World

Responding to Stephen Walt’s hypothetical (What if Gaza were full of jews?), Megan McArdle compares the Israel lobby to the Irish-American lobby. Ross Douthat says, OK, but the IRA was still considered a terrorist organisation. Daniel Larison dives into the weeds of US attitudes towards Irish terrorism. He writes: The IRA was a genuine terrorist group, but it was listed as such by our government most of all because it was a sworn enemy of one of our closest allies. The record seems clear: terrorist groups that are useful to us or harmful to states we officially oppose are given a pass, while those that target us or our allies

Thinking about recent posts on the Republican party’s problems prompted this mildly disconcerting thought: So, isn’t it just a little too convenient that the Republican party might be able to solve some of its problems if only it were inclined to view matters in much the same way you do? That is if it were, shall we say, more “relaxed” about gay marriage and more open to some kind of comprehensive immigration settlement? That’s an audacious claim, ain’t it? The problem with the party is that it panders to all these other people rather than to people like you. What gives you – a foreigner to boot – the right

Pity the international diplomats. Hardly back from their Christmas break, they were plunged into yet another dizzying round of declamations and démarches over a fresh bout of Israeli misbehaviour, this time in Gaza. By midweek, diplomacy had achieved a partial success when Israel agreed to a daily pause for the distribution of humanitarian supplies. But it was not yet ready to end the war-fighting. Crocodiles apart, few would have shed tears for Hamas. All the parties understand that the outcome of the conflict could reverberate far beyond Gaza, with implications for the stability of the entire region. No one, of course, enjoyed seeing chunks of the Gaza Strip reduced to

Yeah, even by writers’ standards, John O’Hara could be touchy. Here’s Alan Jacobs: Anyway, when Pal Joey was a big hit on Broadway in 1940 a couple of friends ran into O’Hara at a restaurant and told him, “John, we just saw Pal Joey again and it was even better than the first time!” O’Hara replied, “What the hell was wrong with it the first time?” Splendid stuff, you’ll agree.

Sure as eggs is eggs, the arrival of a new American president heralds fresh fretting in the British press over the precise state of the so-called “Special Relationship”. Today’s text comes courtesy of Rachel Sylvester, writing in the Times. It’s worth considering in some detail: The inauguration of a president who is adored by the British public could ironically spell the end of the special relationship between the UK and the US. Just as the voters in this country decide that it is time to get up close and personal with America, so the Yanks are losing their passion for the Brits. Just as the Prime Minister decides it is

The conventional wisdom seems to be that Caroline Kennedy is, as Nick Confessore puts it, “too big to fail” in her quest to succeed Hillary Clinton as the junior Senator from New York. Perhaps so. There is, of course, one person who could decide that it’s not in the public interest to bail-out the Kennedys. With just two phone calls – one to David Paterson, the other to Kennedy – Barack Obama could put an end to this and suggest that New York have, like, an election or something shocking like that… But conventional wisdom also says Obama will do no such thing, not least, or perhaps largely, because he

For once. Also, for once, good news for a newspaper. Colin Freeman, the Sunday Telegraph’s chief foreign correspondent has been freed 40 days after he and his photographer, Jose Cendon, were kidnapped by Somali pirates. BBC report here; brief piece by Colin here. *Granted, if you’re actually Somali the news is, generally speaking, probably as lousy as ever.

Barack Obama got to the heart of the matter in July when he visited Sderot in Israel, a town in range of Hamas missiles. ‘If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep,’ Mr Obama said, ‘I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect the Israelis to do the same thing.’ No less acutely, he observed that it is ‘very hard to negotiate with a group that is not representative of a nation state, does not recognise your right to exist, has consistently used terror as a weapon and is deeply influenced by other countries’. As the rest of

Paul Wood says that Israel’s ‘shock and awe’ in Gaza caught Hamas off-guard and was a ferocious demonstration of willpower. But the Islamist organisation is far from finished A couple of months ago in Gaza, I found myself sitting across a table from a young Palestinian woman who had volunteered to become a suicide bomber. Umm Anas was 18 years old and wearing a niqab which revealed only her large brown eyes. She was full of implacable hatred for Israel and impatient for the ceasefire to end. ‘This is a gift from God,’ she said, talking about the opportunity to kill herself and as many Israelis as possible. ‘We were

Alice looks down from her perch on top of the rocking horse, bright-eyed behind big specs, says: ‘Catch me!’ then propels herself into the air. I catch, hug, then prop her back up again, ready for another go. ‘Ooh, she likes you,’ says Iris, director of the 999 Club and uncrowned queen of Deptford. ‘She doesn’t normally take to people that quick.’ I am ridiculously, disproportionately happy. Alice has a squint, is five but looks three. I love her. So where’s her mum? I ask Iris. Why isn’t she here? ‘Oh, her mum!’ Iris snorts. ‘She spends all day online chatting. She ignores Alice — leaves her sitting on her

Andrew suggests that Caroline Kennedy is, in most important respects, less qualified to be Senator from New York than Sarah Palin was to be Vice-President of the United States. There’s something in that, for sure, and Caroline’s sense of entitlement is nauseating. Still, Andrew writes: The model now, of course, is similar – finding a way to get elected without actually exposing your inadequacies. This seems harsh. After all, that’s what everyone standing for election hopes to achieve. At least, that’s true of the more self-aware breed of pol; some of them, I dare say, don’t think they have any inadequacies that could possible be exposed…