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Europe Israel 

Is Netanyahu making deals with the devil?

Melanie, , ,

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been severely criticized for cozying up to sundry dictators, autocrats or governments that downplay or deny their country’s role in the Holocaust. Among those he has either visited or hosted are Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán who boasts of creating an “illiberal democracy” and President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines who once compared himself to Hitler. The next summit of the Visegrád group, an alliance of Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, will be held this month in Jerusalem.…

Britain Britain 

The EU: an economic basket-case with the instincts of the mafia

Melanie, , ,

The EU’s Brexit negotiators (who appear to believe that until this moment their knuckle-dusters have been concealed) clearly think that now’s the moment to take off the gloves. Faced with Theresa May asking them ever so nicely to re-open negotiations to get rid of that troublesome Irish backstop, they have not only said no. They are reportedly now doubling down on their intransigence in the belief that this will force the Brits to come crawling back on their knees. The Sunday Times reports (£): “There is the prospect of a…

UK Britain 

Banana republic coup in the mother of parliaments

Melanie, , ,

The no-holds barred attempt to stop Brexit in its tracks by Remainer MPs who form a majority in the House of Commons is now taking the form (as I have previously warned) of a prospective coup by parliament against the people. MPs threw out Theresa May’s Brexit deal with the EU by an uprecedentedly massive majority. A as a result, legislation passed by parliament last year means that the UK will leave the EU on March 29 with no deal. Remainer MPs are determined to stop this by any means…

Britain 

There’s only one way now to rescue British faith in democracy: leave the EU with no deal

Melanie, , ,

They said if the UK left the EU with no deal, Britons would starve to death and run out of medicines and that planes would no longer fly. But when ComRes pollsters asked “Would you support/oppose leaving EU with no deal if EU refuses to make any more concessions?” no fewer than 38 per cent replied that they would support it while 36 per cent said they would oppose it. A similar result was produced by an ICM poll last week in which 28 per cent said they’d prefer no-deal,…

murder Israel 

The terrorist murder of Aisha Rabi

Melanie, , ,

As the result of an Israeli gagging order being partially lifted, it has been revealed that five Jewish teenagers from a yeshiva in the disputed territories have been accused of the murder of a Palestinian woman, Aisha Rabi. This was a heinous and appalling crime. Rabi, the mother of nine children, was killed last October when a rock was hurled at her car. Lawyers for the five teenagers claim that the Israeli security service, the Shin Bet, used torture and ill-treatment against the boys who the lawyers say are innocent…

Times USA 

The pathological animus of the New York Times

Melanie, , ,

A recent column by Bret Stephens in The New York Times was headlined “Donald Trump is bad for Israel.” Others may think a more appropriate headline would be: “The New York Times is bad for Israel.” The paper is regarded as the bible of America’s intellectual classes. Yet for years, its coverage of Israel has been a disgrace. Of course, it’s entitled to criticize Israel as it would any other country. But it doesn’t treat Israel like any other country. It singles it out for demonization based on falsehoods, distortion…

synchronised Israel 

The elephants of antisemitism in the European room

Melanie, , ,

The latest report by the EU’s agency on fundamental rights which finds antisemitism on the rise across Europe should be treated with some caution. This is because it deals not with objective measures of the rate of attacks on Jews but with the views of Jews themselves about the extent of antisemitism. Such views are inevitably limited in accuracy and scope. It is beyond any doubt, however, that the perception of increased antisemitism is widespread among the Jews of Britain and Europe. It is also beyond doubt that there is…

conservatism Culture wars Israel 

Is the State of Israel supping with the devil?

Melanie, ,

The visit to Israel this week by Italian deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini has provoked criticism and dismay within the Jewish world. Salvini, who heads Italy’s right-wing “populist” Lega party, is controversial because of his anti-immigration stance. Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin declined to meet him, citing “scheduling issues.” Rivlin’s view of political parties such as Lega were made clear, however, when he told CNN that the whole world needed to work against xenophobia, discrimination and antisemitism. “There are neo-fascist movements today that have considerable and very dangerous influence, and sometimes…

Boris Britain Europe 

“No risks are greater than Mrs May’s terms of surrender” – including no deal

Melanie, , ,

Three days ago, a letter of great importance about Mrs May’s faux-Brexit deal was sent to MPs. The importance lay not just in what it said but who was saying it. The authors were the former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, and the officer who commanded the British forces in the Falklands War, Major-General Julian Thompson. Both men are committed to Britain leaving the EU. Both are horrified by the way the Prime Minister is betraying not just the 2016 referendum vote but the interests of the United Kingdom.…

nazanin Britain Global conflict 

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: the human cost of Britain’s appeasement of Iran

Melanie,

It’s wonderful that the British academic Matthew Hedges is now safely back in Britain after six months in jail in the United Arab Emirates. He faced the seemingly implausible charge of being a British spy, which both he and the British government strenuously denied, and was sentenced to life imprisonment after a farcical five-minute court hearing last week. (Since writing this, readers have questioned whether he really was just a PhD student given his previous work with defence consultancies. We cannot know, but it still seems to me implausible that…