is have been executed, imprisoned, and subjected to apartheid-like restrictions solely by reason of their faith. Sue should make a tour of the West Bank and Gaza and claim to be a Baha’i seeking to build a house of worship. Her reception might give her some idea of what it was really like to be a black under apartheid.

Defeating Terror in the Middle East

2006-11-04T10:27:00.000-08:00

Something untoward has been happening in international affairs, as many—but not enough—of us understand. In a war between a democracy and a terror organization created and run by a totalitarian regime, nation after nation has sided with the terror organization and condemned the democracy. In a struggle between a small country determined to defend itself against aggression on a grand scale, pressure was brought to bear that stopped the fighting while leaving the terrorists still in possession of hardened bunkers and a massive arsenal of rockets. A war on terror has been stopped in its tracks just as real gains were being made. A dangerous and destabilizing force has remained intact, ready to re-group, re-arm, and await its moment.

In a conflict that symbolizes more than any other the unremitting war between a free and open society and rogue states and organizations who will not compromise or enter into negotiations or attend peace talks or participate in conferences, the forces of democracy were utterly betrayed. Terrorists bent on the destruction of the only true democracy in the region have been pulled out of the fire they started by a United Nations that has lost all sense of morality and a world community that has forgotten the lessons of the 1930s and 40s.

Israel has been forced to accept a ceasefire that bids fair to leave Hizbullah in a stronger position than ever. More young men now flock to enlarge its numbers. Within days of the ceasefire, the Shi’ite terrorists were already smuggling arms into Lebanon. Some of those arms have come via Turkey, a NATO member state and an applicant to join the EU. An Israeli attempt to stop this breach of the ceasefire was met with harsh accusations from the Secretary General of the UN. Hizbullah, who had started the war and now broken the ceasefire, was not made the subject of censure.

It is six years since Israel pulled out of Lebanon completely. Part of the agreement was that UN resolution 1559, which called for the disarming of Hizbullah, would be implemented. It was not. Neither the Lebanese government nor the UN peacekeeping force, UNIFIL, lifted a finger to implement it. In that period, Iran proceeded to finance Hizbullah and arm it to the teeth. It already has missiles that can reach Tel Aviv. The new UN resolution, 1701, doesn’t even mention disarming Hizbullah, and the Lebanese government and UN have already made it clear that they have no intention of doing so. Iran, busy refining uranium for ‘peaceful’ purposes, just sits there, doing what it wants while the world sleeps.

Hizbullah and its masters in Tehran simply do not want peace. Here is what Hizbullah’s founder, Husayn Fadlallah said about peacemaking: 'We see in Israel the vanguard of the United States in our Islamic world. It is the hated enemy that must be fought until the hated ones get what they deserve... Therefore our struggle will end only when this entity is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no cease fire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated.' And here are some statements by the present leader of Hizbullah, Hasan Nasralllah: ‘Israel is our enenmy. This is an aggressive, illegal, and illegitimate entity which has no future in our land. Its destiny is manifested in our motto: “Death to Israel”.’ And it isn’t just the Israelis or Zionists they hate. Here’s what Nasrallah would like to do to the Jews in general: ‘If they [the Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.’ Sound familiar? Have you ever seen a photograph of a Hizbullah rally? The Nazi salutes may look familiar as well. ‘God bless Hitler’, as a recent placard put it.

A strengthened Hizbullah backed by a jubilant Iran and a sneering Syria will return to the battlefield in a last attempt to wipe Israel from the map. But Israel's hands are tied. She cannot do a thing to stop this inevitable countdown to greater bloodshed. Already, Iranian clerics are calling for rockets to be fired on Israel from behind their own borders. One day those missiles may contain nuclear warheads. If that happens, it will signal the greatest possible victory for the forces of Islamic terrorism throughout the world. There will be no turning back. From that day forth, a sense of divine mission will drive another generation of die-hards to greater and more reckless acts of terror against the West. Against democracy. Against freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from fear and intolerance and the over-reaching claims of theocratic totalitarianism.

Those of you who watched the Israeli port city of Haifa being pummeled by Hizbullah rockets may not have seen shots from the downtown sections up to the front of Mount Carmel. If you had, you would have seen one of the most beautiful sites on the Mediterranean coast: a golden-domed shrine, an arc of gleaming white marble buildings, flower-filled gardens, and nineteen terraces climbing from the foot almost to the top of the mountain. This is the international centre of the Baha’i religion, a small worldwide faith for whom the Holy Land is sacred. It is against the law to be a Baha’i in any Muslim country. In some it is punishable with death. In Iran, Baha’i shrines and cemeteries have been bulldozed to the ground. That is undoubtedly the fate that awaits the Baha’i centre in Haifa if Hizbullah should march in.

Israel is, out of all proportion, the most tolerant country in the Middle East. Millions of Christians have been driven out of Lebanon (see below *), thousands from cities like Bethlehem. Christian populations have fallen everywhere in the Muslim world. But in Israel, Jews, Christians, Baha’is, Druze, and others mix freely in an open society. Women enjoy full rights. Gay men and women flee to Israel from the Palestinian territories to escape beatings and execution. Arabs have seats in parliament and act as Supreme Court judges. Israel is a country just like our own. Hizbullah wants to destroy it. Iran wants to create a second Islamic state on its ruins.

The UK government must put pressure where it is needed, above all on the UN, to demand an end to Hizbullah. Not a period of grace in which it will come to dominate and wreck the region. If this cannot be done, and if Iran, Syria, and other terror-financing states cannot be reined in, the mindless onslaught on civilization and human dignity will grow more and more fierce. Iran already has rockets that can reach southern Europe. Terrorist volunteers are already active in Britain.

* Note on Lebanese Christian demographics and emigration (verbatim from Lebanon.wire.com):

'The head of the powerful Maronite church has long contended that Lebanese emigrants total about eight million with Maronites making up the overwhelming majority. Muslims are currently believed to hold a 55-45 percent majority among Lebanon’s population at home, which are estimated at 4.5 million by the latest U.N. statistics.

According to As-Safir, a statistical study on the demographics of the electorate by researcher Kamil Feghali reveals the following:

In the early 1900s the demographic situation was largely in favor of Christians. On the basis of the number of eligible voters born starting 1910, the study reveals that 68.8 percent of the electorate was Christian, 29.2 percent Muslims, and the rest Jews.

Based on the number of eligible voters born starting 1930, the Christian electorate constituted 52.4 percent of the total voter population, while Muslims constituted 46.5 percent.

Calculations based on the number of voters born starting 1939 show a par between the Christian and Muslim electorate with each claiming 49.7 of the electorate.

The percentage of Christian electorate shrunk to 36.5 percent while that of the Muslims grew to 60.1 percent on the basis of the number of eligible voters born starting 1960. The percentage of Christian electorate further decreased to 27.5 percent while the percentage of Muslims climbed to 72.4 for eligible voters born starting 1979.

The percentage of decrease by Christian electorate between 1975 and 1979 was between one and three percent, while the percentage of increase within the Muslim electorate between 1975 and 1979 registered a corresponding one to three percent.

Calculated in 2005, Feghali forecasts that the percentage of Christians within the electorate population would be around 26-27 percent while that of Muslims would be around 73-74 percent.'

A speech I haven't made

2006-11-03T13:08:00.000-08:00

The following is a draft for a hypothetical speech, intended for a mainly liberal audience, to be delivered after a pro-Palestinian speaker. It rehearses some of the points I made in the introduction to this blog, but takes some of them further, particularly in the contrast it draws between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. I know I have the support of the pro-Israeli set, but the rest are likely to be unsympathetic, more likely downright hostile. They are intellectuals, well-educated, and, like myself, liberals. Except that they think they are exhibiting their liberal credentials by supporting the suffering people of Palestine. It's the middle of winter, people are cold, the setting is a small lecture room lit by fluorescent tubes, and the pro-Palestinian speaker has just wowed his audience with a fervent speech that comes close to incitement to terrorism, all to loud applause. Karl Popper once wrote that you have to tackle your opponent, not at his weak spots, but at the spots he thinks are his strengths. Let's see what happens. Imagine your own cat-calls, laughter, applause – what you will.

‘I'd like to thank the last speaker for contributing so solidly to my argument. Maybe you thought he was blazing the truth in support of Palestine, but think twice and you'll see that his arguments were flimsy and his motives questionable. What he wants, although he didn't say it in so many words, is the destruction of Israel. I wonder how many of you have thought what that would mean. And if you do think hard about it – we're talking about a second Holocaust – I wonder if your applause will be so loud next time round.

‘But let's start with some basics and look at some things you may not have thought about before. Let's start by saying that I'm probably a lot closer to you than you might imagine. Forget about Israel and Palestine for the moment. In the broadest terms, I think of myself as a liberal, somewhere around the centre of politics, with influences both from the right and the moderate left. I guess many of you occupy much the same territory, and that most of you are probably much further to the left.

‘What do I mean by a liberal? There's no need here for a lecture on the subject. I'm sure you all have your own ideas, but I like to think we probably share most of them. I believe in democracy, in the rights of women, in the rights of gay people, in freedom of worship, in the abolition of capital punishment, in human rights in general, in the right to work and raise a family, in the right to form trades unions, in the right to justice and a fair trial, in the illegality of torture, in free speech, an open press, and investigative journalism... I’m sure you get the idea.

‘It is – and I say this without the least hint of irony – because you are inherently good people that you believe in principles like these. Whatever our individual flaws, we come together as men and women to remedy the many greater ills in the world, and this makes us liberals. Whether we are right-leaning or left-leaning liberals, I'm sure we share all or most of those values. So why are you on one side in this debate, while I'm on the other? I could sit down with any one of you for half an hour, and we could talk about values, or books, or films, or music, and we'd find we agreed about eighty percent of the time. So what's the problem with Israel?

‘Let's look at that simple list of liberal values again, shall we? I started with democracy. Well, doesn't it worry you that Israel is and has been from its inception the only working democracy in the Middle East, that no Arab state has ever had a functioning democracy, or that the Palestinian Authority has alway been at the mercy of armed gangs? The recent 'democratic' elections in the PA were won by a strongly-armed faction that is still killing its opponents — something that, in my book, disqualifies those el;ections from the epithet 'democratic'. Why do your sympathies lie with countries that violate the most basic principles of democracy, while you heap scorn on a nation whose citizens, Jew and Arab alike, have freedoms that might be envied in most parts of the world?

‘The rights of women. Doesn't this speak for itself? In the Arab world, women are veiled, they are murdered in honour killings, they are brutalized by genital mutilation. Not everywhere, of course. In some places, women have made great progress. But in Saudi Arabia they can't vote or drive cars, and in many places, including the Palestine Authority, they are subject to great restrictions. And what about gay rights? I’m sure you’re all ardent supporters of gay rights. It’s something I believe in too. It’s a decent, liberal thing, to ask for human rights for all. But, if you’re gay, I strongly recommend you to stay away from Gaza or the West Bank. Whether you’re waving a Palestinian flag or rooting for those so-called ‘freedom fighters’, if you admit you’re gay, you’ll wind up in serious trouble. It's not impossible that you will, in fact, wind up dead.

‘The New Republic recently described what can happen to someone of different sexual orientation: ‘The lucky ones are forced to stand in sewage water up to their necks or lie in dark cells infested with insects; others are simply starved to death. These horrific crimes have motivated hundreds of Palestinian homosexuals to flee to Israel.’

‘Why? Paul Varnell, writing for the Chicago Free Press, offers a hint: "Which Middle Eastern country has a variety of gay organizations ... has members of parliament who speak out on behalf of gays ... has a head of state (willing to) meet with gay activists? ... Israel." I might add, which Middle Eastern country actually encourages Gay Pride marches? Egypt? Iraq? Jordan? Lebanon? Syria? The PA? Turkey? Keep guessing. It is, of course, Israel. So why are you waving the flag for a country that oppresses gays and women, and attacking the only country in the Middle East that doesn’t? I thought you were meant to be liberals.

‘In a region of mixed religions, tolerance and freedom to worship and publish religious books is vital to a healthy community. Let’s take a simple example of how this does and doesn’t work. You may have heard of a small religious community (about 6 million worldwide) known as Baha’is. The Baha’is are anathema in every Muslim state, where their meetings are banned, their buildings wrecked, their graves desecrated, and worse. In Iran, hundreds have been imprisoned and over one hundred executed since the revolution. Their most sacred shriens in Iran have been flattened by bulldozers. The Middle East remains the most dangerous region for them. Except for Israel. Travel to Haifa and you will see a small religious city fronting the slope of Mount Carmel, set in some of the most beautiful gardens in the Middle East. It’s a popular tourist site, made up of a golden-domed shrine, and an arc of white marble buildings ranging from an archive building that resembles a Greek temple, and the domed seat of their supreme ruling body. This is their world headquarters. This is Israel. You are liberals. Yet you support a regime that makes membership in that religion a crime. In 2003, the PA declared Islam to be its official and only religion. And you demonize a country that offers freedom of worship to all its citizens. Don’t you believe you should think a little harder?

‘I mentioned capital punishment before. I don’t know any liberals who are in favour of capital punishment. Except most of you here tonight. You condemn Israel, which abolished capital punishment years ago, and praise Palestinians, who retain it, officially and unofficially. Is that wise or consistent?

‘Work the rest out for yourselves. Doesn’t it matter to you that, after the appalling Sabra and Chatilla massacres, thousands of Israelis were on the streets in front of the Knesset, protesting? You don’t do that sort of thing in any Arab country, unless it’s a government-organized demonstration. Doesn’t it bug you that the Israeli Supreme Court has handed down so many judgements in defiance of both the government and the military? Doesn’t it upset you that Israel is the only country in the Middle East with a free press?

‘Back in 1987, American Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, possibly the most liberal justice in history, described Israel as the country where civil liberties could best be protected by the judiciary, that Israel had succeeded very well in balancing the demands of civil liberties with the pressures coming from the security situation. He’s a liberal, he hates torture, capital punishment, false imprisonment, and all the rest as much as you or I do. And he makes Israel his role model. He looks up to Israel. And he’s living in the heart of a great democracy, not in the PA territory, where people are shot in the head without trial.

‘Israeli citizens, Jew and Arab, Druze and Baha’i, Christian and Muslim, enjoy better human rights than people in most so-called democracies in Latin America, Russia, Africa, and, above all, the Middle East. It’s a real democracy that has never given way to tyranny. Why have so many Arab leaders been thugs and bullies? Many Arab states and Islamic organizations have issued statements declaring support for human rights. It all looks good in English. But read the Arabic or Persian on the other side – something I am, incidentally, capable of doing – and you will see every ‘right’ qualified by ‘the laws of the shari’a’, that’s to say religious law. Are rights in Israel subject to Jewish law? Only for those who choose to be so qualified.

‘Let’s take a trivial thing, namely alcohol. In Muslim countries, alcohol is seldom freely available, and then only in tourist hotels. You don’t get a choice. Religious law takes away your right to drink, even in moderation. In Israel, you’re free to drink and only have to worry if you get drunk and smash up the bar. As I said, it’s not a major topic, but it illustrates the difference between Muslim countries and Israel perfectly. In Israel, adults are treated with respect and left free to make their own choices in matters of sexuality, drinking, religion, music, and so on. That’s what a liberal country looks like. We can recognize it because it resembles Britain in so many ways. Countries like the PA-controlled territories are inherently repressive. So why do you want to replace Israel with a state that would stand for everything you abhor? And, as I shall explain in another post, 'replace' is precisely what I mean: Hamas, Hizbollah, and their backlers do not want or plan to establish a democracy; they have made it clear that they intend to found an Islamic state, a state that will take away at one swipe all the freedoms now available to the citizens of Israel (who will, incidentally, have been forced to leave or exterminated by that point).

‘I want to live in a country where women wear bikinis on the beach, where my gay friends can go to their own bars to drink, where my wife isn’t insulted if she leaves the house on her own (as used to happen to her in Morocco), where I can attend a concert of classical music in the evening, openly buy a book by a heretic, teach at university without finding myself under arrest and facing trial because I said the Prophet was an inch shorter than the traditions say he was, go to a charity ball and dance all night, meet a woman I don’t know in a bar and spend the evening talking to her about work, talk to a journalist about government plans without being picked up by the security services two days later, publish my latest book without it being censored…. I can do all these things and more in Israel, none of them in the average Arab country or under the Palestinian Authority. Or perhaps you think citizens should be kept under a tight rein. What sort of liberals did you say you were?

‘And just in case you thought I only make cheap arguments about trivial matters, let’s get this where it should be. In the 1930s and 40s, the Jewish people of Europe lost 6 million to the most frightening outpouring of racial hatred the world has ever known. I don’t doubt that you’ll agree that the Nazis were among the greatest criminals in human history. So why are you so behindhand in condemning the Palestinian leadership of that time for collaborating openly with the Nazis, advising Himmler on the Final Solution, and making plans for their own concentration camps in the event of a German victory? Jewish survivors of the Holocaust had to face enemies like these (all allowed to escape punishment as war criminals) when they battled their way to the Holy Land through British embargoes and dangerous sea journeys. A true liberal would know exactly where his or her sentiments lay. The creation of Israel out of the ashes of the Holocaust is one of the greatest achievements of human history. The Jews never deserved to be treated as they were and as they are now. I can feel nothing but shame for you, if you are liberals and cannot see where true justice lies. Perhaps it is enough to hope that, as liberals, you will take stock of what I have said and re-assess your attitudes towards Israel. If you do, you may find that Israelis are human beings after all, and that you may come to like them and discover you share thoughts and feelings you never imagined.

‘And if any of you can begin this process tonight, can manoeuvre your brains round the huge obstacles placed before you by Arab propaganda, will you please join me in applying your considerable intellects to the most pressing question on the face of the planet today? What is that? Just this – to acknowledge how unremittingly monstrous both our civilization and that of Islam have been to the Jews. Today, that hatred, that visceral contempt for the Jews is most widely seen in two places: in the Muslim world and among left-wing and liberal Westerners. If you don't believe me, read more of this blog. I plead with you to think twice in the light of what I have said this evening. And having thought twice, it’s time to consider how you can use your talents and those precious, open-hearted liberal principles of yours, not to add to the hurt and pain of the Holocaust, but to help Israel and, in so doing, help the suffering Palestinians in the best way possible. Because a secure Israel is the best guarantee of Palestinian freedom and prosperity one could hope for.'

2006-11-02T12:46:00.000-08:00

Introduction

Does the title of this blog strike you as an oxymoron, a contradiction, not just in terms, but in categories, assumptions, method and intent? If so, I’m not surprised. Once upon a time, no self-respecting individual on the political left-to-centre would have hesitated to stand up to defend Israel and the Jews from an assorted gang of fascists, anti-Semites, and distinctly anti-democratic Arab regimes. Today, hatred of Israel has become the sine qua non of left-wing and centrist allegiance, the cause, like anti-apartheid activism many years ago, that somehow defines and galvanizes those with a liberal conscience.
What has changed? Has Israel really become the oppressive, neo-colonial, apartheid state it is now regularly portrayed as in the media and in political speeches round the world? Or have left-wingers and liberals changed their core beliefs? Or can it be that none of this has taken place, yet our perception of Israel and its enemies has been tainted by a mixture of misreporting and propaganda?
I have always been a liberal. For the same reason, I’ve never belonged to any one political party because, like many other liberals, I find it hard to fit my conscience inside the narrow boxes of party politics. If I see a left-wing idea that seems to me liberal in its aims, I’m happy to embrace it; likewise a policy of the Lib Dems or the Tory party, provided there’s a likelihood of it proving a real benefit to the public.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that my definition of liberal may not correspond to yours. I’d be worried if it did. If you’re the sort of person who believes in toeing a particular party line, who never questions official policy, then you’re not likely to see eye-to-eye with anyone but your fellow-party members anyway, and this blog will probably leave you apoplectic.
But if you understand the importance of flexibility in political matters, if you have an open mind and know how to put it to good use, if you accept that people with broadly similar views may rub along quite nicely together, then I’d ask you to consider my liberal credentials and then, if you find them reasonable, to ask whether such a person as myself, in defending Israel, might have good grounds for doing so.
Here are some of the things I believe in.
1. Democracy. Not the George Bush variety, which can be imposed by force, but real, grass-roots democracy that emerges from free political institutions and is buttressed by all the elements of an open society, from freedom of speech to the rule of law. I believe all people deserve to rule themselves through democratic institutions, but that few in the world are free from tyranny. Democracy does not come easily, however, and it may take a long time for it to emerge in many parts of the globe: military force will not establish it where there is no historical experience of political freedom, little education, or religious and other traditional barriers to independence of thought and judgement. Cases like Spain and Portugal, where vibrant democracies emerged after the collapse of the absolutist regimes of Franco and Salazar, are exceptional. Countries like Afghanistan or Iraq will not move to genuine democracy just because we or the US have suppressed this faction or another. For all its faults, however, democracy is to be preferred to other systems of government, inasmuch as it has shown itself a much better matrix for the creation of human freedoms than any other. The distinction between closed and open societies made by Sir Karl Popper is quite crucial to any understanding of why this is so. It may be worth saying that Popper is the thinker who has formed my ideas more profoundly than any other.
2. Freedom of speech. Most of us don’t know how vulnerable this vital freedom can be. I have been on the front line of more than one debate about the right to free speech, and have seen at first hand the sacrifices that have to be made to achieve it. Many years ago, I was the first person to call in question the use of censorship by the institutions of an authoritarian religious group, and I have since defended Salman Rushdie and other writers and thinkers challenged by Islamic fundamentalists. It is only through complete freedom of the press and other media that a healthy democracy can breathe. But such a freedom, like others, is open to abuse, and it is as important to be able to make the media accountable as it is to let them say what they like.
3. Secularism and freedom of religion. As an atheist who emerged from stifling religious conformity, I value secularism as one of the most precious principles of a free modern society. The advantages of secularism are not limited to atheists and agnostics, however. On the contrary, when set in a democratic context, it provides an unparalleled defence for religious people against those forces that threaten them in particular. I make a point of contrasting European secularism with Islamic theocracy/semi-theocracy. In Islamic countries, there is only full religious freedom for Muslims (and even then, only within approved limits). Imagine my native Northern Ireland if one side or the other dominated (as used to happen). In secular states, believers are able to meet freely for worship, to seek converts, to publish books and pamphlets, to build houses of worship, and everything else they may wish to within the law. Secular states are liberal, religious or religiously-dominated states are not. Secularism promotes tolerance, allows even bizarre forms of belief room in which to breathe, discourages fanaticism, and provides laws that are equally applicable to members of all faiths and none without discrimination.
4. An end to racism. I was brought up in a society in which religious intolerance excluded all other forms of communitarian hatred. I have never understood racism, and believe everything that can be done should be done to eliminate it. To that end, I favour integration over multiculturalism. I know that seems to contradict the leftist/liberal consensus, but my preference is dictated by the fact that multiculturalism often serves as a code for disguised racism. Some far-right parties like the BNP have embraced multiculturalism wholeheartedly, for they see it as a clever way of keeping whites and non-whites separate, effectively in ghettoes. My take on this is broader than it may seem. I love the richness of mankind’s different cultures. Without it, my own life would be considerably impoverished. I know two Islamic languages, I love Persian poetry, Qawwali music, Moorish architecture, and much else; I also love France and Italy, read Portuguese, and could not bear life without fado, the extraordinary music of Lisbon. But I believe all of this would be nothing more than haphazard tourism if I didn’t feel fully integrated into the society to which I belong. In the background lie my affection for my native Irish culture and the love of English literature I developed, first as a student, then as a writer. Proud as I am to be Irish, I am equally proud of the British heritage that has been made so generously my own. I want my fellow citizens to belong to this society and this culture as much as I do, I want us all to speak the same language with different accents, I want us all to be proud of our cultural backgrounds; but I do not want us to be cut off from one another by our languages, our religions, or our cultures. When I lived in Iran, I spoke only Persian, ate only Iranian food, and wore Iranian clothes: I gained from that, above all in the friendships I was able to make. But I never gave up being British and Irish and never pretended to be what I was not. That’s what integration is about, and that’s why I support it.
5. Gay rights. Watching so many Christians and Muslims wriggling about on the hook they have made for themselves in this area, a hook forged by an atavistic inability to feel love or compassion for their fellow men and women, I believe the rights of homosexuals have become a crucial test of our commitment to genuine liberal and modern values. It is precisely because I do not know what it is to be gay that alerts me to the danger of prejudice, in the same way that I do not know exactly what it is to be black or Jewish or Indian or Muslim. Just looking at photographs of young Iranians being hanged for being gay, or reading accounts of the beatings and killings meted out to gay men and women in the Arab world make me intensely aware of how tolerance of human differences is hard to find and nurture.
6. Women’s rights. My chief concern here is for the rights of women in Islam, who now remain the world’s least emancipated female community. I try to remain abreast of developments in this area, including matters such as honour killings, female genital mutilation, mut’a and misyar marriages, and the treatment of maids in the Arabian peninsula, the Gulf states, Jordan, and elsewhere. The treatment of women is a matter for liberal concern, yet it receives relatively little attention from our home-grown liberals, perhaps because it is seen as politically incorrect to say anything negative about Islam. This reaches its apogee in the attitude of some radical feminists who argue that we have no right to demand an end to practices like veiling and genital mutilation because they are part of someone else’s culture. The rights of women, like all other rights, are universal in intent and must be made so in practice. To sanctify oppression, pain, and exclusion on the grounds of culture seems to me one of the least attractive positions of a large part of the liberal left. I’ll have more to say about this later.
7. Capital punishment. I’ve never attended an execution, but I’ve seen enough photographs of before, during, and after to last me a lifetime and to instil in me an unwavering antipathy towards all such punishments. As a European, I’ve been brought up in an environment that recoils against the idea of state-sanctioned murder, despite the howls of our tabloid press to bring hanging back. While I remain uncomprehending about the United States and the US fascination with capital punishment, most of my concerns in this area are with public executions in the Islamic world, particularly Iran and Saudi Arabia. Here again, there is very little public protest from European and American liberals.

This is probably as much as I need say at the moment. More of my political and philosophical views will be made clear as this blog continues. But let me emphasize again: I hold my opinions independently, not as a paid-up member of a political party, church, religion, or other grouping. My views are open to challenge and reconsideration, but only on the basis of hard evidence and intelligent argument. If you find yourself in broad agreement with most of the things I’ve said, then — however much you may currently find yourself opposed to Israel and Zionism — I ask you only to read further, to take on trust the possibility that, if we see eye to eye on so many other things, perhaps some of what I say about Israel and the Arabs may turn out to be reliable.
I’m not writing this blog to win accolades from my fellow liberals. I expect quite the opposite. But I believe passionately that Israel has been given a hugely unfair press, that what passes for debate in this area is little more than spin and propaganda, and that genuine liberals, if they can only break away from the stereotypes they’ve been presented with so far, may find much in Israel to admire. Far from being the monster it is painted as, intent on the killing of Palestinians, on the theft of Palestinian land, perhaps even on the final expulsion of all Palestinians, Israel may show itself as the remarkable country I believe it to be, a country more sinned against than sinning, a place of tolerance, enlightenment, and progress.
If my arguments are correct, and if they are given a fair hearing, Israel will emerge from this blog as a country to admire: a lively democracy with checks and balances like those of any Western country; a people as mixed racially, religiously, and culturally as those of any western European state or the US; a highly educated, technologically advanced, scientifically questing nation; a land rich in religious and national meaning for a people who had been without a home for two thousand years; a nation ruled, not by tribe or clan or terrorist faction, but by the rule of law; a country, like ours, with problems, from discrimination to poverty to religious extremism; and a country, unlike ours, whose people have known, from the first moment of their existence as a nation, the constant battering of armies, the relentless onslaught of terrorist gangs, and the unending baying of blind and biased international opinion. For a liberal, there much to like about Israel. It just sometimes needs a bit of work to find it amidst all the prejudice, double standards, and rank hypocrisy.