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Britain Instant Articles 

Denial still flows over Londonistan

Melanie

In the wake of the jihadi human bomb attack in Manchester, Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May said: “We struggle to comprehend the warped and twisted mind that sees a room packed with young children not as a scene to cherish but an opportunity for carnage.” Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel said: “ It is unbelievable that somebody has used a joyful pop concert to kill or seriously injure so many people.” A headline in the Washington Post read: “In suburban Manchester, a search for what might have motivated the attacker”. “Struggle to…

Global conflict Israel USA 

Trump joins up the dots

Melanie

Now it becomes clear why President Trump selected as the destinations of his current tour Riyadh, Jerusalem and Rome. He is re-setting the foreign policy debate around the factor which is both fundamental and at the same time systematically ignored. He is reframing it as a conflict over religion. Not that he is describing it in Samuel Huntington’s terms as a war between civilisations. He reportedly told his son-in-law and key strategist Jared Kushner to construct a tour around the theme of reconciliation and world peace. Nevertheless, he’s doing something…

Britain Instant Articles 

Bigotry is not only free but costly

Melanie

The antisemitism crisis rolls on. Ken Livingstone has doubled down on his remarks about Hitler and Zionism. Members of the National Union of Students have been outed for sending offensive tweets about Jews. Campus meetings regularly spout hideous lies and libels about Israel. Many of us are horrified that these things are being allowed to be said at all. They are racist, prejudiced, bigoted, offensive and hurtful. Views like these should be utterly beyond the pale. Really? At the same time, many of us are horrified at the way points…

Instant Articles Israel USA 

Not a deal but a surrender

Melanie

According to this account of a story in the Arab newspaper Al Quds, the Trump administration intends to offer a deal to the Palestinian delegation which is due to arrive imminently in Washington. Stop paying salaries to the families of terrorist prisoners and those terrorists killed in their attacks on Israel, the Americans will say, and in return President Trump will shelve his proposal to move the US Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Oh dear. If this is true, the sting of this apparent proposal is not just…

Global conflict Israel USA 

A parable for our times

Melanie

Today and yesterday (depending on where you are in the world) observant Jews have been celebrating the festival of Purim by reading the megillah of Esther. This is the story of the Persian king Ahasuerus, commonly identified as Xerxes I, who went along with the plan hatched by his vizier Haman to exterminate the Jews. Ahasuerus was then persuaded out of this by his Jewish queen Esther, who was urged on by her brother Mordecai, and hanged Haman instead. Witty folk have been comparing Ahasuerus to Donald Trump. This is…

Israel USA 

Hope for a real solution? No wonder Europe’s dismayed

Melanie

President Trump’s comments to Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu about the solution to the Israel-Arab impasse produced consternation and contempt in equal measure. At the press conference after their meeting at the White House, Trump said: “So I’m looking at two state and one state, and I like the one that both parties like. I can live with either one. I thought for a while the two-state looked like it may be the easier of the two. But honestly, if Bibi and if the Palestinians, if Israel and the Palestinians are…

conversation Britain USA 

Moral obscenity at the LRB

Melanie

Every day we hear of folk who are simply terrified out of their wits by what Donald Trump may do and the terrible things he supposedly represents, amongst them violence and fascism. The London Review of Books is a highbrow literary magazine whose staff and contributors might be assumed overwhelmingly to think President Trump is a menace to humanity. It might be imagined that such sensitively attuned souls are themselves, in stark contrast, blessed not just with an elevated aesthetic sense but also with the highest moral sensibilities commensurate with…

USA 

Shoah uniqueness is now taboo

Melanie

On Holocaust Remembrance Day, Donald Trump said: “It is with a heavy heart and sombre mind that we remember and honour the victims, survivors, heroes of the Holocaust.” His statement did not mention Jews. According to a White House spokesman, the omission was deliberate and elevated in intent. “Despite what the media reports, we are an incredibly inclusive group and we took into account all of those who suffered”, she said. This was very wrong. Although the Nazis targeted various groups for persecution, only the Jews were singled out for…

USA 

The insurgency against democracy

Melanie

President Donald Trump was brought to power by a cultural counter-revolution: a revolt by millions of Americans against a liberal progressive consensus and the establishment that embodied it. Those who voted for him want him to overturn that consensus. He promised to do so. In his inaugural address he told them he would keep his word; he would take power away from that establishment and give it back to the people. What we are now seeing, on the streets of America and in its media, is an all-out attempt to…

Britain Israel USA 

Obama’s malice, May’s shame. Drain the UN swamp

Melanie

President Obama’s refusal to veto the sickening UN Security Council resolution against Israel yesterday was an act of pure malice. The resolution, demanding an immediate halt to all Israeli “settlement” construction, was proposed by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal after its original sponsor, Egypt, had withdrawn. No-one can be in any doubt, though, that the resolution’s real sponsor was Obama, acting behind the backs of the US Congress and the American people. Clearly it makes a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinians very much harder, since the Palestinians…