Category Archives: Israel

14 May

It’s BECAUSE it’s successful–stupid!

“Israel’s 70th birthday” is all over the news. I suppose then that Abraham was the nation’s original patriarch in the 1940s and 50s, Isaac came along in the 1960s – about the same time as The Beatles – and I could swear I saw Joseph in his coat of many colours by the bandstand here in Eastbourne only last Thursday. Well, really!

Moses was a legendary character from around 1250 BC, but we know that King David was an historical figure who made his capital in the old Jebusite city of Jerusalem in the 9th century BC. His son Solomon built the first temple there, and the reigns of those two monarchs are well-documented in the Old Testament books Kings and Chronicles. We know also that Jerusalem was captured by the Babylonians in 586 BC and the people were carried off into exile: “By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered thee, O Sion” (that is Jerusalem) – Psalm 137:1

But the biblical legends go far back into the second millennium BC when “Melchizedek, King of Salem (Jerusalem) brought forth bread and wine and he was the priest of El Elyon (The Most High God)” – Genesis 14:18

So the Israelis can claim an association with Jerusalem which goes back many centuries, and so it’s not surprising that they should now declare the ancient city to be their capital once again – though of course this irritates the left wing press and especially the BBC no end

The second and dominant part of the name Jerusalem connects with the word שלום (shalom), meaning peace, while the root of this word, שלם (shalem), denotes completeness, wholeness and soundness. In Greek, the first part of the name Jerusalem resembles the words ιερος (hieros), meaning sacred, and ιερευς (hiereus), meaning priest.  Back to Melchizedek, the legendary priest-king whose name means King of Righteousness.

Why do all the world’s lefties hate Israel? And why has antisemitism – a despicable thing never entirely dormant – returned with renewed ferocity? It’s been around a long time. The prophet Isaiah described Israel as “despised and rejected” – Isaiah 53: 3. Isaiah also identified Israel as God’s Suffering Servant. Certainly the people suffered under the Babylonians and again at the hands of the cruel Antiochus Epiphanes. And many times since in pogroms and genocides.

That’s some of the history which The Guardian and the BBC speak not of. Never mind, let’s adhere to the brief history referred to in the media’s short term memory and go back to the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948. Since then, Israel has been forced to fight four defensive wars. The country is a tiny sliver of civilisation in a vast desert of barbarism. Its enemies – on all sides – declare every day their intention to obliterate the country.

But what about the Arabs, especially the poor “Palestinians”? Why does Israel deny them the living space they demand in the form of the so-called “two state solution”?

Well, Israel has tried that. In 1998 the Israeli leadership held talks, sponsored by Bill Clinton, with the “Palestinian” leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David and all sides appeared smiling on the lawn to agree on that two state solution. But then the treacherous Arafat returned to Ramallah and declared the second Intifada – a terrorist uprising – against Israel. By all accounts, when she heard the news, Hillary Clinton’s language was unrepeatable.

In 2018 Israel has a strong leader in Benjamin Netanyahu whose first name means “son of right” and whose surname means “YHVH God has given.”

Historically and in modern times, Israel has shown itself to be one of the most brilliantly successful nations the world has ever seen. Its achievements in philosophy and theology, in the arts, science and medicine are unsurpassed. It is the only genuine democracy in the Middle East.

Why then should all the lefties treat Israel as a pariah?

Let me try to explain: they hate Israel precisely because it is successful.

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03 Apr

The Company He Keeps

We learn much about a man by observing the company he keeps.

Over last weekend, Jeremy Corbyn attended a Passover celebration in Islington organised by Jewdas, a near-anarchist organisation described, with eloquent restraint, by The Jewish Chronicle as “a Jewish diaspora group known for its far left anti-Zionism.” Among their more socially-acceptable activities was the organisation of an anti-fascist Yom Kippur ball.

In May 2015, Jewdas took more than thirty people on its inaugural Birthwrong – the satirical mockery of the traditional Jewish doctrine of birthright – trip to Andalusia. This was advertised as “a trip for anyone who’s sick of Israel’s stranglehold on Jewish culture and wants to get away on a raucous holiday. See Maimonides! Get pissed! Do some Jewish tourism! Spend Shabbat with Andalusian Jews! Shvitz in a hammam! Visit a communist village! Get pissed!”

In other words, last weekend’s gathering was one at which Jeremy Corbyn would have felt entirely at home.

Jewdas members have a favourite party game in which a cheerleader calls out names of prominent British Jews and everyone boos. They have a particular dislike for Stephen Pollard, editor of The Jewish Chronicle whom they regularly abuse as “a non-Jew.”

They frequently preach the destruction of Israel: “Israel is a steaming pile of sewage which needs to be disposed of.”

Hearing those words must have greatly cheered Mr Corbyn, the avowed friend of the terrorist organisations Hamas and Hezbollah.

I’m left with just one thought: I wish I could get through to the snowflake, airhead youngsters who are so beguiled by “Jeremy” that they intend to make him prime minister.

I have found much to dislike about many politicians over the years, but I would never have described any one of these as evil – until Corbyn emerged out of his very own steaming pile of sewage.

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03 Jan

The new Iranian revolution

I just write this blog and I have no part in compiling the speeches of Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump. But the other day I suggested: “No doubt the Israelis and the Americans are making all efforts to encourage the Iranians who have seen the possibility of a change for the better.”

Then Mr Netanyahu said: “When this regime, the Iranian government, finally falls, and one day it will, Iranians and Israelis will be great friends once again.”

And Mr Trump declared: “The people of Iran are finally reacting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime. All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their own pockets.”

I am encouraged by the comments of these leaders to notice that, in their support for the Iranian uprising against the mullahs, at least some western leaders are backing the right side this time. That is not what the west did in its foolish enthusiasm for the so called “Arab Spring” that began with the Tunisian revolution on 17th December 2010.

The Tunisian Revolution effect spread strongly to five other countries: Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain, where either the political establishments were toppled or major uprisings and social violence occurred, leading to insurgencies and in Syria civil war. Sustained street demonstrations took place in Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Iranian Khuzestan, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan. Minor protests occurred in Djibouti, Mauritania, the Palestinian National Authority, Saudi Arabia, and the Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara. A prominent slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world was ash-shaʻb yurīd isqāṭ an-niẓām – “the people want to bring down the regime.”

In Egypt “the people” – or rather the Muslim Brotherhood – did succeed in bringing down the government and President Mubarak was deposed. Unfortunately, the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization and not composed of bright-eyed teenagers on their mobile phones and avid for “democracy” – as neocons in the west firmly believed. And so the fatuous hopes of western politicians were dashed. These starry-eyed political enthusiasts in the west reminded me of William Wordsworth’s words when the French revolution broke out in 1789: “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, and to be young was very heaven.” Willie soon changed his tune when the Reign of Terror got going, Madame Guillotine toured the country and Englishmen abed feared that the revolution would catch on over here too.

The French got Napoleon, Egypt got Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Syria got a genocidal war which is hardly finished eight years later, and the world got the fundamentalist psychopaths of Islamic State.

Why did the west for so long and so consistently back the wrong side? For decades – for centuries, dammit – it was obvious that the real danger to western civilization was the same as it has been for 1400 years: a militant Islamic insurgency. 9/11 should have removed finally any doubts that remained. This insurgency was first rebuffed by Charles Martel at Tours in AD 732, later at Lepanto and then with the relief of the Siege of Vienna, 1683. How come we didn’t notice?

Long ago, Amos confessed, “I am no prophet, but a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit” (Amos 7:14). I am not even a herdsman, or even a half-competent gardener, but I saw what was going on and warned of it in my lecture Apocalypse Soon? which I gave in St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in 2003 and, a little later, in the introduction to my book The Secular Terrorist.

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07 Dec

A world of sugared lies

When the whole world rises up and rails against you, cheer up! It probably means you’re doing something right.

This morning every organ from The Guardian to Hamas -whose spokesmen often seem interchangeable – to Russia Today, CNN, the EU and the EU’s spokesmen in this country who go by the name of the BBC, has condemned Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

But Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and the seat of government since 1948. This is a fact. All those agencies I mentioned above are news media. If dealing in facts is not their business, then pray what is?

In 1995 the government of the USA promised officially that it would recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. But every president since that time – Clinton, Bush, Obama – has waived that official promise. Now Donald Trump has done the honest thing and made good his country’s word.

Yet he is excoriated for so doing.

This can only mean that the worldwide media values more highly men who betray their promises than the man who keeps them.

The international media and politicians everywhere have no moral principles – or they claim to be Utilitarians, which amounts to the same thing. They don’t look to principles – whether something is right or wrong in itself – as the guide to moral judgement: instead they look to the likely consequences of any action. Will these consequences turn out to be good or bad? They don’t know. They can only judge the consequences in terms of some predicted future consequences; and so the issue of morality – right and wrong – is forever postponed.

This is the model of Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarian Calculus which Nietzsche rightly dismissed as “pig philosophy.”

But let us look at the international media and politicians worldwide this morning and judge them by their own dim lights.

Why are they unanimous in their condemnation of Donald Trump’s decision?

Because they say it will undermine the “peace process.”

Well now, do you know the difference between a neurotic and a psychotic? A neurotic is one who builds castles in the air. The psychotic is one who lives in them. The politicians and the international media are the psychotics, for there is no peace process. Every time an attempt has been made to get a peace process going, it has been sabotaged by the Arabs and their sympathisers. Let me offer one spectacular example. In 1998 Bill Clinton sponsored peace talks at Camp David which concluded in a commitment by all sides to “a two-state solution.”

The treacherous Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat stood next to Clinton on the lawn and signed up to this agreement. Then he returned to the West Bank and promptly announced the second intifada – the violent and murderous uprising against Israeli civilians.

Let me give you other examples. Hezbollah frequently subject Israeli towns and villages to a barrage of rockets from Lebanon…Hamas do the same from Gaza…The Arab terrorists in Gaza place their rocket-launchers in schools and hospitals and then announce to the willingly gullible international press that Israel’s leaders are child-murderers.

Let me give you even more examples…

On second thoughts, what’s the point? In a world of sugared lies, only the truth-teller is the villain.

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