A revolutionary proposal

Commenting on the Obama/Israel crisis, Ed Lasky concludes that the US President is deliberately trying to turn America against Israel – and he is succeeding.

I have written in today’s Jewish Chronicle that it is time for Israel to stop going along with the diplomatic lies told for so long by Britain, America and the west about the Arab war against Israel. Lies that have twisted so many people’s minds into the belief that Israel is the historic usurper and aggressor in the Middle East, whereas in fact the Jews and the Jews alone are the rightful heirs to the land, in historical, legal and moral terms, and a monstrous injustice has been and is still being done to them.

It is these lies, and the consequent appeasement of the Arabs who promulgate them and the rewarding of Arab...

Continue reading...

Email to a friend  |   Permalink   |   Comments (0)

He gets it

Sobering and important cri de coeur in the Scottish Review by Lord Robertson, the former NATO Secretary-General, from a lecture he delivered to the Atlantic Council in Washington DC earlier this month, on the fact that the free world is about to walk off the edge of a precipice because it does not understand why it is fighting in Afghanistan, and the truly terrible consequences if it loses there, all because its leaders have not spelled these out to them.

As Robertson so aptly reminds us, in 1940 Hitler very nearly won the war because the British were similarly gripped by demoralisation and defeatism. It was only because Churchill rallied the country to the belief that it had no alternative but to win that it did in fact go on to to do so. It was only because the...

Continue reading...

Email to a friend  |   Permalink   |   Comments (32)

A premature case of grief and joy

Today’s papers are full of the news that, as a result of a court ruling yesterday which produced a loophole in the law like a rabbit from a hat, the adoption agency Catholic Care can now discriminate lawfully against gay would-be adoptive parents by restricting adoption  placements to married couples. This has elicited equally joy from those who believe that anti-discrimination law is oppressively preventing scripturally faithful Christians from practising their religious precepts, and outrage from the gay lobby which has declared that the ruling will prevent gay couples from adopting.

In fact, according to the uniquely estimable Joshua Rozenberg* on his Standpoint blog, none of this is true. Not one scintilla. Catholic Care has not been given permission to discriminate against gay couples. There is no loophole in the law allowing this to be done. All that has happened is that the court has given Catholic Care a second chance to make its case to the Charity Commission — which may well turn it down on ‘human rights’ (sic) grounds.

Both the rejoicing and the mourning are thus distinctly premature.

*Author’s husband

Email to a friend  |   Permalink   |   Comments (2)

America locks its own chains

To read the British media on the Obama/Israel crisis is to enter a different moral universe and sphere of reality. In the US, as I wrote yesterday, there has been enormous upset over the fight that Obama so egregiously picked with Israel over the supreme non-event of continuing to build in an orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of east Jerusalem. Even the Washington Post questioned Obama’s

quickness to bludgeon the Israeli government.

On Politico, Ben Smith noted the cross party nature of the uproar:

Democratic critics have begun to question the White House's public pressure on Netanyahu to reverse plans for controversial new housing and make other, unspecified concessions... Pennsylvania Rep. Christopher Carney, a Democrat, and Illinois Republican Rep. Mark Kirk are sending a letter this morning to President Obama asking the administration to climb down.

Continue reading...

Email to a friend  |   Permalink   |   Comments (16)

All this whelan 'n' dealin' gives Labour a sinkin' feelin'

Looks like the threatened British Airways strike is paying unforseen dividends to the Tories by focusing attention on the degree to which the Labour party is in hock to its Unite paymasters. Even Labour circles are said to be concerned. Now Joe Murphy of the Evening Standard reveals this gem:

One of Gordon Brown's senior officials at No 10 is entirely paid by the Unite trade union, the Standard reveals today. Clare Moody, a national officer for the trade union behind the British Airways cabin crew strike, has been given a desk in the Prime Minister’s political office that deals with policy development and government relations. Although she works in the heart of Downing Street, her salary and pension are ‘100 per cent’ met

Continue reading...

Email to a friend  |   Permalink   |   Comments (9)

Israel alone

Under a hail of domestic critisism over its reckless and unforgiveable inslaught against Israel, Hillary Clinton – deputed by Obama to do his dirty work last week – is now trying to defuse the crisis by adopting a more emollient tone. But Pandora’s box has now been opened, and the vicious creature that emerged cannot be put back again.

The ever-sagacious John Bolton understands this very well, and more importantly understands where it is leading. In the Wall Street Journal today, he says Netanyahu’s strategy of trying to accommodate Obama – ‘America’s first post-American President’ -- has now been shown to be fatally flawed. The real issue is, of course, Iran; and the brutal and chilling message from this week’s brouhaha is that when it comes to stopping Iran from getting the bomb, Israel really is on its own.

Continue reading...

Email to a friend  |   Permalink   |   Comments (41)