Qasem Soleimani Global conflict 

The killing of Qasem Soleimani

It’s impossible to exaggerate the importance of the elimination of the Iranian al Quds commander Qasem Soleimani. He was killed by a US airstrike which targeted him at Baghdad airport, where he had been met by his close henchman Abu Mahdi al Muhandis and who was killed alongside him in a vehicle convoy with five others. This was America’s response to Iran’s escalating aggression, including an attack on US forces at an Iraqi military base on December 27 that killed a US contractor and wounded several others, and after an…

Global conflict Israel 

As the west goes terribly wrong, Arabs inch in the right direction

As the west goes in one direction, so the Arab world is now going in the other. While British and western “progressive” circles descend ever deeper into the sewers of antisemitism and its contemporary mutation, the campaign to exterminate the State of Israel, the Arab world is beginning to renounce its own desire to wipe Israel off the map. Prominent figures from 15 Arab countries met in London last week to reject the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement — whose aim is to destroy Israel — and encourage the…

Global conflict 

The less than pellucid genius of the Syrian debacle

Just as Trump Derangement Syndrome has long caused opponents of President Donald Trump to lose touch with reality, restraint and reason, so its opposite pathology, Trump Adoration Disorder, has caused various folk to perform mental somersaults over the debacle in Syria. For they don’t regard his abrupt decision to pull US troops out of north-eastern Syria as a debacle. They regard it as an act of genius, just like Trump does himself. How so? Well, apparently he didn’t abandon the Kurds at all. Instead, he forced Turkey to walk into…

Culture wars Global conflict USA 

How black and white thinking clouds realpolitik

Black and white thinking, which divides the world into absolute camps of good and evil, is associated with religious fanaticism from medieval Christianity to the Islamic world. There are now troubling signs that a secular equivalent is contributing to our current political turmoil. There appears to be an increasing inability to grasp that people are capable of both good and bad acts. There is a corresponding failure to acknowledge that just because someone is the target of falsehoods or bigotry, that person may not always be in the right. Recent…

Syria Global conflict USA 

A mirror image?

President Trump’s shock decision to pull US troops out of north-east Syria confirms a disastrous slide in American foreign policy. I warned here that Trump was trapped by his own contradictory character into making bad foreign policy mistakes — such as cancelling an airstrike on Iranian targets with only 10 minutes to spare. His previous plan last December to pull US troops out of Syria was deftly modified by his erstwhile National Security Adviser, John Bolton. Alas, Bolton has now departed. So now there’s no-one to corral this most erratic…

Britain 

Labour’s Israel-bashing on full display as Brexit chaos intensifies

As Britain’s Brexit agony erupted this week into a full-blown constitutional crisis with a ruling against the prime minister by the Supreme Court, the Labour Party was also tearing itself apart over Brexit at its annual conference. This was small comfort to British Jews. For the Brexit chaos, in which parliament has set itself against the people while the judiciary has now further undermined Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s attempt to deliver Brexit by its Oct. 31 deadline, has increased the possibility of Labour — under its far-left and antisemitism-enabling leader…

Arabs Israel 

In a deadlocked election, the real winners are Israeli Arabs

If nothing else, one clear result of Israel’s frustrating general election gives the lie to the claim that Israeli Arabs were being intimidated from casting their vote. This arose from a failed attempt by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party to allow its operatives to film inside polling stations on the unproven charge of voter fraud in the Arab sector. In the middle of election day, a report attributed to Likud that it had installed “facial recognition” cameras outside Arab polling stations was condemned as an attempt to intimidate…

Boltonism Global conflict USA 

Boltonism must not be allowed to disappear

John Bolton’s departure from the Trump administration should have had the left cheering from the rafters. Bolton has long been a bogeyman in liberal circles on account of his refusal to appease the enemies of America and the west, a disposition that the left regard as belligerent war-mongering. When Bolton was made National Security Advisor, his liberal foes behaved as if U.S. President Donald Trump had signed up in person one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Now that Bolton’s appointment has abruptly terminated, though, there’s been no rejoicing…

Holocaust Britain Global conflict 

We’d rather champion dead Jews than live ones

Back in 2016 the prime minister, David Cameron, decided that a Holocaust memorial and learning centre should be built near the Houses of Parliament. Three years on, the scheme is mired in an increasingly bitter row. Objectors say that the memorial’s brutalist design is inappropriate for the gardens and that its thousands of anticipated visitors would destroy one of London’s green oases. Many have cited security concerns. The Victoria Tower Gardens site, however, was chosen because it was next to parliament, thus making a highly visible and pointed statement about…

Global conflict Israel 

The incendiary balloon of international law

For months now, Israel has been attacked by aerial incendiary weapons launched by Hamas during riots at the Gaza border fence. These weapons – balloons or kites attached to flammable material – are driven by the winds off the sea towards southern Israel. In just one week in June, they started nearly 100 fires in farmland and forests, in playgrounds and private yards. By last month, Hamas had burned more than 7,400 acres of Israeli land. At the same time, Israeli communities near the border are also routinely attacked with…