Israel

Saturday

Jonathan Mirsky

The long walk

In this long and fascinating novel, Ora, an early- middle-aged Israeli woman, walks for days through Galilee to escape the ‘Notifiers’, the officers she fears will come to her door to inform her of the death of Ofer, her soldier son, at the hands of Palestinians. In this long and fascinating novel, Ora, an early- middle-aged Israeli woman, walks for days through Galilee to escape the ‘Notifiers’, the officers she fears will come to her door to inform her of the death of Ofer, her soldier son, at the hands of Palestinians. David Grossman, one of Israel’s leading writers, relates in a note at the end of this novel that

Wednesday

David Blackburn

Burning the Koran

The US constitution cannot stop Pastor Terry Jones from burning 100 Korans to mark the 9th anniversary of 11 September, and neither should it – the right to free speech is absolute when within the law. But free speech comes with responsibilities. Just as it is unwise to build, with provocative intent, a mosque near the site of Ground Zero, so too for a Christian minister to burn the Koran as a publicity stunt. Such mindlessness is grossly offensive to the peace abiding majority, and it also furthers endanger US and Allied troops abroad and the population at home by inciting contemptible extremism. Common sense and the tenets of Christian faith aside, Jones should

Thursday

David Blackburn

A question of judgement

Up until today, the Hague-Myers story was confined to scurrilous rumour on Guido’s blog and the occasional cautious article in the Telegraph or the Mail; the rest of the media were uninterested. But, as James notes, Hague’s two extraordinarily frank statements, particularly yesterday’s impassioned denial to ‘set the record straight’, have forced the issue into the mainstream political debate. The personal always becomes political. What of William Hague’s judgement? John Redwood condemns Hague’s ‘poor judgement’ in personal matters before going on to cast aspersions on his policy judgements, particularly those relating to the EU. Iain Martin discusses Hague’s supposedly pro-Arabist sympathies: ‘Is Israel getting a fair hearing?’ he asks. Iain

Thursday

James Forsyth

Officials: Better than 50 percent chance that Israel will strike Iran next year

The Iran issue has dropped down the news agenda in recent months. But that doesn’t mean it has gone away. Even with the difficulties that Iran’s nuclear programme has faced, any decision on whether to try to use force to stop Iran becoming a nuclear-ready power will have to be taken in the next year or so as Jeffrey Goldberg’s brilliantly reported cover piece in the Atlantic reminds us. Goldberg writes, “I have interviewed roughly 40 current and past Israeli decision makers about a military strike, as well as many American and Arab officials. In most of these interviews, I have asked a simple question: what is the percentage chance

Saturday

James Buchan

A foot in both camps

As a five-year-old in the Arab quarter of Jerusalem in the 1950s, Kai Bird overheard an elderly American heiress offering $1 million to anyone who could solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. Tugging on his father’s sleeve, he said: ‘Daddy, we have to win this prize.’ Crossing Mandelbaum Gate, Bird’s memoir of growing up in the Middle East, is full of such generosity and innocence. In 1956, Kai’s father, Eugene Bird, moved his young family from Oregon to East Jerusalem, where he was to serve as American vice-consul in a city divided in two by the 1949 armistice line. Kai grew up in a rented villa half a mile from the lovely

Thursday

David Blackburn

Is the real love affair between Fat Pang and Dave?

We know that Chris Patten is advising David Cameron over the Pope’s visit – the Spectator interviewed him in that capacity recently. But a number of events this week suggest that Patten is very close to Cameron. Patten is currently in India, selling Oxford University with Cameron, but he has found time to pen an article about Gaza for the FT. Like Cameron, Patten believes that Gazans are serving an ‘interminable prison sentence’. He writes: ‘Gaza is totally separated from the rest of Palestine. It is cut off by a brutal siege. The objective is collective punishment of the one and a half million people who live there simply because

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Cameron’s provocative language over Gaza serves to obscure the issue

And there’s me thinking that David Cameron’s overtures to Turkey were newsworthy enough, when he drops this into his speech in Ankara: “Let me also be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change. Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp. But as, hopefully, we move in the coming weeks to direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians so it’s Turkey that can make the case for peace and Turkey that can help to press the parties to come together, and point the way to a just and viable solution.” In a wider sense, this

Sunday

Daniel Korski

No more Turkish delight?

I’m sitting at the Ciragan Palace’s glass-filled halls on the banks of the Bosporus. I have joined the UN Security Council’s annual retreat, organised by the Turkish government, to give my view on what the UN did right and wrong in the Balkans from the break-up of Yugoslavia. The retreat is meant to continue the Council’s discussion on the overlap between peacekeeping, peacemaking and peace-building. No immediate action will follow the retreat, but the discussion may lead into a more concrete phase during Turkey’s presidency in September. Being here in Istanbul, however, has given me a chance to find an answer to the debate that has sprung up about Turkish government: is

Monday

James Forsyth

Trimble frozen out of government

The announcement that Lord Trimble will join the Israeli review into the flotilla incident is a reminder that he has no role in the current government. Trimble takes the Tory whip and given that the party is not overly supplied with Nobel Prize winners, it is a bit of a surprise that no role has been found for him. In opposition, the word was always that relations between him and the new leadership of the Ulster Unionists, the Tories’ electoral allies in Northern Ireland, were not great. But the UUP leader has resigned since the election. Now, it may well be that Trimble himself is the obstacle. Even his admirers

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

The other Rachel

The boat the Israelis peacefully intercepted was called Rachel Corrie  – named after a young American protester accidentally killed when  offering herself as a human shield in Gaza. Her name became immortalised, some 30 songs have been written for her, a London play named after her and a film last year. But another Rachel, completely forgotten, is Rachel Thaler – a 16-year-old British citizen murdered by a Palestinian suicide bomber in 2002. Only one British publication has ever mentioned her: The Spectator. Here, below, is Tom Gross’ article from 22 October 2005: ‘Dead Jews aren’t news: British newspapers care greatly about some victims of the Israel army, says Tom Gross,

Thursday

Daniel Korski

Flotilla follies

Two groups in the Conservative party that have worried most about Con-Lib government are the social conservatives and the neo-conservatives. The latter have been particularly worried about UK relations with Israel. There is a real concern in parts of the Conservatives Party that three factors would come together to sour Anglo-Israeli relations: what the neo-conservatives see as the Foreign Office’s knee-jerk Arabism, the presence of many supposed Arabists in Cameron-Hague’s teams, and the anti-Israel bias exhibited by many leading Liberal Democrats. Whatever the truth of these allegations, they are held with considerable fervour. But Nick Clegg’s reaction to the conflict shows that the Lib Dem leader is both holding to

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Worse Than A Crime, A Blunder

What a disaster. For Israel that is. One may appreciate two things simultaneously: that the “peace” activists en route to Gaza were not necessarily as innocent as that appellation might suggest and that the Israeli commandos were, as matters developed, compelled to use more force than perhaps they anticipated. Few sensible folk dispute Israel’s right to defend itself. But how that right is exercised matters enormously, not least because Israel’s predicament is doubly-asymmetrical. Each side considers itself under siege and, for once, each side is correct. Israel, surrounded by hostile or at best sceptical neighbours, is acutely aware of its regional isolation. But on the West Bank and in Gaza,

David Blackburn

A PR disaster for Israel

Prematurely, the world’s press has condemned Israel. As I wrote yesterday, the facts have to be established before Israel can be adjudged to have acted disproportionately. At the moment, the facts seem to support Israel. Video footage shows commandoes descending into a maelstrom of baseball bats and knives, armed with items that resemble paintball guns. The latest pictures released show a hoard of improvised explosives, machetes, bats, crowbars etc. Those sources’ veracity should be scrutinised, but there is nothing else to go on at the moment. Iain Martin has debunked Jon Snow’s absurd genuflection that this is our fault. Being British I apologise for everything, but not this time. Israel

Monday

David Blackburn

Hague pitches it right

It would be wrong to pass comment on the loss of life on the Gaza Flotilla; the facts are not established. Israel is right to investigate convoys that it feels might be supplying Hamas with arms. But, as ever in the Middle East conflict, it must be determined whether Israel’s use of force was proportionate. Not that the answer to that question ever deters Hamas from terror or Israel from retaliation. Peace does not lie in abstract nouns. However, international law will determine the facts of this incident, and perhaps bring clarity to the divisive Gaza border issue. William Hague’s statement is temperate, acknowledging both sides of the debate and

Wednesday

Daniel Korski

Nick Clegg and the 3 am phone call

Compared to many CoffeeHousers, I don’t find the Liberal Democrat’s foreign policy positions as problematic. Nick Clegg is smart, internationalist and has – unlike David Cameron and Gordon Brown (and Tony Blair) – plenty of foreign policy pre-leadership experience. But looking through the Lib Dem manifesto, I came across its pledge on Iran, which is quite problematic for a party that is keen to shed its beardie-wierdie, peacenik image and whose leader may even end up running the Foreign Office. The manifesto says that, on the one hand, the Lib Dems support “action by the international community to stop Iran obtaining nuclear weapons.” But the party also makes clear that

Sunday

Alex Massie

Obama and the Jews

Granted there was something about George W Bush that sent plenty of otherwise reasonably normal people a little nuts too and perhaps the nature of politics and technology today is such that this kind of crazy is inevitable regardless of who wins elections. But what, in the name of god, has Obama done to merit this kind of stuff from Glenn Reynolds? Possibly Obama just hates Israel and hates Jews. That’s plausible — certainly nothing in his actions suggests otherwise, really. OK! I guess that White House seder is proof of how deep the conspiracy runs? Evidently the administration is protesting too much. Only a White House riddled with anti-semites

Friday

Daniel Korski

US-Israeli spat ends, but may have long-term effects

Week two and the US-Israeli spat has calmed. More than a dozen Republican and Democratic Congressmen have pressed the Obama administration to tone down its criticism, following initial outrage of Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to build 1,600 homes in the disputed East Jerusalem territory – announced during Vice President Joe Biden’s visit. Claims that the US-Israel relationship have sunk to the worst level for 35 years were rejected by Hillary Clinton. And in his first public comments on the controversy, President Obama downplayed criticism of the Israeli government over the illegal settlement expansion plan. But I am with Israel’s ambassador to the US: there is real risk of a lasting rift

Wednesday

Alex Massie

The Limits of American Power: Israel and Iran Editions

I agree with Melanie Phillips that the principle reason there’s no middle-east preace prcess worth the name is the Palestinian’s reluctance to recognise and guarantee Israel’s security. I believe there are other reasons too, mind you, that help to obstruct any path towards a proper and just settlement. Still, since Melanie doesn’t believe there should be a Palestinian state, what does she think should be done? However much some people might wish it, the Palestinians cannot be wished away. They’re not going anywhere. Right? And if this is so, then at some point some kind of a deal will have to be reached. Perhaps not for many years, but sometime

Thursday

Daniel Korski

Mossad’s suspected actions in Dubai may be a crime, but will they help Israel?

One of Israel’s most potent weapons has been the mixture of awe and fear with which its spy services are held. Now that Mossad is suspected of killing Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai, and using fraudulent British passports in the process, newspapers will dredge up stories about the Entebbe Raid, the killing of Black September by Mossad agents and other daring-do acts. The other reaction to the suspected assasination of the arm-smuggling Hamas official will be indignation about the extra-judicial nature of Israel’s action. But these made-for-Hollywood stories and the West’s moral indignation mask some uncomfortable truths. That Mossad, its domestic equivalent Shin Bet and Israeli commandoes are bureaucratic organisations. Like

Thursday

Martin Bright

Labour’s Revolting Over Israel

As the Labour Party descends further into student union gesture politics, it is perhaps appropriate that the last backbench rebellion before the election is set to be over Israel and the Palestinians. As James has pointed out on Coffee House, disgruntled Labour MPs are preparing for battle over the issue of universal jurisdiction, which blew up when an arrest warrant was issued for former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni. Not to be outdone, the Jewish Chronicle will be splashing on the story tomorrow and has already put the story up on its website. I had it on very good authority that the government will announce the law change next week.