Diary
Toxic hatred at the heart of the British Establishment
29 November, 2009
So it’s official then. The Chilcot enquiry into the Iraq war is going to be a monumental waste of time and money. No one will take it seriously, not least the peoples of the Arab and Muslim world. It will be a whitewash, a travesty of justice, a half hearted and partial enquiry tainted from the outset.
And why is this so? Is it because the government has refused to release sensitive documents into the public domain if they conflict with national security? Is it because the remit of the enquiry has been deliberately limited to avoid apportioning blame or censure? Is it because all such establishment set ups are doomed from the start?
Well no, you’ve missed the elephant in the room you see. The real reason is that two of the distinguished panellists sitting with Sir John Chilcot are Jews. Well how dare the Establishment make such a crass mistake! Haven’t they been reading the Protocols of the Elders of Zion which is, don’t forget, a bestseller across the Arab world?
I refer of course to the recent disgusting rant of Sir Oliver Miles, our former ambassador to Libya, in the Independent. Here are his exact words:
Both (Sir Martin) Gilbert and (Laurence) Freedman are Jewish, and Gilbert at least has a record of active support for Zionism…All five members have outstanding reputations and records, but it is a pity that, if and when the inquiry is accused of a whitewash, such handy ammunition will be available. Membership should not only be balanced; it should be seen to be balanced.’
The subtext here is obvious. Because Gilbert and Freedman are both Jewish and Zionist in leaning, they will not be objective in their way of thinking. They will be unable to consider the national interest because they have ‘overriding’ and conflicting sympathies for a ‘foreign’ country.
The assumption that Gilbert and Freedman will conform to ‘tribe thinking’ merely because of their religious affiliations is misguided at best and bigoted at worst. And the charge that being Zionists discredits them is equally perverse. It merely plays to the prejudices of the Arab street (and the hard left) where it is commonly asserted that the Iraq war was a plot engineered by the Zionists for their own interests.
Hence the charge that Zionists on the enquiry give the impression of a cover up. But the fact that such warped and bigoted perceptions exist on the Arab street is no reason for pandering to them. As Jonathan Freedland observes in this week’s Jewish Chronicle:
‘Since when did we allow the views of racists and anti-Semites to determine, pre-emptively, who sits on public inquiries? The BNP might well denounce the findings of the Iraq inquiry because the panel includes a British Hindu. Does that mean Usha Prasher should have been kept off?’
Of course there are reasons to doubt the choice of these two historians, given that they were ardent supporters of the war in 2003. But that is a point about their political positioning, not their ethnicity or cultural affiliation. Being a Jew or Zionist may exclude you from sitting on an enquiry in the Arab world, when such an incredibly rare event takes place of course. But those rules don’t apply in London, as Sir Oliver Miles should know.
topThe gathering Persian storm
24 November, 2009
A month ago, the deadline passed for Iran to respond to a deal on its nuclear programme. Under the terms of the deal, Iran was required to ship the bulk of its low enriched uranium to Russia where it would have been processed and returned to Tehran for purely civilian purposes. It was hardly a great or robust deal for it allowed Iran to continue its prohibited activity, namely the heavy enrichment of uranium. As compromises go, it was highly questionable. Yet perhaps the thinking was that if Iran could be appeased for long enough, some goodwill would emerge on both sides sufficient to create a more viable long term settlement.
Well now we can all see the baleful consequences. Iran prevaricated for a number of weeks, offering half hearted interest, feigning enthusiasm one week and making denials the next before finally signalling it would not agree to this deal. Of course this is a mere extension of the cat and mouse diplomacy that has so characterised the Iranian regime. Say anything to get Western leaders off your back while reneging on any commitments in private.
And yet what do we hear from Western leaders? Disappointment. That's about the sum of it. There is vague talk of a new sanctions policy at the UN but we know that Iran's economic allies on the Security Council, Russia and China, will water this down. And the chances of military strikes against Natanz or Qom seem more remote still. The Washington establishment remains convinced that the repercussions of such action outweigh those of a nuclear Iran. It seems likely that the White House is preparing itself for a policy of containment as the analyst Kenneth Pollack recently pointed out in an article for the Jerusalem Post.
But this would be a disaster of the first magnitude. A nuclear Iran could bully its oil producing neighbours at will, threaten US troops in Iraq and deepen instability across the Middle East. The country could also pass nuclear technology to terrorists, igniting a regional conflagration that would empower Islamic extremists across the globe. A regional arms race would inevitably follow.
71 years ago, the leaders of Britain and France gambled on the good intentions of Adolf Hitler when they granted him the Sudetenland. All they got was a worthless piece of paper 'guaranteeing' the future peace and stability of Europe. Are today's leaders about to be duped in the same way?
topSpeaking truth to power at the UN
19 November, 2009
The formidable UN Watch, an NGO dedicated to revealing the ineptitude and prejudice that stalks the UN, has posted on its website the statement made by Colonel Richard Kemp to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Read it in its entirety. You can only admire the courage and insight of this man who has spoken truth to power with crystal clarity.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I am the former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan. I served with NATO and the United Nations; commanded troops in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Macedonia; and participated in the Gulf War. I spent considerable time in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and worked on international terrorism for the UK Government’s Joint Intelligence Committee.
Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.
Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population.
Hamas, like Hezbollah, are expert at driving the media agenda. Both will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents.
The IDF faces a challenge that we British do not have to face to the same extent. It is the automatic, Pavlovian presumption by many in the international media, and international human rights groups, that the IDF are in the wrong, that they are abusing human rights.
The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy's hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.
Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes.
More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas’ way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians.
Mr. President, Israel had no choice apart from defending its people, to stop Hamas from attacking them with rockets.
And I say this again: the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.
Thank you, Mr. President.
topStanding up to bigotry
18 November, 2009
In today’s Comment is free, the eminent historian, David Cesarani, takes apart Monday’s Dispatches documentary with aplomb.
As to Oborne’s first charge, that the various pro Israeli advocacy groups operate beneath public radar in semi covert fashion (which, if true, is a conspiracy in all but name), Cesarani has a simple enough answer.
‘The same can be said about Michael Ashcroft, Rupert Murdoch, the arms industry, the Saudi Arabians, and the list can go on.’Indeed there is nothing unusual in a lobby group failing the kind of transparency tests that Oborne sets for the Israel lobby. And that would scarcely be an issue if Oborne had no problem with the lobby – which he clearly does (see below). But it turns out that Oborne has erected an almighty straw man in any case. For as Cesarani explains:
‘The evidence he amasses comes mostly from publicly disclosed sources, such as the register of MPs' interests. Political donations have to be made public, too, and these lists provide much of his ammunition. Like many who claim to expose the secretive behaviour of lobbyists, it turns out that much of what they do is already open to scrutiny.’
The more serious charge in the documentary is that supporters of Israel try to crush debate on the Arab-Israeli conflict by falsely accusing others of anti semitism. In other words, they actively scare off the media from reporting images and viewpoints that are harmful to Israel’s interests.
As I pointed out yesterday, you’d have to be living on a different planet to think that Israel escapes censure, both of the moderate and informed kind (less common) and the wholly irrational (more common). Cesarani makes a similar point:
’Anyone who remembers the coverage of Israel's assault on Gaza or the battering of Lebanon in 2006 may wonder what more the media could have done to show the appalling effects of Israeli military tactics.’
The notion that the pro Israel lobby leaves the Guardian, the Independent and BBC running scared of disseminating anti Israeli perspectives is demonstrably absurd.
In the documentary, Oborne pointed to Paul Zabludowicz as an example of a wealthy Jew whose financial investments were allegedly subverting the peace process. Zabludowicz owns a share in a shopping mall in Ma'ale Adumim, a town in the West Bank. He is also a major funder of BICOM.
Aside from the fact that Zabludowicz is less shadowy than is made out (he is mentioned in the Sunday Times rich list and has received mention in the Jewish Chronicle), it is a mystery why Oborne singles him out as a potential obstacle to peace when, as Cesarani is at pains to show, there are much better examples of conflicting interests. ‘How do Poju's (Zabludowicz’s) real-estate deals compare with UK investments in the Middle East oil industry or arms sales to the Gulf states?’
But none of these issues would matter to Oborne were he to perceive the pro Israel lobby in purely benign terms, which he does not. He seems to regard any possible amity between the UK government and Israel as a strategic liability which will do untold harm to this country’s interests. Hence his belief that the actions of the pro Israel lobby are believed to be ‘subverting’ UK interests. As Cesarani points out: ‘Oborne never pauses to explore whether Israeli friendship might be a strategic asset at a time when the UK and Israel face the same threats in the Middle East.’
The failure to consider the enormous benefits of a strong bilateral relationship between the UK and Israel is the result of Arabist thinking. In other words, the very kind of thinking that has always dominated the upper echelons of the Foreign Office. For all his skills as a campaigning journalist, Oborne has simply imbibed the very worst of today’s conventional thinking.
topServing up bigotry on a plate
17 November, 2009
So we can all rest assured then. Clearly those who allege that the UK is at the apex of a frenzied campaign to delegitimise Israel have got it badly wrong. Far from engendering hostility to the Jewish state, the British media, and much of our political class, is actually running scared of a powerful lobby that operates ‘behind the scenes’ and on behalf of a shadowy ‘foreign power’ which uses its considerable financial muscle to gain unwarranted influence in the halls of power.
I refer, of course, to last night’s sloppy, ridiculous, bigoted and amateurish Dispatches documentary that investigated Britain’s ‘pro Israel’ lobby. Anyone watching this programme would think that the groups who try to promote Israel’s case in the media are part of some nefarious, shadowy conspiracy that actively undermines Middle East peace and damages Britain’s foreign policy interests. Yet Peter Oborne had the temerity to declare by the end that he had amassed ‘no evidence of a conspiracy.’ Oh well, that’s ok then.
As evidence of the purported power of this lobby, Oborne looked at a dinner held by Conservative Friends of Israel some months after the Gaza war. Oborne was ‘astonished’ that David Cameron made no reference to Gaza at the dinner and that he went out of his way to praise Israel for helping to ‘protect innocent life.’
The subtext was obvious – the CFI had managed to subvert Cameron’s political instincts by offering financial inducements to keep him quiet. What the clever Oborne missed is that during the actual war itself, when Israel needed its ‘friends’ the most, Cameron had quite a lot to say about Israel’s operations. He went out of his way to condemn the ‘violence’ in Gaza and to call for a ceasefire while William Hague used the canard of disproportionality on several occasions. Like the Almighty, I guess the lobby too needs a day of rest from its labours.
Oborne provides ‘proof’ of how this determined lobby foists itself on the BBC, bombarding it with evidence of anti Israel bias and forcing it to investigate such esteemed personalities as Jeremy Bowen and Orla Guerin. But the implicit charge that this pressure is unwarranted is undermined by the fact that Oborne fails to investigate the bias in the first place. In other words, his guiding assumption is that the BBC is, as it claims, completely neutral and that its famed impartiality is being subverted only because of this powerful and vocal minority. Pull the other one, Mr. Oborne, it’s got bells on.
Of course such a sloppy programme could not be complete without one of the most fashionable canards of all, namely that critics of Israel are being stifled by accusations of anti semitism. Naturally if you watch this documentary, you’ll assume that all commentary on Israel is as articulate and apparently reasonable as that of Tony Lerman, a writer on the Guardian’s Comment is free, and the only case examined where an individual was (falsely) accused of anti semitism.
Yet anyone who reads Comment is Free will have already experienced the most nauseating vitriol from its readers whenever the subject of Israel rears its head. In fact, as the brilliant Robin Shepherd points out in his blog, you can see a torrent of the same anti semitism in the comments left on Channel 4’s website. Oborne’s failure to note any of this is sloppy at best, malicious at worst.
The neutral observer will naturally conclude that pro Israel groups actively stifle debate by falsely accusing people of bigotry – in order, of course, to protect the interests of a ‘foreign power.’ Oborne has unwittingly given a free pass to anyone who wishes to vilify Israel and then claim their discourse is reasonable.
But while we all cower before the terrifying spectre of the Zionist lobby, a power which lords itself over the British establishment and foists itself on a fragile media, we can still only wonder at how Israel continues to get such shabby treatment in this country. Mr Oborne, over to you…
topOxford University honours a victim of Iranian terror
13 November, 2009
Last year Oxford University was censured for inviting David Irving and Nick Griffin to its debating society. The decision was rightly branded as obscene, given that it extended an unwarranted platform to two peddlers of hate who did not deserve such a privileged platform. It is not the first time that British academia has debased itself with such sloppy and misguided judgement.
But in the last week, the University of Oxford has shown a far more courageous streak. Queen's College has just created the 'Neda Agha-Soltan Graduate Scholarship' offering £4,000 for philosophy students of Iranian descent. 27 year old Neda Soltan, an Iranian philosophy student, was shot dead in June this year by the Basij militias while she stood at a rally in Tehran.
Her death, captured on You tube and broadcast around the world, made her an instant symbol of the Iranian people's struggle against tyranny, a potent reminder of the regime's ruthlessness and brutality. She achieved the same status as Lech Walesa in the 1980s who also powerfully symbolised the fight against tyranny, albeit of the communist variety.
This award honours Neda's memory and recognises that students across Iran are among the principal victims of its their government's clerical fascism. As Leyla Ferani points out in the Telegraph, the award 'honours the whole student body in Iran which has been repressed and tortured by the Islamic Republic.'
Let us see more scholarships for other victims of Iranian terror. For on this occasion, Oxford is most definitely on the right side of history.
topThe Berlin Wall's destruction did not bring an end to ideology
10 November, 2009
Twenty years ago the Berlin Wall came crashing down, symbolising the destruction of the communist ideal that had imposed it some three decades earlier. It was an inspiring moment for the peoples of Eastern Europe who had been forced to live under tyranny since 1945, as well as a significant victory for the West. Democracy truly came alive for millions of subjugated people in 1989.
This, we were assured, was ‘the end of history.’ Western liberal democracy and capitalism had now triumphed in the marketplace of ideas. Ideology was dead. Yet this was a Panglossian vision that began to disillusion its most ardent supporters.
Radical Islam has burst on the world scene in the last three decades, leaving a trail of terror and violence in its wake. Islamist extremists have struck across the Middle East, the Asian subcontinent and parts of Africa. In Iran, they have control of a state and are determined on possessing nuclear weapons. In the last 30 years, they have killed and injured millions in their relentless quest for territorial domination and cultural subjugation. In their own way, these extremists have offered the most direct challenge to the Western ideals of liberal democracy and freedom.
Elsewhere authoritarian rule has barely been extinguished. China is a colossus striding the world stage; there is barely any question in contemporary world affairs that excludes the Chinese perspective. But despite significant measures of economic liberalisation, the country is a political tyranny which denies the most fundamental rights to its people. China has armed and funded other tyrannies across Africa, such as Sudan and Zimbabwe, while it remains close to North Korea, a dangerously reclusive Stalinist state.
Russia too exhibits some features of authoritarian rule despite its ostensibly democratic status. Its leaders’ pro Western stance in the 1990s has given way to ‘Putin paranoia’ a decade later. The country has used its energy resources as a weapon against ‘new Europe’ while the state maintains a ferocious crackdown on internal dissenters. Russia’s axis with Iran and China is hardly surprising.
Challenges to the West then remain as potent as ever. But what is disturbing is that Europe seems unable to face up to them. As Robin Shepherd points out in his brilliantly incisive book A state beyond the pale, Europe is weighed down by its past to the point where it is suffering ‘civilisational exhaustion.’ The European Union, set up originally to eschew violence and the resort to war, has been transformed into a lethargic oasis of pacifism and denial.
Its leaders, many influenced by the hard left, condemn the use of force and the assertion of national power to resolve disputes. They believe ultimately that all conflicts must be resolved by negotiation and dialogue rather than the exercise of military might. They accept the primacy of law and democracy but have no desire to defend them. So when it comes to confronting radical Islam within Europe, the challenge of terror in the Middle East, or authoritarian Russia, Europe has no answer. Its leaders may occasionally talk tough but their solutions are moribund.
Europe’s leaders need to look again at those pictures from 1989. They need to see those demonstrators dismantling the Berlin Wall, shattering the structure of tyrannical rule that imprisoned them for 28 years. They need to listen to those who risked their lives challenging the most soul destroying despotism since the Second World War. Then they might realise that paying lip service to freedom is never enough. You have to fight for it too.
topFort Hood was more than an ‘American’ massacre
9 November, 2009
If President Obama and the mainstream media are anything to go by, the Fort Hood massacre was just a typical American crime committed by a deranged loner. We have been told so far that Major Nidal Hasan had psychological issues arising from his experience of war; that he went off the rails and snapped because he was 'upset' about an imminent posting to Iraq; that we should largely ignore his religious background as this would provide irrelevant context to his crime. This conspiracy of denial has naturally taken root among the left wing British intelligentsia of which the BBC is a prime exponent.
In fact, the liberal media states all but the most obvious: that this man was a cog in the global wheel of Islamic jihad and that his murderous rampage was the result of lethal indoctrination at the hands of other fanatics.
Consider some of the facts. Major Nidal Hasan had already praised suicide bombers in uncompromising terms, something that was brought to the attention of the FBI months earlier. We know that he attended the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia where the resident radical imam radicalised 2 of the 9/11 bombers before their heinous act of mass murder.
He was disciplined in the medical military school for proselytizing to fellow soldiers, telling some: ‘I'm a Muslim first and an American second.’ Just before his deadly attack he shouted the words 'Allahu Akbar’ (God is great). And according to a doctor who was in a graduate program with him, Hasan regularly described the war on terror as a 'war against Islam', a radical attitude that is part of the intellectual territory of all jihadists.
But such is the culture of dissimulation when it comes to Islam that none of this can be regarded as evidence of religious indoctrination and extremism. No, instead we must believe that religion played no part in this ‘American’ atrocity. This is just another victory for the ‘cultural’ Islamists whose war on the truth knows no bounds – and who use ‘progressive’ liberals as their useful idiots.
topCameron's Euro wobble
5 November, 2009
I said yesterday that Cameron was right to abandon his plan for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. I also said that the only referendum that actually mattered was on our continual membership of the European Union - with good reason too, as it turns out. For the proposals made by David Cameron yesterday, namely to have a referendum 'lock' on further transfers of power and to try to repatriate powers from the EU, turn out to be very hollow.
Firstly, it isn't the future emasculation of British power that is the issue (how much more power can the EU seize?) so much as the previous undemocratic surrenders of national sovereignty. As for repatriating powers from Europe, this would hardly be possible unless all the other 26 EU members agreed to it. And that is unlikely to happen unless they too are able to renegotiate their position with the Union in ways that are equally favourable to them. Can you see Merkel, Sarkozy and co agreeing to any such thing? Neither can I. By and large, transfers of power are one way in the EU.
In short, without asking the British people whether they want to remain subjects of a supranational Empire which has stripped the UK of its ability to govern itself, Cameron has no real answer to the Eurosceptics. He barely even wants to raise the issue, knowing how divisive it has been within his own party.
But on this issue, party politics must be cast aside for the sake of the national interest. It is the British people who have been lied to for nearly 40 years and the British people whose trust has been lost by Westminster. By failing to take their concerns seriously, Cameron has flunked a test of leadership.
Which political parties now believes in the UK as a fully sovereign, independent nation state whose laws are framed exclusively by Westminster's elected politicians? Answer: The fringe parties, UKIP and the BNP. How depressing.
topThe only referendum that now matters
04 November, 2009
So that's it! Without so much as a bang or whimper, the last barrier to the Lisbon treaty has fallen. The march of the supranational European state continues inexorably while democracy is trampled underfoot.
Now that this poisonous piece of legislation has been steamrollered past Europe's electorates, it is (as I previously argued) utterly pointless debating about a referendum. The Tories have abandoned that pledge and it is only logical, as I have previously argued.
Daniel Hannan, that great Tory genius in the European Parliament, is wrong to argue that a referendum even now would be essential for democracy. The British people would revolt en masse in the face of a political gesture that had no bearing on reality. An empty referendum would be an insult to democracy.
But getting too worked up about the Lisbon treaty would be missing the point entirely. The Constitution (aka treaty)is merely the logical culmination of a European project that was designed to remove powers from nation states in order to empower an unaccountable political elite. The elites who set it up did not envisage a passive entity working with member states. Rather they created the blueprint for an emerging political colossus that would gradually remove decision making from sovereign nations altogether. Lisbon is the culmination of that undemocratic dream.
Where the Tories are misguided is in thinking that they can remain a happy EU member while demanding a repatriation of its powers. This is inimical to the entire European project which is precisely why Tory pleas will fall on deaf ears.
Only one referendum matters now, and only referendum will be accepted by the British people, and that is on our continued membership of the EU. Give the British people a proper debate and I have no doubt that they will vote us out of this hideous entity once and for all.
topAn all too convenient volte face
2 November, 2009
So what’s this? Is there finally a voice of contrition from a Home Secretary over Labour’s immigration policy? Today, Alan Johnson all but admitted that a decade of immigration and asylum policies have been an utter shambles, though he used the euphemism ‘maladroit’ to confuse people. This is of course precisely what a host of commentators (and this blogger) have been arguing for years, despite the best efforts of ministers and the liberal intelligentsia to stifle debate.
Quite how ready Alan Johnston is to actually have a debate on immigration, let alone bring about the seismic policy shift required to restore public trust, remains to be seen. More interesting still are the reasons for the Home Secretary’s sudden volte face. It was only recently, after all, that he declared he had no problem with a 70 million strong British population.
Could it possibly have anything to do with Nick Griffin’s recent appearance on Question Time? Could it reflect anxiety about the subsequent opinion poll indicating that a sizeable minority of British people would be prepared to vote BNP under certain circumstances? Might it just have been influenced by Andrew Neather’s revelations about how the Blair’s government sought to engineer ‘multiculturalism’ through mass immigration? Or does it, in addition to these three, have anything to do with having to fight an imminent election despite the immigration albatross around New Labour’s neck?
What’s that about cynicism, I hear you mutter? Awfully sorry, I'm afraid that’s what 12 years of New Labour does to you.
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