The world out there

I do not want to write endless predictions about the Budget and I do not want to write about football (a game I rather like) though I have, in the past, written reams about various international competitions and the fact that they do not exactly foster what we call sporting instincts. But then, George Orwell said it so much better than I can.

So, what is there to blog? Well, for a start there is this posting by Clarice Feldman on American Thinker, with which I agree completely. (I often do agree with Clarice Feldman.) She links to another fine blog that I, shamefully, discovered but a few weeks ago, Legal Insurrection, on which Professor Jacobson argues very cogently that Israel has outmanoeuvred the Hamas flotilla stunt organizers.

While The NY Times and others portray this as a loss for Israel, which had to bow to world pressure, in reality this outcome would represent a victory for Israel because the most important goal of the blockade -- the inspection of all goods whether brought by land or sea to prevent military supplies -- now has international legitimacy.

To the extent there were purely consumer goods which were barred, such system was ineffective and senseless anyway, and Israel loses nothing by loosening up.

The naval blockade is not affected, which is the key because it was by sea that Iran was planning on supplying Hamas with more effective and deadly military supplies. Such supplies cannot get through on land in the quantities and size Hamas desires, although many smaller military supplies do get through smuggling tunnels.

Also unaffected are so-called "dual use" supplies, such as concrete, which Hamas desperately wants to build fortifications.

In the meantime, the various ships promised or threatened have not arrived from Iran and the ones from Lebanon do not even seem to have left port. I remain convinced that in Turkey this stunt has strengthened the secularists but, of course, we need to watch what happens in that country during the summer.