Diary
Boycott - again
29 May, 2008
The definition of madness is to keep on doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. If so, some of the members of the University College Union are certifiably insane for they have just voted again for another boycott of Israeli academics. Not that this is the language they are using for they are hardly that stupid. This time they have asked delegates to “consider the moral and political implications of education links with institutions in Israel,” something that could pave the way for a boycott of Israeli academics.
While it may seem unnecessary to spell out why this motion is so appalling, I will do so anyway. It discriminates unfairly against Israelis because it singles out their country for special but unfair treatment. Union members have not been asked to reconsider their link with academics in other countries with vastly worse human rights records. Thus the academic elites in China, North Korea, Burma, Sudan, Zimbabwe and Russia get off scot free despite the genocide, ethnic cleansing and torture that prevail in their societies. It ignores the fact that many Israeli academics are often their own country’s worst enemy, often being more critical than their Anglo-American counterparts. The boycotters have thus targeted the one group with which, in theory at least, they ought to have some ideological affinity.
And with which academics should the UCU reconsider their relationship? With all Israeli academics, or just with those who speak out against the occupation? Should there be a special test for Israeli academics whereby only those who solemnly swear their anti Zionist credentials are allowed to engage in academic discussion while all those who fail are shunned? This is a modern day witch-hunt worthy of McCarthyism.
While claiming solidarity with Palestinian civilians, the motion is one sided and makes no reference either to the context of Palestinian suffering in the occupied territories or to the existential threat posed by Palestinian extremism to Israel. On several counts then, this motion once again reveals the intellectual sloppiness and bigotry to be found within the ranks of British academia.
That is the bad news. The good news is that these motions have proved a collective disaster in the past with the boycotters made to realise the consequences of their decisions. It is hard to see how a concerted challenge from both Jewish leaders and fellow sympathisers will not bring about the same result. But it will be too late to save the tarnished reputation of the UCU.
topCameron’s success: A Victory for compassionate conservatism?
27 May, 2008
David Cameron’s great success in Crewe and Nantwich is seen by many as a triumphant vindication of ‘Compassionate Conservatism’. This is the label we could give to a vision of softer, caring Toryism which champions ‘aspiration’ and which vows to ‘save the NHS’ at all costs. In image terms, it is a world away from the old ‘nasty party’ that was famously denounced after a succession of horrendous election defeats. It is argued that the party’s recent renaissance has been fuelled by this exercise in rebranding, thus vindicating the decision to abandon tax cutting and other areas of the traditional ‘right wing agenda.’ Elections are about the centre ground, stupid.
What this argument misses is that the centre ground in politics is never static. The concerns of an electorate vary with the current political temperature and with the arguments made by the political class. Thus a decade ago ‘tax cutting’ was inextricably linked in the public mind with cuts to public services, with the systematic downgrading of health and education and the irreversible decline of national institutions. Under Cameron the Tories have been guilt tripped into accepting this false equation, hence their commitment to matching the government’s spending plans and the crippling taxation that accompanies it.
But with record inflation eating up disposable income and with record high taxes hitting vulnerable sections of the population, the mood music has changed. People can see how much of their hard earnt money has been wasted on government projects, expensive consultants and endless bureaucracy. If politicians announce that public spending is too high and that people should be given back more of their money, you’ll hardly have the British sans-cullotes descending on Downing Street.
Reducing the size of the state may be a political strategy that Labour adopts in a last ditch effort at rebranding. In an article in today’s Telegraph, Labour MP Denis McShane urges this very course. Listen to this advice he gives to the Prime Minister:
‘Can the Left be tax-cutters? Why not? Labour should seek to help its own natural constituency by allowing more money to stay in people's pockets. Modern socialists should worship neither the state nor the market - the individual human being should be at the centre of our concerns. Granting more autonomy and control over individual lives is best done by providing the material means to achieve this emancipation. And how can tax cuts be funded? By cutting spending.’
Some may be tempted to lambast a Labour minister when he decries the waste, incompetence and financial mismanagement for which he himself is responsible. It is a fair point but it is also no reason to dismiss what McShane says. Labour MPs are not congenitally insane. Some of them get the key message that a decade of profligate spending and excessive statism has disillusioned not only their working class constituents but the very middle class ‘aspirants’ who were attracted to Blairism in 1997. They also know that calls for higher taxes are political suicide.
Now let’s be realistic. Gordon Brown is hardly about to undergo a Damascene conversion towards embracing individual freedom and responsibility at the expense of state control. But what he could do is embrace a less statist message without the substance. He tried to do this in his last budget as Chancellor with a cut in income tax to 20p while the abolition of the 10p tax band was conveniently left in the small print. He fooled no one then but do not underestimate his capacity for ruthless rebranding if it keeps him in power.
This is all the more reason why Cameron’s Conservatives should seize the economic agenda before Labour. The Tory vision should be about empowering people by restoring their means of financial survival and respecting their freedom. These Conservatives, compassionate or otherwise, will not be addicts to high public spending like this government. Instead they will be addicted to cost effectiveness wherever possible. They will not jeopardize health and education but allow individual consumers more freedom of choice in using those services. Safeguarding individual freedom ought to be at the heart of their program.
Call it whatever you like: Compassionate Conservatism, caring Conservatism or just Conservatism. For me it is just common sense.
topOlmert should not be negotiating with the Syrians
23 May, 2008
Here’s a question: What do you do with an undemocratic state sponsor of terror, a regime with links to other rogue nations and a state that harbours ambitions to join the nuclear club? Do you seek regime change in the belief that the country is a clear and present threat to regional stability? Do you treat it as a pariah state until there is regime change? Do you isolate it in the international community until it ceases its sponsorship of terror? Not if you are Ehud Olmert it seems.
During the last week, Israel has been indirectly engaged in talks with Syria with a view to ceding the Golan Heights to Damascus. Remember, this is territory seized by Israel in their pre emptive war of self defence in 1967. Already there is a lingering suspicion that these talks are being used to shift attention from allegations about Olmert’s financial impropriety. Just as Bill Clinton’s attack on Al Qaeda in 1998 (briefly) diverted speculation about his sexual peccadilloes, so Olmert’s peace bid has been seen as a classic diversionary tactic used to quell growing domestic discontent.
Maybe there is some truth here - who knows? But this is a misplaced criticism in a way. If you do the right thing for the wrong reasons, one can cast doubt on your intentions but at least the end result is justified. Here, Olmert has no excuse. His talks with Syria are a futile and reckless appeasement of a tyrannical regime.
Syria is a state sponsor of terror that actively supports and finances Hamas and Hezbullah. Both groups are ideologically committed to the eradication of Israel. Hamas has been engaged in attritional war with the Jewish state since the pull out from Gaza, with its incessant rocket fire targeting the beleaguered citizens of Sderot and Ashkelon. Hezbullah remains active in Lebanon, following its coup in Beirut and its new found powers within Lebanon’s government. Already you have 2 very good reasons against conducting any Syrian-Israeli peace.
But one can hardly forget Syria’s close friendship with the mullahs of Iran, the region’s primary sponsor of terror and a nation proscribed by the West (though ineffectively) for its nuclear appetites. Worse, we now know that Syria has had nuclear ambitions of its own, courtesy of their friends in North Korea. Syria’s nuclear ambitions were only halted by last year’s daring Israeli air raid.
All in all, these are hardly propitious times for engaging in such high risk talks. It is also hard to see how generous Israeli concessions will soften hearts in Damascus. There is no guarantee that Syria can be weaned away from its Iranian friends, no guarantee it will cut links to Hamas or Hezbullah and no sign that it will accept responsibility Rafik Hariri’s murder. A rapprochement with Israel (or the illusion of rapprochement) will unintentionally give carte blanche to Syria to continue its role as an instigator of instability and violence throughout the Middle East.
It is lamentable that the only credible Western democracy in the Middle East is acting this way. As I argued on 5th May 2007, Olmert ought to have resigned after the release of the provisional Winograd report. It offered a devastating indictment of his handling of the Lebanon war, rather than the decision to go to war itself. That Olmert remains in power is shameful enough. But far worse are his diplomatic overtures to a regime that continues to threaten Western interests, principally Israel’s own. This is worse than opportunism. It is a betrayal of his nation’s interests.
Presidential hopeful, Barack Obama, has endorsed these talks just as the White House has distanced itself from them. Obama has also said he is prepared to meet the leaders of Iran and Syria face to face to discuss outstanding issues between their countries. Senator John McCain has summed up the problems here:
“I think that Barack Obama needs to explain why he wants to sit down and talk with a man who is the head of a government that is a state sponsor of terrorism, that is responsible for killing brave young Americans, that wants to wipe Israel of the map, who denies the Holocaust.”
Absolutely. Very soon the leader of the Free World could be engaged in a fruitless, morally compromised dialogue with self proclaimed jihadists and state sponsors of terror. These are worrying times indeed.
topA League of Democracies to replace the League of tyranny
21 May, 2008
On Monday I had the privilege to listen to Professor Thomas Cushman, a distinguished American Professor of sociology, at the House of Lords. Cushman, whose interests include the promotion of human rights around the world, was advancing the case for a League of Democracies, or Alliance of democracies, to act as a counterweight to the moribund United Nations. His argument was compelling and deserves wider dissemination.
Firstly we can easily agree that the UN is barely worthy of its founders’ ideals. It is a club dominated by dictatorships, failed states and pseudo democracies. It has turned a blind eye to genocide on numerous occasions, including the current tragedy in Darfur. It gives special status to rogue states by inviting them to chair its commissions and draws unhealthy equivalence between democracies and terrorist groups. It has demonized Israel and fuelled hatred towards Jews through its infamous Durban ‘anti racism’ conference. It is guilty of appalling bureaucratic inertia and is mired in corruption. For all its good deeds, it is a true League of tyranny.
Those who revere the UN as a true arbiter of international justice have their heads buried firmly in the sand. The UN requires drastic top to bottom reform or else it should be replaced by a new organization that is imbued with genuine moral clarity.
Interestingly Cushman did not envisage the ‘League of Democracies’ (an idea endorsed by John McCain) to be a replacement for the UN. It would run parallel to the UN while restricting its membership to those countries with the strongest traditions of democratic governance. It would be an elite club dominated not by corrupt dictators but by liberal, democratic nations with a healthy respect for human rights. In Cushman’s words, member states would have to be ‘paragons of democracy.’
The eventual goal of any such organization would be the forging of a multi lateral alliance capable of acting in the spirit of liberal internationalism. If a country was guilty of genocide, such as the current Sudanese regime, then the League could promote the use of force as a counterweight to the UN’s dithering and inertia. In this way human rights could be more effectively defended across the globe.
Some will argue that giving one group of countries superior status in a League of Democracies will provoke less democratic states. But this is a poisonous form of appeasement based on a refusal to promote the superior values of Western democracies (let us never be afraid to call Western values superior) so as to soften our bellicose opponents. This is a recipe for disaster.
I do envisage some problems, however. In order for countries to join such an alliance, they would have to agree that the promotion of liberal values, democracy and human rights was paramount and that it took precedence over each nation’s ‘vital’ interests. At present though, even the most democratic states, including Britain and the USA, support distasteful foreign regimes for economic interests (i.e. Saudi Arabia). All members would have to abandon these ties as and when they conflicted with the League’s interests. In addition, they might even have to contemplate the use of force if a former ally (Saudi Arabia or Pakistan) was deemed guilty of severe infringements of human rights. It is debatable whether, in the short term, any such utopian self denying ordinance were possible.
Secondly, a League of Democracies would be compelled to infringe a country’s national sovereignty when there was a moral case for defending human rights. We have already seen the consequences of this in Iraq where powerful political voices argued the case for regime change on humanitarian grounds. The moral case for interventionism was clear enough but it was insufficiently weighed against the risk of greater terrorism from Iran, the risk to regional stability from an Iraqi civil war and the economic costs of conflict.
Nonetheless Cushman’s big idea should not be dismissed as naïve utopianism. If the UN continues on its despicable downward curve and sits idly by while genocide occurs, a League of Democracies might prove a valuable tonic for international relations.
topSo where is the moral compass?
21 May, 2008
Gordon Brown has once again demonstrated his serial cowardice and poor judgment by agreeing to meet the Dalai Lama at Lambeth Palace and not at No. 10 Downing Street. Most supporters of the Tibetan cause would have been delighted when the PM agreed to meet the Tibetan leader some weeks ago. It was naturally assumed that the revered leader would arrive in Downing Street which is, after all, the PM’s official residence and the place where he meets all foreign dignitaries.
Yet now we learn that Brown will meet the Dalai Lama at the Archbishop of Canterbury’s residence, suggesting that this meeting has a ‘spiritual’ rather than political dimension. This is absurd. For while the Dalai Lama does have an important spiritual role for millions of Tibetans worldwide, he is an international ‘statesman’ too. It is in his political role as ambassador for Tibet that he has been received in the past by Tony Blair, John Major and other world leaders.
One can only suspect that that the PM is up to his scruffy neck appeasing the Chinese who view with disfavour any political dialogue with the Dalai Lama. So on the one hand Brown has curried favour with Tibetan supporters (among whom number many of his own backbenchers) while seeking to play it safe with tetchy dictators in Beijing.
How typical that this Prime Minister makes one decision to suit the moment of the hour, then tries to spin his way out of trouble the next. He agreed to sign the Lisbon treaty but refused to do so in public, citing prior Parliamentary commitments. He agreed to receive the Olympic torch in Downing Street, but refused to hold it aloft. He boycotted an EU-Africa summit because Robert Mugabe was invited, yet sent a British representative in his place.
These are not examples of a shrewd balancing act borne of pragmatism but a coward’s way out of difficult decisions. This is the politics of opportunism, not principle. Where exactly is the moral compass!
topClass war shows Labour at its desperate worst
19 May, 2008
There was a hilarious cartoon on the front page of yesterday’s Telegraph commenting on the forthcoming by election in Crewe and Nantwich. A man wheels round a wheelbarrow full of cash while proudly announcing that he is ‘canvassing for Labour.’ With one picture and three words, the cartoonist neatly encapsulates the painful truth about New Labour’s current plight. With the government in freefall, the economy in choppy waters and MPs in open revolt, team Brown have resorted to cynical stunts to hold on to power. Last week’s pre budget tax changes were a blatant one off bribe to see off Labour rebels and secure a victory in Thursday’s crucial election. The evidence suggests that it has not worked with the latest polls showing a comfortable lead for the Tories.
Indeed so desperate have New Labour become that they have resorted to class warfare in a bid to see off Crewe’s Tory candidate, Edward Timpson. Labour supporters are scoffing at ‘public school educated’ Timpson, declaring this ‘toff’ to be unfit for parliamentary duty. These are desperation tactics from desperate people. Not only is such childish smearing incredibly negative but it fails to spell out what the New Labour project is actually ‘for.’ Without having a positive message of their own, Labour is forced back to class hatred to fuel its opposition to the Tories.
The problem is that Britons no longer seem convulsed by appeals to class. The good tolerant people of multi ethnic London recently voted in a public school educated toff, Boris Johnson, at the expense of the ‘man of the people’ Ken Livingstone. David Cameron’s personal ratings have never been higher while his party is resurgent at the polls. Yet this is the same leader who was famously a member of Oxford’s exclusive Bulllingdon Club, together with one Boris Johnson. Tony Blair remained ultra cool and charismatic despite his privileged education at Fettes. Oxbridge, rather than the ‘new universities’ has been the favoured destination for aspiring politicians for decades.
With the public increasingly disenchanted with the economy, with disposable income at its lowest level for years, the school or income bracket of a prospective parliamentarian scarcely seems to matter anymore. It’s still the economy stupid. Labour activists on the other hand are guilty of ‘dynastic politics’ by selecting a former MP’s daughter to take over from her mother. Does this not smack of precisely the kind of hereditary principle Labour is supposed to reject? Some people within the Labour movement clearly need an irony transplant.
Labour has always been saturated with class envy but now, more than ever, it is their natural fall back position. With Cameron repositioning himself as the champion of aspiration politics, as the ardent defender of the NHS and schools, as the believer in opportunities for all and not the few, little separates the parties on the really big questions except personalities. And personality is Brown’s worst asset at the moment, as Janet Daley argues forcefully in today’s Telegraph. His personality, with all its (highly visible) flaws, may indeed prove to be the ultimate liability for his flailing government. Resorting to class war won’t save him.
topA welcome victory against the appeasers
16 May, 2008
Channel 4’s victory yesterday at the High Court against the West Midlands Police is a thoroughly heartening one. The Crown Prosecution Service and the police have been forced to apologise unreservedly for libelling Channel 4 over their documentary ‘Undercover Mosque’. The sum of money involved is relatively insignificant but the principle is absolutely vital. The decision to show ‘Undercover Mosque’ in the first place has been thoroughly vindicated.
This superb fly on the wall documentary recorded speeches by radical Muslim preachers which contained viciously homophobic, racist and sexist comments. One preacher openly called for the murder of Jews and Indians, while another said that it would be acceptable to kill British soldiers in Afghanistan. Another imam legitimized the execution of Muslims who converted from Islam.
By any standards, this provided a devastating picture of how ‘moderate’ mosques were allowing vicious clerics to stir up seditious hatred among sections of the Muslim population. Yet the police turned on Channel 4, claming there was no case against the mosques or the preachers they had invited. Channel 4 was accused of poor editing and taking quotes out of context and, most laughably, of undermining ‘community cohesion.’
The end result was that the police prioritised their politically correct protection of Muslim feelings over and above their duty to the public. As Kevin Sutcliffe, 4’s the deputy head of current affairs, put it yesterday: “The authorities should be doing all they can to encourage investigations like this, not attempting to publicly rubbish them for reasons they have never properly explained." The West Midlands Police stand disgraced for their astonishing and grotesque decision while the High Court has decisively vindicated Channel 4. Bravo! Perhaps Britain can win its battle against radical Islam after all.
topFatal double standards
14 May, 2008
In a short article in today’s Times, Dean Godson comments on the Hezbullah coup and weighs into the blatant double standards so typical of ‘bien pensant opinion’. Why, he asks, are right thinking people, who were so publicly indignant at Israel’s behaviour in 2006, so silent at the outrages committed by Hezbullah. He writes:
‘After all, Hezbollah is one of the world's most ruthless clerical fascist organizations - complete with ersatz Nazi salutes and Iranian-style Holocaust denial. When the legitimate, democratic Government of Lebanon dared to challenge it, Hezbollah went on a sectarian rampage, murdering scores of opponents and destroying much of the country's free media.’
Right on both counts, Mr. Godson. Few people in the West know that Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is a man with a visceral contempt for Jews and whose media outlet, Al Manar television, has shown anti semitic footage worthy of National Socialism. Much of this was revealed in the excellent documentary, Obsession, produced some 2 years ago.
’Respectable’ opinion could never see Hezbollah as a militant Islamic version of the Nazi party, complete with the symbols of clerical-fascism and blatant Judaeophobia. No, they must be pigeon holed as part of the ‘territorial Lebanese dispute’ which, naturally, involves their Jewish neighbours to the South. Never mind that, as Godson points out, Hezbollah has openly put up posters of the Syrian and Iranian leaders in whose name they commit their savagery. Never mind their illegal stockpile of weapons which are now being used to murder their religious opponents. The appeasement mode demands a viciously twisted view of things.
Godson ends his piece by making the (correct) observation that ‘many “progressives” hate Israeli and Western policy far more than they love Lebanon.’
Of course. Who on the left cares about Lebanese civilians when they are being murdered by their fellow Muslims? It’s just a little too unPC to condemn Islamic terrorists (sorry, resistance fighters) even if they are slaughtering dozens of civilians and taking over capital cities. How much easier when an American or Israeli F4 is involved! I doubt if fleeing Lebanese refugees mind that it is only ‘the noble resistance movement’ attacking their houses.
This is the ultimate inversion of morality, justice, and honesty that now characterises much of the left/liberal minded intelligensia and which badly distorts their world view.
topTesting the limits of human reason: A review of 'Predictably Irrational'
14 May, 2008
‘What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculty!’ Ever since Hamlet declared his belief in human reason, economists and philosophers have joined the Bard in championing man, the rational animal. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations postulates an ‘invisible hand’ that ensures markets are driven by rational self interest. Indeed all classical economics is based on the view that humans understand their goals and make informed choices to achieve them.
Yet somehow, even Shakespeare must have sensed that our emotional incontinence and limitless capacity for self deception mark us out as a particularly irrational species. One way to study this subject is to talk to behavioural economists who examine how people are subject to emotional and cognitive forces in their decision making. Dan Ariely is one such specimen and his new book Predictably Irrational offers an engaging study of our susceptibility to unreason.
Ariely’s thesis is that humans are not just often irrational but predictably so. We keep making the same mistakes because we assume that our decisions are our own and that we can control the emotional influences that bombard us. As he puts it: ‘We usually think of ourselves sitting in the driver’s seat, with ultimate control over the decisions we make (but) this perception has more to do with how we want to view ourselves-than with reality.’
Through a series of ingenious experiments, conducted mainly on American undergraduates, he provides convincing evidence of how our reasoning processes are often skewed by our expectations and emotional commitments.
In one chapter Ariely focuses on procrastination. We are all familiar with people who constantly put off long term goals for short term cravings: the dieter who can never resist that tempting cheesecake; the employee who delays his pension payment to go on holiday; the student whose social life constantly intrudes on the impending dissertation. In each case, our rational quest to fulfill our goals is affected by the ‘lava flow of hot emotion’ represented by temptation.
For one experiment, Ariely gave three groups of students a set number of assignments for a semester. One group was given complete leeway to choose deadlines, a second group was given fixed deadlines while a third group was asked to set their own deadlines for submission, but with penalties for late submission. Subsequently, the group with the dictated deadlines received the best grades while the group with the most leeway (and no self imposed deadlines) did the worst. The solution to procrastination, says Ariely, is precommitment, where people ‘have the opportunity to commit up front to their preferred course of action.’
Elsewhere he uses experiments to test the truism that what we experience is directly affected by our expectations. Students were offered two samples of beer, one a Budweiser and the other an ‘MIT brew.’ The latter concoction consisted of Budweiser with several drops of Balsamic vinegar. Most students picked the MIT brew but what Ariely found was that if they did not know about its added ingredient, they were fairly satisfied with the taste.
However, when they were given foreknowledge of the vinegar, they turned up their noses and requested the Budweiser. Even more interestingly, when the students drank the vinegary beer and were later told about its added ingredient, they claimed to like the beer even more. Such experiments appear to provide clear evidence of how our expectations can influence our sensory perception.
This idea is particularly pertinent in his discussion of the placebo effect. The modern world is awash with alternative health remedies for every ailment under the sun, from homeopathy to flower essences. Yet very few of these treatments have evidential backing and are only effective because people believe they will be. Ariely takes this argument one stage further. People’s expectations of efficacy seem to be linked to the price of the remedies.
In one study a group of human guinea pigs were administered a series of electric shocks and asked to record the intensity of the pain. Prior to being given a second series of shocks, they were given a $2.50 pain relief ‘pill’, which was actually a carefully disguised capsule of Vitamin C. Despite the fact that the shocks were of identical intensity, almost all participants experienced less pain the second time after they had taken the dud pill. However when a second group were tested with the shocks, the pain relief pill they took was marked ‘10c’. This time, only half experienced the pain reduction the second time round, proof perhaps that ‘what you pay is often what you get.’
But if Ariely has provided us with a counsel of despair, it would be wrong to give up on humankind. Despite his shortcomings, man is capable of rational activity from building space shuttles to writing a symphony to producing a treatise on human weakness. Unlike the rest of the animal kingdom, our behaviour is not dictated by instinct nor are we permanently trapped by our mistakes. Learning from experience is one of the clearest signs of how rational we really are. By the end of his book, Ariely has reached the same conclusion.
The book is engaging and witty, and by omitting arcane detail and technical jargon, has a down to earth feel. One downside is the author’s US-centric approach which means that the book is dotted with illustrations taken from American life. Warning: if you are unfamiliar with baseball and American TV, you may be slightly put off. But this is a minor criticism for a book that triumphantly blends psychological analysis with astute social observation.
topThe West sleeps while Beirut burns
11 May, 2008
Once again the West has been caught napping while Islamic extremists are on the march around the globe. In the last few days Iran has entrenched its power in the Levant following the audacious coup of its proxy, Hezbollah. The Syrian and Iranian backed Islamic radicals took control of parts of West and central Beirut some days ago, seizing parts of the capital city of one of America’s most important allies in the Middle East. Now the Lebanese army has persuaded Hezbullah to withdraw their fighters from Beirut but only by making a series of craven concessions to the Islamists.
Fuad Siniora, who is nominally President, had demanded the closure of Hezbullah’s telecoms network and the sacking of the chief of security at Beirut airport (a man who sympathised with Hezbullah). This sparked the crisis with Hezbullah in the first place. But the army decided to abandon plans for a crackdown and decided to appease the extremists instead. As a price for restoring order, the two demands were dropped. Clearly the army sought to avoid a lethal civil war, one which could see some of its Shiite fighters unwilling to confront their co-religionists within Hezbullah.
The desire not to fragment Lebanon along sectarian lines sounds laudable enough but giving in to Hezbullah represents an appeasement of the very forces seeking the overthrow of democracy in Lebanon. Above all, it now emboldens an Iranian regime that uses Hezbullah as proxy tentacles to expand their nefarious influence in the Middle East. Any advance by Hezbullah is a victory for the Iranian Revolution. Any curb on Hezbullah is a victory for the ‘infidels’, particularly the USA and Israel. That is why the events of the last few days really matter in the context of Middle Eastern politics.
Iran knows that this is a precipitate moment for the attention of Western leaders is focussed on pressing domestic concerns. Gordon Brown’s credibility is at an all time low with rumours of backbench revolts filtering through to no. 10 on a daily basis. The US establishment is too consumed by the forthcoming Presidential elections while Israel has been rocked by further allegations about Ehud Olmert’s financial dealings. No wonder the Iranians are laughing.
It is hard to predict what will happen next. Hezbollah may try and seize power elsewhere in Lebanon or they may go for broke and try to drive out the UN ‘peacekeepers’ in the South, an action that would ignite another conflict with Israel. All the assurances 2 years ago about how the World would curb Hezbollah’s strength look predictably hollow right now. Once again Iran has demonstrated that when it wants to flex its muscles, there is very little to stop it. One can only await developments with trepidation.
topIsrael's 60th birthday
9 May, 2008
On Israel’s 60th birthday, the threats to the Jewish state remain acute. But there is still a great deal to cheer the soul.
Almost 60 years ago today, David Ben-Gurion announced to a startled world the creation of the new state of Israel. Almost immediately Israel’s Arab neighbours sent in their armies to drive the Jews into the sea and extinguish the Zionist dream before it had even started. 60 years later little has changed in this regard. The grave existential threat remains palpable, even if Israel’s most lethal foes have changed since 1948.
Survival in the face of adversity is one of Israel’s greatest achievements. No other country has been at war for every day of its existence. No other country has faced such a global barrage of disinformation which is intended to question its very existence. No other country’s attempts to defend itself have received such critical scrutiny in the halls of international opinion and no other country has been asked to make peace with those who are bent on its destruction.
One constant in 60 years is that a genuine peace deal looks as elusive as ever. Most Israelis accept that territorial disengagement from the West Bank is an essential part of their long term security. The majority reject the idea of permanently occupying a growing and increasingly restive Arab population. Equally out of the question is annexing the West Bank and allowing Arabs to become Israeli citizens. Under this option, Israel would end up with an Arab majority and, within time, the demise of the Jewish state. The dream of creating a safe haven for world Jewry would be at an end. The only realistic option is a deal on eventual disengagement – but with whom?
The Palestinians are divided between moderates and extremists, between those who sense that the ‘armed struggle’ is over (and seek a two state settlement) and those who believe that demography is on their side. Abbas is regularly lauded as an Arab voice of moderation and reason, a peacemaker who can be trusted to deliver a lasting settlement for both sides. But this is the same man who is too weak to rein in Hamas and who refuses to shut down the organs of racist incitement in his territory. For good measure, he is on record as refusing to recognise Israel as a Jewish state. Some peacemaker!
But Abbas is not the major flaw in the jigsaw puzzle. Peace deals in the Middle East will be well nigh impossible until the world deals with the region’s greatest threat: the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ever since the rise of the anti semitic Ayatollah Khomeini, the Iranian regime (even sans Ahmadinejad) has been dedicated to the extinction of the Jewish state. While its current leader shamefully denies the Holocaust, he is arguably planning the next one with the pursuit of a nuclear weapons programme that the Western powers are failing to stop. With terrorist proxies cited in Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq, Iran could soon become an unchallengeable regional hegemon.
Israelis will never acquiesce in their most lethal enemy possessing weapons of mass destruction. This explains why Israel carried out a surgical air strike against a Syrian nuclear processing plant last year. The attack removed the threat of its near neighbour becoming a nuclear power but also sent a clear warning signal to the Iranians - if Israel can strike easily at the heart of Syria, she will do the same to Tehran.
But amid the gloom, there would be much to cheer Ben Gurion’s heart were he alive today. Israel is a vibrant multi party democracy with a free press and an independent judiciary that is the envy of the world. Its citizens have a plethora of freedoms, social, political and religious, that barely exist elsewhere in the Middle East, with the possible exception of Turkey. The country is a world leader in high tech and boasts a booming property and tourism sector.
Israel also has the second highest number of start up companies in the world as well as the largest number of NASDAQ listed countries outside of North America. After Japan, Israelis have the second highest life expectancy and among the highest literacy rates in Asia. The country has produced Nobel Prize winners as well as leading scientists, poets, artists and musicians. For a country of its diminutive size, Israel’s achievements over 6 decades are truly staggering.
Of course there is much that still needs to be done. The conflict between religious ands secular continues to produce one of the great dividing lines in Israeli society with potentially harmful consequences for all. Israel must strive to ensure that its Arab and Druze citizens receive fair and equal treatment and that injustices are swiftly remedied. While an effective peace process is in abeyance, Israel should minimize harm to Palestinian civilians wherever possible (and in line with security needs) and investigate human rights concerns promptly. Above all, the country must strengthen its political institutions in the wake of recent corruption scandals.
But Israel’s greatest strengths are the sheer resilience of its people and its status and character as a Western democracy. These assets have enabled its citizens to ride out the storms of war and develop a backbone that is second to none. They will ensure that the country continues to prosper in this new uncertain century even as the rest of the world heads for uncertainty. Happy birthday Israel!
topA great week for the Tories - but what would a Cameron government look like?
4 May, 2008
This weekend David Cameron will have a pretty big grin on his face. And who can blame him? The Tory leader has just helped to inflict an almighty defeat on Gordon Brown, and the biggest local election setback for any government in 40 years. If Team Cameron wanted proof that their strategy offered a viable route to power, they now seem to have it. If these local election gains were translated into a general election, David Cameron would already be sitting for his portrait inside No. 10 and choosing a new Cabinet. With Boris Johnson installed as Ken Livingstone’s successor, a large part of the UK is about to experience Tory rule for the first time since 1997.
The reasons for such a drastic result go far beyond the usual problems that beset any government in mid term. The public are clearly disillusioned with New Labour and the sense of mounting frustration over economic issues is palpable. For years people have seen more and more of their money consumed in stealth taxes on the pretext of improving public services. Yet people can see that these endless sums have not brought about the dramatic transformation they were promised.
The global credit crunch is beginning to bite with higher mortgage costs and inflationary pressures for an increasingly large segment of the population. All of this leads people to the conclusion (rightly or wrongly) that they are worse off under a Labour government. When you add the public’s frustration with violent crime and uncontrolled immigration (two of the electorate’s biggest concerns), you have a pretty woeful narrative to sum up the last 11 years in power. For many, the 10p tax issue was a symbolic final straw.
To distance Gordon Brown from this wreckage would be absurd. He positioned himself as the heir to Blair, a Churchillian figure who would transform British politics by eschewing his predecessor’s slick role and pathological obsession with spin. But after 10 months in power, Brown’s obsession with spin and presentation has stuck out like a sore thumb. Worse people forget that from 1997 onwards, Brown was one half of the political duumvirate that ran the UK. In this role, he controlled domestic policy and helped to impose the financial strains that are with us today, albeit exacerbated by the credit crunch.
The comparisons with John Major are already being made. In 1995 Labour won convincingly in the local elections, two years before Blair triumphed in a landslide election. Like Major, Brown is already damaged goods. Major became associated with sleaze and corruption, just as the Brown government is now inextricably linked to incompetence and corruption scandals. Yet even Major could project himself as an affable person in touch with the people. By contrast, Brown is an aloof political alien who lacks the human touch.
Yet despite their recent success, the Tories are still failing to convince many. People still want to know what the opposition has to offer that is so lacking in New Labour. David Cameron has attacked the government over its handling of the 10p tax issue and gained political capital by articulating public frustration over the current economic climate. Yet he has ruled out tax reductions for the first 3 (or 5) years of a Conservative administration.
Worse, a Conservative party is committed to imposing green stealth taxes in order to reduce carbon emissions, hardly a welcome message during the current times. Cameron has talked a great deal about choice and reduced central interference but we have yet to see a coherent argument for patient and pupil passports.
His party’s support for the two parent family sits uneasily with his advocacy of civil partnerships and even his tough message on crime fails to convince many. So while Gordon Brown’s administration is busy heaping up its own funeral pyre, as Enoch Powell might have put it, the Cameron ideology remains confused and incoherent.
Unless and until the Tory leader addresses these core issues, the nagging doubts will remain. The Tory leader would do well to remember that just as governments lose power, the opposition needs to win it.
topSchooled in failure
1 May, 2008
Earlier this week we learnt that the headteachers of 2 public schools were planning to boycott exam league tables. The headmaster of St Paul’s in West London, Martin Stephen, slammed the tables for giving an absurd equivalence to A levels and other vocational qualifications, for discounting the new IGCSEs, and for excluding other indicators of student progress, such as art, music and sport. I suspect that more and more of Britain’s top public schools will follow suit by rejecting a politicized measure that no longer provides an accurate measure of student progress.
Stephen’s defiant broadside is well timed. It comes a week after Jerry Jarvis, the managing director of EdExcel, launched a scathing attack on the roll out of diplomas, which are a key part of the government’s 14-19 strategy. Despite supporting diplomas in principle, Jarvis warned that up to 40,000 pupils could be left with ‘worthless’ qualifications.
He warned that many teachers and schools did not have adequate training for the diplomas and that the new IT system at the heart of the whole operation might not be ready in time. He went on: ‘If the diploma doesn’t earn its spurs as a qualification – and that means respect from employers, pupils, parents and higher education – we face a serious problem. There is a huge educational risk to this country.”
Does any of this sound familiar? Is this not another example of the dysfunctional thinking and serial incompetence that has stalked the New Labour project from its inception?
Still, Jarvis’ criticisms seem rather mild for what he should have questioned was the government’s entire educational strategy. A key plank of the 14-19 programme involves the rollout of diplomas, many of which are designed to cover vocational subjects. Among the subjects covered will be hospitality and environment and land studies. Certainly there is a need for better vocational qualifications that merge theory with practice and which provide a foundation for work based learning. These diplomas are designed to combine practical skills and theoretical learning.
For perfectly laudable reasons, the government seeks to raise the self esteem of pupils who, for whatever reason, are switched off from more academic subjects. But any astute observer can see that the new diplomas are not the answer. Initially diplomas will sit side by side with existing qualifications (i.e. the GCSE and A level) but by 2013, the government will want them to replace existing qualifications. In 2007 Ed Balls announced that there would be 3 new diplomas in academic areas: science, languages and the humanities.
One can easily see where this might lead. Instead of vocational and academic qualifications sitting side by side in happy co-existence, there could be a universal series of diplomas covering all subjects, leading to the scrapping of GCSEs and A Levels altogether. This would merely blur the distinction between academic and vocational study altogether, clearly undermining the status of the former. Hairdressing and general studies diplomas might receive equal weight to physics, with an A in flower arranging equal to an A in Maths or French.
It is hard to see how it could be otherwise. Our zealous left wing champions of equality could scarcely accept different qualifications running side by side, with vocational diplomas being viewed as second class cousins of their academic counterparts. Equivalence is the prevailing doctrine here whereby all students achieve parity of self esteem by ironing out differences in ‘perceptions’ of success. This is the woeful ‘one size fits all’ philosophy taken to its logical conclusion. One can see therefore why Sir Mike Tomlinson, who originated proposals for a single qualification in 2004, so warmly welcomed the government’s proposal.
But this is all part and parcel of Labour’s education experiment since 1997. Subjects are dumbed down, rigour is removed from GCSEs, grade inflation is rampant while, at the same time, ministers tell us that standards are rising across the board. This is the Alice in Wonderland school of thinking.
No one can deny that there is no clear pathway to vocational success to match the GCSE and A level. Instead there is an unwieldy hotchpotch of qualifications and exams which collectively stand in need of drastic reform. But there is no call for a universal diploma which obscures the distinction between different forms of study.
But what the government fails to see is that their one size fits all strategy is entirely counter productive. Private schools will turn their backs on the new diplomas, just as they are rejecting league tables. They will then entrench their own superior academic model, based on the IGCSE, the A level and the International Baccalaureate. As a consequence, the gap between the haves and the have nots will widen to a chasm. Our students deserve better.
top