Sunday 3 November 2013

My take on the Middle East

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I wish Libya, Egypt and Iraq were still pro-British monarchies and I think Eisenhower's sabotage of the UK over the Suez intervention is the reason the Middle East is such a mess. 

It would be better yet if the whole Middle East were all still in the Ottoman Empire, including Palestine. The Ottoman Empire after the Young Turks took over in 1908 became a parliamentary state. King Abdullah I of Jordan was before the First World War the freely elected MP of Mecca in the parliament in Constantinople. A democratic federal Ottoman Empire would have all the oil and ideally would be a confederation with Greece but if such a confederation had joined the EU it would, of course, be bankrupt now.

Instead we have the situation we have, and Israel, a transplant that has not taken. Israel is in a strong position but the strength of the Arabs is the strength of their huge anger.

The Left nowadays hate Israel (it wasn't so, thirty years ago) and not only for the bad things but also for the good things about the country, such as it being an ethnic state and being an outpost of Western civilisation, what Theodor Herzl called
"a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilisation as opposed to barbarism".
The  bad things, on the other hand, start with the fact that Israelis are squatting on land to which they do not have a very good claim - in many cases literally as well as figuratively - though they have acquired squatters' rights. In fact, they acquired those rights at the latest in 1948, when the Arab countries expelled their Jews who found refuge in Israel. The numbers of Arabs who fled Israel and Jews who were expelled from the Arab lands were roughly equal. This does not excuse the Jews' behaviour up to 1948.

The bad things continue with the way in which Israeli Jews are colonising the West Bank. 

The Arabs in Israel have the best conditions in the Arab world but they have nevertheless suffered a great injustice in what is now Israel and to visit the country is to feel this strongly. But the same is true of the Turks and Greeks who ethnically cleansed each other. So did Pakistan and India. 

People are right to sympathise with the Arabs but the Israelis are pilloried in large part because they are seen as white, not because they have a wicked regime by the standards of the world we live in. Ironically, after being hated for centuries for being Asiatic, Jews are now hated for being European. 

I am delighted Israel exists, by the way, love the country, love going there, yet certainly regret its existence too. I think this position is not illogical, but it only seems to make me enemies.

Please click here to see what people told me in Jerusalem when I was there this summer.


8 comments:

  1. "I am delighted Israel exists, by the way, love the country, love going there, yet regret its existence too. I think this position is not illogical." - no, one can rejoice in the Jews' return to their ancestral homeland while deploring certain aspects of what they did to get there, eg shooting British troops, evicting Arabs from their homes. It would have been better had they returned slowly and as immigrants into an existing state (still under British rule?) but the Holocaust put paid to that. A good example of the perils of uncontrolled immigration, perhaps, although the generally leftish supporters of the Palestinians wouldn't see it like that.

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    1. Israel is the best example of the dangers of immigration of course - an object lesson. Australia and N America are two others.

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  2. I think Paul that Israel (yes with its huge faults) illustrates better than anything else old Winston's quip re democracy. And funnily enough those aspects of Israeli society that presumably would have most appeal to traditionalists (its religious bedrock) are precisely those that make it unlikely to give up any of the Palestinian lands any time soon. Im not sure I understand though your point about it being an 'ethnic state'-there are plenty of non Jews living in Israel and not just Arabs either. But like you I remain a great fan of Israel and always have done though it can try its supporters patience sorely sometimes.

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  3. Israel is an apartheid state. Laws for Jews and then repressive laws for Palestinians. Israel is repeatedly chastised by the world community and the UN, yet they get away with horrible crimes with the backing of the US government. Israel and the USA are the root causes of all turmoil in the Middle East. Iran, a nation that has not attacked anyone in the past 200 hundred years being purported as some center of terrorism or a threat to the world, is laughable. Get off the Main Stream Media gravy-train and you might learn a thing or two about reality and truth.

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    1. The existence of Israel is the reason for much or most of the trouble, of course - few would dispute that. I also think a rapprochement with Iran would be a good thing.

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  4. What exacerbates resentment against Israel is that it presents itself as an outpost of Civilization and Democracy when it most certainly isn't for those not of "Chosen People" status. There is no equality before the law for all citizens. The proof is in the pudding. When it loses 2/3 of it's native christian population, something is amiss. Pamela

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    1. I am used to conservative church-going Americans being slavishly besotted with Israel.

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    2. Yes I know. But they are on the receiving end of a 60 + yr of agenda laden, biased media reporting about the place and some also suffer from a faulty eschatology. Nobody likes to believe they've been duped all these years. The latest polls show that the majority prefer Mormons and Muslims over the Bible Belt Christian set ( the largest zio-phile group) I can't say that I blame them though.

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