Is Europe about to abandon Israel?

The unification of Germany added to the German electorate a vast cohort of voters who had not been subject to forty-five years of Holocaust Guilt. The coming down of the Wall also marked a change in the special responsibility that post-war West Germany believed it had to support Israel. In France, the words 'Sale Juif' had rarely been long absent from some wall, somewhere, and Polish nationalist-Catholicism had never really abandoned the view of Jews as Christ-killers. We also have an openly anti-Jewish administration in Hungary. Added to all that is a new generation who were never thrilled by the courage and pluck shown in 1967 or in the 1973 Yom Kippur war by a David nation against a Goliath foe, and who have only ever known Israel as an oppressor, an evil empire, an aggressor.

All this is the background to what Brendan O'Neill, writing in Spiked, thinks may be the official abandonment of Israel by Europe;

"An anti-war movement? It’s the opposite. The current street-based fury with Israel is best seen, not as any kind of independent or progressive or peacenik grouping, but rather as the protesting wing of the West itself, as the attack dog of Western institutions’ own exasperation with Israel and their desire to distance themselves from it."

O'Neill argues that Western politicians and institutions are increasingly turning their back on Israel:

"The nations and institutions of the West, once keen supporters of Israel, have now turned against the Jewish State, coming to view it as a pest and possibly even a pariah.

"This speaks to some major shifts in world affairs in the post-Cold War period. Where in the Cold War era Israel was viewed and treated by the West as a kind of useful policeman in a Middle East that had large Arab nationalist movements funded by the Soviet Union, in the post-Cold War world Israel has come to be seen as surplus to requirements, as a state not really needed now that the Soviet Union is out of the picture and when the big conflicts in that part of the world are no longer West/East in nature but rather are increasingly localised and religious.

"And anti-Israel activists' street-based agitation against the Jewish State is but a more shouty version of this shift, of Western imperialism’s own judgement that Israel has gone from being important to being irritating."

As a consequence, says O'Neill, anti-Israel activism has no peace-movement feel to it, but rather is a "profoundly ugly phenomenon":

"It masquerades as a peace movement but actually devotes its energies to drumming up hatred, sanctions and possibly even Western intervention against a state that it has found guilty in the kangaroo court of liberal opinion of being a ‘rogue’."

Israel loses German support

The latest piece in Der Spiegel is symptomatic of a shift in German political opinion. It isn't anti-Israel of course - but importantly is no longer pro-Israel either. This is quite a significant shift, and supports the view that whatever the military outcome of this conflict, however successful Israel is in destroying the Hamas rockets, that Hamas have won. War is a filthy and brutal business, and neither side has clean hands, but this must be the first war shared live on twitter and instagram. 

Our view of what constitutes a war crime changes over time. Eric Priebke was the German officer in charge of the shooting of 335 Italian hostages in the Ardeatine Caves in 1944. Post war attempts at prosecution found he could be accused of only five murders, the five extra hostages that he had himself added to the official command to execute 330 hostages. Shooting civilians in reprisal in certain given circumstances was quite lawful and not a war crime in the Second World War. Also lawful at the time was the terror-bombing by the RAF of civilian towns and cities to 'demoralise' the civilian population. Both actions were made war crimes only in 1949 - but not of course retrospectively. So Sir Arthur Harris could not be hanged for bombing Dresden any more than Eric Priebke could be hanged for shooting 330 civilian hostages. 

The changes to war-crime law came only when the true human effects became known of military actions which had previously been considered militarily expeditious and a necessary adjunct of warfare. Then it was monochrome newsreel of bundles of rags and sticks, once humans, being removed from the Adeatine Caves, and footage of German babies melted by the RAF, images that overcame protests of military necessity. And so civilisation advanced another tiny notch. 

I suspect that the images that are coming from Israel's assault on Gaza may be the catalyst for another change; the wonders of the internet have let the world see that the Palestinians are people just like themselves, wearing the same trainers and using the same mobile phones, with the same kids' pictures on the classroom walls. And filled with the same blood. 

Bankers belong in Jail

Bankers belong in Jail; so says Max Hastings, a mature and reasoned voice if ever there was one and hardly an anti-capitalist. Hastings, as we do, realises that the banking part of the City still needs serious progress to restore some minute part of its moral credibility, and that it can only come with a dozen bank board members banged up in Wormwood Scrubs.

The Mail’s City editor Alex Brummer shows beyond reasonable doubt that its excesses and crimes reflect not the isolated actions of a few scoundrels, but a culture corrupt from top to bottom. Since 2008, it has often been said that we shall see no penitence from those who run the banking industry until some of the crooks in charge have gone to jail. The bankers’ lack of shame suggests this is true.

Whilst I'm sure Theresa May would be happy to oblige, one wonders if official efforts are not being blocked at high level by the corrupt cronyism that is the hallmark of Cameron's government?

Britains worst post-war Prime Minister

I meant to get this post up for the weekend, but attempts to get a non-advert non-spying  poll widget in the post rather than parked in the sidebar defeated me. Greg prompted the idea with this assessment;

"Attlee I don't remember, but he left one legacy that, 39 years ago saved my life & just this week, my wife's - the NHS.
Churchill - the greatest PM since Wm Pitt the younger, whom, as I say, I DO remember - his powers were failing, but what a human being!
Eden - the worst PM since Lord North - everything he touched turned to shit.
Macmillan - war hero, gentleman, sharp brain, only made two mistakes - Profumo & the corrupt Marples.
A Douglas-Hume - always greatly underrated in my opinion.
H Wilson - euw - reminds me (now) of Alex Salmond - totally untrustworthy.
Roy Jenkins (You what?) The best PM we never had - if he had beaten Wilsundra for the Labour leadership, back in '62/3 things would have been very different.
Jim Callaghan - another under-rated man - who did do the right thing over the Falklands, unlike his successor ...
The Madwoman. She only did one thing right - she actually gave Trades unions legitimate power, by demanding secret ballots, to the same standard as MP's.
Major - what a prat. Some of his "advisers" were distinctly unsavoury, though some, such as the insane Sherman, were inherited from 'er indoors.
Blair. Euw, well - we were all deceived, weren't we? I should have realised, as soon as it became obvious that he was is a good christian....
Broon - like the madwoman, did one good thing - kept us out of the Euro, in this case.
The present incumbent.

Of the above, the first two, plus Macmillan, Callaghan were true patriots. Eden was mad (Suez); the rest are all traitors."

For what it's worth, my vote goes to Blair; he poisoned politics, devalued Parliament, encouraged corruption, trampled like a petulant teenager over our unwritten constitution and our ancient Offices of State, besmirched the integrity of the security services, deceived the sovereign, betrayed the armed forces and destroyed the ethics of his own party. I cannot think of one single thing that he left unfouled by avarice, fraud, mendacity and crookedness.