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.

Carbon credits - the new indulgences

As every schoolchild ought to know, on October 31, 1517 Martin Luther wrote to Albert, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, protesting against the sale of indulgences in the bishopric. What has caught the imagination of posterity is Luther also nailing the 95 Theses to the great door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.

Briefly, indulgences were among the most obvious of the many corruptions the Church was suffering from: documents produced by the Papal Curia that, if bought, supposedly allowed people not to suffer for their sins in Purgatory. You could buy them for yourself or others.

They had been sneered at for some time. Chaucer talks of the Pardoner and

His walet, biforn him in his lappe,
Bretful of pardoun, comen from Rome al hoot

A lovely image of pardons and indulgences being baked in Rome and carried round like hot cakes.

There were many other complaints but it was not till Martin Luther’s stand that they developed into a strong movement, the reason being the printing press. Luther’s Theses, other sermons and pamphlets, as well as the Church’s responses could be printed and distributed relatively fast and could be read by far more people than ever before.

In the twenty-first century we find ourselves in a situation not dissimilar from that of the late Middle Ages. Actually, they were probably a little more advanced, scientifically speaking, in the sixteenth century, if popular hysteria is anything to go by. (Not much, just a little, when one thinks of the fact that far more witches were burnt in the seventeenth than in the thirteenth century.)

As we have said before, there seems to be a tendency among various spokespersonalities to shriek that doom has come upon us at the slightest perceived change in weather patterns. Curiously enough, all their shrieking always seems to lead to demands for higher taxation and more legislation.

Climate change has become the new religion with carbon emission taking the place of sin, original or otherwise, and carbon credits are the indulgences of that religion. I appreciate that this is not a particularly new idea, though I did think of it independently of all the other people who have now said it. The overall aim is not personal salvation (though that obviously comes into it, hence the need for those credits) but the saving of the planet.

On a lower scale come saving of thousands of species and, possibly, the human race itself. Though, if the human race is so wicked and incapable of looking after the planet, perhaps it ought not to be saved. I wonder if Sir Richard Branson thought of that when he came up with his offer of $25 million for the best idea to deal with climate change. (It would appear that some scientists with a good sense of humour are taking him up on it.)

Celebrities flying in private jets in order to lecture mere mortals on the need to cut back on energy use? No problem. They have bought carbon credits or given money to a charity that is working (unsuccessfully) to produce alternative energy sources.

Driving real gas guzzlers in order to fly on a private jet to weep over a receding glacier? No problem. Money given in carbon offsets to a charity which will plant trees somewhere or other.

Overheating your enormous mansion and swimming pool and flying a private jet to lecture the world on global warming as a greater threat to us than terrorism? Flying your private jet and driving up in a stretch limo to collect your Oscar for a hysterical film that shows global warming, created entirely by humans and their carbon emissions, is a greater threat to humanity than terrorism? No problem.

Well, actually there is a problem and the reason for that is similar to the reason why the 95 Theses caused mayhem in the sixteenth century. Then it was the printing press, now it is the internet.

It took no time at all for the story of Al Gore’s energy consumption to spread round the internet and, particularly, the blogosphere. The information came from an independent institute, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, which issued a press release having seen and analyzed the Gores’ publicly available energy bills:

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

We are not even counting his other homes, the use of his various cars (all environmentally friendly, of course) and that private jet.

But, as the Tennessean pointed out, Gore was buying his indulgences:

Gore purchased 108 blocks of "green power" for each of the past three months, according to a summary of the bills.

That's a total of $432 a month Gore paid extra for solar or other renewable energy sources. . . .

"They, of course, also do the carbon emissions offset," she said.

That means figuring out how much carbon is emitted from home power use, and vehicle and plane travel, then paying for projects that will offset that with use of renewable energy, such as solar power.

Well that’s all right then. The Gores can pollute the atmosphere all they like, causing untold harm and warming the globe but their sins will be forgiven because they have spent all that money on projects that use renewable energy, whether successfully or otherwise.

Except that it is not all right, it seems. Once people get the bit between their teeth, there is no stopping them. Maybe Gore will never again boast about inventing the internet.

According to a Tennessean blogger, Bill Hobbs, Gore buys his carbon offsets through something called Generation Investment Management, which he had helped to found and of which he is the chairman. Could that be called clash of interests? Not for Al Gore, it would seem.

Gore is chairman of the firm and, presumably, draws an income or will make money as its investments prosper. In other words, he "buys" his "carbon offsets" from himself, through a transaction designed to boost his own investments and return a profit to himself. To be blunt, Gore doesn't buy "carbon offsets" through Generation Investment Management - he buys stocks.

And it is not clear at all that Gore's stock purchases - excuse me, "carbon offsets" purchases - actually help reduce the use of carbon-based energy at all, while the gas lanterns and other carbon-based energy burners at his house continue to burn carbon-based fuels and pump carbon emissions - a/k/a/ "greenhouse gases" - into the atmosphere.

Eat your heart out Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg.

Jack Kemp on American Thinker enumerates a few more of Al Gore’s hypocrisies and calls the man “tone deaf”. Let’s face it, anyone who started his career as a kind of gopher for Armand Hammer is going to be less than totally sensitive to how his bs sounds to other people.

Another posting on American Thinker compares carbon credits not so much to indulgences but to the commutation fees that wealthy draftees in the Civil War could pay to escape fighting. In other words they paid for someone else to do that fighting instead. This practice undoubtedly was at the root of the infamous draft riots in New York City in 1863 with the accompanying lynching of African Americans, on the grounds that the unpopular war (among those who could not buy their way out) was fought on their behalf.

The resentment of the “rich man’s war” was widespread.

I rather think the resentment of this particular “rich man’s war” is beginning to spread as well. It is not just Gore who is hypocritical, after all, but most of the luvvies, Hollywood fruitcakes, globetrotting politicians and officials. They all cry the same thing: more taxes, more regulations, lower economic growth, a hairshirt for all (except them).

The truth is that economic growth brings environmental benefits for all. Even according to the UN’s official figures, as Björn Lomborg worked out a couple of years ago, the environment has become cleaner in all the developed and most of the developing countries. China may well be an exception but the reason there is plain to see: the political system. After all, the Communist countries have been among the world’s most polluted ones.

What has triggered off a good deal of the resentment is the news that at the Oscars this year, to which, one must assume all the stars arrived in stretch limos, having, if necessary, flown in on private jets, there were some very special goody bags for all the guests:

This year's Oscar goodie bag contained gift certificates representing 100,000 pounds of greenhouse gas reductions from TerraPass, which describes itself as a "carbon offset retailer." The 100,000 pounds "are enough to balance out an average year in the life of an Academy Award presenter," a press release from TerraPass asserts. "For example, 100,000 pounds is the total amount of carbon dioxide created by 20,000 miles of driving, 40,000 miles on commercial airlines, 20 hours in a private jet and a large house in Los Angeles. The greenhouse gas reductions will be accomplished through TerraPass' [program] of verified wind energy, cow power [collecting methane from manure] and efficiency projects." Voila, guilt-free consumption!

My goodness, talk about “comen from Rome al hoot”. They really are turning those indulgences out like hotcakes.

Naturally enough, the Church of Green Salvation has fought back. The Gore-supporting MSM and bloggers have been busy. First, the accused the Tennessee Center for Policy Research of stealing the Gore energy bills, only to find that these were publicly available. Why precisely has the MSM neglected to examine them?

Then, the accused the Center of taking money from Exxon. Sadly, the spokesman had to deny this, pointing out that they would be a lot better off if they had been given funds by Exxon. In fact, whether they have or have not been paid by any “evil” organization like Mobil or Exxon, the truth remains that the Gores squander energy like there is no tomorrow. They do not even deny it, babbling merely of carbon offsets [see above].

Then came the worst accusation of all: the right-wing journalists (there are a few) and bloggers are “smearing” Al Gore. I can dimly remember a time when smearing in politics meant telling lies about your opponent. These days it means telling an inconvenient truth about a leftie or “liberal”.

Thus, accusing a respectable think-tank of theft or bribery is OK, as long as the accusations come from the left. Telling the truth about one of the left’s idols is a smear.

And, of course, there is the self-righteous attack on the right for "not understanding" what carbon offsets are.

The point is that it does not take a Wittgenstein to work out the logical non-sequitur in the defence that involves carbon offsets, even if we set aside (so to speak) Gore’s financial shenanigans. If you believe in these charities and organizations and want them to work on alternative technology, you can give them money while, at the same time, not wasting energy resources yourself. That is, if you believe in any of that hot air you keep spouting.

There are examples of rich people building modest dwellings and being careful about the environment. Here is one:

According to TreeHugger (a blog that is new to me but I am always willing to learn), there is a house built by a rich man for his family which

has 25,000 gallons of rainwater storage, gray water collection from sinks and showers for irrigation, passive solar, geothermal heating and cooling. “By marketplace standards, the house is startlingly small,” says David Heymann, the architect of the 4,000-square-foot home. “Clients of similar ilk are building 16-to-20,000-square-foot houses.” Furthermore for thermal mass the walls are clad in "discards of a local stone called Leuders limestone, which is quarried in the area. The 12-to-18-inch-thick stone has a mix of colors on the top and bottom, with a cream- colored center that most people want. “They cut the top and bottom of it off because nobody really wants it,” Heymann says. “So we bought all this throwaway stone. It’s fabulous. It’s got great color and it is relatively inexpensive.”

Some of our readers may have picked up on this story already. If not, I defy them to guess who this is about.

George W. Bush, that’s who and the house in question is his Crawford Winter White House. Read the comments to the piece. Hysterically funny in their twisting and turning.

Meanwhile Clarice Feldman has come up with a modest proposal to the eco-celebs (there’s a lady who knows her Swift). First she explains what it is the eco-celebs are after:

I think I've figured it out what this naked hypocrisy is really about. It's not just scientific and economic illiteracy on their part: It is a narcissistic desire to widen even further the gulf between themselves and those beneath them on the economic and social ladder, while clothing their desires in some moral purpose. This is nothing new of course. At various times and places throughout the world, what one wore-including colors, fabrics, length of swords, how much the tips of your shoes could curl -were set by law to make sure no one mistook the milkmaid and yeoman for the lord and lady.

They were called Sumptuary Laws and caused a great deal of dissent, not to mention the odd spot of rioting in Renaissance Europe and Elizabethan England.

Anyway, here is her modest proposal:

So, I have a modest proposal for the eco-celebs. We'll give you the exclusive right to wear certain colors, shoes, swords and clothing and you can pick what these are. Only those of you who have won OscarsTM, married ketchup queens or created hit TV shows, inherited substantial wealth or whose earned income exceeds by some substantial degree that of the upper middle class-say $10 million a year --will be in this class. In exchange, you have to promise to confine yourself to staying out of politics, pretending you know beans about energy or the environment and leave the rest of us alone.

Nice idea Clarice, but there is one problem. These people do influence public opinion, as expressed by the MSM, and through that policies.

Not so long ago we had a row over Ruth Kelly, a Labour Minister quondam at the Department of Education, sending her son to a private school. Clearly neither she nor many of her colleagues believe in the qualities of the state-controlled education in Britain and, equally clearly, she and her colleagues believe that they can be exempt from that. In itself that would not matter. The problem is that she and her like control education for the rest of us.

In the same way, all those eco-celebs are intent on controlling everybody else's life. Unless, we can stop them with the help of the new printing press, the internet.

COMMENT THREAD

Did the Left lose its way?

In recent years we have all watched with some fascination the developing strong alliance between the Western left and Islamist right. In fact, one cannot quite call it “right” as the European political ideas do not apply to Islamism.

It has, nevertheless, been eerily fascinating to listen to left-wing feminists justifying, indeed glorifying an ideology that believes in the complete oppression of women. Organizations that preen themselves on noticing every slight to the gay community find common ground with people who believe all homosexuals should be killed, preferably in public and painfully. (All honour to Peter Tatchell, who has broken away from that mob politically.)

A much discussed book in London is “What’s Left? How Liberals Lost Their Way” by Nick Cohen, a left-wing journalist, who has written for the New Statesman and the Observer. I have not yet managed to read the book but the Wall Street Journal has published an article by him on the topic in question.

He starts with an obvious target, Hizonner the Mayor of LondON, Ken Livingstone, whose extreme left-wing sympathies apparently do not stand in the way of creating apartheid at conferences he organizes and participates in or, as, perhaps, Mr Cohen does not know, supporting the idea of sending women into a permanently inferior separation behind the veil.

Having eviscerated Livingstone, Mr Cohen widens his aim:

Mr. Livingstone's not alone. After suicide bombers massacred Londoners on July 7, 2005, leftish rather than conservative papers held British foreign policy responsible for the slaughters on the transport network. ("Blair's Bombs," ran the headline in my own leftish New Statesman.) In any university, you are more likely to hear campaigns for the rights of Muslim women derided by postmodernists than by crusty conservative dons. Our Stop the War coalition is an alliance of the white far left and the Islamist far right, and George Galloway, its leader, and the first allegedly "far left" member to be elected to the British Parliament in 50 years, is an admirer of Saddam Hussein and Hezbollah.

I could go on with specific examples, but the crucial point is the pervasive European attitude to the Iraq catastrophe. As al Qaeda, the Baathists and Shiite Islamists slaughter thousands, there is virtually no sense that their successes are our defeats. Iraqi socialists and trade unionists I know are close to despair. They turn for support to Europe, the home of liberalism, feminism and socialism, and find that rich democrats, liberals and feminists won't help them or even acknowledge their existence.

Very true but hardly new. After all, real trade unionists in the Soviet Union were often in despair and those who are fighting for basic freedoms in China have, it seems, long ago given up on Europe and its “liberals”.

In fact, Mr Cohen does casually refer back to another era:

There were plenty of leftish people in the 20th century who excused communism, but they could at least say that communism was a left-wing idea. Now overwhelmingly and everywhere you find people who scream their heads off about the smallest sexist or racist remark, yet refuse to confront ultra-reactionary movements that explicitly reject every principle they profess to hold.

Then he goes on to explain that President Bush’s catastrophic policies (I presume he means the war in Iraq) have caused the spread of anti-Americanism in Britain and Europe.

Having more or less nodded in agreement so far, I must take issue here. The left’s love-in with Islamism has been around for a good deal longer than the war in Iraq, the war on terror or, even, Bush’s presidency. The pathological anti-Americanism and anti-westernism in Britain as much as Western Europe is also of long standing. There is no point in doing exactly what the leftish commentators on 7/7 did. Presumably, Mr Cohen thinks those bombs were Bush’s but not Blair’s.

Then there is the question of communism and support for it. I think it would be fair to say that most or, even, almost all leftish people supported and excused communism in the 20th century, pouring bile and contempt on those who tried to tell the truth about it.

The crucial phrase there, however, is “but they could at least say that communism was a left-wing idea”. Cool and casual. According to Mr Cohen calling something a left-wing idea justifies support and excuse for some of the most oppressive regimes in history.

Let us take this a little further. “Communism was a left-wing idea.” What does that tell us about left-wing ideas? A system that was built on the notion that individual freedom was wrong; that anything that was not under control of the party was wrong; that any disagreement with the ruling elite was wrong; and was prepared to implement this with as much force as it thought necessary, “was a left-wing idea”, thus making it understandable that leftish people supported and excused it.

If it is trade unions Mr Cohen is worried about then, perhaps, he ought to realize that the only difference between their fate under Communism and under Islamism is that the latter is honest about it.

To be fair to Mr Cohen, he does point out that

But if Iraq has pummeled Mr. Blair's reputation, it has also shone a very harsh light on the British and European left. No one noticed it when the Berlin Wall came down, but the death of socialism gave people who called themselves "left wing" a paradoxical advantage. They no longer had a practical program they needed to defend and could go along with ultra-right movements that would once have been taboo. In moments of crisis, otherwise sane liberals will turn to these movements and be reassured by the professed leftism of the protest organizers that they are not making a nonsense of their beliefs.

Then he goes on to specify that in Britain the left has many strong beliefs to abandon, such as multiculturalism and identity politics. The left must also accept that it is not fear that will defeat the enemies of freedom but courage to stand up to them.

In reality,of course, Nick Cohen is advocating that the left should abandon its left-wing ideas and ideology, something that neither he nor his leftish friends and colleagues can contemplate doing.

There is, after all, nothing particularly odd about the left defending tyranny; it is only because the details of Islamism are deemed to be right-wing that anybody should find it so.

Nor is it particularly helpful to equate the left with liberalism, at least in its British meaning. The left from its inception as a political force, during the French Revolution, has opposed freedom and individuality. Its obsession with management, planning, state control, can be seen to lead smoothly to identity politics. What the modern left hates is western ideas of fairness, liberty and justice, based as it is on individuals rather than groups.

The Soviet Union like Nazi Germany (also supported by many lefties until the Soviets called out imprecations against it) reversed the western notions of justice with guilt having to be proven against individuals. A member of the wrong class or the wrong race was ipso facto guilty and the left accepted and glorified this.

It is, therefore, not a particularly new idea for the left to view people solely as part of a group, which is really what identity politics is all about: a denial of individual rights to members of certain groups, for example, Muslim women. The need to see people as cogs in managed groups overrides feminism, which is not based on liberty. After all, left-wing feminists assume that any believer in equal rights for women is going to be on the left.

Left-wing warriors against racism pour out hatred against any member of an ethnic minority who breaks away from the laid down rules and declares himself or herself to be on the right – Conservative or, worse, Republican. If you don’t believe me, read some of the venomous attacks on Michelle Malkin who as a woman of Philippino descent has no right to be a right-wing commentator.

Or think of the nasty racist attacks from left-wing politicians and journalists directed at Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice or, above all, Judge Clarence Thomas. Think of Ken Livingstone’s vicious comments about Trevor Phillips, who has dared to stray from his allotted role and declare that multiculturalism was leading to ghettoization. Livingstone likes the idea of ghettoization. That way he knows where various people are.

What lies under it all is a contempt for people. The left may proclaim itself to be for the people against rulers but that is people as an abstract group. In reality, of course, they believe in all being fitted into carefully managed patterns and obeying rules as laid down by their left-wing managers, some of whom might be benevolent.

To me it seems unlikely that the Left has lost its way, despite the fact that it seems to support a political grouping that denies ferociously all the things the Left is supposed to be in favour. On the contrary, this is a logical position for them to find themselves in. There is nothing really contradictory between supporting Kim Jong-il and supporting Saddam Hussein or, for that, matter Osama bin-Laden or the Mad Mullahs of Iran.

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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Not good enough

There are not a few people who would have me rejoice when a newspaper takes up an issue that this blog has been "banging" on about, on the basis that the more who make a fuss, the more likely it is that there will be a solution. No more so is this true than in the lamentable treatment of the pressing defence issues, but I am not able to draw any comfort at all from enhanced media concern.

The trouble is that drawing attention to a problem, with a view to getting a solution, might promote action from your "target" – usually politicians – but it might not be the right action, or the action taken might not be sufficient.

If that happens – and it does all too often – the net effect of any media activity may actually be harmful. The general perception will be that action has been taken. Few people will be interested in the details or the technicalities and will accept that the issue has been resolved. You then are left with an unresolved problem – or one not fully resolved – and the chances of getting further media interest are remote. The "book" is closed and re-opening it is more difficult than raising a matter anew.

In campaigning terms, therefore – as in much of life – it is wise not simply to remonstrate against something, or about a problem, but for a specific solution. And the operative word here is "specific". Leave the options open and cash-strapped ministers will look for the cheapest option, or those from which they can draw greatest political advantage.

Thus I was far from happy to see, earlier this week the leader in The Daily Telegraph, as good an example as any of the a wide-ranging defect, of which much of the media is guilty.

At face value, the leader was good news, ostensibly addressing my own complaint that the newspaper exploits the activities and bravery of our armed forces, simply to fill its pages, finding the diet of MoD press releases a cheap source of copy, as we allewge it did with the Apache rescue story. The quid pro quo, I have argued, is that the paper should use its power to argue for more and better resources for our troops.

Well, here we had it – the headline, "Troops need resources to safeguard our future". On the face of it, you could not ask for better than that. "We lack assault troops, logistical support and helicopters," said the Telegraph, adding: "If we do not back our military with the resources it needs – in terms of equipment, personnel and salaries – we will be jeopardising all of our safety."

The problem though is that we get little more than that. And it is the vagueness – the lack of specificity – which is the source of our great complaint. We lack "assault troops" means very little, other than a posh variation of "boots on the ground".

But, as we have argued earlier, depending on the tactics employed and the strategic objectives, the job – certainly in Afghanistan – could possibly be done more effectively with less troops. And, in any event, more of the wrong sort of troops, or troops deployed without the right equipment, can simply create targets, the overall effect of which is to increase the casualty rate while not helping to achieve strategic of tactical objectives.

Then, if "assault troops" is vague, what does "logistical support" mean? Taken literally, it could include delivering more toilet rolls in a more timely fashion.

Equally vague is the use of "helicopters". Does the paper mean more transport helicopters? If that is the case, are we talking about basic utility helicopters, like the Puma, more medium lift, like the Chinooks or even a heavy-lift capability – like the CH-53 – which we lack entirely at the moment? We doubt, however, that the paper means light assault helicopters, or even light utility, or armed reconnaissance, even if we aver that all three categories are urgently needed.

And therein lies the problem – or part of it. Presumably, if the government managed to magic out of thin air half a dozen Chinooks, the Telegraph would be happy. Having asked for "more helicopters", it could write a self-regarding editorial proclaiming, in effect, that it was "the Telegraph wot dun it", and then move on to pastures new – leaving troops better off, but still lacking key equipment and being dangerous vulnerable.

The other part of the problem is the limited scope of the paper's demands and, in this world, if you don't ask, you don't get. If the case is not made for specifics, then the politicians can hardly be criticised for not supplying them.

We would argue that the troops need assets like the AC-130; they need base protection such as the Phalanx/C-RAM anti-mortar equipment. In Afghanistan, they need tanks and Warriors. In Iraq, they need ground attack aircraft; they need better patrol and convoy escort vehicles. In fact, the Armed Forces need a whole package of "goodies" and we have only scratched the surface.

On the other hand, there are those who would argue that military equipment is a highly complex, specialised field, which is best left to experts. Neither the media nor the general public can be expected to take part in a debate about specifics.

Yet, how interesting it is that so many media outlets and so many people now have an opinion about the Eurofighter – nor least the Telegraph in its current leader. And who was it who made the decision to buy it in the first place? Ah! That would be that great military expert, Michael Heseltine.

Therein lies an important point – most big-ticket procurement decisions (and even some relatively minor ones) are made not by experts but by politicians, heavily influenced by political considerations. Rarely are they made solely for operational reasons.

And, if the likes of Des Browne, the current secretary of state for defence – who has absolutely no military background and had never, before he took on his job, shown any interest in defence – can take major decisions on defence equipment, then a newspaper should have no problem getting the requisite experts in to argue a case, one way or another. Certainly, it would be a change to have the case argued in public before rather than after the event.

One thing is very certain though – as is war far too important to be left to generals, so is the purchase of their equipment. Commendable though it may be, it is not safe simply to declare, as The Business has done this week, that "it is a case of giving them the tools and they will finish the job." Service personnel - no more or less than others – are prey to fashions and foibles, and – if they are allowed to - are quite capable of buying entirely the wrong tools, for the wrong war.

What is also emerging though is that, in the prosecution of wars, there is now a degree of choice. We seem to have entered an era of the "voluntary war" where governments can decide to commit their armed forces to a particular campaign and to withdraw at any time, at a moment unrelated to the tactical or strategic situation.

This development seems not to have been lost on the Army and might explain the unprecedented intervention of General Sir Richard Dannatt in October last. Faced with an unpopular war, for which the Army is not equipped and which probably requires complete restructuring in order to deal with it, Dannatt has called for a withdrawal.

The theme has been echoed by other senior officers and is even to be found in the Telegraph leader which applauds the "bravery and dedication of our forces in Iraq" but then effectively dismisses their efforts, telling us that our troops have an even more vital mission in Afghanistan. "Whereas our presence in Iraq is doing more harm than good," the leader says, "the campaign against Taliban insurgents still has the potential to save a country."

But there is more to this than meets the eye. The Army has a corporate view of how its should fight, as a body and, what comes over with some clarity from oral evidence given in a recent session of the House of Commons Defence Committee is that the fighting in Iraq is not regarded as "proper" fighting.

More of this emerged from Tony Blair's speech last week, where he made the distinction between "warfighting" and "peacekeeping". The references appear to acknowledge the Army's concern that the concentration on the peacekeeping activities will have a harmful effect on its ability to engage in "proper" warfare.

What is not recognised in this simplistic division, however, is that the Iraqi campaign cannot entirely be considered by such an anodyne descriptor as "peacekeeping". More accurately, it is a counter-insurgency operation and as much a war as the more conventional variety. What differs is the enemy's choice of tactics and weapons, their rather unsporting refusal to wear uniforms, carry arms openly or occupy clearly delineated lines.

Instead of shooting soldiers in open warfare, they instil fear in military opponents and local populations through use of suicide bombings, improvised explosive devices, kidnappings and beheadings. And they disguise themselves as civilians and hide among civilian populations with weapons stored and discharged from mosques, schools, hospitals, marketplaces, private residences and public roads. In this type of warfare, there are no front lines and what were previous considered the rear areas are as much in the battle as the soldiers out patrolling the streets.

The very strong impression emerging though is the tendency of the British high command to regard this type of war as an aberration and, more dangerously, an unwelcome diversion from the real business of soldiering. As we remarked earlier, the enemy is fighting the wrong kind of war.

But, instead of gearing up to meet the enemy and defeat it on the battlefield that it has chosen, the response of the Army – in particular – seems to be turning away from the challenge. The fear is that if funds from the equipment budget are diverted to gearing up for this counter-insurgency, there will be insufficient funds available to re-equip the Army to fight "proper" wars. And for the Army, that means putting at risk the project so treasured by the Generals, the £14 billion FRES project - their bid for the next generation of high-tech "toys".

Thus does the military establishment put it about that the Army is being "reduced" to the status of a gendarmerie, with the implication that successfully dealing with insurgencies is somehow less important – and even less noble – than winning "wiz-bang" wars where the troops can dash around in green-painted "toys" with the generals at their plotting boards, marshalling their forces.

The discussion over the blast protected Mastiff, in this context, is highly illuminating. While US ground forces are openly discussing purchasing an additional 4,000 mine protected vehicles, the British MoD has reluctantly invested in a mere 100 Mastiffs.

Furthermore, it has made it clear that these are temporary additions to the fleet, the high command regarding the vehicle as "non standard". It does not fit with the view of how the Army wants to fight its battles and it is concerned that, once it has left Iraq, it will have to pay to maintain equipment it does not want – at the expense of the "toys" it would prefer to have.

What this suggests is that there are two problems in relation to equipment procurement. The first is in deciding what the armed forces need, as opposed to what the generals – and even the lower ranks – want. Only then is possible to campaign for the equipment, the provision of which could well be opposed by the intended recipients.

Here is where the media (and the politicians) have to up their game. Decisions on where and under what conditions the armed forces will fight are political – they must be made by politicians – not the armed forces. It is then up to the armed forces to tell the politicians what they need to fight, and for the politicians to provide it.

But, what we are actually seeing is the tail wagging the dog. The Army, reluctant to fight in Iraq, is actually agitating for withdrawal – and refusing to gear itself for an effective prosecution of the war. Thus, the calls for equipment are relatively modest, when there should be great agitation for more, better and different equipment.

Slavishly following the whims of the generals – or deferring to them as the "experts" – does the nation no favours. And since the politicians will not call the Army's bluff, the only institution that can is the media, and especially the specialist defence correspondents.

This was the historic role of Captain Basil Lidell-Hart who as defence correspondent in the inter-war years, for both The Times and The Daily Telegraph, became a thorn in the flesh of the military establishments. He demanded the adoption of weapons and tactics which the War Office was reluctant to take on board – the lack of which so very nearly cost British the war and her freedom.

It is thus no role of the media to be cheer-leaders for the military establishment. The generals are just as capable of losing wars as winning them and, in fact, it could be argued that many wars have been won in spite of, not because of, them.
Thus, I will not and cannot rejoice in the current "gung-ho" and largely uncritical media support for the Armed Forces. To campaign for what they believe they want, or tell us they want, is not necessarily in their longer term interest, or ours.

Any support should be conditional, based on a knowledgeable appraisal of what is needed, and devoted to pursuing the national interest, not just the interests of the military establishments, who most certainly have their own agendas. And it is here that the media is simply not doing its job. This is simply not good enough.

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Getting away with it

Even by the standards of our idle media, it would have been news: two soldiers killed in Land Rovers on consecutive days, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. But it was not to be and what could possibly be a major story goes begging.

It starts on Thursday, when we get a report from the MoD that a soldier has been killed in Afghanistan, after his vehicle is involved in an explosion. There are no pictures and few details and only later does it emerge that the "explosion" was caused by a landmine. And although the MoD must have known the vehicle type involved, very carefully it does not identify the type. Most likely, though, it is a Land Rover, and quite possibly a "Snatch".

On the Friday, however, The Times, to its credit, questions the type of vehicle, establishing that it is unarmoured. But the rest of the media dutifully copies and pastes the MoD press handout in what passes for news coverage.

The same day we read The Times, we get a report of the death (as we are later told) of Sergeant Graham Hesketh, from a roadside bomb while he is on patrol in Basra. But, in the eyes of the media, there can be no link with the Afghanistan incident. The MoD report makes it quite clear (untypically clear) that the Sergeant Hesketh is riding in a Warrior MICV.

Also, atypically, there are no agency photographs. This is very unusual. Of virtually every bombing incident involving the death of a UK soldier, there are one or more images recording the aftermath. And in this case, as the MoD helpfully informs us that Sergeant Hesketh's patrol "was travelling towards the Old State Building, a British Army Base in the centre of the City, when the device activated."

This is not in some remote part of Iraq so, if not of the actual bombed vehicle, at the very least, one would expect to see agency shots of British troops "securing the scene" - such as the one here after another recent incident. Instead, what we actually get is pictures of an apparently unrelated incident showing two burning "Snatch" Land Rovers after – as we are led to believe – another bomb incident.

These initial reports make no reference to casualties but we then get Reuters yesterday quoting a Captain Olly Pile claiming that "one British soldier was slightly injured", only to be followed by an AFP report today (see below), which states that a roadside bomb hit the patrol, "killing an unidentified soldier".


Already, we have the MoD website offering a picture of Sergeant Hesketh, sitting atop a Warrior, and it makes the direct claim that he was "commanding a Warrior Armoured Fighting Vehicle on a routine security patrol." But, strangely, the report also includes a tribute from Sgt Hesketh's father, Kevin, who writes: "Graham was killed in action while patrolling in Iraq by a kerbside bomb exploding under his Jeep...".

To have two bomb attacks on British vehicles on the same day is very rare - to the point of being unprecedented. Are we therefore being misled (one assumes deliberately) by the MoD about Sergeant Hesketh's death? Was there one incident, not two and was the Sergeant patrolling not in a Warrior but in a "Snatch" Land Rover, which his father describes as a "jeep"?

The question is, would the MoD lie about such a thing? Surely it would be found out? Well, after the bomb attack on the boat on the Shatt al-Arab on 12 November, killing four service personnel, it claimed on the day and then two days later that it was "an attack on a Multi-National Forces boat patrol".

But, as we observed, it never was a patrol. This was an attack on a "water taxi", a routine movement of personnel between Basra Palace and Shatt al-Arab Hotel. And, it transpired, there had been 16 previously recorded attacks, clearly indicating that the use of unprotected boats was highly risky.

Yet, despite there being plenty of questions, the media let the issue ride and the MoD got away with it - for the time being. Clearly, the media prefer to be spoon-fed, so where you get a coroner's report, and the criticism is nicely packaged and "safe", they will go to town on it - nice cheap journalism.

Once again the MoD looks like getting away with it. And it has a lot to hide. Not only are troops still being killed in vulnerable and inadequate Land Rovers, the Minister promised of the Mastiff armoured vehicles that there would be an "effective capability in place in Iraq by the end of the year."

Of course, we fully understand that the media have far more important things to write about. And today, it is this. Gerald Howarth has finally got his name in the papers.

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