Ray Cook - As I See It

Israel, Zionism and the Media

Tag: Israel (Page 18 of 34)

Look who doesn’t want two states for two peoples

21/09/2010 / / 2 Comments

The Israel bashers ubiquitously in the media and around the world keep telling us it is all Israel’s fault, they don’t want peace, the Palestinian Authority recognised Israel years ago, Israel this and Israel that.

But one of the PA’s leading lights, Prime Minister (no less) Salam (means peace) Fayyad has stormed out of meeting with Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon because Mr Peace Fayyad refused to sign up to a summary of the meeting which recognises the need for two states for two peoples.
This was reported in yNet News here.
“I wanted that at the very least it will note two states for two peoples. I demanded to know what they meant. One Palestinian state and one bi-national state, or another Palestinian state?,” he told Ynet.
“I made it clear that we were out of the picture if the summary didn’t say two states for two peoples.
So what did Ayalon do wrong? Didn’t he just want to confirm what everyone, apart from Hamas and Hizbullah and Ahmadinejad are supposed to want? Isn’t that the basis for a settlement?
How are the Israel-haters going to spin this one?
In other words there is absolutely no shift in the Palestinians position since they decided they were a nation separate from Jordanians.
And then Mr Peace Fayyad has the ‘chutzpah’ to ask that Israel:
…further ease Palestinian movement in the West Bank, to which Ayalon replied: “We shall not gamble away Israel’s security and future. Everything depends on the security situation and a political solution based on consent.”
Too bloody right.
How can you negotiate with this? It’s a total farce and we all know who will be blamed, don’t we.
Israel will be blamed for not committing national suicide.

As the next Gaza convoy sets out…

21/09/2010 / / 1 Comment

If those who organise humanitarian aid to Gaza via flotillas and other blockade-breaking adventures really are about the plight of the Palestinians, I have some news for them about Arabs and even other Palestinians persecuting their own.

True humanitarians would not ignore the behaviour of Lebanon, Jordan and Libya whilst highlighting the actions of Israel.

(H/T to Elder of Ziyon for all these stories)

The first story is about Libya.

Libya has implemented a program of taxing all of its Palestinian Arab residents.
According to Al Jazeera (Arabic), Palestinian Arabs in Libya are now forced to pay an annual fee of up to $1550, and they have to endure a host of new humiliations as well.

PalArabs have been banned from working in various jobs, including education. Relatives cannot visit them. Those who own cars are being taxed for more money than their monthly salaries. Travel documents are expiring and not being renewed, yet the Arab League does not allow Palestinian Arabs from obtaining passports from the countries they have lived in all their lives.

Residents note bitterly that all this is happening while Libya made a big show of sending a ship of aid to Gaza.
All of this is in contradiction with Libyan Law #10 of 1998 which was supposed to grant somewhat equal rights to Palestinian Arabs in that country.

This is from a country which egregiously sits on the UN Human Rights Council.

Next in the hall of infamy is Lebanon:

According to the Elder there are “well over 100,000 Gazans in Jordan with limited rights –  and no easy way to get out”.

Yes, Gazans. Gazans in a Jordanian open-air prison, Mr Cameron.

The Elder then quotes an Arab researcher called Oroub El Abed who has been documenting the plight of Palestinians:

Gazans in Jordan are doubly displaced refugees. Forced to move to Gaza as a result of the 1948 war, they fled once more when Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967. Guesstimates of the number of Gazans in Jordan range between 118,000 and 150,000. A small number have entered the Jordanian citizenship scheme via naturalisation or have had the financial resources to acquire citizenship.

On arrival in Jordan, the ex-residents of Gaza were granted temporary Jordanian passports valid for two years but were not granted citizenship rights. The so-called ‘passport’ serves two purposes: it indicates to the Jordanian authorities that the Gazans and their dependents are temporary residents in Jordan and provides them with an international travel document (‘laissez-passer’) potentially enabling access to countries other than Jordan.

The ‘passport’ – which is expensive – has value as an international travel document only if receiving states permit the entry of temporary passport holders. Few countries admit them, because they have no official proof of citizenship. Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and some Gulf States are among those who refuse to honour the document. Any delay in renewing the temporary passport or in applying for one puts an individual at risk of becoming undocumented.

Since 1986 it has been harder for Gazans to compete for places in Jordanian universities as they must secure places within the 5% quota reserved for Arab foreigners. Entry to professions is blocked as Gazans are not allowed to register with professional societies/unions or to establish their own offices, firms or clinics. Only those with security clearance can gain private sector employment. Those who work in the informal sector are vulnerable to being exploited. Many Gazans are keen to leave Jordan to seek employment elsewhere but are constrained from doing so. Some have attempted to leave clandestinely.

Rami was brought up in Jordan, studied law and worked for over two years for a law firm in the West Bank city of Hebron. Lacking a West Bank Israeli-issued ID, he was forced to return to Jordan every three months to renew his visitor’s visa. Due to the high cost of living he returned to Jordan in 1999 only to find himself stripped of his Jordanian temporary passport. Now without any form of identity, he notes that “being Gazan in Jordan is like being guilty.”

In Jordan, as in most other Middle-Eastern countries, women cannot pass on their citizenship to their children. Neither is citizenship granted to a child born on the territory of a state from a foreign father. Married women are forced to depend on their fathers or husbands to process documents related to their children. Because of this patriarchal conception of citizenship, children of Jordanian women married to Gazans are at risk of being left without a legal existence.

Heba, a Jordanian national, married Ahmad, a Gazan with an Egyptian travel document. A year after their marriage, Ahmad was arrested for being in Jordan without a residence permit. Deported from Jordan, he was refused re-entry to Egypt and ended up in Sudan. Heba had a child but has been unable to register the birth due to the absence of her husband. She cannot afford to go to Sudan to be with him.

(emphasis by the Elder)

But there is more on Lebanon:

Hot on the heels of the slight easing of restrictions on professions that Arabs of Palestinian descent in Lebanon can practice, the Lebanese Forces (which are mostly Christian) are trying to ensure that PalArabs cannot live in Lebanese-owned homes:

The Lebanese Forces urged the government on Saturday to find a solution to Palestinian occupants of homes owned by Lebanese in villages east of the southern port city of Sidon.

While hailing parliament’s decision to grant Palestinians working rights, an LF statement said “the Lebanese government is urged to find a quick solution to the issue which has become an unacceptable burden.”

It said homes in Miyeh Miyeh, Darb al-Sim and other areas are occupied by Palestinians.

The government should adopt an effective solution to find alternative housing to them, the LF said.

The bigotry in Lebanon against Palestinian Arabs is so entrenched that it is not newsworthy. This isn’t about the PalArabs owning land – this is saying that they cannot even live outside camps, even if they are (apparently) paying for it!

The Elder also directs us to an article in PajamasMedia which he calls Palestinian Arab “apartheid” against – Palestinian Arabs.

Depending upon whose estimate you read, there are some twenty or thirty thousand “refugees” in the Balata refugee camp outside of Nablus. Balata is simultaneously the most populous and smallest of the Palestinian refugee camps — its growing population is confined to one square kilometer, making it one of the most densely populated and miserable places on the planet.

Any regime with an ounce of compassion would have shut Balata down and integrated its people into the surrounding community. Balata is a place without hope, a quagmire of despair, where the day-to-day misery of its inhabitants is partially ameliorated by Western charities and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA), while inadvertently building a culture of dependence.

Balata’s creation could ostensibly be laid at Israel’s doorstep, but its perpetuation cannot. The current residents of Balata are only refugees by a crude reworking of the meaning of the term. They themselves have fled from nothing, and sought refuge from nothing. They are the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the people who fled or were expelled during the 1948 war.

If you want to use the term “apartheid” to characterize some aspect of Middle East politics, then Balata is a good place to apply it. It is the Palestinian Authority’s answer to Soweto.

The PA does not permit the children of Balata to go to local schools. It does not permit the people of Balata to build outside the one square kilometer. The people of Balata are prevented from voting in local elections, and the PA provides none of the funds for the necessary infrastructure of the camp — including sewers and roads.

Balata and the other refugee camps are showcases of contrived misery. They are Potemkin villages in reverse. Naïve peace activists and unsophisticated Western clergy are led through such camps to witness the refugee drama, with Israel conveniently and prominently cast in the role of villain.

(Elder’s emphasis)

Yet we always hear the media and Palestinian huggers everywhere banging on about Israeli apartheid.

 

And let’s not forget the Egyptians who, of course, are the forgotten jailers of the Gazans, after all, if you are complaining about freedom of movement of Gazans, then why don’t the Egyptians open the Rafah crossing for them?

Oroub El Abed writes that ‘Some 50,000 Palestinian refugees live in Egypt without UN assistance or protection and burdened by many restrictive laws and regulations. Little is known about their plight and their unique status’.

El Abed believes in the mythical Right of Return but she pulls no punches about how Palestinians are treated by fellow Arabs.

The continuing plight of the Palestinians is not all down to history or the Israelis; the Arabs and the Palestinians themselves bear huge responsibility for perpetuating refugee-hood as a weapon against Israeli in total disregard of the lives and livelihood of millions of Palestinians.

And when the UN agency set up specifically and uniquely to deal with Palestinian ‘refugees’ tries to improve their lives in Gaza, they have to face Hamas’ interpretation of Islam which condemns the very people that are there to help them. The Elder lists complaints in the Palestine Times, a Hamas-run newspaper:

– The creation of a UNRWA Women’s Committee meant to foster equal rights between men and women is really meant to end chastity and purity.

– UNRWA sometimes sponsors trips for students where they are in danger of meeting Jews and Zionists.

– UNRWA schools were rumored to have taught about the Holocaust which teaches students to sympathize with Jews

– Some schools have more females than males, causing them to have more female teachers than male teachers

– UNRWA salaries are too high

– UNRWA’s services have decreased as their budget gets stretched.

And it is into the arms of these people that the flotillas and convoys are running. They don’t even seem to have their story right. Are they going to bring humanitarian aid (which they can take to an Israeli port without confrontation) or are they just intent on confrontation and provocation?

Their real motivation is to destroy Israel first, help Gazans a poor second. Indeed, each flotilla and convoy is an exercise in hypocrisy and exploitation of the very people they claim to want to help.

Battle of Britain – what does it mean to today’s generation

21/09/2010 / / 0 Comments

This may be off my usual topic, but there is a connection; bear with me.

Yesterday I watched a wonderful and deeply moving programme in the BBC’s Battle of Britain commemoration series.

We were told the story of that battle, in September 1940, by following two brothers, the actor Ewan McGregor and his older brother, Colin, who is an RAF pilot and has served in Afghanistan.

The story was as much about the boyish dreams of the McGregor brothers to, one day, fly in Spitfires and Hurricanes as it was about the battle and the story of some of the veterans of that battle.

Four Battle of Britain fighter pilots told their story and recalled incidents in conversation with the brothers.

The highlight of the programme was watching Colin McGregor train first in an old Gypsy Moth, then progress to a US Harvard which was the aircraft used to train the original pilots. Finally, Colin flew a two-seater Spit, fulfilling his life’s ambition. When he returned to the airfield he sat in the cockpit for a few moments in the realisation that he had just done something he had always dreamed about. It was a very emotional moment for him and the viewer.

But just as emotional was Colin’s decision not to take his seat in the second flight which was two Spitfires and a Hurricane in close formation following the route of the South Coast defenders of 70 years ago. He had had his moment, now it was Ewan’s turn. The sense of brotherly love was palpable and so moving as Colin told Ewan that he was giving him his seat.

Ewan, as a passenger in the two-seat Spit, then had his dream come true. Colin appeared to get as much pleasure from Ewan’s experience as Ewan himself. Their brotherly embrace as Ewan returned was very touching.

Why is it that these iconic aircraft and the story of the veterans are so moving? Why do we, rightly, venerate these pilots who, in their early twenties, risked all for their country?

I grew up in the decades just after the war. The War, with a capital ‘W’ was part of my life almost as much as if I had lived through it personally. My mother regaled us with her experiences in the East End of London and the family’s enforced evacuation to Buckinghamshire when their home was hit by incendiaries and ‘time-bombs’.

The War seemed so exciting and even amusing to me as a child.

Countless films about the war told us that we, the righteous, had won and that evil had been defeated with great sacrifice. It was glamorous, it was poignant. But in the end it was a just war.

And so these veterans are our heroes; they saved our country and our civilisation from tyranny. Even the generation after me, in the form of the McGregor brothers, still grew up with this story, and Ewan even said that had it not been for The Few we would all be goose-stepping around. Well, that’s not certain, but many more dark years and even more suffering would have resulted if Great Britain had not held out, alone.

And this, too, is why, the very sight of a Spitfire or a Hurricane, and definitely the sound of them, conjure up a time when our country was united in purpose, when the entire population was engaged in a single momentous enterprise: a fight for survival. In 1940, everyone knew what it was to be British and everyone knew that the values inherent in being British were worth fighting for.

I think it’s worthwhile revisiting Churchill’s speech as the battle was about to commence:

What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.

Does this not strike a chord with what we are experiencing today?

Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation.

Some believe our Western civilisation is under thread from Islamisation, some believe it is under threat from secularism. I don’t have to explain the reasons for the former. But for the latter we have the recent visit of Pope Benedict to reveal to us a growing movement of aggressive secularism and atheism.

Of course, we all have the right to be atheists or secularists, but the Pope was attacked by a mean-spirited bunch of secularists and militant atheists led by Peter Tatchell and supported by Stephen Fry, Richard Dawkins and others.

I have enormous admiration for these three men, but what we witnessed was a new intellectual hubris fed by self-righteous indignation and assertive secularism which focused on the negative aspects of the Roman Catholic church whilst missing the wider picture.

Although I can agree with the indignation felt by those who support Gay rights, right to abortion and condemnation of paedophiles, what I can’t agree with is the belief that these issues invalidate Christianity and all the positive aspects of religion and moral teachings and hundreds of years of philosophical thought.

It is as if the secularists want to make a tabula rasa of our civilisation and culture by kicking out the Judeo-Christian baby with the holy bath water.

And this is where I bring it back round to Israel. Just as the Church has its problematical teachings and behaviour so Israel has its own issues of human rights, religious extremism, social justice.

And just as the secularist mob attack the Pope, so the Leftist/jihadi axis attacks Israel, and both choose the vulnerable underbelly to delegitimise and demonise but miss the broader picture; they miss the charitable work, the teaching of moral behaviour, the ideas of love and redemption in Catholicism and they miss Israel’s central role as a bulwark against the dark forces of political Islam, its many achievements, the right of the Jewish people to self-determination and the ethical foundation to Jewish thought, teaching and jurisprudence.

What do today’s generation think of the Battle of Britain and the heroes of the RAF? Do they think they were war criminals for bombing Dresden, maybe?

Will Ewan McGregor’s generation be the last to be in awe in the presence of a Spitfire pilot, the last to be thrilled by the sound of a Hurricane, the last to believe that the War was a just war?

What war, if any, are we now engaged in? Is it Western civilisation pitted against Islam or is it Judeo-Christianity against secularism and atheism? Is it both?

I ask myself this question: if we reject the moral authority underpinning our Judeo-Christian civilisation, whence comes our moral compass? Where do get our ethics? How do we know how to behave?

You may say that this question has already been answered by the Enlightenment, by the Bill of Rights, by Human Rights legislation, that church and state have long been separated and we don’t need medievalists to tell us what is moral and what is not.

Yet all these things come ultimately from the Judeo-Christian belief system which are the foundations and cornerstone of our civilisation and in direct contrast to the beliefs of those who would destroy that civilisation, built piece by piece, brick by brick, stone by stone over several millennia.

We seem to be living in an era of self-righteousness and simulated moral indignation. Everyone has to apologise; politicians, theologians, bankers, sportsmen, doctors, scientists, the heads of oil companies. Put a foot wrong and the New Moral Army sticks a microphone under your nose and asks if you are going to apologise and they continue to do so until and unless you do. This is what replaces understanding and forgiveness. This is what will pass for morality in the future.

Hubristic intellectual self-righteousness is the new religion.

Who will stand up for our civilisation now? Who are the Few who will stop  “all that we have known and cared for, … sink[ing] into the abyss of a new dark age”

Did the valiant Few fight and die to preserve our civilisation for just 100 years?

Aznar in Washington – Is the tide turning?

16/09/2010 / / 3 Comments

I have previously written about the remarkable former Spanish Prime Minister, José María Aznar and his Friends of Israel initiative.

If Israel is to restore its standing internationally, defeat attempts to delegitimise the state and restore a reasoned and measured discourse about its policies and its importance to the region and the world, then it requires non-Israelis and, more importantly, non-Jews, to speak up for it.

But not just to speak up for it, but to tell the truth and dispel the myths, to enable Israel to be recognised for what it truly is and what it stands for. This implies that its enemies, their lies and their tactics and organisations that they have co-opted in the anti-Israel narrative of these times, must be exposed. Israel must be allowed the oxygen of truth not be suffocated by the poisonous exhalations of its enemies.

At a Friends of Israel conference in Washington DC on September 14th, this is what Señor Aznar had to say:

Thank you all for being here tonight in this first event in DC by the Friends of Israel Initiative.

I know that some of you have made an extra effort to be here. Between the upcoming mid-term elections and the High Holy Days, many of us should probably be somewhere else tonight. So, I really appreciate the fact that you are here with us.

Though for a Spaniard having dinner at eight is almost like a late lunch, I know that you have to start early tomorrow, so, I’ll be brief.

I also know that when a politician says “I’ll be brief” the audience should start trembling, but as a former politician I’m entitled to tell the truth, trust me.

I’m here tonight to present to you a work in progress, the Friends of Israel Initiative. An idea I have been promoting with the help of some friends, some of them are here tonight, like:
Former President of Peru, Alejandro Toledo
British historian, Andrew Roberts,
French entrepreneur, Robert Agostinelli,
Former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton,
Spanish former industry minister, Carlos Bustelo,
And others who couldn’t make it tonight, such as:
Professor George Weigel,
Peace Nobel prize Lord Trimble,
Lord Weidenfeld,
Former president of the Italian Senate, Marcello Pera,
Fiamma Nerestein, representative in the Italian parliament, and champion of human rights and democracy Former Czech President Vaclav Havel, the latest member of our growing Board.

They all answered my initial call, last May, because all shared with me the sense of urgency to do something about the growing trend of deligitimation of Israel.

Our first meeting took place in Paris the very same day Israeli troops stopped the Flotilla heading to Gaza. Very timely, as you can tell.

Our second event took place in calmer waters, in late July, in London.
And now, we are here in Washington D.C.

Why? Very simple: We believe in the West, In the values all we share . In the ties that bind free societies, and distinguish our democracies from those governments who have yet to give way to the rights of their people and the arc of history.

And, we know – better than many – that the West has been shaped, led and defended by America.
As a European, I don’t have any problem saying that America has been a force for good in the World, protecting peace, promoting liberty and human dignity, and expanding prosperity. Furthermore, America has been the best ally of Israel, and it should remain so. And America’s role as the Leader of the Free World, as the the spark of hope for a better life for countless souls the world over should be a source of pride for all Americans.

It certainly serves as an inspiration to us.

Many of us came from Europe. Most of us are not Jewish. And I am sure that many of you may be wondering what it is that we seek, and why we believe it so vital to stand up and be counted on this issue.
Hence, our interest to explain here what we want and why.

We defend Israel because we believe that is the best strategy in current times to defend the West.
When we started putting this Initiative in motion, the whole World was condemning Israel for reasons I don’t need to elaborate since you know them better than I do.

Now, the atmosphere has changed a little since direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians have resumed and the peace process is moving ahead. Despite all the difficulties the negotiations may experience, I think we all should recognize the value, the prospects, and the hopes they represent. I am sure that Israel wants peace, and I know that all true friends of Israel want to see her achive that dream of peace and security.

But as we made clear in our first statement (which should have been on your chair tonight, by the way), there are problems in the region greater than just an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. Problems that will not go away even if a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is eventually reached.

While Israel has made peace with Egypt and Jordan, and her economy has strengthened in recent years, now not decades ago, Israel, is facing increasing dangers. She has been forced to defend her people from Hezbollah in the North and thousands of Hamas rockets in the South. And. perhaps most worryingly, Israel is increasingly threatened by the scenario of a nuclear Iran – something the world must certainly act urgently to prevent.

On top of that, Israel is under a new kind of attack. Not conventional war as in 1948, 56, 67 or 73. Not terrorism as we saw in the 70s, 80s and 90s. But a new kind of attack – an attack on Israel’s legitimacy, on her right to exist. A “soft-war”, where many of its adversaries are employing legal tricks, multinational bodies, and an army of dubious NGO’s to present internationally Israel as an illegitimate state, as a barbarian State, a State that should be isolated and converted into a pariah State.
We think this is intolerable. It is unjust, morally wrong, and a strategic risk — not only for Israel and its people — but for all of us.

Israel is an integral part of the West, and the weaker it is, the weaker the entire West will be perceived to be.

Even if we want to turn away from the traumas of 9/11, we simply do not have the luxury to choose our enemies. As Senators Baker, Dole, Daschle and Mitchell made clear in their latest report, published 5 days ago. by the Bipartisan Policy Center, the threat to our way of life from radical islamists is real, and it has not yet been eliminated.

Let me be clear. We don’t want in any case to defend any particular Israeli government or any particular set of policies or any particular party. Israeli institutions are mature enough to defend their choices. We want to stand up for the right of Israel to exist. Judeo-Christian values form the roots of our civilization. Delegitimizing Israel undermines our identity, warps our values and put at risk what we are and who we are.

So, dear friends, it is not only the threat that if Israel goes down, which, make no mistake, many of its enemies would like to see happen, we all go down. It is that letting Israel be demonized will lead to the deligitimation of our own cherished values. If Israel were to disappear by the force of its enemies, I sincerely doubt the West could remain as we know it.

So, I conclude: Is it craziness for a group, as I said before, of mostly Europeans and non-Jews, to say: Enough. Stop this non-sense of making Israel responsible for all the problems in the region, if not beyond? Enough of the short sightedness which refuses to see Israel as a corner stone of our Western civilization?

We do believe that far from it, it is vital. For America, for the West, for Israel. And for our children and grandchildren and the world they will inherit. Because there is still right and wrong in this complicated world. And if we allow those fundamentals to be blurred and eroded and confused, we will all be dangerously adrift.

Defending Israel today means strengthening the West, standing up for our values, and their right to exist as a normal country, a fellow democracy and a celebrated ally in our great western alliance.
I hope that you will share our vision, and will help us in bringing reason and decency back to the discussion concerning Israel.

Thank you very much

With friends like this, maybe, just maybe, enough people of good will and integrity can be brought together to fight with and on behalf of Israel, not on the battlefield but in the hearts and minds of decent people everywhere.

A New Year of hope or disappointment?

07/09/2010 / / 2 Comments

As we approach the Jewish New Year, a time of reflection and renewal, once again we look forward to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

So, in the spirit of the New Year, let us hope beyond hope that the first faltering steps to a real peace can be made.

But what sort of peace can there be whilst Hamas, Hizbullah, Iran and ‘anti-Israelis’ all over the world seek her destruction.

Israel has shown its desire for peace over and over again. They gave back the Sinai to make peace with Egypt. They made peace with Jordan. They withdrew all settlements from Gaza.

What have they received in return? Intifada and rockets and bombs and threats, delegitimisation and boycotts.

As  José María Aznar said to the World Jewish Congress in Jerusalem recently:

Though I’m not sure about the possibility to achieve a “historic agreement” given the circumstances on the Palestinian side, we must be optimistic. At least the world will see that it is not the Israeli government that is the one that is not willing to talk and is not ready to deliver.

And what are the “circumstances on the Palestinian side”? They are still the refusal to recognise Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, they are its continuing demonisation of, not just Israel, but Jews; they are insistence and a ‘Right of Return’ which neither exists or is practicable; the demand for a return to the 1949 armistice lines and the division of Jerusalem.

In other words, whilst Palestinians still dream of the end of the Jewish state, if not now or next year, at some point in the future, Israelis are willing to make painful concessions to achieve a lasting peace. Or at least to achieve two states recognising the rights of others to self-determination.

It is difficult to see any such agreement when Hamas see any deal with Israel as treason, whilst Hizbullah and Iran still call for Israel’s destruction and Fatah itself remains ambiguous despite its protestations.

We can only hope or pray or work for peace and truth and justice for everyone in the region. An Israel at peace could give so much to the region if only they were willing to accept it. If Israel’s enemies would embrace peace and not war, life not death, the world could be transformed.

In the words of Binyamin Netanyahu “Shalom, salaam, peace”.

Shana tova.

The practical absurdity of a Palestinian Right of Return

02/09/2010 / / 1 Comment

In the current round of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority one of the sticking points will certainly be the Palestinian claim to a Right of Return for Palestinian refugees.

The Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister argued today in the Jerusalem Post that no such Right existed:

The so-called Palestinian ‘right of return’ is legal fiction. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, the supposed source for this ‘right’ does not mention this term, is not legally binding and, like all other relevant United Nations resolutions uses the intentionally ambiguous term ‘refugees’ with no appellation.

This is also taken up on the Zionism and Israel Information Center website:

Palestinian advocates claim that the refugees of 1948 have a right guaranteed in international law to return to Israel. In fact, there is no such law. The Fourth Geneva Convention, often cited in this context, does not stipulate a right of return for refugees. UN Resolution 194, also cited as the basis for this “right” is a resolution of the UN General Assembly. Such resolutions are not binding in international law. No nation has the obligation to admit enemy belligerents. Moreover, Resolution 194 does not insist on a Right of Return. It says that “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so.”

The refugees were not Israeli citizens. They did not want Israeli citizenship. Beyond the dry provisions of the law, in this case admission of several million refugees would soon create an Arab majority in Israel. The people who advocate “Right of Return” also favor abolishing the Israeli Law of Return that permits Jews to immigrate to Israel freely. Israel would cease to be the national home of the Jews, and the Jewish people would lose the right to self-determination. Clearly “Right of Return” cannot be implemented in any case if it contradicts a different fundamental right that is anchored in international law.

Here we are already beginning to explore the practical absurdity of any such Right.

As indicated above, allowing ‘refugees’ to return, assuming that were practical or even practicable would effectively destroy the Jewish nature of the State of Israel, and Israel would cease to be a guarantor of the safety of Jews worldwide, which was one of the major factors in its establishment. And I am not referring here to the Holocaust; any student of Jewish history can list a very long litany of Jewish persecution for the last 2000 years, and they could also reference the current growing antisemitism in Europe and around the world. The need for a state of the Jewish people is as urgent now as at any time in history.

But let’s assume there is a Right of Return for Palestinian refugees. Let’s assume that they can now return to the homes or villages across Israel where they or their forefathers once lived 62 years ago.

1. How would any individual Palestinian prove his/her claim to his/her ancestor’s residency in any particlualr home or village?

2. What would happen to the current residents of those properties? They may not all be Jews, of course.

3. We are assuming that the ‘refugees’ want to become Israelis? Why would they? Why would they want to become citizens of a country that their leaders, media and education system has taught to loathe and despise? Has anyone asked? If not,  what is the basis for the Palestinian Authority’s insistence that this is a non-negotiable agenda item?

4. How would Israel accommodate several million new citizens?

5. As Israel has never been compensated for the 900,000 Jewish refugees who were forced out of, or fled, Arab lands after 1948, why should Israel now have to foot the bill for several million people who need homes, schools, hospitals, sanitation, water, food?

5. How can Israel be expected to accept within its borders millions of people with an historic grudge against the state who have demonstrated for several decades that they are willing to shoot, bomb, attack and sabotage Israelis and Israeli infrastructure with the ultimate aim of destroying the very state they are now asking to become citizens of?

Is it not patently obvious that the Palestinian so-called Right of Return is nothing but the expression of an on-going desire to destroy Israel and remove the Zionist entity?

As Danny Ayalon puts it in the article cited above:

Before 1948 there were nearly 900,000 Jews in Arab lands while only a few thousand remain. Where is the international outrage, the conferences, the proclamations for redress and compensation? While the Palestinian refugee issue has become a political weapon to beat Israel, the Arab League has ordered its member states not to provide their Palestinian population with citizenship; Israel absorbed all of its refugees, whether fleeing the Holocaust or persecution and expulsion from Arab lands.

Can Mahmoud Abbas really be a genuine believer in a two-state solution when one of the most cherished and immoveable pillars of the Palestinian Authority, Fatah and the PLO is the Right of Return?

How can a peace settlement be based on the negation and denial of the rights of one side?

A limited return based on humanitarian grounds such as the reunification of families might be a possibility.

Beyond that, the Right is and always has been an instrument of delegitimisation and an excuse for scuppering peace.

I would not be at all surprised if it were again.

Back to Ayalon:

EVEN THOUGH the number of Jewish refugees [from Arab lands] and their assets are larger than that of the Palestinians, the international community only appears to be aware of the latter’s plight.

There are numerous major international organizations devoted to the Palestinian refugees. There is an annual conference held at the United Nations and a refugee agency was created just for the Palestinian refugees. While all the world’s refugees have one agency, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Palestinians fall under the auspices of another agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

UNWRA’s budget for 2010 is almost half of UNHCR’s budget.

Equally impressive is the fact that UNHCR prides itself on having found “durable solutions” for “tens of millions” of refugees since 1951, the year of its establishment. However, UNRWA does not even claim to have found “durable solutions” for anyone.

What is also impressive is the Palestinians’ and their supporters’ success in completely obliterating the story of the fate of Jews from Arab lands whilst perpetuating their own refugees for more than six decades.

What constantly surprises me is why the practical absurdity of the Palestinian Right of Return has rarely, if ever, been examined and no comprehensive survey of Palestinian ‘refugees’ intentions has ever taken place.

In praise of Israel – Qatar Tribune

30/08/2010 / / 0 Comments

How did this one slip through? Although it has been noted that it does not appear in the Arabic version, this article by David Brooks, first published in the New York Times, appeared recently in the Qatar Tribune’s English language website:

The Israeli Identity

Tel Aviv’s economic leap will widen the gap between it and its neighbours

DAVID BROOKS | NYT NEWS SERVICE

JEWS are a famously accomplished group.

They make up 0.2 percent of the world population, but 54 percent of the world chess champions, 27 percent of the

Nobel physics laureates and 31 percent of the medicine laureates.

Jews make up 2 percent of the US population, but 21 percent of the Ivy League student bodies, 26 percent of the Kennedy

Center honorees, 37 percent of the Academy Award-winning directors, 38 percent of those on a recent Business Week list of leading philanthropists, 51 percent of the Pulitzer Prize winners for nonfiction.

In his book, The Golden Age of Jewish Achievement, Steven L Pease lists some of the explanations people have given for this record of achievement.

The Jewish faith encourages a belief in progress and personal accountability.

It is learning-based, not rite-based.

Most Jews gave up or were forced to give up farming in the Middle Ages; their descendents have been living off of their wits ever since.

They have often migrated, with a migrant’s ambition and drive.

They have congregated around global crossroads and have benefited from the creative tension endemic in such places.

No single explanation can account for the record of Jewish achievement.

The odd thing is that Israel has not traditionally been strongest where the Jews in the Diaspora were strongest.

Instead of research and commerce, Israelis were forced to devote their energies to fighting and politics.

Milton Friedman used to joke that Israel disproved every Jewish stereotype.

People used to think Jews were good cooks, good economic managers and bad soldiers; Israel proved them wrong.

But that has changed.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s economic reforms, the arrival of a million Russian immigrants and the stagnation of the peace process have produced a historic shift.

The most resourceful Israelis are going into technology and commerce, not politics.

This has had a desultory effect on the nation’s public life, but an invigorating one on its economy.

Tel Aviv has become one of the world’s foremost entrepreneurial hot spots.

Israel has more high-tech start-ups per capita than any other nation on earth, by far.

It leads the world in civilian research-and development spending per capita.

It ranks second behind the US in the number of companies listed on the Nasdaq.

Israel, with seven million people, attracts as much venture capital as France and Germany combined.

As Dan Senor and Saul Singer write in Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, Israel now has a classic innovation cluster, a place where tech obsessives work in close proximity and feed off each other’s ideas.

Because of the strength of the economy, Israel has weathered the global recession reasonably well.

The government did not have to bail out its banks or set off an explosion in short-term spending.

Instead, it used the crisis to solidify the economy’s long-term future by investing in research and development and infrastructure, raising some consumption taxes, promising to cut other taxes in the medium to long term.

Analysts at Barclays write that Israel is “the strongest recovery story” in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Israel’s technological success is the fruition of the Zionist dream.

The country was not founded so stray settlers could sit among thousands of angry Palestinians in Hebron.

It was founded so Jews would have a safe place to come together and create things for the world.

This shift in the Israeli identity has long-term implications.

Netanyahu preaches the optimistic view: that Israel will become the Hong Kong of the Middle East, with economic benefits spilling over into the Arab world.

And, in fact, there are strands of evidence to support that view in places like the West Bank and Jordan.

But it’s more likely that Israel’s economic leap forward will widen the gap between it and its neighbours.

All the countries in the region talk about encouraging innovation.

Some oil-rich states spend billions trying to build science centres.

But places like Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv are created by a confluence of cultural forces, not money.

The surrounding nations do not have the tradition of free intellectual exchange and technical creativity.

For example, between 1980 and 2000, Egyptians registered 77 patents in the US Saudis registered 171.

Israelis registered 7,652.

The tech boom also creates a new vulnerability.

As Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic has argued, these innovators are the most mobile people on earth.

To destroy Israel’s economy, Iran doesn’t actually have to lob a nuclear weapon into the country.

It just has to foment enough instability so the entrepreneurs decide they had better move to Palo Alto, where many of them already have contacts and homes.

American Jews used to keep a foothold in Israel in case things got bad here.

Now Israelis keep a foothold in the US.

During a decade of grim foreboding, Israel has become an astonishing success story, but also a highly mobile one.

One little quibble: Jewish achievement and Israeli achievement appear to morph into a single identity. Not all Israelis are Jews and not all Jews are Israelis. And why ‘Tel Aviv’s economic leap’? Surely ‘Israel’s’.

Maybe the Qatari English language editor is a covert philosemite.

Let the comments on how terrible Israel is and how it couldn’t do it without American tax dollars start rolling in.

Move along the bus – Israeli style

08/08/2010 / / 2 Comments

Here’s a little story I was told this shabbat which in a small but significant says a lot about the morality of Israelis.

This person was on a bus where passengers were entering through the front and back doors. The people at the back could not reach the driver to pay their fare as it was so crowded. As a result, those at the back passed their fare money down the bus, hand to hand until it reached the driver. The driver then passed back the tickets and the change along the same route.

A lone, very English voice could be heard to say, “You would never see this in England. Only in Israel”.

This scrupulous morality and honesty, although, of course not universal in Israel is, nevertheless, the norm. It comes from a shared national project, Jewish ethics, and a sense that everyone in this small nation is part of the Israeli family. And when you come as a tourist, then you too are, for a few days or weeks, part of that family.

The bus example, for me, shows the real face of the majority of Israelis; honest, generous, welcoming, and at their best where a community spirit and teamwork is required.

Without this spirit there would be no Israel.

Israel will co-operate with UN Flotilla Enquiry

02/08/2010 / / 5 Comments

At last!! The Israeli government has seen sense and decided to show that it has nothing to fear from a UN enquiry which appears to be unbiased – for a change.

Israel Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, released the following today:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today (Monday), 2.8.10, informed UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon that Israel would participate in the panel that he is establishing in the wake of the 31.5.10 events regarding the flotilla.

The announcement to the UN Secy.-Gen. was delivered following consultations with the seven-member ministerial forum earlier this morning and in the wake of diplomatic contacts that have been held in recent weeks in order to ensure that this was indeed a panel with a balanced and fair written mandate.

The panel will receive reports on the Israeli investigation by the Independent Public Commission to Examine the Maritime Incident of 31.5.10 chaired by retired Supreme Court Justice Jacob Turkel.

Prime Minister Netanyahu said today, after speaking with the UN Secy.-Gen., that, “Israel has nothing to hide. The opposite is true. It is in the national interest of the State of Israel to ensure that the factual truth of the overall flotilla events comes to light throughout the world and this is exactly the principle that we are advancing.”

Having initially refused to co-operate, Israel set up its own internal enquiry which concentrated on exposing a group of Turkish activists with links to the IHH who led a flotilla intent on breaking the Israeli maritime blockade of Gaza.

This ‘humanitarian’ organisation has been shown to have links with terrorist groups, even Al Qaeda. 8 of 9 activists killed had links with dubious IHH activities and most had left evidence that they were determined to reach Gaza or become martyrs. Such an attitude itself reveals a hatred for Israel that is so great that they were prepared to die, and kill, for it.

Despite much documentary evidence taken by the Israelis and by many people on board the Mavi Marmara, the lead ship of the flotilla, there has not yet been a clear and detailed account of how and under what circumstances the 9 men were killed. All we know from the Israeli account and video evidence is that the commandos who landed on the Mavi Marmara were met with lethal force and a mob of about 50 men attacked a much smaller number of commandos whose main ‘weapon’ was a paint gun.

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a web page dedicated to the events of 21 May 2010 here.

The terms of the Israeli commission are detailed here.

The main objectives were as follows:

1) Consideration of the security circumstances for imposing a naval blockade on the Gaza Strip and the conformity of the naval blockade with the rules of international law;
2) Conformity of the actions taken by Israel to enforce the naval blockade on 31 May 2010 to the principles of international law;
3) Consideration of the actions taken by those who organized – and participated in – the flotilla, and their identities.
The Commission will also consider the question of whether the inquiry and investigation mechanisms vis-à-vis complaints and claims regarding violations of the laws of armed conflict, as followed by Israel in general and as implemented with regard to the event in question, conform with the State of Israel’s obligations under the rules of international law.
Following the international outcry against Israel and its virtual pariah status, it’s about time Israel engaged at an international level to show that, indeed, it has nothing to hide.
Whether the UN panel will give Israel its first fair hearing at the UN for some considerable time remains to be seen.
Perhaps the UN might also want to consider Turkey’s role in aiding and abetting an organisation, the IHH, which may well be proscribed in the United States and which members of the Italian parliament are seeking to have proscribed in Europe.

Yes, it’s about time that Israel fought more pugnaciously to restore its reputation in the UN and find a platform to expose the hypocrisy of its enemies and critics.

Israel has already admitted operational errors. That doesn’t excuse those who would commit murder because they oppose an ideology. The would-be murderers were those killed who were intent on killing Jews/Zionists/Israelis – it was all the same to them.

Let’s see what the UN comes up with this time.

Update: Anne Bayevsky clearly does not agree with me and her opinion is too valuable to be ignored, so, for balance, here is a link. http://opinion.foxnews.mobi/quickPage.html?page=23976&external=394248.proteus.fma&pageNum=-1

Cameron: A turkey on Turkey, ga-ga on Gaza

27/07/2010 / / 9 Comments

British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has completely lost it. He is campaigning for Turkey’s entry into the European Union and thus for placing a growing Islamist country, that has strong ties with the enemies of the West, at the heart of Europe.

All this might have been acceptable in the past when Turkey was recognised as a secular Muslim country sitting between the West and the Islamic world, a democracy with a mixed Western and Eastern culture and an honest broker between the West and Islam.

But Cameron seems to have overlooked completely Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist program.

At the same time that he shows little understanding of the threat posed to Europe by the regime of Erdogan, he attacks in an unwarranted, ill-informed and just plain ignorant way the EU’s only real friend in the Middle East, and its only democracy, Israel, by declaring Gaza to be a ‘Prison Camp’.

His speech in Turkey mirrored President Obama’s in Cairo with its cringing agenda of appeasement instead of confronting Turkey with the manifold reasons as to not only why it should currently be shunned by the EU but also suspended from NATO, as I wrote earlier this year after the Turkish flotilla incident.

As the BBC reports:

Mr Cameron said he wanted to “pave the road” for Turkey to join the EU.

Maybe this road should be called the Islamic fundamentalist highway.

“When I think about what Turkey has done to defend Europe as a Nato ally, and what Turkey is doing today in Afghanistan, alongside our European allies, it makes me angry that your progress towards EU membership can be frustrated in the way it has been.

Yes, the old Turkey, the secular Muslim state with democratic values, not THIS Turkey.

“So we need Turkey’s help now in making it clear to Iran just how serious we are about engaging fully with the international community,”

Cameron recognises that Erdogan has the ear of Iran’s president Ahmadinejad, but for what purpose?

What has happened to the secular, democratic, Muslim state created by Kemal Attaturk and so lauded for decades as a blueprint of what a modern Islamic nation should look like, (despite many issues of human rights)?

A telling analysis by Andre Mozes reveals:

Before entering Turkish national politics, Erdogan served as Istanbul’s mayor. In this colorful city… one learns to speak the languages of all; of moderate Muslims, of cosmopolitan and of Islamist Turks alike.  Erdogan learned them well, but in his deeds he always belonged to the third group.  In earlier Turkish elections fundamentalist Islamic parties were banned, according to the secular laws and tradition of Turkey, preserved successfully since Ataturk turned Turkey from a backward Muslim monarchy, into a progressive secular modern nation.

In the elections of 2002, however, Erdogan’s Islamic party succeeded in changing its appearance – including by its beautiful name: Justice and Development Party (AKP) –  sufficiently to circumvent the ban. They won a convincing election victory, primarily in the less developed rural regions, where most votes were controlled by the local imams.  The army – the traditional watchdog of Ataturk’s legacy – decided, after difficult arguments only, not to veto the election results, and so Recep Erdogan came to power.

Mr Cameron appears blissfully unaware of this history; the erosion of Attaturk’s values by craft and deceit.

While praising Turkey’s secular and democratic traditions, Mr Cameron stressed that Turkey must continue to push forward “aggressively” with economic and political reform to maintain momentum towards EU membership.

The only thing that Erdogan is aggressively pursuing is an alliance with radical left-wing regimes (Chavez in Venezuela), Islamists (Ahmadinejad in Iran) and dictators (Assad in Syria).

As the Guardian* reported in October last year with the headline “‘Iran is our friend’, says Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan”:

Erdogan’s partiality towards Ahmadinejad may surprise some in the west who see Turkey as a western-oriented democracy firmly grounded inside Nato. It has been a member of the alliance since 1952. It will be less surprising to Erdogan’s secular domestic critics, who believe the prime minister’s heart lies in the east and have long suspected his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development party (AKP) government of plotting to transform Turkey into a religious state resembling Iran.

Erdogan vigorously denies the latter charge, but to his critics he and Ahmadinejad are birds of a feather: devout religious conservatives from humble backgrounds who court popular support by talking the language of the street.

But all this came to a head in May with the infamous Freedom Flotilla incident in which the Israeli navy intercepted a flotilla attempting to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip, and, when boarding the lead ship, ‘Mavi Marmara’, were attacked. In the ensuing melee 9 ‘activists’ were killed. An outraged Erdogan condemned Israel, demanded an apology, threatened to break relations, demanded a UN enquiry and made huge political capital of the incident.

This led to Erdogan’s being lionised across the Islamic world; Israel’ s best friend in the Near East, and the only Muslim country which had good relations with Israel, was distancing itself from the Zionists. The dictators and the terror groups were jubilant. Erdogan’s star was in the ascendant in the Muslim world. He appeared to be bidding for leadership of that same world. But some believed he was over-reaching. Had he revealed his Islamist hand too soon?

It was only a little later that the facts came to light about the nature of the IHH, which organised the Freedom Flotilla, a humanitarian organisation with links to terror, including Al Qaeda.

A decidedly anti-Western and virulently anti-Israeli group took over the Mavi Marmara and announced that their aim was to reach Gaza or to die as martyrs. They then meticulously prepared a  reception for the Israeli commandos who rappelled on to the ship’s decks to be met by lethal force. Subsequent Israeli investigations have revealed that all but one of the fatalities had ‘form’ which linked them to Hamas and Islamic terror groups. The IHH is an organisation formerly recognised and supported by the Turkish government. This links Erdogan’s regime indirectly to anti-Western, and that includes anti-European groups. But nice Mr Cameron doesn’t see that. All he can muster is, and I repeat:

Turkey must continue to push forward “aggressively” with economic and political reform

Mr Cameron has thus joined the legions of the politically blind. Blind to the fundamentalist threat which he responds to with:

“Those who wilfully misunderstand Islam, they see no difference between real Islam and the distorted version of the extremists. They think the problem is Islam itself. And they think the values of Islam can just never be compatible with the values of other religions, societies or cultures.”

But it is Erdogan who is cavorting with these extremists and who is leading his country down the same path.

The Italians certainly know what the IHH is all about as MP Fiamma Nirenstein is seeking to outlaw the group in the very EU that Mr Cameron wants Turkey to join:

Dear friends,

I just presented a parliamentary question to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs requiring to evaluate the possibility to insert the Turkish organization IHH (“Insani Yardim Vafki”), one of the main promoters of the Mavi Marmara and responsible for its violent implications, in the list of terrorist organizations of the European Union.

Several investigations and reports testify the involvement of IHH in global terrorism and many videos and documents attest its jihadist attitude finalized at “martyrdom in the name of Allah”. Because of its connection to Hamas and the “Union of Good” (an Islamic umbrella organization affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood that was put in the US’ terror list in 2008), Germany has recently banned IHH and in the USA, a bipartisan group of Senators appealed to President Obama with a request to enter the IHH in the US’ list of terrorist organizations.

You can read below the entire interrogation.

And here’s the link http://fiammanirenstein.com/articoli.asp?Categoria=5&Id=2412

Is this the group we want a member country of the EU to be supporting, Mr Cameron?

But it is on the situation in Gaza that Cameron was at his egregious worst.

“Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza can not and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp,” he said.

As Stephen Pollard of the Jewish Chronicle amusingly points out:

What exactly are the humanitarian goods that will flow from Gaza to Israel and Egypt?

Will Cameron lobby President Mubarak of Egypt to open the Rafah crossing?

What humanitarian aid is NOT getting into Gaza?

All humanitarian aid has always been allowed through into Gaza; only the Egyptians have actually blocked aid both from Viva Palestina and, more recently, Jordan.

And Gaza doesn’t need humanitarian aid any more. The shops are full. What it needs is rebuilding and jobs. But what is holding it back is the Islamist, anti-Semitic, Hamas regime which Erdogan actually supports. On the 6th April this year Mr Erdogan declared that Hamas is not a terrorist group. Mr Cameron should remember that the EU has designated Hamas a terrorist organisation. So why does Mr Cameron want to support a country which condones terror?

The Jerusalem Post reported Erdogan as saying:

“I do not think that Hamas is a terrorist organization. … They are Palestinians in resistance, fighting for their own land.”

And that ‘land’ is, of course Israel which Hamas wants to call Palestine, from the river to the sea.

Is this Mr Cameron’s idea of the type of leader Europe, and particularly Mr Cameron, should be embracing?

In his address Friday, he said the Ten Commandments should have deterred the soldiers from killing the nine passengers who died on board the ship. “If you do not understand it in Turkish I will say it in English: You shall not kill,” he reportedly said – repeating the phrase in Hebrew.

But Mr Erdogan’s forces kill Kurds almost daily in their fight for their own independent state. On June 20th 2010 the BBC reported :

Turkey has vowed to fight Kurdish rebels until they are “annihilated”, after attacks killed 11 soldiers.

PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday’s “cowardly” assaults would not end Turkey’s determination to fight the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) “to the end”.

Is this the sort of hypocrite that Mr Cameron wants to fast-track into Europe? Imagine if Israel said this about Hamas.

Cameron seems to be stuck with the idea that Erdogan is an important link between Europe and the Islamic world, so he conveniently glosses over the Kurds, Northern Cyprus – which Turkey has occupied and populated with its nationals against International Law since 1974; he conveniently glides effortlessly over Erdogan’s support for Hamas and, therefore, implicitly, the destruction of Israel.

Is this the Turkey which, as Mr Cameron says, is “vital for our economy, vital for our security and vital for our diplomacy”?

Mr Cameron’s characterisation of Gaza as a prison-camp uses the overblown rhetoric of Israel’s enemies not because Cameron believes it, but because it is politic and ‘even-handed’ just to throw it in there as a sop to his audience. He also forgets that the only real prisoner in Gaza is kidnapped soldier, Gilad Shalit, who has been in captivity, without access to the Red Cross, for four years, contrary to the Geneva Convention and the laws of conflict.

He is therefore willing to lie and twist the truth for diplomatic reasons. He really believes that risking an Islamist state in Europe, as well as NATO, is good for the UK’s, the EU’s and the West’s security. He really believes that giving Israel a good kicking will, Obama-like, make the Islamic countries see him as fair and rush towards his outstretched hand?

They must be be rolling about in uncontrollable glee and laughter.

How is it that Conservative Cameron has caught the Obama appeasement bug without realising it. Too much kissy-kissy in the White House, perhaps.

Like the previous government, Cameron is strong on diplomacy and weak on statesmanship; like those who have gone before him he is prepared to be Abraham to Israel’s Isaac and hope that someone shows up with a ram before he has to do the dirty deed.

And what of the euro-sceptics in the Conservative Party? Indeed, what of Cameron’s own scepticism on Europe? The same David Cameron who wants a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Why should his party europhobes agree to an expansion of the EU they wish to dismantle?

Or is this Con-Dem Frankenstein’s monster of a government just lurching about calling out “Friend, friend” in the desperate hope it can find one, even if he’s an Islamist in a sharp suit with an even sharper knife tucked behind his back?

*http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/26/turkey-iran1

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