Holier than thou

We have all had to experience this: the people who strut in their ethical superiority because they disapprove of those of us who make rather black jokes about some ghastly event in the world. Just recently I found myself admonished by one of these holier-than-thou characters for making some comment about MH17 that was not simply a string of meaningless words that express horror and sorrow and yet more horror. The same person made it quite clear that in arguing Israel's case I was showing myself to be lacking in sensibility as people and, especially, children were being killed. To be fair, this person thought that those arguing the anti-Israeli case were equally lacking in sensibility. Clearly hadn't read the memo on how to be holier than thou.

As we know it is only those who are against Israel and, allegedly, support the Palestinians (see here and here) can be said to be sensitive to human suffering and children's deaths. (Well, no, since you mention it, not Israeli children being under attack.) In the same way I recall being told that my support for a nuclear deterrent showed my hatred for peace, love of war and carelessness about potential deaths. It could not possibly have shown that I did not think appeasement of a militant totalitarian system was unlikely to create peace or prevent deaths.

The holier than thou attitude over the Middle East or, to be quite precise, the bit of the Middle East that concerns Israel is fed by Hamas propaganda and, above all, those pictures. Those terrible pictures of people being shot, bombed, killed, their homes destroyed, their children killed, over and over again.

James Delingpole, never the most patient of men, has definitely lost his temper over the whole question, telling people to "spare him the sick manipulative dead baby propaganda photos". I know how he feels.

The boy - no older than five - was on a hospital bed. It must have happened very recently because there was still colour in his face. His eyes were closed and his expression - he can't have seen it coming, thank God - was serene. You might almost have imagined him asleep, if it weren't for the fact that his body was in bits: head and severed torso; an arm; legs and lower body; entrails.

Whoever did this, I thought, is really, really sick.

But I didn't mean the Israelis - who, I imagine, were the people I was expected to blame. Rather, I meant the sicko who scooped up the boy's remains while they were still fresh and insisted on laying them out, like some grotesque jigsaw, in order to snap them artfully for a propaganda shot. And also, all the sickos out there who have been reposting photos like these all over the internet in order to make what they seem to imagine is an unarguable point about Israel's war on Hamas.

The point they are trying to make goes like this: here is a dead child; killing children is evil; Israel killed this child; therefore Israel is evil.

Are you buying this argument? I'm not. I don't even think it qualifies as an argument. In fact, I think it has about as much insight and depth as one of those posters with kittens on it saying: "Today is the first day of the rest of your life."

Yet, that is precisely the way the argument runs, just as it ran back in the days of the old Cold War: if there is a war people might get killed so if you do not think we should disarm thus making it impossible for us to defend ourselves, you are in favour of people being killed.

Delingpole goes on:

What I loathe about it is its mixture of hectoring presumption and manipulative dishonesty.

Presumption: "If you support Israel, then you clearly don't care about dead children," it says. (Is there anyone in the world who isn't moved by the sight of a dead child? I don't think so. The people who are implying otherwise are beneath contempt).

Dishonesty: other than the truism that war is hell, the photograph actually tells us nothing.

We have no idea whether this boy was actually a victim of the fighting in Gaza - or of the far bloodier and uglier civil wars in Syria and Iraq.

If he was indeed a Palestinian, we have no idea whether he was killed by Israeli fire or by Hamas ordinance.

Nor, even if he was killed by Israeli fire, do we know the circumstances. Maybe it was a tragic mistake; maybe, he was one of those innocents that Hamas likes to use as human shields in its rocket launching sites; maybe he was being used as a "tunnel rat"; maybe he'd tried to flee with his family to a shelter only to be driven back to his apartment by Hamas who recognise the propaganda value of dead children.

Read the whole piece. It is not long and he does not think killing children is a good idea. Trust me.

Much noise about victims but very limited sympathy

Yesterday's Prom concert was Bach's St John Passion, a very fine work and a very fine performance, though I have to admit to listening to it on the radio. In the interval there was a discussion with a couple of the performers about the work and about the Gospel on which it was based. In the course of that discussion there was talk about the fact that of the four Gospels, St John's is the one that makes the Jews as a whole the guilty party. This was not the main point of the discussion but it is worth noting that, in many ways, the Mediaeval anti-Semitism grew out of that extraordinarily beautiful work, the Gospel according to St John.

We have moved on from there and over the ages anti-Semitism has changed shape and turned up in many forms. I do not think it is particularly controversial to point out that its most recent manifestation is not connected with the Christian Church or the more traditional right-wing groups: it is now almost entirely on the Left and is "justified" by horror at Israel's actions against the Palestinians who are clearly everybody's favourite victims in one way or another.

The day saw yet more anti-Israeli demonstrations, including one that brought the centre of London to a halt, though, it fell far short of the projected march of a million.

As ever we saw and heard a mixture of slogans and chants. Many carried the usual mass-produced Socialist Workers' Party posters that called for an end to the siege of Gaza. Clearly these people had not considered the possibility that if Hamas stopped spending the money it gathers from the world in the form of huge international aid on rockets that are fired into Israel day after day or tunnels through which they try to smuggle terrorists into that country, the "siege" might be lifted.

Nor do they consider that, possibly, if Hamas abandoned parts of its Charter, acknowledged Israel's right to exist, stopped using the Palestinians in Gaza as gun and propaganda fodder but started negotiating, concentrating on economic development (by which I don't mean luxurious existence for the Hamas leaders), there might be some change in the situation.

In fact, there would be some change if Hamas agreed to the various cease-fire proposals. We did have a few hours of it earlier today but Hamas has, apparently, not agreed to its extension and so fighting will resume.

Well, one cannot expect people who turn out to demonstrate for the currently most fashionable cause to do much thinking.

The other slogans, as ever, were a curious mixture: on the one hand, Israel was compared to Nazi Germany (the comparison, regardless of what one thinks about events in Gaza, is not in the slightest valid but is likely to be particularly hurtful to Jews), on the other there were, as usual, threats or promises to finish what Hitler started (an unlikely scenario). In a number of cities, Paris being one, there were attacks on Jewish premises and businesses. As in the past, what may have started as support for the people of Gaza has gone well beyond criticism of a particular country's policy and has morphed into anti-Semitism. There really is no other way of describing what is happening in this picture, taken in Paris yesterday.

This description on Breitbart gives a fair account of what was going on.

The activists were keen to avoid discussing the thorny issue of the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel. Instead they chanted things like: "1,2,3,4, Occupation No More" and "5,6,7,8 Israel is the terrorist state." Then they went on to a familiar classic: "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free"; a reference to wiping out the State of Israel, and relates to the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan - better known as the Jewish state.

In the meantime, the Middle East is, indeed, burning and far worse things are happening in other countries. The media has more or less given up on events in Syria but the activities of ISIS in Iraq still merit some mention though not exactly any great horror. One wonders whether the feminist organizations that, for some reason, have ranged themselves against the only Middle Eastern country where women have equal rights think about the news that

Islamic State (Isis), the al-Qaida offshoot that seized large swathes of northern Iraq last month, has warned women in the city of Mosul to wear full-face veils or risk severe punishment.

The Sunni insurgents, who have declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria and have threatened to march on Baghdad, also listed guidelines on how veils and clothes should be worn, part of a campaign to violently impose their radical brand of Islam.

Mosul, let us not forget is the place where one of the world's oldest Christian communities is being destroyed through murder, rapine and what might be called religious cleansing. We hear little from the world about it.

We hear little about the fact that in Libya there is now a full scale civil war going on and the United States has evacuated its embassy (a wise precaution, given certain events in that not too distant past).

We hear little about the daily figures of dead, wounded and displaced in a number of Middle Eastern countries. If Israel is not involved, the media and the loud-mouthed "supporters of the Palestinians" don't want to know. Muslims who try to raise the issue of the far greater number of victims in other countries on various sites, get barracked.

In fact, those "supporters" do not want to know that even UNWRA, an organization that exists, against all the supposed rules on which the UN and its off-shoots are based, to aid and abet the Palestinians and their leaders, are saying that it might well have been Hamas rockets that hit the UN school in Gaza, killing several children and wounding more.

Neither they nor organizations that are supposed to be fighting for children's rights are interested in the story that Hamas used children to build the network of tunnels (though not terror tunnels as the author of the piece explains in the comments section) during which 160 of them were killed.

The conclusion one has to draw from all this is that not only do these people not care about other problems and other violence in the Middle East, they do not even care all that much about the Palestinians, unless they are under Israeli attack. Here is an excellent piece by Cranmer, written on Thursday but nothing much has changed since then.

Curiously, there is no mention of Assad's persecution of Palestinian communities or the fact that he has "starved and murdered" thousands of them.

No mention of the Palestinians in Iraq who are subject to "discrimination, sectarian violence and ruthless killing by the Iraqi government".

No mention of the mass expulsion of Palestinians by Arab Muslim countries, like Saudi Arabia, Libya and Kuwait, of which Yasser Arafat declared that "what Kuwait did to the Palestinian people is worse than what has been done by Israel to Palestinians in the occupied territories".

Israel has killed some 700 Palestinians in its latest offensive in Gaza. Every death is a tragedy, especially those of children. Some of the pictures coming out of the war zone are brutal, distressing and heartbreaking. God weeps at the suffering. If He has meaning and purpose in the pain, it is lost to the world's baffled intellects.

But it is a curious that Israel should be constantly singled out for special treatment.
After all, the Palestinians have suffered far greater atrocities at the hands of their Arab brothers and co-religionists. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced; tens of thousands terrorised, persecuted and ethnically cleansed; and many hundreds summarily slaughtered.

It is, indeed, curious. One is driven to the conclusion that what motivates all these "activists" of whatever nationality is not so much sympathy for the Palestinians, which is obviously very limited, as something very different: a much older and much uglier emotion.

That should solve all their problems. Not!

As expected and predicted the UN Assembly has voted "overwhelmingly to recognize the Palestinian state". Or so says the headline, though it is not entirely accurate. What they now have is "non-member observer status", which is akin to what the Vatican has.

It is, indeed, a victory for Mahmoud Abbas, though whether Hamas will agree to him representing the "Palestinian state" is not clear, and a defeat for the nine countries that voted against: Israel, United States, Canada, the Czech Republic, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Panama. Well, well, and what of our own government and its representative? Abstained, that's what.

The Commentator reminds us of the following:

Israeli politician Abba Eban once noted of the United Nations that if Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the Earth was flat, and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.

And one of them will be the UK, which according to this article has now been reduced to a bit-player in the Middle East. I'd say it happened some time ago but it is certainly true now.

A courageous but true article

I have nothing to add to this article Abdulateef Al-Mulhim in Arab News except to applaud the courage of both and to say that it has taken far too many years, far too many lives and far too many resources for such an article to appear.

Things are hotting up

On the other side of the Pond the Republicans are celebrating the outcome of the first Presidential debate that left Obama (minus TOTUS) in tatters even according to his warmest supporters in the media (i.e. most of the media). There are far too many links to put up as the opinion seems to be unanimous.

The rest of the world, meanwhile, is ... well, not exactly celebrating the fact that four years of Obama's presidency have not produced a better and more peaceful or free situation. A war between Syria and Turkey is looming. Make that was looming and is now almost in full flow.

It wasn't the film, after all

For days people who know about the Middle East, including the Libyan President have been saying it: those attacks on 9/11 and in the subsequent couple of days may have used that wretched film that nobody has seen but were actually co-ordinated terrorist attacks.

No, no, no, said the State Department and other spokespersons for the Administration. It was that terrible provocative film and we shall lean on Google to withdraw it.

Well, what do you know? Apparently these were terrorist attacks and the State Department has now admitted it. Let us be thankful for small mercies.

UPDATE: Ex-Gitmo detainee is reported to have been involved in the attack. Oh surely not.

Spreading

Across the Middle East where yet more people have been killed and even to London where, astonishingly enough, two people have been arrested. Amazing, how many people across the world have seen a film that nobody has even heard of until a few days ago.

Michelle Malking calls President Obama "the Hip-Hop President". One can't help feeling she has a point. She quotes various sources (so the links are there) that say the same thing - there were warnings, this was a prepared operation for 9/11 and ... the President has been skipping intel briefings. The country and, indeed, the West is in the very best of hands.

Spreading

Suddenly there are mobs hurt and upset people in various countries who are just so angered by that film in the United States (the one that is being blamed by the President, the Secretary of State and the main-stream media) that they have decided to attack the German and British embassies in Khartoum as well as a KFC in Tripoli in Lebanon.

Taranto puts it better than anyone

Once again, James Taranto puts the arguments more coherently than anyone else. The idea that the President of the United States, the Secretary of State and many other official bodies as well as newspapers (if one may still use that term) like the New York Times should repeatedly criticize that wretched film instead of looking a little more closely at what is going on in the Middle East is nothing short of moral and political insanity.

As he points out, the rioting, even assuming it was caused directly by a little known film that has been available for a couple of months, the point is not that the mobs consider it to be "insensitive, inflammatory, intolerant and insulting" but that they consider it to be blasphemous and want any material of that kind banned across the world. Or else.

This, Mr Taranto points out, sets up an irreconcilable conflict between those advocating Islamic, that is Sharia law to be applied to all countries on certain issues, and the US Constitution, which affirms freedom of speech and which cannot tolerate anti-blasphemy laws. The President of the United States, at his inauguration, swears to uphold the Constitution.

Not in Syria

There was a deadly explosion in Damascus, which killed President Assad's top aides. But a little nearer home, we are getting reports of a deadly explosion in Bulgaria, where a bus carrying Israeli tourists was blown up with at least three people killed and twenty injured.

UPDATE: Latest information says seven dead.

UPDATE: Seven dead and thirty-two injured.

An excellent analysis

Arnold Ahlert provides an excellent and highly amusing (the man is almost as good at cold sarcasm as this blog is) of the Sarkozy-Obama open mic debacle with a particularly nasty jab at the media.

Yet according YNet News if it were up to the journalists who heard the exchange, Wasserman-Schultz wouldn't have needed any luck at all:

"The surprising lack of coverage may be explained by a report alleging that journalists present at the event were requested to sign an agreement to keep mum on the embarrassing comments. A Reuters reporter was among the journalists present and can confirm the veracity of the comments."

"A member of the media confirmed Monday that "there were discussions between journalists and they agreed not to publish the comments due to the sensitivity of the issue."

"He added that while it was annoying to have to refrain from publishing the information, the journalists are subject to precise rules of conduct."

What conduct? Because Sarkozy's office asked journalists not to turn on their headsets until the conference began, the comments were considered private, according to French media "traditions."

That excuse ostensibly covers the collective behinds of the French reporters. What about everyone else? What reporter in his right mind would sign anything that prevents him from reporting on a story made available, not by subterfuge or anything else resembling illegality, but by the carelessness of two world leaders? Since when did a legitimate "gotcha" moment become off limits to the press?

You may well ask.

Are we allowed to talk about glass houses?

French Prime Minister Sarkozy must see himself as a latter-day George Washington who cannot tell a lie or, at least, someone who can call other people liars with a straight face. Or so it would seem from the story that was suppressed by faithful journalists at first but has surfaced on French websites and has now been confirmed by Reuters.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy branded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "a liar" in a private conversation with U.S. President Barack Obama that was accidentally broadcast to journalists during last week's G20 summit in Cannes.

"I cannot bear Netanyahu, he's a liar," Sarkozy told Obama, unaware that the microphones in their meeting room had been switched on, enabling reporters in a separate location to listen in to a simultaneous translation.

"You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you," Obama replied, according to the French interpreter.

The technical gaffe is likely to cause great embarrassment to all three leaders as they look to work together to intensify international pressure on Iran over its nuclear ambitions.

The conversation was not initially reported by the small group of journalists who overheard it because it was considered private and off-the-record. But the comments have since emerged on French websites and can be confirmed by Reuters.

Obama's apparent failure to defend Netanyahu is likely to be leapt on by his Republican foes, who are looking to unseat him in next year's presidential election and have portrayed him as hostile to Israel, Washington's closest ally in the region.

It is also, by a strange coincidence the only democracy in the region but that is not likely to worry either Sarko or Obama.

However, the behaviour of journalists who decided that this particular conversation was private and off the record and was, therefore, not to be broadcast to all and sundry is curious. Would it have happened with other politicians in slightly different circumstances? Somebody broke ranks, clearly.

Netanyahu's office refused to comment, presumably because they could not stop laughing long enough.

That application to the UN

Here is the full text of Mahmoud Abbas's application to the UN for formal Palestinian statehood. Please note the following paragraph:

"This application for membership is being submitted on the Palestinian people's natural, legal and historic rights and based on United Nations General Assembly resolution 181 (II) of 29 November 1947 as well as the Declaration of Independence of the State of Palestine of 15 November 1988 and the acknowledgement by the General Assembly of this declaration in resolution 43/177 of 15 December 1988.

Right, so we are not talking about 1967 borders (which did not include a Palestinian state, in any case) but the 1947 ones.

Does this mean that "President" Abbas (there is some doubt about that title in the minds of his Hamas opponents) wants to correct the mistake Arab leaders made at the time by rejecting the partition of Palestine? Possibly. There is another explanation, as Tom Gross points out [scroll down to Item 5], which would fit in better with the "occupation of 63 years" that is being voiced by various Palestinian officials, including Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas’s official text of his UN remarks included a logo on the top right hand side of the page showing all of Israel as a future Palestinian state.

Above this item there are a couple of others that might be of interest. The pictures, particularly of the painted donkey with the obnoxious child on it, are only grimly entertaining.

Then there is Item 2 about the freedom of media in Ramallah where the TV screens went blank for Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech at the UN.

To balance that there is this delightful item:

Hamas security personnel prevented a Gaza restaurant from screening Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' address to the UN General Assembly, a local rights group said Sunday.

Two men in plain clothing, who introduced themselves as members of the Hamas-run General Investigations Service (GIS), arrived at the establishment in western Gaza City late Friday and ordered the owner to stop the broadcast, threatening to close his restaurant.

The owner has been arrested and, so far as anyone knows, not yet released.

Israel hits back

Staying off the net, even temporarily, means that you miss out on some news stories of interest (and no, I still have not had my own rant about the recent lootings in London and other cities). Therefore, I come into the story of what is happening around Gaza, Sinai and southern Israel a littl late. But, not unexpectedly, Israel has retaliated for the terror attacks in southern Israel.

Palestinian sources told the BBC that four members of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a faction in Gaza that is loyal to Hamas but sometimes operates separately, had been killed in the air strikes, including the group's head, Kamal al-Nairab.

It is a little difficult to work out whether those Palestinian sources are pleased or upset at the development.

Meanwhile, here is a good summary of how it all developed, on Hot Air, who link to other stories, including a live-blog and AP, who point to an interesting link between these attacks and the growing lawlessness in Sinai.

This and that

Why, readers might ask, does she not write more about the European Union? Is that not the most important issue around? Well, yes and no. There are many issues and I have been a little remiss in handling most of them. As for the EU, well, the more I see soi-disant eurosceptics and the more I listen to their bleating, the more I think that maybe it is time either to retire from the fight or join the other side. Probably I shan't do either but it is very tempting, particularly when I see those ridiculous campaigns for an In/Out referendum, which we are bound to lose or listen to vacuous MPs.

Enough already. Let us turn to some other issues. It is summer so the Gaza flotillas are about to set off. Everything we said last year can be said this year, with additional references to the Arab spring that seems not to be resolving into high summer but has caused a great many casualties in various Arab countries as tyrannical dictators (no, it is not a tautology) cling on to power by slaughtering as many of their people as they can manage.

Syria is a particularly good example, as the Irish Examiner points out.

If the Assad regime were deposed, it would represent a major setback to both the Iranian regime and Hezbollah. Conversely, Lebanon’s March 14 democracy campaign and the Iranian Green Movement would be emboldened by the overthrow. Since March, 1,400 demonstrators have been killed by the Syrian security forces. Assad says his people love him and promises change but the reality is bullets in the backs of women mourning their sons.

The Assads have, successfully, put down dissent before. In Hama, upwards of 10,000 people were massacred on Daddy Assad’s orders in 1982, many times more than infamously died in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps the same year.

Following in his father’s footsteps, the current Assad deployed his air force against the Kurdish minority in 2004. Scores were killed and thousands were arrested and tortured. Nevertheless, somehow Assad – like the younger Gaddafi — has managed to create an image for himself as a good guy in bad guy’s clothing. He behaves like another Gaddafi but Hillary Clinton calls him "a reformer".

The fear is, of course, that if Assad went, the Muslim Brotherhood would take over. But in the Syrian case, unlike Egypt’s, is that necessarily a step backwards? It’s tempting to think it would be a good thing if Assad were allowed to cling precariously to power. But history suggests dictators like Assad become externally aggressive in response as they try to earn legitimacy in their citizens’ eyes. Right now, compelled to devote his energies to staying in power, Assad has little time to stir up fires elsewhere. But for how long?

A nasty, bloody regime with many links to terrorists organizations and a tendency to ... well, not to put too fine a point on it, massacre the people of Syria.

The more immediate question is, why is the MV Saoirse and its assorted passengers heading for Gaza and not the Syrian coast? Surely, if anyone could use some solidarity right now, it is the Syrian opposition forces who are being murdered on a daily basis?

Yes, Israel is maintaining a sea blockade to prevent the smuggling of Iranian weaponry into Gaza. But can we really blame them? Ireland has special reason to understand the need to prevent the entry of weapons by sea for terrorist purposes, having had the experience of the IRA’s attempts to import arms and explosives on ships from Libya in 1973 (the Claudia) and 1987 (the Eksund), and — with Martin Ferris’ help — on the Marita Ann from the US in 1984.

As the deputy director of the Red Cross in Gaza stated in April this year: "There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza." But there most certainly is a humanitarian crisis in Syria. The Gazan economy is clipping along and tonnes of consumer goods and food arrive daily. For sure, life is probably not very pleasant there by our standards but the oppression comes from the ruling Hamas regime, not Israel which pulled out every last settler and soldier years ago.

So how about it, Fintan Lane, Barry Andrews, Sinn Féin, and your far-left buddies? Why not divert a couple of hundred miles north to Latakia where President Assad is mowing down his own people because they dare to demand dignity and democracy? Surely, there is no contest in terms of suffering?

One could and should address the same question to all those who are setting out in their flotillas to demonstrate something or other by sailing to Gaza.

Phyllis Chesler has harsh words:

These self-styled activists and presumed anti-racists are slumming, partying, cruising for cheap thrills and even cheaper publicity. They yearn for cut-rate, no “burn” glory. They are ultimate conformists, careerists, “making their bones,” adding to their activist resumes by sticking it to the Jews. This is meant to prove that they are brave and principled.

In essence, they are engaged in a highly self-destructive form of political theatre: they are concretely manipulating symbols in the same way that Osama bin Laden did on 9/11. In the name of “caring,” these activists are surrendering to the most dangerous totalitarian and misogynist Islamist regime—but in the name of “freedom” and “justice.”

Indeed. And they also have a tendency to whimper when Israel exercises every country's right to defend itself. And, of course, none of them have the slightest idea of what the situation in Gaza is really like or who is really oppressing the people of Gaza. Hint: the Israelis are not there but Hamas is.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah has backed Syrian tyrant Baby Assad (to distinguish him from previous Syrian tyrant, Daddy Assad), naturally enough, since he has been their patron and supporter for many year.

Hezbollah has thrown in its lot with Assad against the Syrian people, supplying gunmen to execute Syrian soldiers who refuse to take part in the killing of Syrian citizens. By siding so unequivocally with the Alawite dictator over his captive, predominantly Sunni population, and in a dispute that has nothing to do with Israel no less, Hezbollah has exploded its carefully constructed image as the standard-bearer for the Muslim common man against the Zionist enemy. Outraged Syrians are now being filmed burning posters of Hezbollah’s chief, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.

The big question is will either Baby Assad or Hezbollah or the two together instigate a war with Israel in order to take away attention from internal dissent of both country and organization?

ADDENDUM: Another excellent piece on the subject, this time by Kevin Myers, one of the sanest journalists around (though he is in Ireland not in Britain). He asks quite rationally "How can do-gooders possibly think that Gaza is the primary centre of injustice in Middle East?". He is, as all decent people must be, stunned by the visceral hatred Israel excites in people who ought to know better (for example Brian Keenan who was held hostage for four years by Arab terrorists).

But how can anyone possibly think that Gaza is the primary centre of injustice in the Middle East? According to Mathilde Redmatn, deputy director of the International Red Cross in Gaza, there is in fact no humanitarian crisis there at all. But by God, there is one in Syria, where possibly thousands have died in the past month.

However, I notice that none of the Irish do-gooders are sending an aid-ship to Latakia. Why? Is it because they know that the Syrians do not deal with dissenting vessels by lads with truncheons abseiling down from helicopters, but with belt-fed machine guns, right from the start?

What about a humanitarian ship to Libya? Surely no-one on the MV Saoirse could possible maintain that life under Gaddafi qualified it as a civilised state. Not merely did it murder opponents by the bucketload at home and abroad, it kept the IRA campaign going for 20 years, and it also -- a minor point, this, I know -- brought down the Pan Am flight at Lockerbie. Yet no Irish boat to Libya. Only the other way round.

One reluctantly assumes that these people are not motivated with feelings of humanitarian charity towards Arabs but something very different and far more pernicious.

Clearly I lack breadth of vision

For some time it has seemed to me inevitable that the two-state solution that may have been obvious back in 1948 (though not to the Arab states who refused it) is not going to work in the Palestine now. Given the normal relationship between Hamas who rule Gaza with ferocious control and Fatah who do much the same in the West Bank, there would have to be a three-state solution: Israel, Fatahland and Hamastan. Someone recently suggested to me a four-state solution as the Christians who are mostly thronging into Israel may not always want to be there. Well, maybe.

What we all lack is breadth of vision. Phyllis Chesler is advancing an idea, which is not hers originally but whose time has come, a ten-state solution.

But why is everyone thinking so “small?” My colleague and friend, Dr. Mordechai Kedar, a lecturer in the Department of Arabic at Bar Ilan University and a research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, has a far more realistic and creative suggestion. When I first heard his proposal, I laughed. I thought: “Surely, this is some kind of Jewish joke.”

His suggestion is no joke. In fact, it has some serious support from both Israelis and Palestinians. Of course, things being what they are, no one will go on record supporting this idea, which is based on a sociological and historical analysis of Arab tribes and the consequent concept of Arab tribal city-states.

When you think about it seriously, it does not seem such a bad idea.

Dr. Kedar proposes the creation of no less than eight or nine independent and separate Arab city-states within the West Bank, in addition to Gaza. Of course, Israel would comprise the ninth or tenth state. He writes:

“There is no reason to assume that a Palestinian state will not become another failing Arab state, due to the fragmented society in the West Bank and Gaza, tribalism and lack of awareness of nationhood as demonstrated by the failing performance of the Palestinian authority since its establishment in 1994…Social stability is the key for political stability…the only successful model for an Arab state is the one which is based on a single consolidated traditional group such as each of the individual Arab Gulf Emirates.”

This actually makes sense. The Arab Gulf Emirates have been relatively successful because their inhabitants are, with some exceptions, largely homogeneous in terms of tribe, ethnicity, and religion. True, the oil wealth has also provided an incentive for unity. But in general, the Arab Middle East has always been composed of many tribes, religions, sects, and ethnic groups, all at war with each other and with the government. The colonial imposition of a central, western-style nation-state has not served the interests of the indigenous people but rather the interests of dictators and large corporations.

If that would mean the eight or nine Arab city states actually concentrating on wealth creation and ordinary life, the Middle East might become considerably more stable. But which politician is likely to express this as a policy?

Obama "clarifies" his position

As President Obama starts his hastily arranged state visit to Britain and Ireland (James Delingpole's take on the subject is completely accurate in my opinion), Hot Air reminds us that before leaving he had tried to clarify his position on the Middle East (well, on Israel and her relationship with Hamas and Fatah).

Basing his account on Philip Klein's report, Ed Morrissey comes to the conclusion that

So, we can’t expect Israel to try to negotiate with Hamas, but we can blame them for a failure to try to negotiate with Hamas? Is the US position that Israel has “no option” but to negotiate with terrorists that no one expects them to negotiate with?

Somewhere in these two statements is an explanation of smart power, I’m sure.

Uh-huh! This is, of course, what a number of "liberal" i.e. pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli analysts take when they try to explain why Israel is at fault for not wanting to be destroyed. Somehow one expects something better from the President of the United States, particularly one who was billed as being ultra-smart and ultra-knowledgeable. It's not like this was something difficult like the number of states in his country.

Change? What change?

As President Obama comes up with another fatuous speech about the Middle East, showing that he seems not to have understood anything about recent events there or North Africa and promises lots more aid to countries with dubious governments, the question I asked on whether anything has changed in our media because of the "Arab spring" remains valid.

According to a report by JustJournalism the period before the various uprisings was characterized by serious under-reporting from Arab countries and over-concentration on Israel. As a consequence events in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and other countries sent journalists scrambling for information that they ought to have been collecting for some time and publishing. Of course, it is far easier to report from Israel than any other country in that area.

The question of whether anything will change remains. Clearly, President Obama has made up his mind that, despite everything that took place in the last few months, it is Israel that he needs to pressurize into surrender. Whether he will be successful is questionable.

Meanwhile, Phyllis Chesler reports that Facebook groups that call for mass invasion of Israel (anything to turn attention away from what is going on in Syria, Bahrain, Egypt etc etc) are proliferating.

The Third Palestinian Intifada on Facebook seems to have at least twenty different groups or pages, each with hundreds or thousands of fans. One group has 365,000 fans. According to Yedioth Ahronoth (YNet), these sites are now urging all Arabs to “rush the Israeli borders” after Friday prayers on May 20.

Look: This could be the work of one nerdy Palestinian in a basement in Ramallah. The fans could also be people who exist only in cyberspace.

But, these Third Palestinian Intifada websites could also be the work of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria, and the Palestinian Authority, all of which have problems of their own and for whom a diversion would be mighty fine. In fact, I think they are. Thus, this promised new aggression must be taken seriously and stopped in its tracks.

Well, you can see the logic: we have no freedom, democracy, economic development, good education, rule of law, scientific and technological achievements, so let's destroy the one country in the area that has all those. That will solve our problems. Right!

Diverting attention

There is a scramble in the Middle East to divert attention from what matters - attempts by the oppressed people of various countries to protest against their governments and the latter's brutal suppression of those protests. It got to the point when even Western "liberals" and the media (but I repeat myself) have noted that there is a great deal of brutality in those countries and that Israel and the Palestinian issue are not what the protests and demonstrations are about. (I put liberals in quotation marks as I cannot see anything liberal about supporting Hamas or Fatah, both oppressive, authoritarian and bloodthirsty against the one Middle Eastern country that is, with all its faults, a democracy.)

Anyway, something had to be done and it is being done. Naqba Day is being prepared by Israel's neighbours.

Many residents of Arab countries in which anti-government protests abound have used social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to call for a third intifada on May 15, the Palestinian day of mourning over the establishment of Israel.

In Lebanon, 500 buses have been enlisted to shuttle Palestinians from refugee camps throughout the country to its southern border with the Jewish state. Al-Akhbar reported that protest organizers had increased their order by 200 buses due to the abundance of participants.

Well, that'll keep them out of mischief, that is protests against their own governments. Once again we have to ask why all these Palestinians are still in refugee camps in Lebanon but I think we all know the answer. Because their Arab brethren have no desire to help them or even let them help themselves; because they are needed as the diversion from the problems in Arab countries.

But what, I hear some of you say, is Naqba Day? Glad you asked that. It is a day of mourning for Palestinians because of the founding of Israel 63 years ago. Does anybody really believe that the problem about peace in that area has to do with Israeli settlements or Benjamin Netanyahu when Israel is surrounded by people who do not acknowledge its right to exist?

Here is Joel Leyden's take on it:

It's not about Palestine or the Palestinians. What the world is about to witness is event marketing at its very, oil funded best. Iran, Syria, Libya, Turkey and Qatar are now funding a PR diversion away from the hundreds of murders in Syria and Libya by government forces against pro democracy citizens and focusing on Israel.

Whenever Arab states are forced to confront poverty, disease and a total lack of basic human rights in their own countries they always use the Palestinians. They pour millions of rich oil dollars into PR campaigns to deflect from the suffering in their own totalitarian states to discredit the only free democracy in the Middle East - Israel.

The interesting question is whether the events of the so-called Arab spring, which is now turning to summer, will change attitudes in Arab countries or outside them.

Been hearing this a lot lately

The most unexpected people, such as Oxford academics are beginning to mutter that, perhaps, there is something to be said for George W. Bush in matters foreign, particularly as one looks at his successor's ineptitude. Indeed, people are saying that maybe, just maybe, it is President Bush's freedom for the Middle East agenda that is being played out now, however awkwardly, through much of the Arab world.

Charles Krauthammer's article in The Washington Post may not come into the category of the unexpected ones but is, as one would expect, cogently argued.

Voices around the world, from Europe to America to Libya, are calling for U.S. intervention to help bring down Moammar Gaddafi. Yet for bringing down Saddam Hussein, the United States has been denounced variously for aggression, deception, arrogance and imperialism.

A strange moral inversion, considering that Hussein's evil was an order of magnitude beyond Gaddafi's. Gaddafi is a capricious killer; Hussein was systematic. Gaddafi was too unstable and crazy to begin to match the Baathist apparatus: a comprehensive national system of terror, torture and mass murder, gassing entire villages to create what author Kanan Makiya called a "Republic of Fear."

...

No matter the hypocritical double standard. Now that revolutions are sweeping the Middle East and everyone is a convert to George W. Bush's freedom agenda, it's not just Iraq that has slid into the memory hole. Also forgotten is the once proudly proclaimed "realism" of Years One and Two of President Obama's foreign policy - the "smart power" antidote to Bush's alleged misty-eyed idealism.

It began on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's first Asia trip, when she publicly played down human rights concerns in China. The administration also cut aid for democracy promotion in Egypt by 50 percent. And cut civil society funds - money for precisely the organizations we now need to help Egyptian democracy - by 70 percent.

This new realism reached its apogee with Obama's reticence and tardiness in saying anything in support of the 2009 Green Revolution in Iran. On the contrary, Obama made clear that nuclear negotiations with the discredited and murderous regime (talks that a child could see would go nowhere) took precedence over the democratic revolutionaries in the street - to the point where demonstrators in Tehran chanted, "Obama, Obama, you are either with us or with them."

Read the whole thing as it also provides the necessary links to the other articles.

I would, however, like to add one thing. Under President Obama the United States appears to have abandoned its role and there have been rather silly comments about power seeping away from it to .... well, nobody quite knows where. Europe is no longer the preferred successor, China and India have rather a lot of internal problems and the rest is nowhere. Yet, even with this inept politician at the helm (when he bothers to show up) there is no question in anybody's mind which is the only country that could, conceivably, make a difference in a tricky situation like the one in Libya.