A Crooke from the Establishment

David Lindsay

Quite apart from the fact that it makes no difference to any British interest who runs Syria, the present government there is a protector of the Christians as surely as was the government that we removed in Iraq.

The nature of the opposition is evident from the fact that, following the re-election of Turkey's Islamist government, many of them are heading for that NATO, and putative EU, member-state.

arnoldo87

I hadn't realised that Assad was protecting the Christians, just like Saddam used to. Thanks to David Lindsay for reminding us of this salient fact.

In that case we can all be pretty relaxed about the current slaughter of the opposition (provided, of course, that there are no Christians amongst them).

Thanks also to David for the news that Turkey has an "Islamist" government.

Golden Nuggets of expertise!

ndm

-- The American journalist Michael Weiss wrote recently, “Tony Blair can’t be a war criminal. If he were, George Galloway would support him.”

You can tell we are being sold a bill of goods when even the reference blog describes Weiss, not as American, but as:

-- Michael Weiss is the Communications Director of the Henry Jackson Society and the Spokesperson of Just Journalism, which monitors the British media's coverage of Israel and the Middle East.

No mention of American there - merely PR flak for the loopy Henry Jackson Society and spokesperson for the Hasbarbaric proganda outfit, "Just Journalism." This isn't exactly the kind of resume that inspires confidence in his intellectual ability.

I wonder if rightists who assert Syria to be an apartheid-style state would ever deign to condemnt the obviously Apartheid state Israel has created in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. I very much doubt that Just Propaganda, sorry "Just Journalism," would ever tell us the truth about that.

And, of course, we do need to understand what drives people in the Muslim World to support ideologies we don't like so we can help direct them away from them. I realise some prefer we remain ignorant of the interests of ordinary Muslims in the Middle East. Our Responsiblity to Protect seems to stop a good country mile short of them.

And, yes, we should recognize the horrors Assad is visiting on his people, just as we should recognize the horrors the Israeli people visit on the Palestinians. The latter horrors are those Michael Weiss and his friends at "Just Journalism" would hide from us with their hasbarbaric progaganda.

Since Nick Cohen started with a joke I will end with one. Why is the lamest Western ideology of the last two decades called neo-conservatism? Because it sounds better than neo-Nazism.

Frank P

Crooke, of course.

Frank P

Considering the labyrinthine connections that Crooke forged through his erstwhile (?) spook status and the number of media pies his finger has been in, he has managed to mainly evade the attention of Google linkage. Does he know somebody inside Google, I wonder?

Alain

Just to remember you that the Al-Assad regime is the first responsible for the terrorism in the Middle-East. The Syrian regime created Hezbollah terrorist group in Lebanon and support it with more than forty thousands of rockets to threaten the neighbours. The Al-Assad regime supports Hamas terrorist group whose leaders have been living in Damascus. Hamas takes the orders from Damascus to send human bombs to Israel. The Al-Assad regime is the first partner to Gaddafi (Libya). Gaddafi and Al-Assad (father and son) did a lot of terrorist attacks in the world. Do you forget Mr Rafik Hariri who was assassinated on 14 February 2005 by the Syrian security forces and Hezbollah? It is the time to end this Syrian terrorist regime.

adam

What sort of man believes this?

"Most Syrians however believe that Assad instinctively is reformist."

Tony Blair.

Blair has not been calling for the removal of Assad but has continually argued that Assad could reform. "Evolution not revolution" in Blair's rather banal and clichéd words

Erica Blair

Alain, I think the Irgun and Stern Gang got there first.

Funny how Cohen describes Syria as an Apartheid state, but goes into hysterics when that label is applied to Israel.

ps Cohen is involved with the Hasbara operation 'Just Journalism' along with his mate, Denis MacShameless.

Kennybhoy

Erica Blair on June 13th, 2011 10:04pm

"Alain, I think the Irgun and Stern Gang got there first."

Nope. That would be the Mufti's murder gangs. Or if you want to go further back the Assassins.

Kennybhoy

Splendid article Maister Cohen.

You wrote:

"He manipulates the belief, common among intelligent people, that events are more complicated than they appear."

I actually believe that this psychological phenomenon is at the root of many evils.

Fergus Pickering

If it is true that the present Syrian government protects Christians, just as Saddam did, then it certainly makes a difference to me. And it makes a difference to me that the Arab Spring in Egypt means death to many Coptic Christians. You see the Christians are on my side, the wide of Western civilisation and the Muslims (and this includes the Arab Springers) aren't. I would have hoped tat would be the general stance of the British ruling class but I don't think it is. We have open season on the Catholic Church (all priests are child-abusers) and on Evangelical Christians who wish to spread their faith. Muslims on the other hand... but you see where this is going. How many of you here agree with me? I ought to add that the present Archbishop of Canterbury seems a pretty poor sort of Christian to me.

Andy Gill

Erica Blair

"Funny how Cohen describes Syria as an Apartheid state, but goes into hysterics when that label is applied to Israel."

Maybe it's because in Syria like South Africa, a minority rules over a majority. While in Israel, unlike South Africa, all citizens are equal under the law, and the minority have full civil rights.

But don't let facts get in the way of your prejudice.

MArk2

"He manipulates the belief, common among intelligent people, that events are more complicated than they appear."

I have often wondered why the so called intelligentsia do not apply this often sensible view to Israel.

Erica Blair

Andy Gill.

Israel turned the Arabs from a majority into a minority by expelling them.

Fact.

Frank P

I've been 'modded'. Reminds me of the old army joke.

Duty Officer in OR's Mess.
"Who called the cook a c***??
Reply from the back, sotto voce,
"Who called the c*** a cook??

Except there's no r's in Cook and no bottle at the Speccie either, apparently.

ndm

In a prescient piece of autobiography Andy Gill reminds us:

-- But don't let facts get in the way of your prejudice.

Upthread I wrote:

-- I wonder if rightists who assert Syria to be an apartheid-style state would ever deign to condemnt the obviously Apartheid state Israel has created in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

To which Erica Blair followed with:

-- Funny how Cohen describes Syria as an Apartheid state, but goes into hysterics when that label is applied to Israel.

In a World where facts held sway both these comments in a single thread would be unobjectionable because they are so obviously true. Israel has created an apartheid system in the Occupied Palestinian Territories - indeed, it even created a Bantustan in Gaza the borders of which were completely controlled by Israel and its proxies.

Instead, Andy Gill introduced the prejudice by avoiding the truth in writing:

-- Maybe it's because in Syria like South Africa, a minority rules over a majority. While in Israel, unlike South Africa, all citizens are equal under the law, and the minority have full civil rights.

In Israel, all citizens are not equal under the law because immigration law depends on ethnicity. I agree that, inside its borders, the State of Israel is not a particularly racist state. However, just as the American South did for almost a century after the emancipation of the slaves Israel so Israel manages to administratively disfavour Israeli Arabs by, for example, making State benefits contingent on acts that Jews perform but Arabs don't. Regardless, this is relatively minor form of racism that we could hope the World has moved on from - but experience of the American south reminds us how hard it is to implement genuinely race-blind policies in the face of the "tyranny of the majority."

Like so many propagandists before him, Andy Gill has deliberately sought to confuse this mild form of racism with the evil of the apartheid system Israel introduced into the Occupied Palestinian Territories when it chose to violate the Fourth Geneva Convention by transferring its citizens there. I will remind everyone on this thread that the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court recognizes the crime of apartheid as a crime against humanity, and population transfer as a war crime.

When you lie about the apartheid system Israel created in the Occupied Palestinian Territories you do not support Jews you support Israeli crimes against humanity. When you lie about the transfer of Israeli citizens to the Occupied Palestinian Territories you do not support Jews you support Israeli war crimes.

Andy Gill

Erica Blair

"Israel turned the Arabs from a majority into a minority by expelling them."

Erm, Arab armies attacked Israel the day after it was established, and many Arabs fled the conflict. It's about time the Arabs took responsibility for that.

Erica Blair

The Zionists were slaughtering and expelling Arabs before the day Israel was established.

As Benny Morris said,

"That was the situation. That is what Zionism faced. A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on."

The term `to cleanse' is terrible.

"I know it doesn't sound nice but that's the term they used at the time. I adopted it from all the 1948 documents in which I am immersed."

Noga

From Erica's quote:

"It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on."

Repeat:

"... from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on."

Stephen Rothbart

ndm, how can you suggest a country that has 4,500,000 Jews, 1,500,000 Arabs and 500,000 of other persuasions, has Arabs in the Knesset and in the sports teams, and in the IDF, and has free access to all its places of religious worship an aprtheid state?

What you described about Israel could easily describe the conditions of the people of the UK, France or Germany.

Black people and Asians cannot get jobs in the UK becasue of their origins. Does that make the UK an aprtheid state?

Germans will not allow their Turkish populations to become Germans. That is far more like apartheid than what Israel has to offer.

The Syrians keep their Palestinian Arabs in refugee camps. Israel allowed them to assimilate and become Israeli citizens.

This was a piece about Syria. Why on earth do you have to bring Israel into it anyway?

What is the relevance?

People have accused the IDF of many things, but not raping and killing women and children at will and as part of their tactics.

Yet this was precisely what one Palestinian faction in Syria acccused another Palestinian faction in Syria, that is controlled by Assad's regime of doing.

It's not only Israelis that have killed Palestinians you know.

elixelx

ndm writes: "In Israel, all citizens are not equal under the law because immigration law depends on ethnicity...." Let me translate this gibberish, a language only ndm and I understand. What he's saying is that Israel discriminates against people who have not yet come into the country and aginst citizens of other countries. By giving all Jews the inalienable right to immigrate into Israel, THAT makes Israel an apartheid State. In other words not being Jewish anywhere in the world makes you a victim of Israeli apartheid! I sure you all must agree that it takes a serious case of chutzpah to disqualify 5.988 billion people from having the right to emigrate to Israel.
ndm agrees: "I agree that, inside its borders, the State of Israel is not a particularly racist state. However, just as the American South did for almost a century after the emancipation of the slaves Israel so Israel manages to administratively disfavour Israeli Arabs by, for example, making State benefits contingent on acts that Jews perform but Arabs don't."
So, Israel is an apartheid state outside and discriminatory against it's own Arab citizens inside; why, because it treats Israeli Arabs rather as the Americans treated the recently freed slaves by "... making State benefits contingent on acts that Jews perform but Arabs don't."
Can you see it, now? all the civil rights marches, cross burnings, lynchings, misery and poverty that went on for 150 years in the US why, everyday we see the same in Israel. Yes! Arabs have to line up to collect their dole cheques, often interspersed with idle Isrealis! Oh and Arabs have to dtand in line at banks and post offices and government offices, interspersed with Israeli; oh and Arabs can drink coffee in the same restaurants, hell even sit at the same tables as Israelis.
What shamelessly discriminatory thoughts run through your head when you write this rubbish, ndm?
Please, come to Israel! Be my guest! I'll buy! (Only if you're not Jewish, of course!)

ndm

Stephen Rothbart asks:

-- ndm, how can you suggest a country that has 4,500,000 Jews, 1,500,000 Arabs and 500,000 of other persuasions, has Arabs in the Knesset and in the sports teams, and in the IDF, and has free access to all its places of religious worship an aprtheid state?

This in response to a comment in which I wrote:

-- Regardless, this is relatively minor form of racism that we could hope the World has moved on from - but experience of the American south reminds us how hard it is to implement genuinely race-blind policies in the face of the "tyranny of the majority."

Since Rothbart appears to be functionally illiterate I will remind him that I also wrote:

-- When you lie about the apartheid system Israel created in the Occupied Palestinian Territories you do not support Jews you support Israeli crimes against humanity.

ndm

elixlx adds some more functionally illiterate word salad:

-- By giving all Jews the inalienable right to immigrate into Israel, THAT makes Israel an apartheid State. In other words not being Jewish anywhere in the world makes you a victim of Israeli apartheid!

I don't know what elixlx is smoking but it is neither kosher nor halal.

Trumpeter Lanfried

Nick, I don't find this guy's article either shrewd or persuasive.

The suggestion that local officials are to blame for the atrocities simply triggers the, 'Oh yeah?' response.

And sentences like this:

'The challenge is how to bring the language of mainstream Islamist movements like Hizbullah and Hamas to a new context in the West, [blah blah, blah]'

go down like a lead balloon; obfuscatory left-wing propaganda of the sort you can read in The Guardian any day of the week.

Stephen Rothbart

ndm, sorry to be "functionally illiterate," as you are so clearly my intellectual superior. But since you managed to turn a discussion by Nick Cohen on the barbarity of Syria towards it own people by, as usual, bringing in Israel, may I suggest that you are "functionally incoherent."

If you have a comment on Israel to make, find the right platform or leave your anti-Zionism out of non-related topics.

As has become increasingly clear, except to Israel obsessives like you seem to be, that most countnries in the Middle East are a hotbed of religious and ethnic hatred, and that many of their leaders have spent their
times purging either their Shias or Sunnis, or tribal clans, Christians or Jews from amongst them, mostly in the name of their version of Islam as part of their declared aim to rid the Middle East of any Muslim, Jew or Christian that is not Iran or Saudi friendly.

And Syria is part of that equation. Syria keeps Palestinians in refugee camps inside Syria. Israel does not.

Do not worry about the Jewish soul, ndm, worry about the Muslim soul.

There lies everything wrong about man's treatment to man.

Turn Arab society into Israeli type society and you will see how everyone is better off.

It's when people like you try to stiffle debate over these brutal regimes by constantly bringing Israel into every Middle Eastern discussion that people like you, with your casual and totally uncalled for personal insults, do everyone harm, including the victims of Syrian, Lebanese, Egyptian, Saudi, Iraqi, Yemeni, Libyan and Iranian oppression.

So for a start let's hear your views on why, last week a pro-Assad Palestinian group shot and killed 14 Palestinians belonging to another group at a funeral.

And try not to use the word Israel, if that is possible for such a literate guy such as yourself.

Fitzmark2

Israel was founded on wide spread sympathy following the Holocaust, the bomb, the bullet, terrorism, the expulsion of the Palestinians and the support of the world's greatest and richest super power. Is it any wonder there are problems in Israel?

Steephen Rothbart

Fitzmark2, apart from your entire post being factually wrong, what has this to do with the topic of the article on the Syrian regime?

Perhaps you might care, instead, to comment on why Syria still keeps Palestinian Arabs in refugee camps and in Israel, those that chose to remain became Israeli Arabs and now make up nearly 30% of Israel's population, are in the Knesset and chooose to play for the national soccer team.

Fitzmark2

The entire post is "factually wrong" you say - surely not. My cousin was a member of the Palestine Police and was murdered by Jewish terrorists (fact). He's buried in Israel (fact). Israel traditionally has had and still has the fiscal, political and military support of America (fact). While needing qualification, and leaving aside the British Mandate, it is not entirely wrong to say that there was widespread sympathy in the Western World for the Jews at the end of WW2?

And it doesn't take much savvy to realise that the inception of the Jewish State is interrelated with the seemingly insoluble problem of the Middle East.

And I am not a supporter of any of the fascistic Arab States.

Stephen Rothbart

Fitzmark2, I am sorry for any loss of family.

However, the concept for a Jewish homeland in Palestine was decided upon long before the Holocaust, and if the UN vote for Israel was governed by sympathy, the resultant neglect by any one nation to help the Jewish state when the Arabs then immediately attacked her shows that such sympathy was not that deep.

Yes, the US supports Israel, morally and financially, just as it finally came to support the Allies in WW2, and kept the Soviet Union from over running Europe from Moscow to the Atlantic coast during the last 50 years following the end of the War.

If you think we are all broke now, consider what Europe's financial situation would be like if we had had to pay for the kind of defence the US umbrella provided us with for all these years.

Incidentally the US also sent billions of dollars to Egypt.

Syria has meddled with Lebanon and virtually taken over that country in the name of Iran, and only Israeli military maneuvers on the Syrian border stopped the Assad regime from moving into Jordan during King Hussein's reign.

This was arranged by Israel and the King to protect Jordan who had become a reluctant but valuable ally of Peace.

Neither of these aggressive acts by Syria and Iran have or had anything to do with Israel, and as you can see, most of the troubles engulfing the entire region also have nothing to do with Israel or the Palestinians.

For years these odious regimes used the Palestinians and the Israelis as their scapegoats for all that ailed their failed states.

That the Western leaders and their gullible populations actually fell for this canard says more about them than about Israel.

By your linking, like ndm, any act of any Arab regime to Israel by always bringing her into any discussion on Arab wrongdoings, you provide useful cover for their atrocious acts against each other.

This is the Arab perpetual excuse. "How can we learn to reform when there is this horrible Jewish State that stole all our land?"

It sound bogus when you say it like that. But that is exactly what they say, and you know what?

It is bogus.

Augustus

"The author seduces the reader by offering entrance to a privileged world of insider knowledge. He manipulates the belief, common among intelligent people, that events are more complicated than they appear." Well, good luck to him! But words cannot hide the effect of the pictures from Syria of tanks, helicopter gunships and gun-toting soldiers, unleashing against unarmed civilians by a despot. And how swiftly the Arab “spring” turned ugly and cruel, sinking
ever deeper in its own bloodletting.

Here is a verse translated from the Arabic:

"When a helmet becomes God in heaven/ and can do what it wishes/ with a citizen — crush, mash/ kill and resurrect/ whatever it wills,/ then the state is a whorehouse,/ history is a rag,/ and thought is lower than boots.”

These are words of Nizar Qabbani (1923-1998), a Syrian poet, reflecting on the nature of Arab politics in his time. Yet, despite all that, cruelty of man over man is not confined to, or characteristic of, any one culture. But don't be surprised if one culture in particular will never learn to distinguish between mobocracy, as a tyranny of the majority, and democracy, as a rule of law, in which minorities are protected as equal members of society. Arab culture demands that whatever is desirable and relished in private must be hidden (veiled) in public. The fear of “fitna” or anarchy haunts Arab culture. Freedom in the Arab world is synonymous with disorder. And so a culture suspicious of the West will continue to prefer arid summers of tribal order over any spring that heralds freedom for its people.

Fitzmark2

Steephen Rothbart
My posts were in the context of the way the topic of this article had developed, that is, about Israel. I made no mention of anything other than the inception of the State of Israel which I see as the root cause of many of the problems that were to plague Israel during the following decades.

For you to deliberately misinterpret the posts to mean that I am providing useful cover for the actions of fascist Arab States is laughable at best, disingenuous if not offensive, at worst.

Stephen Rothbart

Fitzmark2, what you actually said was "And it doesn't take much savvy to realise that the inception of the Jewish State is interrelated with the seemingly insoluble problem of the Middle East." The problem of the Middle East. Not the problem of Arab states with Israel, but the "problem of the Middle East."

Many commentators use Israel as the main reason for everything that is bad in the Middle East, including the Syrians. The most pressing issue in the Middle East is sorting out the Israeli Palestinian problem is a sentiment that is shared by the current POTUS and our current PM.

It's nonesense of course, and nothing in your original email from which I quoted is any different from that kind of remark.

And since the fighting going on in Syria is nothing to do with Israel, I am still at a loss to see why you had to try to make a link. It was a complete non-sequiter.

In addition, since Israel occupies less than 1% of the entire Middle Eastern land mass, the other Middle eastern countries should perhaps learn to leave her alone and then that "problem" would go away.

If a small child is picked upon by five or six bullies at its school, it is rather silly to suggest there would be no bullying if only the small child did not go to school anymore. Perhaps the fact that Israel's existence causes her problems is not the fault of Israel's existence, but the intolerant and homicidal nature of those that oppose Jews living there, before, during and after she was created.

ndm

Stephen Rothbart writes:

-- In addition, since Israel occupies less than 1% of the entire Middle Eastern land mass, the other Middle eastern countries should perhaps learn to leave her alone and then that "problem" would go away.

The problem is not that "Israel occupies less than 1% of the entire Middle Eastern land mass" it is that Israel has colonized the Occupied Palestinian Territories in a monstrous violation of international law. It is the depravity consequent to that colonization that has brought pariah status to Israel and disgrace to those who pretend to be "friends of Israel."

Baron

Stephen Rothbart @ 2.42 at al.:

so true, so well put, but such a waste on those who talk to plankton, the Ericas, the ndms & co, these people will never be pursuaded, their views are informed by the depth of their delusion, the inability to think beyond the frame of their fanatical hatred of a single racial group of the Jews, one cannot but roll one’s eyes, despair.

the truth is the major obstacle to peace in the region are the despotic regimes, of which the Syrian is but one, their backing of the likes of Hamas, Hizbullah that are just a bunch of thugs that hijacked the genuine grievances of the Palestinians not only vis-a-vis Israel, cling to power through lies, bribes, naked intimidation.

Nick Cohen, well said, too, sir, an excellent expose.

Fitzmark2

Steephen Rothbart: it seems obvious to me that with regard to Israel you live by the unwavering maxim, "My country right or wrong".

Such an attitude is evident in your posts and is indicative of the attitude of the West Bank settlers who insist they have a covenant with a fictitious god who continually sanctions their right to build homes on Palestinian land!

Can you not see that such an arrogant, delusional attitude by those settlers is so much the cause of civil, political and murderous unrest?

I gave three cheers when President Barack Obama came out in support of a two state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian problem, based on Israel’s pre 1967 borders. That is the only pragmatic way I can see to end the Israeli/Palestinian problem.

A major stumbling block I suspect will be if the political, secular side of Israeli society fails to make the rabid religious right see sense.

If the so call Arab Spring in Syria and beyond, spills over into the occupied Palestinian territories before a two state solution is brought to fruition it will have major implications for the region if not for the world.

Stephen Rothbart

Fitzmark2 and ndm, Baron is probably right, because from the venom of your replies, your obsession with Israel surmounts any reasonable attempt to engage with you in debate.

Again, I remind you that this blog was about Syria. I even asked Fitmark2 to comment, at least on the subject of the blog, and to try not to include any reference to the word "Israel" in it.

Instead neither of you even bother to put up a token word about Syria, and focus only on the word "Israel."

If your are not prepared to even acknowledge the savage nature of Israel's foes, not only to Jews but also to their fellow citizens, and also the Palestinians living amongst them (may I once again remind you, Palestinians loyal to Assad killed 14 of those opposed to Assad), then your contributions to debate are worthless.

Anyone who has ever read my blogs on Melanie Phillip's old site will know that I am not a fan of biblical settlement, and nor are most Israelis.

I am not a "my country righ or wrong" person either, I claim Israel to be no better or worse than any democratic nation, and like Tories hated the policies of the Left and Labour hated the policies of the Right, there are things that I dislike about Israel and things that I like and admire.

But your attitude is "Israel-never right, always wrong" which is worse. Especially in people that refuse to accept that Israel is surrounded by a hostile people who massacre Palestinians and then weep for them.

Jordan, Egypt and Syria are all guilty of that, yet you hold only Israel to account, and that I am afraid says more about you than any so-called concern for either Israel's soul or the welfare of the Palestinian Arabs.

Fitzmark2

The "venom of my replies"!! Oh you poor sensitive soul. You must have had a very genteel upbringing if you think that my poor little missives are venomous. You just can't be serious man, as the great John McEnroe used to complain. I used the term fascistic to describe the Arabs States that border Israel, and that's what they are to a lesser or greater extent.

And I base my criticism of you on what you have written on this blog - and I still think it's valid. The only other Spectator blog I’ve been on is Rod Liddle's.

So I take it from what you write that when talking of any matter related to the Middle East, of whichever region, one must not mention the excesses of the Israeli Administration: the elephant in the room. Sorry, but I will stand or fall on what I write. Both you and Baron in talking of hatred and venom, suggests very strongly that you need to get out more.

Try some gifilte fish in a spicy tomato sauce washed doen with a glass of dry white wine; it does wonders to calm the offended breast.

Stephen Rothbart

What is your problem Fitzmark2? Why do you have to be so insulting to anyone that opposes your point of view?

I did not say I was upset by it, I just commented on it, as I do now, because you seem to harbour a great deal of anger about Israel and people who take a different view about her than you do. Rather unbecoming, but if that's your style, well, that's your style. It just rather weakens your argument, because you are not commenting on the message, let alone the actual topic of Cohen's blog, but on the messenger while discussing another topic altogether.

So you agree that the states surrounding Israel are "fascistic." Good. Getting warmer.

Now you (and the limp noodle in the White House) want the Israelis to go back to indefensible pre-1967 lines and defend themselves from these "fascistic" states from these lines.

Good Plan.

I believe it was the same kind of plan Chamberlain thought was a good idea when dealing with another "fascistic" enemy, and decided that Czechoslovakia should hand over their defensive positions in the mountainous high grounds of Sudetanland to avoid another World War on the say so of another bunch of homicidal anti-Semitic idealogues.

How did that great idea work out for everyone, Fitzmark2?

And in return for what exactly? Certainly the limp noodle has not said exactly what he expects of the Palestinians in return, but perhaps you can.

So let's just end this by agreeing to disagree, and that while I am Churchillian you are Chamberlainian.

Oops, I hope you don't take that as an insult!

Fitzmark2

Here we go again: I offer insults to anyone opposing my point of view, do I? You have used the term venomous to describe my replies to you (laughable), and you endorse Baron's use of the term "hatred" to describe arguments opposed to his and to your arguments. A bit of hypocrisy going here I think Steephen Rothbart old chap. Is that an insult?

The last time I read of President Obama being referred to as a "limp noodle" was in an article about the Tea Party and the canny political operator and completely bonkers presidential candidate, Michelle Bachmann (well that's what many political commentators in America think of her). Am I warm in thinking that your political outlook is sympathetic to the values of the Tea Party? If not why do you use a favoured epithet of the Tea Party to describe the President of the USA?

To be fair to President Obama he has made it clear that a two state solution would involve close and thorough negotiations between both sides regarding the "giving up of land", the “right of return for Palestinians, and the right to exist for the State of Israel”. More and more thinkers in the Arab political world are recognising the right of Israel to exist. And hopefully the Arab Spring will help the process of reconciliation, help the process along. And the UN is set shortly to issue a resolution recognising a Palestinian State within the pre 1967 borders. There is hope, even yet.

I don't think your analogy with pre WW2 Germany is worth a light. And I'm not insulted in aqny way by your allsion to Neville Chamberlain.

Jaw, jaw, jaw is better than war, war, war, as your alter ego pointed out.

As for Chamberlain, well what can I say other than with 20/20 hindsight you can damn or praise any character from the past? If nothing else Munich did buy Britain time to re-arm. And at the time Chamberlain's political actions were widely supported in parliament and in the country as a whole.

In emulation of your alter ego I would much prefer to see a negotiated political settlement between Israel and Palestine than one dictated by war mongers, especially those of the armchair type.

Stephen Rothbart

Fitzmark2, you say "To be fair to President Obama he has made it clear that a two state solution would involve close and thorough negotiations between both sides regarding the "giving up of land", the “right of return for Palestinians, and the right to exist for the State of Israel”.

Well I am glad someone thinks Obama makes himself clear about anything, but the problem is that Israel will not accept the Right of Return for the 5 million Arabs that are insisting on it, and you, he and Crooke must be the last three people on Earth that thinks Hamas is a sincere partner for peace. Well, actually Crooke does not either, but then he wants Israel gone, so he is at least consistent.

"More and more thinkers in the Arab political world are recognising the right of Israel to exist. And hopefully the Arab Spring will help the process of reconciliation, help the process along. And the UN is set shortly to issue a resolution recognising a Palestinian State within the pre 1967 borders. There is hope, even yet."

Yes, yes, I can see why you and Obama would get along. There's a lot of "hope" in both your statements and not much substance. All the Arab Spring has shown is that like the Prague Spring, nothing turned out well. After the Prague Spring, the Russians re-invaded. Like the world's Press, you make the mistake of confusing the Prague Spring which was a disaster for Czechoslovak democracy, for the Prague Velvet Revolution which was a success, but I guess the expression, "Arab Velvet Revolution" is not so catchy to the great worthies on TV and in the Press.

You accuse me, I think, of being an armchair war-mongerer, but you sit safely in wherever you sit, and expect people on the front line of homicidal states like Syria, Hezbullah-run Lebanon, theocratic lunatics like Iran/Hamas to just hope that they will suddenly renounce everything they have said, and still say in public, on their radios and TV's (it's just the BBC and CNN don't bother to report it - but it's out there if you care to look) about the annhilation of the Jewish state.

I am of course very sorry for death of your cousin in the Palestine Police force.

But have you ever considered the irony of why he was there, when you resent the Jews for being there now?

I mean, your cousin was not an Arab, and he was a member of the Palestine Police. So what is the difference between the British occupation/mandate of the Palestinian region and that of the Israelis?

Both were won in war, Britain took control of Palestine after the centuries of it being under the control of the Ottoman Empire. So no Arabs were in charge there for centuries. Then Britain divided it up, in collusion with France into various States, lumping Shias and Sunnis together and enfranchising tribes like the Assad clans to lord it over other tribes, so that we now have the mess that is Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, all formerly Palestine. That mess is what is causing many of the problems now, not Israel.

Then the British honour their pre- WW1 pledge to create a homeland for Jews in Palestine, which is immensely unpopular with the Arabs, and who are on record for carrying out massacres of the Jews living amongst them even in the late 1890's.

Then after Israel is formed and sanctioned by UN votes, six Arab armies attack her.

Israel loses Jerusalem and all its holiest sites for nearly 20 years but gains more land elsewhere.

There is Peace. Did the Arabs under Jordan give back Jerusalem? No. Did they allow access to the holiest Jewish sites? No, they tried to destroy them.

Now you and the limp noodle want Israel to give half of Jerusalem back, even though many of their holiest sites are in the eastern quarter, and even though all Jews, Muslims and Christians, under Israel, have free access to their own religious worship, something they did not have before, when Jordan ruled. All on the basis of "Hope."

"I don't think your analogy with pre WW2 Germany is worth a light. And I'm not insulted in aqny way by your allsion to Neville Chamberlain." Good. You were both on the wrong side of history. Proves my point really.

"Jaw, jaw, jaw is better than war, war, war, as your alter ego pointed out." Depends who you are "jawing" with really.

Are we talking to al Qaeda? And if so, what about? Gadaffi? I "hope" so.

Fitzmark2

On first reading your reply to me I was almost ready to accept Henry Ford's notion that, "History is bunk". Objectivity does not appear to be one of your strong points when talking of past events.

It is not only Jews who have suffered from man's inhumanity to man, the list right across the board, is legion.

But the powerful Israeli PR machine, the surrogate arm of the American military, would have the world believe that the appalling suffering of the Jewish people in the Nazi holocaust far out weighs the dreadful suffering of people in past and recent examples of man's inhumanity to man. There has been to name but a few, the Rwanda genocide, the suffering of the Kurds at the hands of the Turks and the Iraqis, the killing fields of Cambodia and the internecine wars that are on going in a world that appears to have been fatally impregnated with perverse values, mores and ideals.

The overall tenor of your reply to me is indicative of the spin that spews out of the Israeli war machine. With regard to the British and the Israeli annexation of Palestine, I would say firstly that two wrongs do not make a right.

Also my cousin, before he was murdered by Jewish terrorists, was trying to uphold the law under the aegis of the British Mandate. You might regard that mandate as phoney, ill conceived, the root cause of the regions problems, but at the time it was a legal commission from the League of Nations for the administration of Palestine. I take it you do uphold the rule of Law, even in retrospect. Israel on the other hand has continually refused to negotiate a settlement with the Arabs in accordance with UN resolutions. There lies the difference between the two examples you give.

And while I support President Obama's "two state solution", with all its qualified and negotiated supplements, lumping me in with an MI5 spy is another laughable facet of your take on this matter.

This is my last post on this particular thread Steephen Rothbart not that it will have any effect on a person with such a "gung ho" frame of mind.