THE DECLINE OF THE WEST

HERE’S SOMETHING TO CHEER YOU UP. This country, as well as the West generally, is in terminal decline. It is an axiom that nothing lasts forever; but I have long believed that the values that have governed the West’s function would have shown far greater resistance to the adjustments of time than now seem likely.

                In the past great Empires have come and gone, and left their mark on the generations that were to follow. Greece and Rome laid the foundations of modern Western culture through philosophy and language, as well as numerous other intellectual and artistic accomplishments that have all been adopted, studied, and referred to by copious academics during the creation of Western civilisation.

                If men are born free (and we begin with this premise), then the greatest system under which to live should embellish this self-evident truth by seeking out and finding the best organisation under which free men can live. After thousands of years of struggle, involving much spilling of blood, Western man found democracy. It was never to be a perfect system; but compared to all of the alternatives, hugely  preferable. No other system of governance allows such freedom of thought and expression among its people as does a truly democratic state.

                Democracy cannot be imposed but must evolve and mature if it is to stay the distance. British and American history demonstrates the hurdles that have had to be jumped; especially when the franchise is restricted according to wealth, class, and gender. It has taken a whole history of social reform scaling many injustices over many decades, in order to accomplish a mature democracy, especially within the UK.

                Other countries took different turns via revolution (as in France) to arrive at the same position. Social reform and revolution have represented the levers of change in Europe: ancient regimes have come and gone. The hangman’s noose and the guillotine have often disgraced the march toward the democratic ideal. But we in Northern and Southern Europe have finally settled, along with America, into a better fitting glove than what had been on offer before and ever since.

BUT NOW CHANGE IS imminent and the Western democracies, who believed that man was free and deserved to live a free life, are coming to an end. This end however, was never inevitable - as could have been argued regarding the finale of Empire; whether it were British, Spanish, French, German, Dutch, or Belgian.

                What orchestrated the West’s decline? Well, for a start, after relinquishing their empires, Europe felt  a duty of liberal conscience toward its colonies, and allowed citizenship to those inhabitants of whatever country any particular member of the European continent once governed - and despite all of the kerfuffle about colonial oppressors, there was no shortage of people ready and willing to come and live among their tormenters.

                With the influx of ex-colonial peoples (which were much resented by the indigenous community), especially within the UK, a new ideology was born from the minds of liberal thinkers within the UK. Instead of requiring that those who chose to live among us, must do so in accordance with  the laws and cultural standards of the host nation, these liberal thinkers declaimed the new ideology of Multiculturalism whereby cultural separation, would be actively tolerated on the principle that our, that is the UK’s culture, would be regarded as just another culture instead of the all embracing mother culture.

                Instead of racial integration, these liberal idealists, headed, by the way, by Roy Jenkins, encouraged separation of all the multifarious cultures that were to find a home in this country, and allow them to flourish separated from the host culture out of respect for their individual customs and traditions.

                This project of Multiculturalism gave birth to the plethora of what we today describe as acts of Political Correctness (PC). The host culture has been invaded by people from other cultures and a somewhat acerbic British people have had to be restrained in what they say about these events by the criminal law. PC has become the legal auxiliary of Multiculturalism that threatens free expression and, were it to prove possible, free thought.

               

MULTICULTURALISM BECAME THE FIRST NAIL in the coffin of the UK’s continued existence as a monocultural nation state. The second nail was hammered in by the European Union - a concept that the late Roy Jenkins was also involved in promoting.

                A  European Union has been the ideal of many of our politicians from within all the main parties, irrespective of the democratic wishes of the people they serve. Anti-European rhetoric and bluster have been used with varying degrees of subtlety by politicians from all our main parties when fighting a general election. But the mood music changes when power has been won.

                The European nail was driven into the coffin of our nationhood by our own liberal political class, as was the immigrant one. Despite the rhetoric of opposition, each and every politician reneges upon what they tell themselves and uses such ploys as mere tools of the job.

                We as a nation, have had layer upon layer of our identity stripped from us by the main political parties, who it seems, are all too ready to apologise for being representatives of a nation state. Some 80%/90% of English members sitting in the House of Commons care very little about the continuance of this island’s status of nationhood. This is mere conjecture, but I challenge any pollster to scientifically contradict it. If they manage to do so, then I ask what on earth are those politicians who believe in the continuance of a nation state doing by allowing its disappearance via the European Union and their nation’s leaders promotion of its departure?

                Our politicians from all the main parties are manoeuvring us toward a Federal Europe where one time great nations become transformed into mere cantons of a greater Europe – in other words, a United States of Europe.

                I do not believe that the British people agree for one moment with such an conclusion. The mainstream politicians however have a different perspective. The main parties believe, not only in the  inevitability of a United Stated of Europe, but also see themselves as pioneers helping to bring such a phenomenon about.

AT THE MOMENT our parliament, whose law makers we elect to make the laws that govern our lives, are being overridden by EU law. EU law takes precedence over our own, and leads one to ask a very important question regarding the value to us of our politicians, if they are no longer answerable to those who elected them; but rather to 27 unelected European Commissioners and their army of bureaucrats who rubber stamp and finesse policy, then why should they represent us and be paid for the privilege of doing so.

                There is not day go by when the press pick up on an example of how EU law wrecks any attempt by our parliament to frame laws that are supported by the majority of the British people.

                When it comes to a prisoners right to vote, we have to defer to EU human rights legislation; when it comes to getting rid of unwanted illegal asylum seekers, we have defer to EU human rights legislation; and when it comes to all sorts of crazy, stupid, irrational and hypertension inducing examples of rewarding the criminal; we have to defer to the European Court of Human Rights, rather than seek justice for the victims in our own courts.

TAXATION IS SECOND only to Lawmaking; but as far as the lives of our people are concerned it is probably more important. For if the people are taxed, they want to have some control over the way in which their money is spent as well as how much of it is taken from them. They also need a mechanism by which they can remove any politician or party that overtaxes them and seek to take their financial contribution for granted, by regarding such taxation as their own to do with as they please.

                The most important mechanism we use for preventing such liberties is the ballot box. But consider this: what if the taxes of the British people were to be levied and spent not by the elected government, but by an external body which is accountable to no democratic authority save by appointment.

                This unhappy state of affairs for the British people is under consideration by Europe. The European Central Bank will, they hope, render our own Treasury meaningless, and we will have a European Chancellor to decide upon taxation. It will not happen overnight of course. It is a question of slowly, slowly, catch the monkey. However politicians and Commissioners in Europe are discussing the possibility/eventuality of Euro wide taxation and spending among themselves and no doubt believe in its eventuality.

                Remember before the last budget when Europe wanted our chancellor to present his budget to them for inspection before he delivered it to our own sovereign parliament? The Coalition refused. But was such a refusal based upon the need to protect our sovereignty, or just bad timing for a government facing a Euro-sceptic people?

                If we are no longer in control of our laws, then our lawmakers and our nationhood become irrelevant over time as our nation slips quietly from its people’s grasp. But when we lose the ability to govern our economic destiny as a people, then the game is finally up for our, as well as all of Europe’s, nation states who have subscribed to the folly.

OF COURSE THE arm of the West extends further than Europe. The United States has been the effective guardian of the West since the end of the Second World War. She has poured billions into defending our continent and laid down the lives of many thousands of her young men to help save our continent twice in the last century.

                She effectively provided Europe’s military protection during the Cold War. Her presence allowed the European nations to spend less on defence and more on the welfare state. America has never been appreciated for her endeavours on the European continent. She did not mind, however, because she believed rightly that her own interests were also well served by her presence in Europe.

                But even America, the bulwark of the West since 1945, is facing economic decline. Like 5^th century Rome, will America tell a United States of Europe to look toward the self-protection its own cantons. The fall of a civilisation rather than an Empire takes many more hundreds of years. So while America will remain a dominant force in the world, its influence will be replaced gradually over time. But by who?

                The last great economic crash in the West may prove to be decisive in terms of its economic hegemony. The trillions of dollars of debt built up by America may prove to be too much for a country that could once lay claim to world dominance both economically and culturally.

                America will continue, but economically, is deeply (or even fatally?) wounded. She will have to do what we all have to do in difficult times. She will have to cut back on her spending or be forever in debt to countries she would rather not rely upon.

                America’s fall will be a trend rather than cataclysmic. This great country which has, for good or bad, given so much to the world, will, like Western Europe, have to face its destiny.

BUT ABOVE  ALL ELSE, the determining factor that will ultimately render Western Europe helpless will be the change in attitude by its political and military leaders.  The West has become weak; not militarily (not yet at least), but weak in purpose. The West has become conditioned by the ‘cruelties’ of its antecedents. Which as far as Europe is concerned, means Empire. Liberal guilt has moulded Europe’s decline as much as any other economic or multicultural factor.

                The tempo of  development in Europe since the end of the Second world war, has been that of a political rumba, whose rhythm has been monopolised by the Left in politics. Since 1945 the continent of Europe has evolved democratically into a social democratic entity where even conservatives (Christian Democrats) have joined the Left of centre in trying to achieve a United States of Europe.

                Because of, I suggest, our past, and the modern craving of political correctness that has been its corollary, we no longer have the strength to beat our enemies. We no longer have (as we did in the Second World War) the ability morally to conduct Total War against our enemies – who, let us remember, have no such reserve. If we cannot meet our enemies on their own terms then we deserve our fate. During the Second world war hundreds of thousands of German citizens were killed by allied bombing, and as an example of just how far we have come, there are some voices who wish to declare that such missions over Germany should now become considered as war crimes, and ‘Bomber’ Harris a war criminal. At the moment such voices are rare but will become more prevalent , no doubt, in the years to come.

                 Britain’s, as well as Europe’s decline will be as much to do with liberal guilt, as it will be due to any economic balls-ups. The West’s politicians have become soft because of their country’s  past and will not do what is necessary to protect their nation and their people when confronted by an enemy. Example: in Afghanistan, a British sniper who looks through his scope and sees some Taliban planting explosives that are meant to for his comrades, has to find and inform his senior officer before opening fire. This is not a military decision (although it has been handed over to them) but has become a political one.

                In Iraq, Afghanistan, and now in Libya, Western politicians have conducted events on the ground that were meant to be the preserve of the armed services. Which is why today Gaddafi still remains in existence. Our politicians are either enfeebled by guilt or ambition to do what is required of them for the sake of the country and her armed forces.

                If we are to be so inhibited in the way in which we dispose of our enemies, then surely this is the final factor in our decline as a nation.

               

               

               

               

                 

               

               

                 

                

NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM

NEXT WEEK ON THE 44^TH anniversary of the Six Day War Israel is expecting scenes comparable to those that accompanied “Nakba Day” (the establishment of the State of Israel) last month, when Israel’s boarders were challenged by Palestinians who, according to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, “…[attempted]  to subvert our sovereignty and breach our borders on behalf of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas", adding that, “"Those actors," are expected to call for similar events in the coming days.

            Already, according to the Jerusalem Post, Lebanon is declaring its borders with Israel a closed military zone. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has announced that it is taking precautions to defend Israel’s borders, while Israel’s navy is preparing for the arrival of another flotilla, larger than the one that was so controversially sent packing last year.

            Hamas has called upon all Palestinians and their sympathisers from  all parts of the globe to fly to Israel and demonstrate their support in Tel Aviv airport on the 44^th anniversary of the Six day War.

            The whole charade will no doubt attract criticism of Israel by “progressive” voices from within and without the media throughout the world. Israel will be made to look the aggressor as Palestinians provoke the kind of retaliatory action that can be filmed and shown on our screens.

            The stage is being set and the actors (to use Netanyahu’s description) are rehearsing their parts for the great day. Savvy of the requirements of nearest photo journalist and film crew, the protestors will make sure that every injury will be magnified and exaggerated for the delectation of the Western viewer. The crying and wailing will be the focus of every lens, and terrorist groups such as Hamas know this and as front row cheer leaders will be the most outraged by the unfolding tragedy.

            It amazes me that Israel is seen as the Goliath in all of this when she is surrounded, and has always surrounded, by enemies. Enemies like Iran, Syria, Hezbollah (if not Lebanon), and Hamas. Even Egypt, after the Arab spring can no longer be relied upon as, if not an ally, then at least a partner for peace.

            Three times, including “Nakba Day”, has Israel had to fight for its very existence against overwhelming odds. The Six Day War in 1967 followed by Yom Kippur in 1973 were, alongside the War of Independence, lessons to be learnt; and these lessons were always to be prepared for war; but also to find accommodations wherever possible with your neighbours, without sacrificing you sovereignty as an independent Jewish state: and this had been the position regarding Israel’s relationship with Egypt since the signing of the Camp David Accords on September the 17^th 1978 between Egypt’s Anwar El Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin.

BUT EVENTS SINCE Camp David have proven as illusive to a two state solution as they have always been. But today Israel faces dark times indeed. The Arab Spring has thrown a bloody great rock into the stream and caused, not ripples, but a tsunami that threatens once more, not only the Israeli state’s survival, but tests the West’s (particularly Europe’s) impartiality; an impartiality that has remained suspect by Israel (a suspicion that has its origins in the European Jewish Diaspora).

            The history of this part of the world is complicated by a complicated history. So where to begin. I suggest with the right of the Jewish people to their own homeland after centuries of persecution within the Diaspora culminating in the Holocaust.

            Only by accepting Israel’s right to exist can progress be made toward a solution. In other words, we must all, if not become Zionists, then accept that Zionism, as it is generally understood must not be dismissed. For to do so only prolongs the agony for all in the Middle East.

            I am both a gentile and a Zionist, who at 61 years of age, have learnt that the Jews have to find an anchorage in order to evade the persecution that had haunted them for 2000 years within the Diaspora. Ever since ancient Judea was taken from them, they found themselves dispersed; encouraging both hatred and envy for their enterprising capabilities, which, when allowed free expression brought wealth to the communities they lived amongst.

            The Jews anchorage has been their ancient homeland and the world had better get used to their occupancy of it. The state of Israel will not go back to their pre-1967 boarders, because since the territory of these pre-1967 borders was captured through a war of aggression aimed at destroying the Israeli state, then the post-1967 borders represent a buffer to further attempts by Israel’s enemies to once more seek its destruction.

            The 1967 war was a pre-emptive attack by Israel upon her Arab neighbours, who were just days away from attacking the Jewish state, in another attempt to drive the Jews from what they, the Arabs, regarded as Palestine.

            In 1967, Israel was on its guard. But in 1973 that guard seemed not to function. For during the spiritual day of Yom Kippur, when all Israelis were at prayer -including its civilian armed forces, the Arab world tried once more to drive the Jews from the Middle East; and this time nearly succeeded in their enterprise.

            Israel has always to be on its guard until the Arab world fully accepts its right to exist. Until this day comes Israel will do whatever it needs to do militarily to ensure its survival as a fully functioning sovereign state, as independent, autonomous and self governing as any other.

            For Israel will not go  quietly into the night as many “progressive” types wish for – I would have liked to have said pray for, but it would not have been politically correct to have done so.

           

NEXT WEEK THE PRESSURE will once more be on Israel to show restraint by the West. What a young IDF soldier boarding part of the flotilla is supposed to do when faced with an iron railing torn from the ship’s deck and used to attack him, I do not know. If that young man or women, in the chaos which surrounds them kills their assailant who has sought to do the same to them, then what are they supposed to do?

            For those of us who see our own country being annexed into a canton of Europe by our political leadership, the Israeli fight for national survival comes as a tonic. Perhaps this is why the English Defence League (LED) carries the Israeli flag on their demonstrations.

            Israel is to be admired for her determination to survive as a nation and should be supported in her attempt to do so. If this country had Israel’s backbone then the people of the United Kingdom would not turn against the main parties and lend their support to the likes of UKIP. Or, in extremis, the BNP as they will do eventually.

           

WE MUST WAIT TO SEE what Israel’s enemies will do next week on the 44^th anniversary of the Six Day War. My feeling is, is that the anniversary is nothing more than an opportunity for Hamas and Hezbollah to court publicity knowing that each misdemeanour caused by the IDF during the encroachment either from land, sea, or air, will count against Israel. As these groups lack the military might to overcome the state of Israel; they rely upon the Western media to promote their cause and ferment “progressive” opinion – especially among the student youth of the West.

            The only solution for the Middle East is one that accepts Israel’s right to exist. There is no other possibility for a peaceful solution. For those “progressives” in the West who support the Palestinian cause had better encourage their protégés to reach an accommodation with Israel rather than just dismiss Zionism.

            For Zionism means the state of Israel, and if those sympathisers of the Palestinian cause reject Zionism, then they reject the state of Israel and should have the courage of saying so - as Hamas has done.

            But they lack such courage. Instead they berate Israel while supporting the Palestinians - they prefer to seek occupancy of the nearest convenient fence (like all liberals), afraid of committing whole heartedly to a position.

            Israel will continue to exist in one form or another and the Arab world had better accommodate itself with this eventuality. If however, which seems likely, they repeat their historical mistakes and seek the destruction of the Jewish state through conflict, then so be it.

           

             

           

            

The genetics of Multiculturalism

Bradford is very inbred. There is a huge amount of cousins marrying each other there.”

Professor Steve Jones of University College London

PROF. STEVE JONES, the eminent and popularist geneticist has put the cat among the pigeons at the Hay Festival by focusing our attention on the problems of incestuous relationships within the Pakistani community in this country. He speaks as a scientist, without political baggage, in giving warning of a situation which most politicians would rather wish away than having to confront head on.

            Channel IV recently put out a programme on the same subject, but used an ethnic British Pakistani journalist to oversee and report upon the problem in places like Birmingham and Bradford. I believe that had Channel IV been approached by the likes of Prof. Jones to make a similar programme, he would not have been considered unless he had been a Pakistani Muslim, or even - just a Muslim.

            As Prof. Jones is none of these, he now faces the wrath of several of the numerous and dubious Islamic groups who profess to speak on behalf of the Islamic community.

            Of course incest has gone on for centuries among the host culture, but, outside of Royalty, has either been frowned upon or been made illegal, depending upon the familial proximity to each other of the participants and the nature of the relationship.

            According to Prof. Jones, “It is common in the Islamic world to marry your brother’s daughter, which is actually closer than marrying your cousin…” Such an observation would be considered naive and self-destructive for a politician to have made. But such a well regarded scientist speaking as a geneticist  - the study of which he has given his life too – cannot be so easily challenged as a politician speaking on the same subject would have been.

            As the professor says, “We should be concerned about that as there can be a lot of hidden genetic damage. Children are much more likely to get two copies of a damaged gene.” This is the rub. Incest is not only a moral and legal issue, but also a health issue of great significance for the children of such consummations – as was shown in the Channel IV programme.

            According to Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, “Research in Bradford has found that babies born to Pakistani women are twice as likely to die in their first year as babies born to white mothers, with genetic problems linked to inbreeding identified as a “significant” cause.

            Studies have found that within the city, more than 70 per cent of marriages are between relations, with more than half involving first cousins”.

           

PROF. JONES, I predict, will not cause the kind of tsunami effect that would have followed such pronouncements if made by a politician. Indeed, I believe there is even much embarrassment among middle-class Pakistanis regarding such incestuous attachments – but such a liberal approach does not appear to extend to marriages made between different cultures. Which means integration is as far away as ever and made ever more distant by the ideology of Multiculturalism that actively  encourages cultural apartheid.

            Arranged marriages are common within many Asian communities, and is not confined to Pakistan. But this once more leads to health problems – notably death by murder if a refusal to go along with the practice is forthcoming. Yet once again Multiculturalism, by its very nature, allows such criminality to continue, if not unpunished, then as an unintended consequence of the ideology.

            Our liberals still remain silent when it comes to talking about incest among Pakistani Muslims. They fear, as always, having to live with their conscience if they overstep the politically correct mark and voice any disapproval of the practices highlighted at the Hay Festival by Prof. Jones.

            As with the subject of arranged marriages; if such behaviour is to be highlighted then it is better done by a liberal member of the Pakistani community, as seemed to be the case with the Channel IV documentary mentioned earlier.

            The Coalition, like their predecessors going back over 40 years have actively encouraged a Multicultural society to replace the much regarded and parochial England that I have treasured since my childhood in the 1950s.

            If we had to have a mixed ethnic culture then such an experiment would have proved more fruitful if all ethnic groups invited to live among us had been told to live their lives in accordance with the culture they chose to come and live amongst. But instead such aspirants were told that their culture had equal merit with the indigenous one: and as such had equal merit. Such was and still is the message of Multiculturalism.

THE QUESTION OF incest within the Pakistani Islamic community, and the way it has been ignored by governments of all colours, only goes to show how Multiculturalism retains its influence on the national culture, while eating away at its legitimacy.

            Prof. Jones speaks as a  concerned scientist who sees much human suffering with the present arrangement. But we have known for many years about the dangers of births through incest: yet some of the Islamic community’s ‘representatives’ still ask for proof regarding the various claims made against such inbreeding.

            I believe that such practices described by Prof. Jones at the Hay Festival should be outlawed. Until now such laws would have been regarded as being unnecessary and illiberal; but we now have living among us some two million people who find the practice vital to their culture irrespective of Prof. Jones’ warnings - and our politicians who have created and allowed this dangerous procedure to continue in the hope that the general public remain unenlightened of its presence, should be held to account.

            With regards to the practice of incest within our Pakistani community: that community must be told that it must be stopped for the sake of many disabled children that such practices would bring about - there should be no other criteria than this.

            If the Islamic community find such an obligation to the citizenship of this country too much to accept; then they must return to whatever country their culture directs them.

             Since the foundations of Multiculturalism  were laid down by Roy Jenkins over forty- years ago, our politicians have either willingly complied with the full remit demanded of the ideology, or have remained silent for fear of transgressing the new liberalism by finding themselves tainted with racism.

            But as I have said in other blogs and will no doubt continue to say in the future, whenever I write on this subject: Roy Jenkins, one of the founding fathers of Multiculturalism, began to have doubts about the ideology toward the end. Yet those politicians who today still lay claim to the success of this wretched creed, do so, not for any principled reason, but purely for the hope of political advancement – the most spurious consideration of all.

            

OBAMA AND THE MIDDLE EAST

PRESIDENT OBAMA has once more pronounced on the Middle East. Once again his subject is the state of Israel and a future Palestinian state living in harmony, each respecting the others sovereignty.

            The President’s ‘solution’ reminds one of that old Coca Cola advert; where hundreds of young, multi-ethnic people stand waving bottles of Coke in a sunny pastoral setting, and singing, ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony…’.

            Those saccharine sentiments were meant to tug at the idealism of youth when, in the 1970s, racism flourished, and Coca Cola sent out the message that as a company, they did not mind who they sold their beverage to – they were not prejudice.

            If President Obama was not such an intelligent and gifted political operator, I would have suggested a streak of naivety in his remarks comparable to the disingenuousness of the lyrics in the Coca Cola jingle.

            The president suggested that (and I hope it was nothing more than that) any future settlement between Israel and the Palestinians should be based upon pre 1967 boarders. As someone who is old enough to understand the events of the 1967 Six Day War, I feel that President Obama (who was, at that time, yet to merit any kind of existence) fails to fully understand the duplicity and treachery displayed by the Arab world at the time as they acted together and in secret, to launch a surprise attack on the state of Israel, only to be surprised themselves by Israel’s own initiative  in pre-empting the Arab aggression.

            The outcome was the capture of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and both the Golan Heights and the Sinai by Israel. Since then the Sinai has been given back to Egypt and the Gaza Strip has been vacated, only to leave it in the control of a terrorist group that refuses to acknowledge the state of Israel.

           

WHAT WOULD ANY KIND OF ‘solution’ involving the pre 1967 boarders would mean? Would it be the movement of a half million people from what the Palestinians describe as the occupied territories, only situate them behind the pre1967 Israeli boarders?

            Now if Prime Minster Netanyahu were to go along with Obama’s ‘solution’, does the American president believe that these vast numbers of people would go quietly into that dark good night. Does Obama really believe that such a movement of people could be set on the ‘right path’ by a mere click of Netanyahu’s fingers?

            Such a process would set Jew amongst Jew threatening civil war. It would divide the country and strengthen the hands of Hamas as well as the Palestinians generally. Even the idea of trading off land proposed by President Obama posed the same threat.

            If I threw a ball through my neighbour’s window; my neighbour would find it contemptible if any request were made by myself for the balls return. A simple analogy, but one with a similar injustice felt by the victim: and the victims in 1967 were the Jews as well as the state of Israel. Right was on their side when they took the pre-emptive action they did at the time: and any land seized was forfeited by the aggressor.

            Prime Minister Netanyahu was right to bring President Obama to task over this issue. The Israeli prime minister is the head of Likud. The Likud Party, like all Right of centre parties carry the tag of being either racist or populist. To be described as being Right Wing (whether you are a politician, journalist or painter and writer) it is a term that immediately conjures up a list of reactionary beliefs.

            Netanyahu has his nation’s very existence at heart. Israel is surrounded by enemies (potentially, even more after the Arab Spring). He cannot talk to people who think his country should not exist. To do so would be admitting that there was some genuine claim to be made on the Jewish state. First of all, all Palestinians must accept the right of the Jewish state to exist. If this is not possible, then a solution is not possible. It is not Israel that has to compromise but Hamas who rule Gaza, and have recently reunited with Abass on the West Bank.

WHEN I READ OBAMA’S COMMENTS, I, like many friends of Israel felt betrayed by them. America has been Israel’s main pillar of support since the state came into existence in 1948. Today the state of Israel is admired for its readiness to keep the Jewish state a solvent entity. Particularly in America, the land of the state of Israel is seen as being the primary source of Christian belief. This land was the womb of Christianity and many Christians in America support the state of Israel because of its significance to their faith.

            But even people like myself, who consider themselves as atheists recognise that the Jewish people were once rooted to a homeland known as Judea; and were replaced by the Romans. From this came the Diaspora that lasted 2000 years culminating in the Holocaust. Throughout those two millennia the Jewish peoples roamed the earth forever persecuted by governments and Kings.

            Never has a people struggled for success and been so despised for achieving it. Because they were never allowed to practice business in many of the societies in which they found themselves either stranded or marginalised, they became what we would call today financiers (money lenders) or traders in precious substances.

            Envy and scapegoating  have persecuted the Jews wherever they took up residency outside of their ancient boundaries. In 1948 they returned to those boundaries and were once more set upon by their neighbours and have been prodded, poked and taunted ever since. If the Holocaust had never happened, then perhaps the call for a Jewish homeland would today be comparable to (in popularity) the call for Scottish Independence. But Zionism gained impetus because of  European nations attempt at exterminating the Jewish race.

            What the ordinary Jew learnt from the Second World War was that wherever they were living on this planet, if the 2000 years of persecution  continued; he or she would be provided for within a Jewish homeland, no longer dependent upon the trials and tribulations of the Diaspora.

WHAT PRESIDENT OBAMA does not seem to comprehend is that Israel is not only a country where Jews can call it their own. But it is also a sanctuary away from the anti-Semitism that, as in Germany, or in 19^th  century Russia, may once more return; where even today, because of the long standing Russian peoples’ prejudice toward Jews, future programs cannot be ruled out.

            So before President Obama makes suggestions about the Middle East conflict between Israel and the Palestinians that leaves the state of Israel weaker and ever more dependent upon the USA; (as well as every other future here today and gone tomorrow president) he had better realise who his, as well as his country’s friend is in the region, and retract his statement about pre-1967 boarders.  The 1967 boarders were established through victory. Those who opposed Israel at the time sought the overthrow of the Jewish state. Had they been successful, would we today be arguing for an Israeli state that would mean asking the Palestinians to forfeit parts of their land?

            The state of Israel is here and will remain here. It will only face ruin if its main ally (the United States) tries to make it obey decisions that Israel knows will lead to the termination of the Jewish state.

            If Israel is put at arm’s length by the Obama administration (as it appears to be the case), then Israel had better play her trump card. This card, according to anti-Semites in America, is money and the Jewish conspiracy. These two long standing grievances regarding the Jews may play well among Afro-Americans, but when it comes to the many different protestant beliefs within America. The part played in them by the Jews and the Old Testament reinforces their Christianity.

            President Obama should rethink his view about the pre-1967 boarders regarding a so-called ‘solution’ to the current impasse in the Middle East. No Israeli leader is going to leave his or her country weaker than he or she finds it. To do so would encourage such ignominy that all that would be left to such a leader would be to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

           

           

           

             

           

Clarke should be sacked

The crime, committed by a man, of forcing another person to have sexual intercourse with him without their consent and against their will, esp. by the threat or use of violence against them

Dictionary definition

KENNETH CLARKE, the Justice Secretary, is being hounded from office by the raucous fraternity of Labour politicians and women’s groups, because of his insensitive treatment of the crime of rape. To the cry of ‘all rape is rape’, the beleaguered Justice Secretary had to trawl the studios in order to undo the calamity of his appearance on Radio 5 yesterday  .

            Trying clumsily to suggest there are differences to be made between different forms of rape, his language reflected his personality. I find Ken Clarke an attractive politician who cares little of what people think of him and prefers bluntness to the spin often used by his colleagues from all parts of the House.

            Rape is second only to murder in the hierarchy of criminal behaviour, and those found guilty should be treated without any consideration for parole and serve the full sentence allotted by the law and unleashed by the judge.

             There should be no plea bargaining which would free the rapist prematurely to reoffend and reoffend again.

            Both Ken Clarke and David Cameron have used the argument that only 6% of men who are accused of rape are ever prosecuted, and if the sentencing were more liberal, then more rapists would be convicted because they would enter a plea of guilty long before the case comes to court, thus saving the victim of the long drawn out procedure of awaiting a trial, as well as the trauma of appearing to give evidence.

            The Justice Secretary’s priority since holding office has been to find ways of reducing the prison population, and by doing so to save the taxpayer and the government many millions of pounds. Ken Clarke is a liberal Tory to whom reform of the criminal justice system, along what would be commonly described as ‘progressive’ lines, would come easily; and if in doing his duty he upsets, shall we say, those who favour the more traditional approach to criminality, then Ken cares little for such opponents.

            But he picked the wrong crime to liberalise. Rape leaves the progressives free of any kind of mercy for the rapist. When it comes to this particular crime the liberal left display all the instincts of the ‘hang ‘em and flog ’em’ brigade they would ordinarily despise.

FROM WHAT I HAVE read, it appears that Ken Clarke sought to make a distinction between a 15 year-old girl giving herself freely to an older man, and the case of a woman being violently raped.

            While the first example may be defined legally as rape (I am no lawyer), the dictionary definition  says that force being used against the will of the victim is the true definition of rape. This does not mean that the older man who has been invited into  intercourse by a girl below the age of consent should not be punished. Indeed he should be, for he would be well aware of the law, and he should be held as accountable as anyone else who breaks any law.

            But could what he was invited to do by this young girl meet any of the dictionaries definition of rape? This, I think, is the only point Ken Clarke was (rather clumsily) trying to make. The Justice Secretary is not, as the feminist sisterhood has sought brand him, a misogynist. He was just living to type.

WHY I THINK Ken Clarke should be given the red card, has little to do with this latest Coalition farce. My problem with Ken is his ideological view of criminal justice that seems to fit so easily into the dire economic condition of the country. For such a state of affairs allows the justice department, under the leadership of its liberal enforcer, to go against the grain of popular opinion when it comes to law and order. Ken Clarke uses the economic argument to oversee the diminution of sentencing in order to free up our overcrowded prisons. He seeks to ease prison overcrowding by reducing the tariff  that the judges decree to be necessary on all forms of crime.

            Is it not true that even before Ken gets started we know that as things now stand and  stood throughout the last government’s period in office, was for any sentence given by a judge to be reduced by the simple calculation of halving it. It is this state of affairs that goes against the grain of public opinion (or, as the likes of Ken Clarke would prefer – the grain of ‘populism’).

            If Ken had confined his liberal approach toward crime to all the forms but with the exception of rape, he would today be supported by all of those he finds himself in conflict with – the very liberals who like himself  now form the modern British establishment

KEN CLARKE SHOULD GO. He should do so because his priority seems to be financial rather than, as it should be, applying the characteristics of honesty, fairness and integrity, which are by definition the requirements of justice, especially to the victims of crime.

            Under our criminal justice system, the victim of a crime can become the victim of the justice system itself, especially when that system is overseen by the likes of Ken Clarke.

            Our prisons are indeed overcrowded and have been for the last ten years; during which time not a single extra prison has been built to mop up the overflow from overcrowding in other prisons. Rather, it has been the liberal politician’s view that reduced sentencing leads to reduced numbers – but it also leads to injustice for the victims of crime.

            Rather than build more prisons, our politicians punish the victims of crime by halving the sentences of the criminals that caused their pain in the first place. Even a murderer given 15 years can expect to be released back into the community in seven years providing he behaves himself.

            The building of new prisons are expensive, running into billions of pounds. Our politicians may think the oversees aid budget is worth it, but when it comes to the people’s safety as well as their defence, then that money would be better used on a division between prison building and defence.

            Our justice system is a disgrace and the people to whom it is supposed to support and protect have little confidence in its existence. I can assure Ken Clarke that every piece of his rhetoric on crime and the criminal that seeks to reassure the community, is treated with the utmost cynicism. It is treated as such because of the empirical experience of the communities to which such banalities are aimed.

KENNNETH CLARKE SHOULD GO. He should do so because his prescriptions for the justice system are liberal and as such will fall fowl of what the likes of Ken Clarke would dismiss as ‘populism’ - meaning  of course the majority of the British people.

            This populism that the liberal fraternity are so comfortable in despising, comprises areas of the country where the liberal brotherhood has little place. All over this island nation of ours, people have personal experiences of crime that they feel go ignored by the police: but then, even when a serious crime is brought to trial, we are left with a sentencing policy that is guaranteed to diminish over time until the guilty party is released long before their time is up.

            The British justice system could have at one time counted upon the Conservative Party to put it once more on the right track. But sadly, like the Labour Party, this once great entity has been diminished because of  the lack of faith of its leadership in the conservative values that helped bring this country to its fulfilment .

            Ken Clarke is a creature of the European Union(EU), and as such his ambition is for a Federal States of Europe. His present position on the justice system falls within the charter of the EU. For this is Ken’s real focus for  the law of these islands: to fully integrate its law into European law.

            

DR LIAM FOX MUST ACT NOW

LIAM FOX HAS found yet another of his correspondence to the PM leaked To the press. This time the Defence Secretary has questioned the target of 0.7% of GDP to be given in Oversees Aid by 2013. In particular he is against such a target being enshrined in law, as the Coalition intends it to be. This he suggests, carries the risk of legal challenges from those countries we support in the aid budget; he writes, ‘Creating a statutory requirement to spend 0.7 per cent ODA (overseas development aid) carries more risk in terms of potential future legal challenges than, as we have had for the covenant, putting into statute recognition of the target and a commitment to an annual report against it.’

                If the Coalition sticks to its target of 0.7% of GDP, the tax payer will be paying £4 billion more a year in foreign aid by the time of the next election, as payments grow from £7.5 billion to £11.4 billion per year. This will represent a 34% increase at a time when other ministries (including Dr Foxes own) are having to make cuts of 20% to their budgets.[1]

                David Cameron promised to stick with the previous governments target of 0.7% by 2013 in his election manifesto last year - and Harriet Harman has just appeared  on our screens to demand that the prime minister keeps to his promise.

                The promise was made as a gesture toward renovating his party’s image with the public; in the same way that Blair succeeded in doing in 1997.

                Cameron needed to transform the Conservative party from being the ‘nasty party’ of the Thatcherite era, into a more huggable, compassionate, and generally Teletubby  kind of outfit. This he began doing by changing the party’s mast head from the brutalist flaming torch into the very bucolic image of a tree in full leaf. This, he hoped, would have its appeal to the young and environmentally conscious, as well as the traditional rural Tory who would have preferred the likes of Mr Fox to lead the party.

                But despite such transformations in image and policy, Cameron failed to win the election outright and had to share power with the real cuddly toys.

WHY HE OR HIS advisors felt they had to stick with the previous governments ambition for the overseas aid budget is beyond comprehension, unless Cameron really did believe in such a target. If so, then he is no Tory. For a true Tory would have scrapped such a target and demanded       cuts on top of it. A true Tory would have done so because as a Conservative he would put his nation’s interests before all other international concerns in order to rehabilitate a broken economy.

                The true Tory would have prioritised Mr Fox’s department over an oversees aid budget for instance. For when the country has to form an economic laager in difficult times and there is a choice to be made between services; those services that have nothing to do with the defence, policing, health and education of the country should be savaged before a start is made on domestic departments.

                If there is to be ring fences constructed, then such protection should be given to familial expenditure rather than to other countries such as India, Pakistan, and China.

                The people (and here I mean those living outside of the AV yes zones) would have supported Cameron;  perhaps to the point of gaining a workable majority.

               

IF DR FOX had made it clear that he was opposed to ring-fencing the aid budget, then he would have behaved as a Tory. But as he says in his correspondence, he is not averse to the 0.7% target, only to it being a statuary requirement. He  is said to have harvested a lot of support from his party’s backbenchers for the contents of his letter. However, the fact of its leaking seems more significant than its contents.

                I was led to believe that the Secretary for State had challenged the aid budget’s ring fencing and supported its pruning like every other department. But no, Dr Fox, it appears, is just manoeuvring  for position within what was once qualified to be called the Conservative Party.

                The overseas aid budget has, by its very title, conjured up images of the dispossessed throughout the third world being helped; and this is what the British public have believed to be the case.

                Well it is the case that whenever a natural or human made disaster occurs, then this country is duty bound to help relieve the situation. But it does not require a new government department in order to do so.

                If, however, I am wrong, and it does indeed demand such a body to regulate distribution; it still does not deserve being made untouchable in such troubling times for the British people by this Coalition government, via the ring-fencing of the department.

                As Dr Fox knows; on top of the already announced defence cutbacks such as depriving the nation of its aircraft carrier capability as well as its air potential, we now know that Cameron is demanding even further cutbacks to this country’s defence budget.  If those Conservative backbenchers are serious about their support for the Defence Secretary, then they must persuade Dr Fox to go the last mile and oppose directly what this Coalition is demanding of his department. Only in this way will their support of Dr Fox be justified.

IF DR FOX IS SERIOUS in his intention, then he must come out against any such ring-fencing  of expenditure for a department that does not serve the needs of the British people. In hard times, as we are being told we live in, then hard decisions have to be made and the interests of the British people must be given priority.

                If the 0.7% increase was  abandoned, then £4 billion each year would come to the exchequer and perhaps save both the air craft carriers on order - as well as manning their flight decks with British aircraft. At the moment, while both vessels are under construction, only one will enter service with the Royal Navy, and even then the flight decks will be parked-up with French aircraft.

                If ever there was a time when a Secretary of State should stand up for his or her department, then such a moment has arrived for Dr Fox.

                Does it not seem at all incongruous to the present occupant of the Ministry of Defence that his party leader and  prime minister of his country, that the overseas aid budget should be put before the defence of the country he is supposed to lead? Does not Dr Fox, as a Conservative, realise the absurdity of such a state of affairs?

                If the good doctor is serious about protecting his department’s finances, then he should take measures to justify the confidence his backbenchers have shown in him since his latest loss of correspondence to the media.

               

               

               

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[1] All stats are taken from the Daily Mail 17/05/2011