More on those six days

That war and its aftermath were so important that several postings are justified as is a certain amount of personal reminiscing.

A year or so before the war my class was taken to see the Masada exhibition in the Royal Festival Hall. The major excavations had been completed and the stupendous exhibition travelled to various places and everywhere the history of the fortress whose defendants committed suicide rather than surrender to the besieging Romans captured many people’s imagination.

When, in the spring of 1967 the tension around Israel started to build up, it seemed like Masada was with us again. A small country was surrounded by much bigger enemies who were determined to destroy it. Not just defeat it in war or take over some territory but to destroy it.

This was most clearly expressed by the then Foreign Minister, Anwar Sadat, who spoke of sweeping every Israeli man, woman and child into the sea. Recently uncovered documents show plans that the Egyptians and the Jordanians had for the massacre of Jews in captured Israeli cities. This is not surprising if one looks at the history of various places such as Nablus, which is not quite as straightforward as some of those writing about it would like to make it out.

Let me run through my memories very quickly. I recall ferocious debates at school with my classmates. (Yes, m’lud, it was a very ordinary grammar school in north west London but somehow we read newspapers and tried to work out what was going on and what may have been causing it.)

I recall my father writing articles in various publications (yes, ink seems to run in our veins). Like most people, he was frightened of what might happen. Will Israel be destroyed? Will there be another Diaspora? Will, as he put it in one article, the taunting sound of “hep, hep, hep” sound again in European cities as displaced Jews pour in? What will the United States do? It was not, at the time, heavily involved in the Middle East but had opposed Egypt’s escalating involvement in Yemen through the sixties. Would the Soviet Union get involved on behalf of its client state, Egypt?

It seems to be fashionable at the moment among the great and the good to talk of Israel’s wasted victory, of the fact that the situation is no better than it was 40 years ago, of the way Israel’s population has split over the subject of what to do with the lands that were occupied in 1967.

All of that chatter ignores a basic fact: with the Arab countries creating alliances for the specific purpose of destroying Israel, with the Soviet Union arming Egypt and providing Nasser with many “advisers” who were mostly military officers, with the UN peacekeeping troops leaving the Suez Canal at President Nasser’s request, with constant attacks across the border and, finally, with the closing of the Tiran Straits to Israeli shipping, there were very few choices. It was fight or die for the whole country. Given the history of the twentieth century, it is understandable that the grim Israeli reaction was “never again”.

Finally, I recall my father’s instructions to listen to the radio news every morning before I went to school and leave him a note (he got up later) as soon as the war started. There were several false alarms but on June 5, with a sinking feeling I left that note. It had begun.

I shall leave the description of the actual war particularly the various toys involved in it to my colleague. What interests me and what we need to recall is the astonishment with which the world greeted the speed with which the Israelis defeated their enemies, though the losses in East Jerusalem, after Jordan, misled by Egypt, attacked having promised not to do so, were heavy.

The Golan Heights were difficult with the Syrians shelling Israeli soldiers and settlements. But for all of that it was an astonishing victory. The weakness that it revealed in the Arab fighting capability made many wonder why President Nasser had pushed for the war to the extent he did. Did he expect the war to break out or did he hope to take the situation to the brink and have it resolved somehow as it had been in 1956? Above all, had he actually forgotten that although the Suez crisis ended with a humiliation for France and Britain, the actual war in the Sinai had been won by Israel?

As it happens, I have been reading a fascinating new book by a young historian, Laura M. James, “Nasser at War – Arab Images of the Enemy”. Dr James has spent a good deal of time and energy trying to work out precisely what motivated President Nasser and many of those around him. How much did they know about the Israeli preparedness and, above all, about their own troops?

The evidence, on her showing, is confusing. People tell different tales and much has been eroded from memories. But the conundrum of what was Nasser trying to achieve remains. Of course, it is possible, that he was merely trying to survive. Certainly that is true about the immediate post-war period. Having roused the Arab masses with his anti-Western and, only secondarily before 1967, anti-Israeli rhetoric, he could not show himself to be anything less than the man who was going to “liberate” Arab lands, that is destroy Israel.

One of the most curious episodes in that build-up to the war was the certainty with which Egypt and Syria accepted that there was Israeli military build-up on the Syrian border, though a swift check through intelligence information might have disabused both Nasser and Hafez al-Asad that this was an unlikely scenario.

This was the outcome, as Dr James describes, partly of wishful thinking, partly of misunderstanding and partly of certainty given by the Soviet Union confirming the information. That raises questions about Soviet intelligence. Did they not know any better?

A recent book published in the United States by Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez, entitled “Foxbats over Dimona” puts a different interpretation on the whole episode. According to Daniel Pipes’s review (as I have not yet seen the book) the misinformation was deliberate.

The Soviet Union was worried about the nuclear facility the Israelis were building at Dimona and thought of eliminating it. The plan was a kind of reversal of the Franco-British one in 1956.

By giving misleading and highly provocative information the Soviet Union would provoke the war, which would be fought to a standstill, then move in to destroy Dimona. They miscalculated about the speed and comprehensiveness of Israeli victory, which casts some doubt on the issue, though, otherwise, the scenario is entirely plausible and explains hitherto mysterious aspects.

Judging by the stories told at the time, the Soviet officers in Egypt were as stunned as anyone else by Israeli movement forward and the Egyptian rout. Many Israelis at the time knew Russian and they intercepted radio messages that were full of uncomplimentary (and unprintable) references to the Egyptian forces.

Some Soviet officers were captured but the whole subject was hushed up and some kind of exchange instituted between Israel and the USSR.

At the end of the week, the world rubbed its eyes and saw a different landscape. There were Israeli soldiers at the West Wall. There were Israeli soldiers on the Golan Heights. There were Israeli soldiers near the Suez Canal. The great might of the Arab alliance had been shown up for the sham it was and Israel acquired many problems.

It is, however, untrue to say that the victory was wasted, as the Economist, Sky News, the BBC and many others have been saying. Undoubtedly, some political and military decisions taken after June 1967 were the wrong ones. Israel is a country and its political and military leaders can fall prey to arrogance and misjudgement.

But, as Sever Plocker argues in Ynet, those achievements on the whole were not wasted. Let us enumerate them. After the Six-Day War the question of whether Israel exists or not had been settled, though not to the satisfaction of all. It is a country and it has the right to defend itself, though this is not acknowledged by too many people.

Despite being on constant war footing, Israel has grown in population and economy.

Israel’s population grew from 2.6 million to 7.1 million, 2 million of whom were new immigrants. The Gross National Product grew by 630 per cent. Real per capita product, the benchmark for measuring economic development, grew by 163 per cent and last year crossed the $21,000 mark. The average standard of living in Israel is only 22 per cent lower than in Britain; on the eve of the Six-Day War there was a 44 per cent gap.

As those advocates of a boycott will find out very quickly, Israel leads in medical and information technology. We can buy oranges and avocados somewhere else but not medication used by oncologists or military equipment or software for computers. Certainly we cannot buy them from any Arab country.

The main enemy states, Egypt, Jordan and, even, Syria have acknowledged Israel’s right to exist. This would not have been possible without the 1967 war.

There is the downside, of course. While the Arabs in Israel have a considerably better life than those under the Palestinian Authority or in refugee camps among their brother Arabs, there are frictions that cannot be solved until two things happen. There is a complete acceptance by all Palestinians that Israel has a right to exist and, specifically, by the Israeli Arabs that their loyalty is to the Israeli state. There are indications of movement as far as the latter is concerned but very little in the former.

The new territories meant that Israel found itself overstretched in many ways and the gradual disengagement probably made the country stronger.

A far greater problem is an existential one. Having to fight for one’s existence, having to endure constant attacks and, above all, having to rule over other people – the Palestinians – has caused all sorts of heart-searching among the Israelis. (Well, let’s face it, they invented angst.)

Was the need to behave like a strong military power in keeping with the ideals of the Jewish state? Can the Jews see themselves as a powerful nation or do they need to regard themselves as either peaceful settlers or victims? Melanie Phillips gives an excellent account of the many various angst-ridden discussion that the anniversary has occasioned.

Above all, the perception of Israel changed in the West. Masada did not happen. They did not sit there waiting for the conquerors to advance, then commit mass suicide. The defenders rushed out of the fortress and smote their enemy. That changed everything. No longer could the West, especially on the Left of the spectrum, with its obsessive need for victims to patronize, support Israel. It had to be the Palestinians who seem destined to be everybody’s victims, though their plight at the hands of Jordanians, Lebanese, Syrians and each other does not seem to bother the many organizations that scream their hatred of Israel in the name of Palestinian welfare.

The appearance of the Palestinians as a political entity is also the outcome of the war. Let us not forget that those famous pre-1967 borders did not include a Palestinian state or even a Palestinian territory. Going back to the borders would hand Gaza to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan.

The war involved the Soviet Union more heavily in the Middle East. After the Egyptian collapse the rearmament was speedy but entirely on Soviet terms. Nasser could say little.

There were other changes. Jordan’s King Hussein never quite forgave Nasser for involving him in a war that lost him thousands of soldiers and half the country, as well as lumbering him with the PLO, of which he eventually rid himself during those extremely bloody months of 1970 – 71.

Lebanon, the shelter for those who escaped from Jordan, is still suffering from the Palestinian incursion and the news of the continuing fighting in at least one refugee camp remind us of that.

What the war did not achieve is any kind of unity of purpose among Arabs. Internecine warfare has gone on in the last forty years and even hatred of Israel and the United States cannot stop that.

Two more issues need to be looked at, however briefly. One is the rise of militant Islamism that eventually overcame the militant Arab nationalism of the fifties and sixties. It is something of a mantra that the problem of the Palestinian lands caused that development, which eventually led to Al-Qaeda and the problems the world is facing now.

Setting aside issues of past Muslim-Western wars, we need to look at another country, Iran. It was the Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution in 1979 that aroused dormant Islamism and it was his regime, still in power under President Ahmadinejad, that fed it in the last two and a half decades. The Palestinian issue is a thorny one but it is not the cause of our problems. The notion that if it is settled (by the destruction of Israel, if needs be) there will be peace in the world is fallacious.

Lastly, there is the malign influence of the UN and the various tranzi organizations. One could write a whole separate posting on the subject (and one probably will) but let me, at this stage raise just one aspect of the problem.

The United Nations encouraged the defeated Arabs to ignore their defeat once again. It must have been the only war in history in which the heavily defeated side could refuse to agree to any terms and could demand that the victorious army immediately withdraw from the land it occupied with nothing being offered in return.

It is that kind of inability to deal with the world as it is not as they would like it to be that has condemned the Palestinians and many of the Arab states to the fruitless but expensive and hideous struggle for what they know not of the last forty years. Events in Gaza and Mahmoud Abbas’s statement that what is going on now is far worse than the Israeli occupation show up the futility of the several subsequent wars, the war of attrition and the two intifadas.

Money has been poured into the PLO and the PA. Thousands of people have been killed. Israel will survive. It has already recovered from the horrors of the second intifada. It has more friends than one would believe if one took one’s news from the MSM solely though Israel’s fight, which is also our fight, will be long and unpleasant.

What of the Palestinians? What will they achieve?

COMMENT THREAD

Rampant idiocy

There is so much in the news about which I can use that phrase that I can guarantee that few of our readers will guess immediately what I am going to be writing about. Yes, with a heavy heart and a feeling of nausea I have decided to tackle yet another organization’s vote to boycott Israeli institutions. This time it is the organization that should be the bulwark of free speech – and, indeed, it is, as Leo McKinstry pointed out in an article yesterday, when it comes to preventing extremist Islamic propaganda from being voiced on university campuses – academia.

As most of our readers would have noticed that yet another union of academics (precisely why do they need unions as if they were factory workers?) has voted to think about boycotting Israeli academic institutions because of the “occupation”, the wall and the way Palestinians are supposedly prevented from studying.

It would be interesting to see how many other Middle Eastern countries’ universities will be boycotted because of the way they prevent women from taking a full part in academic activity. It will also be interesting to see how many of these academics will chastise the Palestinian leadership from not achieving law and order under which Palestinians in, say, Gaza could actually study or call for a boycott of Arab countries for keeping generations of Palestinians in refugee camps.

I suspect I know the answer to all those, as well as I know the answer to whether there will ever by a boycott of Chinese universities because of the treatment of Tibet and Tibetans or an outcry because the Iranians have sent armed troops to Sudan to aid the Sudanese government in its eccentric ideas of what constitutes good governance.

Even during the supposed boycott of South Africa – there never was much academic outrage about the Communist countries and their suppression of free speech and firing of academics who stepped out of line – individual academics and students were, rightly, welcomed in all universities and polytechnics.

Furthermore, as an article in the left-wing Ha’aretz points out, if you really do care about the rights of Palestinians, trying to chastise “the one group within Israeli society which has consistently, vigorously and courageously campaigned against the occupation since its inception” is hardly a sensible way of helping the victims. But then, let’s face it helping Palestinians is not very high on these people’s agenda. If it were they would pay a little more attention to what is happening in Gaza or would ask themselves about the lack of any kind of freedom under the Palestinian Authority or would wonder out loud about the treatment of Palestinians by their brother Arabs (as well as the treatment of those brother Arabs by the Palestinians).

Bradley Burston calls the boycotting of Israel “moral masturbation” and, frankly, we couldn’t put it better ourselves on this blog. It is part self-indulgence, part the knowledge that there is no chance of Israelis planting bombs in Britain, part ignorance and part the oldest hatred of all – anti-Semitism.

You really must envy the U.K. far-left for its blindness. Its consummate inability to see more than one side, which is to say, its demonstrated refusal to see Jews as fellow human beings, is only exceeded by its exquisite sense of timing.

No matter that in the whole of the 1991 Gulf war, Saddam Hussein managed to hit all of Israel with a total of 39 missiles, and that two weeks ago, Hamas sent 40 rockets into the Sderot area in the space of a single day.

No matter that Sapir College, Israel's largest public college, has for years been a primary target of Qassam crews.

No matter that in boycotting all Israeli academics on the basis of their being Israelis, the measure is patently racist, a grotesque reprise of the history of curbing academic freedom.No matter that Israeli Arab academics who are staunchly opposed to the occupation are vehement opponents of the boycott as well.

No matter, even, that opposition to the boycott runs strong within the British University and College Union itself. In fact, all the more reason to press on.

Not that academic institutions have ever been devoted to freedom of speech and thought all that much. Support for Communism prevailed in western academia to the point when it was embarrassing to take round East Europeans to lectures or seminars.

Support for the European project and a refusal to teach alternative ideas about European history, all of it heavily influenced by large amounts of money pouring in through Monnet professorships and lectureships is rampant.

Anti-Americanism is the default position for most academics in Britain (and in the United States). Anyone who announces in academic seminars or during dinners that the United States is a democracy, where, however, imperfectly, there is a great deal of freedom; that it is our greates ally; and that is protects us from our enemies, the real baddies, produces a Bateman-like tableau of horror.

Don’t even get me on to the subject of treatment of academics and students who diverge from the accepted formula on a number of issues such as man-made global warming.

These problems have existed as long as universities have done but matters have deteriorated in the last decade or two for a very simple reason. We, in Britain, have too many universities, with too many academics, many of whom should not be in that position; we have too many ridiculous courses, tailored to fit students who would not have been able to pass the old O-levels, let alone the old A-levels, and, of course, too many students who find it very frustrating to be in a place where they are, at least theoretically, supposed to conduct intellectual research and discourse, which they are largely not capable of.

At the end of it they come out with meaningless degrees in meaningless subjects that do not guarantee them good jobs (employers are not that stupid) and extensive debts. A con trick all round on the youngsters.

I must admit that UCU – Universities and Colleges Union – is a new one on me. Apparently, it represents 120,000 university teachers, which makes me suspect that it is a union of several other unions. The mind does boggle at the idea of 120,000 university teachers, let alone the fact that they consider it necessary to join a union. Presumably, there must be some more university lecturers (as they were called in my day) who have not joined.

The vote, which has been disowned by the British ambassador to Israel and by the Education Minister, Bill Rammell, seems to have been of considerably smaller magnitude.

Motion 30, which “condemns Israel for its "denial of educational rights" to the Palestinian people and calls for UCU branches to discuss an academic boycott of Israel over the next year” was passed by 158 votes to 99 with 17 abstentions. This will now be discussed in the various branches of UCU and the motion for an put to the vote of the whole membership (or as many of it as can be bothered to attend) at next year’s conference. Well, anything is better than teaching, I suppose.

The Israeli response has been quite instructive. Many of the academics have found it insulting and bewildering.

Boycott proponents had tried for three years to pass such a motion, Prof. David Newman of Ben-Gurion University told The Jerusalem Post from the conference. He said it was incumbent upon Israeli academics to defy the union.

"Israel academics should do more research, share more resources, participate in more scientific studies, do more sabbaticals, do more visits to workshop and seminars with [their] British counterparts," Newman said.

He said it was now up the institutions to decide whether to "defend the right of true academic freedom... and not allow a union to impose its will on an institution."

As we all asked when the NUJ tried this nonsense, will these people really do without the medical developments and electronic inventions that have taken place in Israel? Will they in the words of Nobel prize winning Professor Aaron Ciechanover in today’s Daily Telegraph “prefer that British sufferers were refused leading treatments which can improve their quality of life on the basis that Israeli expertise developed them”?

Perhaps they will. Perhaps they are so blinded by their hatred of Israel and its Jewish people (few know that Israeli Arabs can and do study in many of these academic institutions that they wish to boycott) that they do not care about the outcome as long as the evil ones will suffer.

How else can one explain the examples Leo McKinstry brings up in his article?

“What is particularly disturbing is the way opposition to the Jewishstate descends into vicious antagonism against Jews themselves, as shownby this sickening recent outburst from writer Pamela Hardyment, a memberof the National Union of Journalists, which in April voted to boycottIsraeli goods.

Explaining her support for the NUJ's stance, Ms Hardyment described Israel as "a wonderful Nazi-like killing machine backed by the world'srichest Jews".

Then, like some lunatic from the far-Right, she referred to the"so-called Holocaust" before concluding: "Shame on all Jews, may your lives be cursed."

Such words could have come straight from Hitler or the most fervent supporter of Osama Bin Laden.

But Ms Hardyment is hardly unique.

This sort of seething resentment can be found throughout the Left, whether in demands that Israel be treated as a pariah state or in connivance at anti-Semitic propaganda. Typical of this approach was the opinion of Ulster poet and darling of the BBC Tom Paulin, who once argued that "Jewish settlers in Israel should be shot dead. They are Nazis, racists. I feel nothing but hatred for them."

Yet Paulin would no doubt be outraged if some English extremist utteredthe same sentiments about radical Muslims settling in Britain.

Further Israeli reactions point to anger as well as bemusement. This is not what they expect from Britain, though I do really think that it is time the Israelis learnt the truth about academic institutions and, for that matter, trade unions here.

Still, they are going into a counter-attack and that is all to the good.

Uriel Reichman, president of the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, said in a speech to IDC graduates during Thursday evening's commencement ceremony that "Academia is based on discourse, argument and the transparent search for truth. A boycott which is identified with opinions whose roots may be religious or a totalitarian world view is therefore inherently incompatible with academia."

"The British decision is hypocritical," Reichman said. "It disregards the terror acts against our citizens, the ideology that calls for the destruction of Israel and our relative restraint in exercising our own self defense. It speaks solely against Israel and ignores truly appalling human rights abuses in Darfur, Chechnya or the civil war in Iraq. The true purpose and result of the boycott is to upset basic principles of justice and to deprive Israel of its right to argue its position."

Other examples have been cited by the Jerusalem Post, both of British and Israeli reaction and a determination to prevent a direct call for boycott being passed. Even Denis McShane, who was a co-panelist of mine this morning in a discussion about the future of Europe, has made a firm pronouncement:

The decision by the UCU is completely deplorable and counterproductive. The motion will do nothing to help Palestinian students, who are keen to study in the relative oasis of Israeli universities, and will exacerbate the position of Jewish students in the UK, who already feel harassed, intimidated and uncomfortable on campus.

The critics focus on several important issues: academic freedom, the hypocrisy of those who attack Israel, the one democratic country in the Middle East and ignore blatant human rights abuses in other countries, the likely counter-productive effect a boycott of this kind will have on any notions of peace and on the chances of Palestinian students who are actually studying in Israel and, above all, on the picture British academia presents of itself to the rest of the world.

In a way, this is the most shameful part of the whole continuous campaign. It is unlikely that they will succeed in calling for a boycott and even less likely that they will be able to impose it. But, let us all remember, these are the representatives of British academia. They are university lecturers. Think of it the next time you hear the words “our universities are world-class”. One’s rather inelegant response to that is “yeah, right”.

COMMENT THREAD

Did France betray its principles?

Every country’s, every nation’s view of itself is illogical; every country’s dealings with other countries exhibits quirks and incomprehensible peculiarities. But it often appears that France is the least logical and most quirky of all the European states in its self-perception and its foreign policy.

Some of it is straightforward enough. It is not Britain that has experienced difficulties in finding a role after losing an empire so much as France. The end of its empire was prolonged and agonizing, involving as it did, two expensive and destructive wars that left deep scars on the country. (In the former British Empire the wars came after the British had left, which, one might argue, shows how sensible or, alternatively, how perfidious they are.)

Before that came the French defeat in 1940 and the occupation with all its moral and social problems that have not yet been worked out properly, as we have written on different occasions.

We have also written about French reaction to the political catastrophe of the Suez adventure and the American role in it. This is covered extensively in “The Great Deception”.

So, a good deal of French behaviour can be attributed to a desire to restore the country’s pre-eminent position in at least some parts of the world, a position that was last in evidence in 1814 despite subsequent French colonial wars. Coupled with it is that strong feeling of resentment against les Anglo-Saxes, the British and, particularly, the Americans. In fact, there are times when it seems that the sole purpose of French foreign policy is to annoy the government and people of the United States.

There are, however, complications. One is the European Union, perceived by many of the French elite as the weapon through which France will dominate European politics and become a great power again. Many of its political structures, economic policies and attempts at foreign policy appear to be largely French in their origins. But they are, as it happens, problematic. To a great extent EC rules can be ignored but not totally and France has been suffering economically from her own policies and from those enshrined in the European Union’s legislation. This has contributed to the rather vicious problems in the banlieus, inhabited largely by North African and Middle Eastern immigrants and their descendants.

Another complication is French self-perception, at least, as it manifests itself among the political elite (though, as we know in this country, what the elite thinks does percolate down to the people in one form or another). Part of that self-perception is French political superiority because of certain events in the second half of the eighteenth century. No need to argue about that here but, it is worth noting, that many of our ideas of equality and democracy grew out of those events. So the French do have a great deal to be proud of. But have they, themselves, lived up to those great ideals? David Pryce-Jones, the historian, journalist, novelist, expert on the Middle East, thinks otherwise and marshals his evidence in “Betrayal – France, the Arabs and the Jews”.

It seems that France’s pernicious meddling in the Middle East – the responsibility for restoring the late unlamented tyrant and terrorist Chairman Yasser Arafat to the position of leadership after the catastrophe of Black September, rests almost entirely with the French government, though other European ones went along with it – is rooted in more than just a resentment of the United States. It goes back to an older concept of France as “Muslim power” (une puissance mussulmane”), a whacky idea but one to which the French Foreign Ministry, the Quai d’Orsay, is addicted to, and has been ever since it was first promulgated as an antidote to the British Empire and its might.

Through anonymous helpers, David Pryce-Jones has managed to have access to numerous documents in the Quai d’Orsay (the only institution in the world that might make me think fondly of our own FCO) and has traced French meddling and politicking in the Middle East, whose result frequently was that any possibility of a peaceful settlement was pushed even further back.

Unfortunately, there is no evidence that this view of France is reciprocal and the ferociousness of the Algerian War (something of a surprise to the French, though predictable, given the treatment of the local population during and after the War) has complicated matters apart from landing a very large number of immigrants in France itself, where economic policies and a good deal of visceral racism has made it difficult for them to integrate.

There are two ways of looking at the problem. One is that France has always insisted that all those who come to the country must become French (not for them the follies of multi-culturalism). When this does not happen there is understandable resentment.

There is, however, another point of view (not necessarily contradictory, more complementary) and it is this that David Pryce-Jones describes and analyzes so lucidly. Jews have lived in France for a long time and were the beneficiaries of the early stages of the French Revolution. As Pryce-Jones says, the official French attitude to the Jews was crystallized in those days by the liberal aristocrat, Comte de Clermont-Tonnerre, who declared in the Constituent Assembly:

Everything must be refused to the Jews as a nation and everything granted to the Jews as individuals.

This is perfectly logical from the stand-point of an enlightened nation: on the one hand no individual must be discriminated against because of race or religion, on the other hand, there can be no internal nations within the big one. If this had worked out, French Jews would not have objected.

The problem of strong anti-Semitism remained (the Dreyfus case being only the best known example) as well as a visceral fear of Jews and Zionism on the part of the French establishment. Jews were perceived as agents of foreign power: Germany and Russia at first (an extraordinary idea when one thinks of the way Jews were treated in Russia), then of Britain and finally of Zionism “whose core doctrine is that Jews are a nation after all”.

As against that, the Muslims who came to France, in keeping with the notion of the country being “une puissance mussulmane” (which was largely a glorification of colonization) were allowed to keep their own group identity. Often, they had no choice for the above mentioned economic and social reasons.

Not that they were treated as equals. The North African soldiers who fought in the French army in the two World Wars were not given equal pensions. The few remaining veterans will receive that as a result of Chirac watching a recent French film on the subject, “Days of Glory”. The terrible fate of the harkis, the Algerians who fought on the French side, has been described before.

Nevertheless, the outcome of all these different developments has been the existence of virtually self-governing Muslim communities in France with a combined number of votes that is enough to scare any politician (though some have declared that they are voting for Le Pen, because they do not want any more lay-about immigrants and dislike the degeneration of French society).

To make matters worse, the authorities have turned a blind eye to the growing number of anti-Semitic attacks by many of the Muslim groups, insisting well beyond the time it was possible to do so, that the burning of synagogues and Jewish schools, desecration of Jewish cemeteries, vicious attacks on Jewish children in schools and on others in the streets, were all simply hooliganism. Little punishment was doled out and in some cases the attacks well all but condoned by the authorities.

It was the horrific case of Ilan Halimi coupled with the extensive riots of 2005 that brought some sanity into the discussion. (Though, to be fair, few solutions have been proffered.)

In the meantime, France has been conducting her own foreign policy, which has consistently since the thirties, through the protection of the Nazi-leaning Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the patronage of Arafat, support of Khomeini and, later, Saddam down to the present day, has been anti-Israeli, even contemptuous of that country and of its people. (The one exception was a brief period of support before and during the Six-Day War.) At first this was countered by the Left, which was basically pro-Israeli and, also, pro-Algerian. That has changed. The Left is now more viciously anti-Israeli and, let us face it, anti-Semitic than the old-fashioned Right.

That is the situation, says David Pryce-Jones, that France, Europe and the West has to live with. In France it has caused a crisis:

The natural fulfilment of the historic contempt for Israel as a mainstay of Jewish identity is to call into question the position of Jews in French society. For an almost equal period of time, Arabs have been accustomed to the cajolery of the French state, and the expected privilege that goes with it. These two long-drawn but incompatible approaches have finally come to a head and collided.

Commitment to the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel incites the growing underclass of Arabs first to resent Jews and then to force into the public arena the contradiction whereby the French state claims to be protecting Jews at home while doing what it can to oppose Jews in Israel. Confusion that might have been contained at its origins in the Middle East is therefore exploding in the everyday violence experienced in French cities and towns.

Recently there have been some attempts by the French government to rectify the situation at home but the contradiction imposed on it by the continuing policies of the Quai d’Orsay are harder to deal with. There is also some evidence, says Pryce-Jones that French opinion is beginning to turn against traditional French policy in the Middle East. Both have a long way to go.

Competing to recognize terrorists

In his latest book “Betrayal”, David Pryce-Jones, the eminent and much disliked by the FCO expert on the Middle East shows in some detail how the self-deluded French policy in that area and the Gulf has led to a completely intractable situation, not least because succeeding French politicians pressurized the EC (later EU) and other transnational organizations to recognize and give succour to the PLO (later PA) and, in particular, is monstrous leader, the late unlamented Chairman Yasser Arafat. This has led to a situation where peace in the area and freedom and prosperity for the Palestinian people have become well-nigh unattainable goals.

Describing President Chirac’s “idiosyncratic odyssey” through the Middle East, during which he snubbed his Israeli hosts, proclaimed the glories of “Palestinian democracy” and attacked Western sanctions on Saddam Hussein, Pryce-Jones adds:

Thanks to French pressure the European Union took it upon itself to become Arafat’s paymaster, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, much of which either sponsored anti-Israel terror or was siphoned off into secret accounts abroad in Arafat’s name.

It was, let us recall, French pressure that prevented a conclusion at the tense Middle Eastern summit of 2000 in Paris. No conclusion meant that the second intifada went on for another four years, hurting Israel but destroying what little economic activity the Palestinians had.

And it was French activity that led to an impasse at the UN just before the war in Iraq, allowed Saddam to assume that he would get away with everything and made that war inevitable.

A huge success, all round.

It seems the European countries have learnt their French lesson well. At present there seems to be some competition as to who is going to discard the pretence that money is not being handed over in large amounts to the Hamas-led Palestinian “unity” government. (There have only been two or three spots of trouble between Hamas and Fatah since the formation of the “unity” government but things are hardly quiet.)

As we have already pointed out, the notion that somehow the rest of the world was withholding money because Hamas refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist or to give up its terrorist activity is one of those smoke and mirror ones. The EU alone has sent the equivalent of £59.5 million to the government (whether it is in existence or not) and a good deal more has gone through NGOs in supposedly direct help to the people of Palestine. Though, as we have also pointed out, no auditing or accounting has been in evidence this time round either.

Yesterday, Open Europe referred to an article in El Mundo [general link in Spanish supplied by OE], which seems to say that Italy intends to “break ranks” with the rest of the European Union and resume political ties with the Hamas-led Palestinian government.

Political ties usually means financial ties, since the Palestinian government seems to be unable to envisage an economic structure that does not depend entirely on outside donations. However, given Italy’s own economic problems, it will be interesting to see whether any money will be spared to help Hamas (and Fatah, of course).

Meanwhile, Le Monde has reported that the European Union will prolong for another three months the temporary financial arrangement that is intended to bring help to the Palestinian people. Theoretically, the Europeans, (as EU Foreign Policy Supremo Solana puts it) and the Americans are intending to wait in order to see what the new “unity” government will do (and how long it will last, I shouldn’t wonder).

Nevertheless, the Palestinians cannot be left without aid, it is assumed, whether that aid ever reaches those who might need it or not and whether it does anything useful or not. Even if we assume that the aid reaches the Palestinians, the inevitable result will be that the Palestinian government will be relieved of its welfare responsibilities, leaving it with more money to spend on extensive military equipment and the payroll of militias. Is any of that helpful to the Palestinian people in this “delicate period”, as Foreign Affairs Commissar, Benita Ferrero-Waldner puts it?

Italy had better hurry up because it might have the glory of being the first European country to recognize Hamas snatched from it by Norway. According to the International Press Center, which is the Palestinian National Authority State Information Service,

Prime Minister Ismail Haniya in Gaza met Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Raymond Johansen, who told reporters after the talks that 'Norway decided to resume aid to the Palestinian people.'

Dr. Ghazi Hamad, cabinet's spokesperson told Al Ayyam local newspaper " the Norwegian delegation expressed his support and backing of Palestinian government and stand by it."

Of course, the Norwegian delegation may not have put it quite like that but simply by negotiating it is expressing some support and by handing over money to the “Palestinian people” i.e. the Hamas-led government, it is aiding and abetting its activity and its fecklessness.

Allowing for some linguistic problems, however, this seems clear enough, unless the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs will deny any of it:

Following the meeting, Johansen told the reporters that Norway decided to normalize its political and fund aids to the Palestinian people that would be presented through independent Finance Minister Salam Fayyad.

He also called on Israel to release frozen tax revenues to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), while Haniya thanked Oslo for its support.

Mr. Hohanson said that his country sees the political platform of unity government live up with the triple conditions of the international community and called it to deal with the unity gov't.

Well, that should make Salam Fayyad’s job slightly easier. As he himself has pointed out the Palestinian budget, in so far as it exists, is a considerable mess with no money left in the kitty and no evidence as to where it has all gone.

Mr Johansen (here described as Hohanson) might also like to explain to those of us less enlightened than himself and his government how are those triple conditions being met. After all, Hamas has not changed its article of faith that Israel must be destroyed. When Hamas (and, to a great extent, Fatah) refer to occupied territory they mean the whole of Israel.

It might be useful if both the Italian and the Norwegian foreign ministries read an article that was published in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. It author, Khaled Abu Toameh, himself as his name implies, a Palestinian, is the Palestinian Affairs Editor of the Jerusalem Post and a very knowledgeable commentator on matters Middle Eastern.

He seems to think that five European countries are prepared to do business (rather a one-way business that would be) with the new “unity” government. He, further, points out that the statements made by both Hamas and Fatah are far too equivocal to amount to show any intention of living up to the “triple conditions of the international community”.

Neither the president nor the prime minister openly called for an end to terrorism or for recognizing Israel's right to exist. And to add to the confusion, the two men came up with a political program that contains many contradictions and ambiguities.

Mr Toameh analyzes the responses to the three conditions:

On the issue of terrorism, the program states that the new government "stresses that resistance is a legitimate right of the Palestinian people . . . and our people have the right to defend themselves against any Israeli aggression." But the program also says that the new government will "work toward consolidating the tahdiya [period of calm] and extending it [to the West Bank] so that it becomes a comprehensive and mutual truce."

The program sets a number of conditions for halting the "resistance"--ending the "occupation" and achieving independence and the right of return for Palestinian refugees, as well as an end to Israeli security measures in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (including the construction of the security fence). In other words, Fatah and Hamas are saying that the violence will continue as long as Israel does not meet these demands.

Regarding Israel's right to exist, the program does not even mention the name Israel. Instead, it refers to Israel as "The Occupation." It also makes no mention of the two-state solution. Rather, it reiterates the Palestinians' opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state with temporary borders.

That leaves condition number three:

Referring to the third demand of the Quartet--abiding by agreements between the PLO and Israel--the political program states that the new government will only "respect" agreements signed by the PLO.

It is on the basis of this that European countries are prepared to do shoddy deals, spend a great deal of tax money and, undoubtedly, start pressurizing the United States and Israel to recognize the new government (assuming it lasts long enough). Should Israel decline to do so, arguing the points Mr Toameh raises, it will be branded once again as the evil one, the one that refuses to abide by the peace road map (whatever that might be).

Reporting from the West Bank

No matter what one’s views are on the Middle Eastern problems (and there are many, not just one) one cannot help feeling sorry for the Palestinian people. Whichever way one looks, they are the victims – victims of other Arab states, who encourage them to fight Israel and refuse to help them or allow them to settle anywhere; victims of their leaders, who have stolen all the money that have been donated to the Palestine either to feather their own nests or to create more terrorist militias; victims, often, of their own poor ability to make choices.

And yes, they are often victims of Israeli violence, though this could be solved relatively easily: an acceptance of that country’s right to exist, an end to terrorist activity, meaningful peace negotiations would do it.

There is another body of people that victimizes the Palestinians: the journalists of the MSM, who refuses to write the truth about the situation, thus making it impossible for the people there to face up to it. We witnessed this in the extraordinary infantilization of the Palestinians after the election that brought Hamas to power. Many in the media cried out against the notion that western aid should cease until Hamas agrees to the three conditions that can lead to peace in the area.

On the one hand, we were told, the West must accept the results of a (reasonably) democratic elections (give or take the presence of a few militias and other armed groups), which is not unreasonable. But accepting the results does not mean handing over large amounts of money.

On the other hand, we were also told, the Palestinian people must not be punished for … well … as it happens for their electoral choice, as if they were all two-year old children who know no better. The trouble with that argument is that if they really do not know any better then how can they run a state. If, on the other hand, they can run a state, then they can take the consequences of their electoral behaviour.

Not much has changed.

Today’s International Herald Tribune carries a long and interesting article about the “Children of the Palestinian intifada – the lost generation”. It is worth reading the piece in full, as there are many interesting points there.

Somehow, even this article finds it hard to acknowledge exactly how the second intifada came about, putting together words that would mean that it just simply happened. It did not simply happen but was the chose course of action taken by the late unlamented Chairman Yasser Arafat, who broke off negotiations in 2000.

The outcome of the intifada has been considerably tougher for the Palestinians than for the Israelis.

Israeli checkpoints, barriers and closures, installed by Israelis trying to protect their own citizens from Palestinian suicide bombers, have lowered their horizons, shrunk their Palestine and taken away virtually any informal interaction with outsiders, let alone with ordinary Israelis. The security measures have become even tighter since the election to power a year ago of the Islamist group Hamas, which preaches eternal "resistance" to Israeli occupation and rejects Israel's right to permanent existence on this land.

During most of the 1980's and 90's, as many as 150,000 Palestinians came into Israel daily to work, study and shop. And while they were not treated as equals, many learned Hebrew and established relationships. Now, the only Israelis Palestinians see are armed soldiers and settlers. The West Bank is cut into three parts by checkpoints and permits; Gazan men under 30 are virtually unable to leave their tiny, poor and overcrowded territory. Few talk of peace, only of a lifetime of "resistance."

What is so terrifying about the reasonably objective report is the feeling one gets that nobody in the West Bank considers that there might be another possible solution to anything, but, then it might be hard to think of one when generations have been schooled in the thought that they are eternal victims, whose only weapon is terrorism or cosmic despair that induces guilt.

Curiously enough, another story from the West Bank caught my eye. “Misery tempts Palestinian Christians to flee”, says Reuters, originally headlined as “Palestinian Christians flee Israel”. Well, actually, no, they do not flee Israel, where the Christian population has been growing.

They are leaving the West Bank in some numbers, according to the Reuters journalist, despairing of getting anywhere under Israeli occupation. Not only that:

A towering concrete wall is closing in on Bethlehem as part of a barrier, which Israel is erecting, which it calls a defense against suicide bombers from the occupied West Bank. Much of it is built on Palestinian land.

Calls a defence against suicide bombers? Calls? Really, I had thought we have managed to get over that one.

It is a defence against suicide bombers, whose number has gone down dramatically since the barrier has been erected. Apart from anything else, this preserves the lives of terrified Palestinian children who are persuaded or bullied into blowing themselves and Israeli children up.

Reuters assures us that there is no pressure on the Palestinian Christians either from the majority Muslims or from the Israelis. Really? This is not the way one hears the story from other sources. Here is an interesting article from Khaled Abu Toameh, himself a Palestinian Muslim who writes in the Jerusalem Post about Christians in Bethlehem:

A number of Christian families have finally decided to break their silence and talk openly about what they describe as Muslim persecution of the Christian minority in this city.

The move comes as a result of increased attacks on Christians by Muslims over the past few months. The families said they wrote letters to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the Vatican, Church leaders and European governments complaining about the attacks, but their appeals have fallen on deaf ears.

According to the families, many Christians have long been afraid to complain in public about the campaign of "intimidation" for fear of retaliation by their Muslim neighbors and being branded "collaborators" with Israel.

But following an increase in attacks on Christian-owned property in the city over the past few months, some Christians are no longer afraid to talk about the ultra-sensitive issue. And they are talking openly about leaving the city.

Read the rest of the article. It is of some interest and it tells a tale that is sadly missing from all the normal accounts of the horrors of life in the West Bank.

Incidentally, I do not recall seeing too much in the British media about the fact that the Egyptian government has this year forbidden the country’s Christians to make a pilgrimage to East Jerusalem during this year’s Easter celebrations. No, it has nothing to do with the Palestinians but with the arrest of Mohamed Essam Ghoneim El Attar, an Egyptian currently standing trial for allegedly spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency.

What is to be done?

For those who do not know about the history of the Russian radical movement I should explain that the title was not invented by Lenin. Very little was. This was a title given to an interminably long and boring novel by Chernyshevsky, which outlined in fictional form the ideas of radicalism. One of the great mysteries of the Russian soul is how a novel of such incredible turpitude should have become so popular in a country, which, at the time, boasted some of the greatest novelist in the world.

The title, however, is useful and can be applied to many problems that we face today, including that of the propaganda war that we, all of us, are fighting. On balance, it is hard to define who “we” are, as the war this country and its allies are engaged in is not immediately obvious to many people, as World War 2 was. Then again, we had the same problem with the Cold War, which occasionally degenerated into a fairly warm one, but mostly went on in a way that was incomprehensible to many, largely because they did not want to comprehend it.

As I have already pointed out, the fight of those who believe in liberty and other loosely defined Western values (I can see this is going to be a fun thread on the forum) is hamstrung by the public opinion created in the West some decades ago by several masters of propaganda. It is only now that we are beginning to fight back seriously, not least with the growing discussion and theories of the Anglosphere.

The front line in the battle has moved to the Middle East (apart from Hizonner the Mayor of LondON nobody has a good way to say about Hugo Chávez, after all, as the man proceeds to wreck a reasonably working economy). Al-Jazeera reports, accurately enough, that the latest summit of Condi Rice, Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert has gone precisely nowhere.

There are good reasons for this and Secretary of State Rice seems unable to grasp them. Or, maybe, those who brief her cannot grasp simple facts. The point that seems to be obscured by the mellow propaganda is that neither Hamas nor Fatah want to acknowledge Israel’s right to existence or to agree that terroristic activity should stop.

In his aptly named article “The Stink”, Bruce Thornton on the Victor Davis Hanson Private Papers sums up:

The only honest group has been Hamas, which tells us plainly that it wants to destroy Israel. But if we watch what they do rather than listen to what they say, so do a critical mass of Palestinian Arabs, including the so-called moderate Mahmoud Abbas. His disagreement with Hamas is not over whether the existence of Israel will be accepted, but over tactics and timing: Hamas thinks Israel can be destroyed sooner with more terrorist violence, Abbas thinks later with dishonest “agreements” and demography. Just listen to the so-called “condemnations” of terrorism that issue from Abbas. After last month’s murder of three Israelis by a terrorist bomber in Eilat, Abbas condemned the attack as “not in the interests of the Palestinian people” — which implies that such murder is acceptable as long as it is in the interests of the Palestinian Arabs.

Of course, their efforts to destroy Israel and murder as many Israelis as possible, as well as those Palestinians they accuse of working for the Israelis and, indeed, to harass the Christian Palestinian community out of existence, not to mention destroy historic evidence of the fact that Jews have been in Jerusalem for something like 3,000 years do get derailed by their inability to agree on anything and an ongoing desire to kill and maim each other.

It is, however, extraordinary that these very simple facts and information are so easily buried by cleverly disseminated propaganda.

We followed some of the creation of this propaganda last summer during Israel’s war against Hezbollah, when the latter seemed to be in total control of the “news” output by the MSM and only the blogs managed to speak up about the truth.

One of our complaints at the time was the little help we received from the Israeli embassy in London, from the leaders of the Jewish Community (ably and repeatedly lambasted by Melanie Phillips) and by the Israeli Defence Force.

It is completely untrue that the IDF lost the shooting war against Hezbollah and, of course, it is completely untrue that Lebanon is now happily at peace, with the Israeli forces out of the country and UNIFIL patrolling the border without any rights to disarm terrorist organizations. Hezbollah, as we have reported on numerous occasions, is still interested in destroying Lebanon rather than allow it to become a more or less peaceful, pro-Western state that is not controlled by Syria or Iran.

What the IDF and Israel lost and lost heavily was the propaganda war, largely because of their ineptitude in this field. It is hard to tell where this ineptitude comes from. It has been suggested to me that Hebrew culture is too straightforward to play “linguistic jiu-jitsu” but I find that hard to accept completely. Not that I know a great deal about Hebrew culture but I do know that some of the best propagandists of the twentieth century have been Jews and I cannot see why this talent, present in so many should not be used to Israel’s advantage.

The problem, I am happy to say, has been noticed in Israel as well, as this no-holds-barred article in the Jerusalem Post indicates.

As the author Amotz Asa-El puts it, Lt-Gen Gabi Ashkenazi, new Chief of General Staff, may not put this at the top of the agenda but it really ought to be:

The problem is simple: In last summer's war, what began with Israel's portrayal as a just victor ended with its depiction as an unjust loser. It is even more perplexing considering that the IDF Spokesman's Office was reasonably budgeted, staffed and trained. In fact, the IDF's media operation had been revolutionized since the days when it saw the press as an intrusion on the battlefield.

Amotz Asa-El goes through the whole sad saga of incompetence and wrong persons being appointed. Clearly, it has not really sunk in deeply that the IDF’s media operation should be conducted by someone who knows what the media is like, how it operates, what kind of stories it likes.

Furthermore, the someone should have a clear idea of the importance of instant (and I do mean instant) rebuttal. Even Mr Asa-El seems unable to grasp what actually happened at Qana (or Kana). Perhaps we should send him a copy of the pdf so painstakingly prepared by my colleague.

As the blogs proved conclusively, at Qana and in other places, Hezbollah simply concocted news stories that were then reproduced as real by the Western media. The IDF media sector should have pounced on every single one of them, demanding explanations, evidence and independent confirmation. Instead, they apologized, then muttered about things being not quite the way they were depicted.

The Israelis should have had the world media in the northern towns and villages that had been consistently shelled for a long time before the attack, not accept the “world’s judgement” that they simply over-reacted to the kidnapping of two soldiers (not the murder of eight others, oh goodness me, no).

The trouble goes back to at least 2,000 with the Mohammed Al-Dura story, which we have written about on this blog. Terrorists blow up children with impunity. Those pictures are too horrific to show.

Therefore, the iconic picture of the way children are affected, has been the little boy of unknown provenance, unknown name and unknown destiny, crouching behind his father at one of the carefully staged “battles”. Did the Israelis demand explanations, evidence and independent confirmation? Did they heck. Just rolled over and apologized, only then muttering about it not being quite like that.

The point is that the Western media is already predisposed to creating a certain story in which Israel is the aggressor; the Jews having arrived from Eastern Europe, have taken over land that has “always” been Palestinian (whoever the Palestinians may be) and every problem in that part of the world is caused by Israeli aggression.

Hamas, Hezbollah and the others use this. Israel has been outmanoeuvred on the battlefield of propaganda. The IDF has been slow to react, unable to deal with the Western media, incapable of understanding the growing importance of the blogosphere, large tranches of which are on her side.

Of course, the problem may be rooted in even older matters. There is no need to discuss that here. We have to deal with the situation as it is.

Mr Asa-El puts blame for the latest debacle squarely on the previous Chief of General Staff, Dan Halutz, and his protégée, the lady who is still in charge of the IDF media section, Miri Regev.[The two are pictured at the top.]

With all due respect, one has to say that Ms Regev has been an unmitigated disaster and one wonders what General Halutz was thinking of in appointing her.

The lady, it would seem, does not speak English, the language of the international media. She has no interest in the international media but only in promoting her boss in the Israeli one. As if it mattered how many pictures of General Halutz appeared in Israel.

Regev's career as a press officer focused on dealing with the Hebrew press and with logistics. To her, the foreign press - the alpha and omega of that fourth arena where Israel was taking a beating, and which she was assigned to conquer - was but a sideshow. And so, rather than spend the war personally briefing the world's major media figures, she spent it behind Dan Halutz's shoulder, evidently thinking her job was to push her boss into Israeli papers, rather than get her own face on foreign TV.

At the same time, when the IDF began its frantic search for a "victory photo," Regev failed to supply it. True, this task would have been simpler had there been a victory to photograph, but the fact is that some things could have been done. For instance, after the war I learned from combatants that when surrounded, Hizbullah troops would often commit suicide, in some cases shooting themselves in the temple with pistols in the very presence of approaching Israeli troops.

I doubt this could have been photographed. Yet had this been made known immediately, it would have proven valuable to the press as a story, and to the IDF as a reminder to the foreign press that Israel's enemy was not the freedom fighter it tried to portray, but the fanatic suicide attackers who have been haunting the West from Bali to Madrid.

Why was this lost on Regev? Because she has poor English and has never been a journalist. How can she know where to lead the foreign press if she can't read an issue of The Economist or hold a serious conversation with a New York Times editor? Regev was as clueless about the foreign press as Halutz was about the ground forces.

Replacing Ms Regev with a savvy Anglophone journalist would be a step in the right direction. I suspect, more is needed by way of mentality change in the Israeli military apparatus.

Why does this matter? Why should we not simply shrug our shoulders and say, well, if they are that stupid, let them get on with it? Because, as I have said before, Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, surrounded by tyrannies and terrorists, all intent on destroying it. Because Israel is fighting our battles and we need to support the country. But, hey, guys, meet us half-way.

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