Summonsed by Bell: spinning against Israel in the name of Britain's Christians

'For the latest comments on Israel from Christian Aid see:

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/christian.aid.fears.for.ngos.in.israel/25917.htm

'Does Mr Grumpy have anything to say about this?'

- asks commenter David.

Well, David, due to the way the portfolios have been divvied up here I'm afraid you'll have to make do with the Nick Clegg to Grumpy's Cameron. Rest assured, though, that my remarks have been cleared by the big boss.

So, yes, meet William Bell, Christian Aid's "Advocacy Officer for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory". The man, in other words, who, with the blessing of my church (and forty others large and small), has a full-time job spinning against the Jewish state. David, I hardly know what to say (apart from everything I've been saying here for the past five years).

I'd just like to know what makes William Bell tick. Perhaps he will stumble on this and enlighten me. Does he ever turn on the radio in the morning and think "Gosh, those poor people in Tibet/Burma/Zimbabwe/Darfur... They could really do with a bit of advocacy. I'll have a word with the boss and see if I can talk him into broadening my job description."?


Or does he wake up every morning saying to himself, "What a dream of a job mine is. For if I wasn't able to speak out against the Most Evil State in the World, who else would?"?

And if that's the way it is, if it isn't about Jews, what is it about?

This particular effort from Mr Bell reveals quite a lot about the way he operates. Like any good lobbyist he can take any story and spin it on his clients' favour. Here the starting point is Israel's admission to the OECD. I'd say this accolade for the country's thriving economy was something to celebrate, on the whole. But for Mr Bell the Israeli glass is half empty at the very best. Not a proper democracy, he mutters. Unlike all those proper democracies for which the rest of the Middle East is famed. Again, I'd say it's little short of a miracle that Israel has stayed democratic through 60 years of staving off threats to its existence. No credit given by Mr Bell, though: "civil society [...] under threat [...] repression [...] intimidation [...] undermine human rights defenders [...]". Etc etc.

Does Christian Aid ever condemn Sudan, or any of the world's despotisms, in anything like these forthright terms?

I tried googling "Christian Aid Sudan repression". The first hit was the paid-for Christian Aid Week link. The second was an item on Ethiopia with a passing reference to Christian Aid. The third was a press release from the Disasters Emergency Committee, of which Christian Aid is of course a prominent member. It was issued in 2004. Of criticism of the Sudanese government there is not one word.

A little further down the list came Christian Aid's Sudan page. Still no word of criticism of the government. Maybe it's on the linked "Our work on conflict" page? Oh dear. We learn that they deliver urgent aid in Darfur, however:-

'But our experience has also told us that our response to conflict needs to be even more far-reaching than the delivery of humanitarian assistance, however important that may be.'

That's the lead in to a section headed "Speaking out". So this must be where they've put the hard-hitting criticism of the Sudanese regime, right? Wrong. Six paragraphs: one on Colombia, one general, four on... need I continue?

After this you won't be too surprised to learn that there is no Christian Aid Advocacy Officer for Sudan. And with that, back to William Bell.

What is it that has triggered Mr Bell's doom-laden pronouncements on the state of Israeli democracy? Simply this: there are moves afoot in the Knesset to limit the political activities of NGOs like, well, Christian Aid. Not, be it noted, that any laws have been passed; that it's even being talked about is enough.

NGOs in Israel enjoy freedoms which would be inconceivable under any dictatorship. That, of course, is one major reason why the BBC website tells us more about Israeli human rights abuses, real or otherwise, than those of any of the world's dictatorships (than all of the world's dictatorships put together, is the impression I often get). Every time anyone in B'Tselem blows their nose a BBC stringer is on hand with tape recorder running.

Israel is also remarkably tolerant of international NGOs coming to the country to pursue anti-Israel political agendas. Sometimes somebody is refused admission and headlines are made, but these are exceptions that prove the rule. I've written a lot about the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, a Christian Aid partner and in effect a training programme for anti-Israel propagandists. Their volunteers may face some hurdles in getting into Israel, but get in they do.

So whilst a retreat from this openness would certainly be cause for concern, it would also be comprehensible. It would be directly related to the way Israel's openness has been abused by NGOs like Christian Aid, the way they take the soft option of giving democratic Israel a hard time whilst mutely bending the knee to tyrants.

Here's a reminder of how much open scrutiny of their human rights Israel's enemies tolerate. Simple but effective: if you're going to do something unpleasant, make sure no journalists are watching. True, you might not be able to suppress the story completely. But there won't be any tear-jerking eyewitness accounts or any of those pictures that speak a thousand words. Obviously it also helps that because you're Hamas you can rely on the Beeb to insert a sideswipe at Israel by way of "balance".

So where was Christian Aid when Hamas were bulldozing poor people's shacks?

From just across the border comes another recent story, taking us back to that booming economy that's won Israel a seat at the OECD. A reminder of who's benefitting and who isn't - and why.

It's only a privileged minority of the human race that can afford to turn up its noses at a thousand dollars a month for picking coriander, even if it comes at the slight risk of falling victim to a rocket attack. It's good money in Thailand and it's good money in Gaza. It's certainly more than enough to ensure you won't need to look to Christian Aid to provide your next meal.

And it's money that used to flow into the Gazan economy. Until?

'But until the start of the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, in 2000 when Israel tightened the border, thousands of Gazans used to travel daily through Erez to work on Israeli farms.'

Those smooth euphemisms for the campaign of mass murder directed at Israel's civilian population. Of course Israel turned off the flow of potential suicide bombers. What country on earth would not have done so? And now the Thais are doing the jobs Israelis won't do while Gaza has 40% unemployment. It's called shooting yourself in the foot - or it is if you think that the foot and the finger on the trigger have the same owner. If, that is, you count Hamas as the legitimate democratic representatives of the people of Gaza. What do you say, Mr Bell?

No room at the inn, no unauthorized use of mangers

Cutting off Palestinian noses to spite Israeli faces: with solidarity like this who needs enemies? As Mrs Cyrus observes it's straight out of Life of Brian.

Of course there are those in the Occupied Territories who are very happy for the sacred music of Bach not to be heard in Bethlehem at Christmas. And they are by no means short of friends in the PSC. Pity the shrinking Palestinian Christian community, caught in the firing line and getting it from all sides. They could do with a return date from the angelic choir - if permission can be obtained.

Palestinians 314, Darfuris 0: War on Want's victimhood league table

Here's a comment I've left on a post from Engage:-

'WoW is George Galloway's former outfit, of course, so there are no surprises here. If you do a search for 'Palestine' on their website you'll currently get 314 hits. Hits for 'Darfur': 0. Yes, honestly, zero. If you don't believe me, try it.'

- which you can do with minimum effort by clicking here and here.

The Third Destruction of the Temple

An aspect of conflict in the Middle East which is completely new to me: allegations that the archaelogical evidence proving the Temple Mount in Jerusalem was a Jewish holy place long before it was a Muslim one is being systematically destroyed. But how can that be, you may be wondering - hasn't Israel run the whole of Jerusalem since 1967? In fact the Israelis left control of the Mount in the hands of an Arab Muslim body, the Wafq, and it is they who are charged with responsibility for the vandalism.

Melanie Phillips has more details.


Would I have remained ignorance for so long if the roles were reversed, and it was Jews trashing Muslim stuff? Somehow I doubt it.

The workers, united, shall never be defeated

For better or worse, trade unions don't get me excited like they did in the days when they were the bearers of my hopes of revolution. When they do impinge on my consciousness nowadays it tends to be in a non-positive light - e.g. as forums for the Socialist Workers Party to posture with their anti-Israel boycott campaign.


This, however, is an exception - about which, accordingly, I expect we will be hearing rather little from the SWP. Of building blocks like this is real peace constructed - may there be many more.


Oh, and by the way, I would have applauded the agreement even in my Trotskyist phase. For all its failings, Militant was always big on workers' unity and emphatic in its rejection of terrorism.

The incumbency of violence

'About his father, Tariq Ramadan writes, in a passage that has been translated less than gracefully: "Often, he spoke of the determination in his commitment, at all moments, against colonialism and injustice and for the sake of Islam. This determination was though never a sanction for violence, for he rejected violence just as he rejected the idea of an 'Islamic revolution.'" The rejection of an "Islamic revolution" in this context means the rejection of armed uprisings or coups in favor of the slower, more cautious, yet still militant proceedings of the Muslim Brotherhood. Violence does not offer the road to success, from this point of view. But the passage continues. The time frame is evidently the late 1940s:

'The only exception was Palestine. On this, the message of al-Banna was clear.
Armed resistance was incumbent so that the plans of the terrorists of Irgun and
of all Zionist colonizers would be faced up to. He had learnt from Hassan
al-Banna, as he said it one day: "to put one's forehead on the ground." The real
meaning of prayer being giving strength, in humility, to the meaning of an
entire life.

'So there is an exception. It is violence against Zionists--against the plans of all Zionists and not just the Zionist extreme right wing, the Irgun (who were in fact terrorists, just as al-Banna says). But the peculiar note in that passage emanates from a single word, "incumbent"--a word suggesting that anti-Zionist violence is obligatory. A duty, not just a tactic. Moreover, a duty linked with prayer, forehead on the ground. A duty that gives meaning to an entire life. A religious duty.

'That is a heartbreaking passage. The entire tragedy of the Palestinian people can be found in statements such as this one--the ideological dogma that has led so many Palestinians to look on violence as a principle, therefore as something that can never be abandoned. If only the Palestinian national movement had been able to look on violence as merely a tactic, the movement's leaders, and not just a handful of freethinkers and pragmatists, might have noticed after a while that, realistically speaking, violent tactics were proving to be counterproductive and ought to be exchanged for better tactics--perhaps something that might actually succeed in building a Palestinian state side-by-side with Israel, as could very likely have happened years ago. But if violence is obligatory, if it is "incumbent" on the partisans of al-Banna's Islamic renewal, if violence is an obligation that (as al-Banna observes) distinguishes anti-Zionist struggles from all other struggles against colonialism and injustice, well, there can be no question of surrendering a principle, regardless of the practical cost. And so it has been, in the history of the Palestinian movement; and the cost has been terrible, to the Palestinians above all.'

- from an article on Tariq Ramadan, currently perhaps the most prominent western Muslim 'public intellectual', by Paul Berman in the New Republic (n.b. Hassan al-Banna, founding father of the Muslim Brotherhood, was Ramadan's grandfather). It's a long, wide-ranging and thoughtful piece, critical but by no means a crude hatchet job (and in fact more critical of some of Ramadan's non-Muslim admirers than of the man himself). Worth spending an hour or two on (hat tip: Mick Hartley).

By the way, the surprising and very disappointing contribution of Timothy Garton Ash to the trahison des clercs has also been noted by yours truly.

A digression before I get to the quoted passage. I'm very much with Berman in rejecting soggy multiculturalist relativism. Where I can't go along with him is in his rather triumphalist identification of universal values with a post-Enlightenment liberalism which consistently frames morality in terms of individual rights alone. To take one example: I naturally have no difficulty in agreeing with Berman that stoning as a punishment for adultery (or for anything else) is barbaric, and that no quarter should be given to Ramadan or anyone else who equivocates on this point. But I suspect that in arriving at this point of view Berman (and, doubtless, the average TNR reader) has one big advantage over a devout Muslim: he doesn't, ultimately, think adultery is such a big deal. Obviously I don't mean this on a personal level - Berman is very likely a devoted husband who would be devastated to discover that his wife had been playing away. But the point is that for the liberal adultery is, precisely, a private, personal issue, a lifestyle choice. The notion that it might have such consequences for the wider community as to merit punishment simply doesn't have even a marginal place in this discourse. However much it may, for example, devastate children's lives, adultery remains part of the individual's right to sexual self-determination.

So I think it's worth saying that for Christians a cosy accommodation with this position is as much a betrayal of the gospel as an accommodation with Muslim stone-throwers would be. For it must be clear that this is not at all the sense of Christ's intervention to save the woman taken in adultery from stoning (John 8, 1-11). Her judges are challenged to strip off the veneer of hypocritical self-righteousness and confront their own shortcomings. But the woman remains a sinner called to repentance and in need of forgiveness - 'go thy ways and sin no more'. Jesus does not patronize her by trivializing her sin; rather, through forgiveness, he opens up for her the liberation of repentance.

End of digression. I've exerpted a passage which cuts to the heart of what left-liberal opinion believes it knows about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - the myth through which every piece of news is filtered. There is an original sin committed by the Israelis in 1948/67, and there are Palestinian reactions to what has been done to them. Thus the violence of the suicide bomber expresses 'despair' over oppression. And so the greater the violence, the greater the despair must be, and thus the greater the Israelis' offence. The bad things Israelis do show how bad they are, and the bad things Palestinians do show how bad the Israelis are.

It never seems necessary to explain why other oppressed peoples do not resort to this method of expressing despair. Or is it, quite simply, that nobody else is oppressed as the Palestinians are? Nor what young men from Bradford are despairing about when they blow themselves up on the London Underground, or Sunni Arab Iraqis when they self-destruct in Shi'ite market-places. How, exactly, does the overthrow of a dictator and his replacement by an elected government make life no longer worth living?

Once we see terrorism as the product of an ideology, and one, moreover, which was in process of formation years before 1948, things become simultaneously intellectually clearer and morally more complex. For within this ideology the grievances created by the ethnic cleansing of 1948 and the occupation of 1967 are not the heart of the matter, however useful they are for propagandist purposes. The primary, non-negotiable, grievance is the presence on part of Islam's patch - no matter how small a part - of Jews who refuse to play the subordinate role which Islam traditionally allots to them.

Add to this an obligation to rectify the situation by violence, and the logical consequence is to make it entirely predictable that a full Israeli evacuation from the Occupied Territories and a right of return for the 1948 refugees would lead to more violence, not less. Just as the withdrawals from Gaza and South Lebanon brought fresh attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah in their train.

This is not to say that there are no genuine grievances created by ethnic cleansing and occupation. Of course there are, and so long as they are not redressed they act as recruiting sergeants for the terror groups. The point is that the Islamist ideology, with its core grievance, is an actor in its own right, and that there can be no peace worthy of the name that does not involve its defeat. Not unless you are prepared to attach the label 'peace' to the aftermath of the wiping of Israel off the map.

Wrong kind of killers

Lately some people don't have as much to say as they usually do about Palestinians suffering violent deaths. And, whilst it would be nice to think that they may yet break the mould, as of today's date it looks as if you can add the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel to the list of those whose solidarity with victims of violence is conditional on the perpetrators being Jewish.

As a member of the World Council of Churches my church lends its name to this nonsense. Not good.

Alan Johnston: a tragedy and its misuse

UPDATE: this report suggests I have been overly pessimistic - let's hope so.

Alan Johnston, the BBC's man in Gaza, is almost certainly dead. It's not the worst crime committed in the Middle East this week, but it's bad enough.

The news that somebody has accused the Israelis of being behind the kidnapping and killing would not in itself be worth passing on. Let's face it, they're to blame for everything else, and it's not at all the kind of behaviour you'd expect from a bona fide group of militant Islamists. What makes the accusation slightly more remarkable is the fact that it comes from a retired colleague of Johnston's.

I can only suggest that Alan Hart spends a little more time studying his former employers' output. He would then be aware that Johnston's Gaza posting was due to end last month (see the final sentence here). Like all conspiracy theorists Hart needs nothing more than a good cui bono argument to set him off - but he doesn't even have that.

Jon feels the Beeb's recruitment of loonies should at least be a little more balanced. Well, Jon, I fear that's a battle you'll have to fight without any help from the National Union of Journalists. Following a conference vote for a boycott of Israel, General Secretary Jeremy Dear argues that the Palestinian journalists' union has earnt this gesture by supporting the campaign for Johnston's release. A fascinating concept: journalists needing to be rewarded for being opposed to the kidnapping and killing of journalists.

And whilst Mr Dear insists that 'The boycott call has nothing to do with reporting. The NUJ is not telling members how to report Israel', he also seems to suggest that Johnston in his turn earned Palestinian support by being 'so keen to help [the Palestinian people] through his reporting'. So how vocal would the Palestinian journalists' union have been on his behalf if his reporting had been a little less helpful towards the Palestinians and more obliging towards the Israelis?

But has Mr Dear pondered where he stands if Alan Hart is right and Johnston's killers were Israeli? If the Israeli journalists' union condemns the crime, the NUJ will want to reward them by rescinding the boycott, yes? No? Only an idea.

Leaving the asylum for a breath of fresh air, I note that Donald Macintyre of the Indie and Alan Rusbridger of the Grauniad have come out against the boycott - a stance which will certainly get a mixed reception from readers of their papers. So respect to both, and also to Tory MP and Times man Michael Gove, though he will presumably face less flak for his decision to resign from the NUJ. Let him have the last word:-

'This boycott is not of a repressive state that outlaws free expression (of which, sadly, there are still too many) but of one of the few states in the Middle East with a proper free press: Israel.

'The NUJ exists to defend, among other virtues, freedom of speech. That virtue is better defended in Israel than in any other nation of the Middle East and it comes under assault daily from forces driven by fanaticism.'

The headline, the facts

Business as usual at the Indie, i.e. 'never let the facts get in the way of a good headline'...

'Half of Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza malnourished '

Or if you want to be picky, 34% are at risk of malnutrition and a further 12% are at risk of being at risk.

Grim enough in itself, of course. So a quick reminder of those 'ongoing political conditions'. Palestinian living standards nosedived during the terror campaign euphemistically described as the Second Intifada, and again following Hamas' election victory. I didn't need the UN or the Independent to tell me that hunger results from biting the hand that feeds you. If you want to buy food from your neighbours, don't force them to build a fence to stop you murdering their kids.

There always seems to be enough cash to buy guns and rockets, doesn't there?

LibMSMWatch: wrong kind of child killers

Four children among the 17 dead as Gaza fire fights rage

- headline in the Indie. Nothing quite as judgmental as 'Palestinian gunmen kill four children' - after all, they obviously didn't mean to kill children, it's just one of those things that can happen when you have a fire fight.

But at least the children are mentioned, which is more than can be said of the Grauniad's version, headed 'US bid to revive peace process falters on Gaza streets' (those Americans, can't do a darn thing right, can they?). Or of the Beeb's.

On past occasions the killing of even one Palestinian child has been a very emotive topic indeed. Today four are dead and they barely rate a mention. I wonder why.

Sincere condolences

This from the Indie caught my eye the other day.

So Hamas have now recognized Israel. Sort of. This is 'recognize' as in 'OK, despite our best efforts Israel has not been wiped off the map as of today's date'. Similar to the sense in which, for instance, I recognize that George Galloway is a Member of Parliament. Anyway, it's supposed to be significant.

Then there's the news that Hamas's popular support has taken a nosedive. One reason is their recent massacre of a group of Fatah security men, and that seems a pretty good reason. The other, though, is the enthusiastic welcome their sponsors in Tehran have given to the execution of Saddam Hussein. This is obviously not an issue of principle: every state in the Middle East has the death penalty (with one exception - I don't need to say any more, do I?) and an independent Palestine would doubtless follow the regional trend. No, the point at issue is that the late tyrant and mass murderer won a place in Palestinian hearts by lobbing missiles at Israeli cities and funding pensions for the families of suicide bombers. Yasser Arafat was, in turn, happy to support his invasion of Kuwait.

So Fatah is riding high on a wave of sympathy for Saddam. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I'm really not sure, but I do know that if I had neighbours like these I'd want a good strong fence.

There is of course one surefire way for Tehran to restore its prestige, and scientists in bunkers scattered around Iran are beavering away at it even as I write. I'm afraid we're going to hear a lot more about this in 2007.

The Denier and the Truth-teller

Remember how my mate President Ahmadinejad wasn't actually denying the Holocaust, just wanting a no-holds-barred examination of the evidence (see his bizarre letter to Chancellor Merkel offering the Germans solidarity against the Zionist foe)? Brace yourselves for a shock: it turns out he's a lying hypocrite.

If I wanted to make a really cheap point, I could drag in Mahmoud's penchant for scantily-clad (faces out for the lads!) dancers of the female persuasion. Over this distressingly sordid topic, however, I prefer to draw a veil.

Whereas, not for the first time, this blog takes off its hat to the decency and courage of Palestinian Holocaust-affirmer Khaled Kasab Mahameed. If there's an atom of justice in this world the man will get the Nobel Peace Prize.

Letter from America

'Sir: I'm glad your Christmas Appeal will help needy people, but I'm troubled by your approach. The Palestinians in your article of 5 December are humanised individuals: the souk merchant, the grieving survivor, the odd-job man. Israel, on the other hand, is the "other", a capricious force that shells houses and terrorises children. Israeli opinions are only honoured when they criticise their government. Palestinians en masse are always "dispossessed" and "abandoned". Just in time for Christmas, we have a morality tale.

'But there are two sides to this issue, even one in which Palestinians are complicit in their travails. The Gaza pullout was a chance for autonomy and growth. Instead, the Palestinians chose martyrdom and elected Hamas. They selected extremist representatives and a violent platform, which inevitably invited retaliation.

'Please continue to help people who need it. But spare us the one-sided tale of good vs evil.'

- a splendid (as I hope regular commenter Fran will agree) letter from America in today's Indie. The one immediately before it isn't too bad either, says he modestly.

Audience participation

Do the folk at Biased BBC ever ask themselves whether they are putting their case quite forcefully enough?

Silent majority

'Nearly three-quarters of Palestinians want the newly elected Hamas movement to drop its call for the destruction of Israel.'

More at Harry's Place.

Rather a lot depends on this majority becoming a visible and vocal one. I look forward to seeing this become a top-priority project for NGOs and peace activists in the Occupied Territories, and for their supporters in the churches. I mean, they all want peace, don't they?

One who got through

Nobody killed except the bomber, thank God, but this is one more reminder as to why Israel has a security barrier. Christian Aid, the Church of Scotland, the Anglican Peace and Justice Network and company please take note: if you want the barrier taken down, you'd better get talking to Islamic Jihad.

A Modest Proposal

Under the headline ‘Gaza’s spiral into anarchy’, the BBC’s Alan Johnston helpfully explains that it’s all still the Israelis’ fault even though they’re not actually there any more:-

‘This society has been radicalised and traumatised by its confrontation with the Israelis, who occupied Gaza decades ago and only evacuated their settlers and troops last summer.

‘Thousands of Palestinians have been killed, injured or lost their homes during years of violence.

‘There are numerous armed factions that used to channel their violent energies into attacks on the Israelis - but they now have little on which to focus.’

Might disarmament be an option here? Sorry, silly me. In that case, here’s my suggestion for restoring that all-important focus: simply distribute several thousand life-size cardboard cutouts depicting Israeli soldiers and settlers around Gaza.

Any NGOs who can help with the funding and logistics are welcome to contact me. I think it would also be a most appropriate project for the European Union to support.

Jaw, jaw and war, war: a discussion

I originally submitted the following critique of an article in the Guardian to Engage, the organization set up to oppose academic boycotts of Israel in British universities (if you haven't seen their website, have a look - I don't agree with everything there by any means, but there's lots of good stuff). Because it raises issues which are crucial to the way my thinking is developing, I've appended (slightly edited) my exchange of e-mails with David Hirsh of Engage, with thanks to him for agreeing to the publication of what he says is 'not his most fluent writing ever'.

A response to 'Dialogue is the only way to end this cycle of violence' by Jonathan Glover (Guardian, 27 July 2005)

'Jonathan Glover teaches human values and contemporary global ethics at King's College London' it says at the bottom of his article. Oh dear. Ruminating on how 'human values and contemporary global ethics' might differ from plain, boring old ethics, I'm reminded of how, in the days of the Cold War, a 'Democratic Republic' was one with no democracy, a 'People's Republic' was one where the people had no say, and the 'Democratic People's Republic of Korea' was (and is) possibly the vilest tyranny on earth.

I digress. Moral equivalence is, predictably, the name of Mr Glover's game. Like this:

'Several years ago there were two episodes between Israelis and Palestinians. Pictures went round the world showing a 12-year-old Palestinian boy crouching behind his father, trying to avoid the Israeli bullets that killed him. A week or two later two young Israeli men crossed a boundary into Palestinian territory. They were killed, torn apart by an angry crowd.

'We feel the horror and the tragedy of these events. But the tragedy has an extra dimension. The Palestinian narrative will remember the first episode and the Israeli one the second. The stories reinforce the stereotypes that maintain the conflict. ("They deliberately kill our children." "They are savages.")'

Six of one, half a dozen of the other - so simple. Why do Israeli soldiers open fire in the Occupied Territories? Basically, because they are operating against organizations which try to kill Israeli Jews as a means to destroying to destroying the Israeli state. It is plainly the case that innocent people frequently get killed as a result, and that not everything which could be done is done to avoid such deaths.

Why, on the other hand, were the two Israelis 'torn apart'? In a nutshell, because they didn't look like Arabs and must therefore have been Jews. A racist lynching. End of story. But from the standpoint of contemporary global ethics there is no difference - just two 'stories'.

Or this old chestnut: 'We allowed Falluja to be destroyed like Guernica.' In our contemporary global ethics, you see, there is no difference at all between fascists bombing a defenceless city in the process of overthrowing a democratic republic, and the forces of a democratic republic bombarding a stronghold of the fascists who will stop at nothing to strangle Iraqi democracy at birth.

'Dialogue is the only way to end this cycle of violence', says the headline. Well, yes and no. Seeking a parallel to the Islamists' resentments, Mr Glover tells us that 'The anger that blazes through Mein Kampf was a backlash against the humiliations of the 1918 defeat and subsequent peace.'

Dialogue with the author in question didn't exactly get Neville Chamberlain very far, did it, Mr Glover? Or is the idea that we should have kept on talking - when Poland was invaded; when France was invaded; when Coventry was bombed; when the Soviet Union was invaded; when Auschwitz opened its gates?

Mr Glover's prescription for a thoroughly contemporary Munich goes like this:

'Tackling the deep psychology of conflict involves persuading groups to listen to each other's stories and to look for the possibility of a narrative that does justice to the truths in both...

'What is needed is not a one-sided dialogue in which "we" undermine "their" fanaticism...

'The right kind of talk opens chinks that let in doubts. And in religion and politics doubts about beliefs save lives.'

Well, I don't claim to be more than a layman in the field of human values and contemporary global ethics, but it seems to me we're tied up in knots here. For our value system (and no, the absence of ironic quotation marks around the possessive pronoun is not accidental) is already founded on the acceptance of doubt. You doubt that my religion has anything to do with God? Find yourself one that suits you. You doubt that Tony Blair is telling you the truth? Vote for Michael Howard, or George Galloway, or whoever takes your fancy. You doubt that my blog is anything more than the ravings of an obsessive nutter? Find yourself a better one.

Whereas their value system (again, no quotes) isn't. So what happens when we talk? If we come to the table convinced that doubt is the key, we are going to have to try to persuade them to think more like us - oops, cultural imperialism, can't have that. But if we come doubting our doubt and they come certain of their certainty, we may as well run up the white flag straight away and ask them exactly which variant of Sharia law they want us to introduce and how they would like us to dispose of our Jews.

And yes, we do need to talk - but not to the terrorists - not now. We need to talk warmly and supportively to Muslims who, seeing western pluralism and tolerance as virtues to be practised and not exploited, are already part of ‘us’. We need to talk sensitively and persuasively to decent, peaceful Muslims caught between two cultures, making no bones about the fact that we are not perfect and all too often betray our own values. And once we have helped mainstream western Islam to clarify its values, insulate itself from the appeal of terrorism, and embrace its status as one of the component groups of a plural society, with the rights and responsibilities that implies - then we can find a way for the radicals to save face without actually getting the things that, at the moment, they think they want.

Easy to say. Not so easy to do. The talking needs to happen at every possible level. For churchgoers like me, for instance, it means developing contacts with the local mosque, and there are good and bad ways of doing that. The wrong way is the soft option of getting together to congratulate each other on believing in God and tut-tut about how awful George Bush is. The right way involves, sooner or later, engaging honestly with each other at the level of core values – much less comfortable.

'Talk will not stop the killing tomorrow. But we need long-term thinking too.' says Mr Glover, and on this we can agree. But if we are to get there without surrendering our basic values we face blood, sweat and tears in the short to medium term, and we will need more than doubt to see us through it.

and now the e-mails...

Dear Alan

Thanks for thinking of us. I'm sorry but we're not going to use it.

One of the things that we are really trying to avoid on Engage is a world view of 'us' in the 'west' and 'them' in the 'muslim world'. I just don't think that it corresponds well to reality; I think that it misses the point. I think that there are many world-views, many political and social identities in both what you call the 'west' and in the 'muslim world'. It is the Islamists who insist on the distinction between 'our culture' and 'their culture' - and I think that we need to get inside that distinction and take it apart.

And I am in favour of dialogue and negotiation between Israel and Palestine - I am in favour of them doing a deal. Most Palestinians voted against Hamas and for Abu Mazen. And I think that Israel bears a greater responsibility for the outcome of the conflict, since it has state power, since it is the occupying power, since it has tanks and planes and guns.

Best Wishes...
David


Dear David...

I'm sorry you feel there is such a divergence between my position and Engage's. While I may have expressed myself rather more intemperately, I think I am saying substantially the same things about Jonathan Glover's article as Norman Geras does here.

I certainly haven't made myself clear enough if I appear to oppose talks between Israelis and Palestinians. The Guardian piece was specifically on 'dialogue' with the terrorists.

Re us and them, I don't mean non-Muslims versus Muslims, and I do believe I made that clear enough. My 'us' is a society which practises pluralism and tolerance because there is an overarching culture and value system in which these are non-negotiable. Many Muslims are already part of this, many more need to be. If your position is a multiculturalist one I think that is where we have to agree to differ. I don't believe you get pluralism and tolerance in any secure way simply as a result of horse-trading between disparate groups pursuing private agendas and acknowledging no responsibilty for the whole.

I heard a Dutchman on the radio yesterday saying that Holland's multicultural experiment died with Theo van Gogh. The assumption that Moroccan immigrants would somehow automatically absorb Dutch liberal values has broken down completely - the second generation is more hostile to the majority culture than the first. This is the challenge facing what I would unapologetically call 'the west' (although an interesting observation which I've seen lately is that the US hasn't so far produced home-grown Islamist terrorists - it's worth considering why).

Anyway, I still believe we're basically on the same side, and wish you and Engage well.

Alan


Hi Alan,

I think you're right - that there isn't a huge distance between us.

I think that Engage has to carve out its niche carefully - and its not only against antisemitism but its also trying to forge a new way to be against antisemitism. The old ways - which often responded to the demonisation of Israel with a defence of everything Israel did - were not right and neither were they effective.

The Jewish and Israeli establishment was caught on the hop by the AUT boycott campaign - and didn't know how to oppose it rigorously and effectively.

So Engage both defines itself against antisemitism on the left but also against the Jewish & Israeli nationalist right. We are in the business of arming people against antisemitism - and that is why we have to be sharp and clear against any hint of demonisation of Islam or Arabs or anybody else. The political struggle is partly about helping to arm Muslims with decent politics - and supporting those Muslims who are fighting for decent politics.

'The West' has produced Nazism, Fasicsm, colonialism, racism - etc. Its not about supporting 'The West' and 'its values' against 'others'.

The truth is that the world is not divided like that anyway. There people who fight for democracy and human rights all over the world. Its not geographical, ethnic or religious - its political.

I don't know much about Dutch Muslims, but 1) as a community they are clearly under a serious amount of racist threat - the left has to stand with them against this racist threat - but with decent politics. This is the problem with Galloway - he's good at standing with muslims against racism - but he does it on the basis of a set of stinking politics.

That was the trick that we pulled off with the AUT campaign - we stood with the Jewish community and with Israel against the racist threat - but we did so with a clear set of politics that did not compromise with Sharon & Netanyahu.

and 2) I would assume that, like Muslims anywhere else, Dutch Muslims have a whole range of hybridised and inter-linked identities, and a whole range of political world-views. I'm skeptical about the claim that 'the second generation' is this or that... I would imagine that lots of the 'second generation' are busy becoming doctors, lawyers and accountants - some of those will buy into Islamist politics, some won't.

I think for these reasons, that we need real clarity in our writing. And your piece - partly self-consciously - wasn't clear...

Best Wishes,
David


Hi David...

The first thing that strikes me about your response is how very constrained you feel yourself to be in what you can say as a Jewish left-wing academic, and what Engage can say as a group putting a left-wing case for Israel. And I find that terribly disturbing. It's as if the mere fact of standing up for Israel has put you and your collaborators in Engage so far beyond the pale that a word out of place about Arab culture or Islam would be (political? professional? social?) suicide. It makes me feel very relieved to be a Christian ex-socialist non-academic who can speak his mind in his blog without (I hope!) risking anything more than the occasional semi-literate comment accusing me of being a fascist.

I hope I'm not in the business of demonising anybody, but I think there are things to be said about the crisis within Arab culture today (I am well aware of its historical glories) and its ripple effects on the whole of Islam. They are things that are being said by Arab scholars, and they matter not just because suicide bombers on tube trains are part of the ripple effect, but because the outcome of the crisis will determine whether or not millions of ordinary Arabs continue to live in conditions of backwardness and oppression.

One of the key features of this crisis is the way popular frustration is channelled, with the encouragement of the political elites, into hatred of Israel. The fine article by Matthias Küntzel which you publicized last week [note to blog readers: highly recommended site] shows just how pathological that hatred is, with the second most popular TV station in the Middle East churning out anti-Semitic propaganda whose themes come straight out of the Third Reich. Thanks to this displacement activity democratic movements in the region are actually very weak, with the ironic consequence that the best chance Arabs in the Middle East get of voting in democratic elections is either to live in Israel or to be under military occupation (in the OPT or Iraq). It really won't do to blame this situation all on imperialist interference. In Latin America the CIA conspired to overthrow democratic governments; in the Middle East there haven't (since Iran 1953 - and of course we will never know how democratic Mossadegh would have turned out to be) been any for them to overthrow.

Another constraint I perceive is that there is one group for whom demonisation seems to be mandatory, namely the Israeli right. The first thing to be said here is that the term in itself lumps together religious extremists with democratic right-of-centre politicians such as one would expect to find in any mature democracy. Israel has a right and a left because that is what you generally get in a democracy. We may not care for what Sharon and Netanyahu do, but I think it's important to make the point that it's not fundamentally different from what most equivalent politicians would do faced with the same circumstances - it's pretty obvious what road those who think them uniquely wicked are headed down. And they are certainly not worse than Hamas, or Saddam Hussein, or al-Zarqawi, for all of whom you can be an apologist without running any risk of an AUT boycott. So it seems to me that if you demonise them you are conceding too much ground to the delegitimisation of Israel itself.

In talking of 'the west', I'm not putting it forward as a paragon of all virtues, but I am saying that certain values (sorry, but not 'values') such as democracy, rule of law, freedom of the media, academic freedom, unrestricted religious pluralism, support for the principle of gender equality and sexual tolerance are, for whatever complex historical reasons, a lot more typical of 'western' societies than of societies where Islam is the dominant religion. Of course you are right that the west has produced Nazism, but the democratic Germany I live in today is the product of a re-engagement with these western values, and not (as in the case of Japan) of importing new ones from somewhere else. I have never seen it suggested that drawing on Muslim, or any other non-western, political culture would have eased Germany's task of dragging itself out of the abyss of 1945. Meanwhile, as already mentioned, the legacy of National Socialism is alive and well in the Middle East.

Or take another evil commonly used by the left as a stick to beat the west with. Innumerable societies have owned slaves, but only one culture, to my knowledge, has ever spontaneously come to the conviction that doing so is a moral evil which should be outlawed.

The paradox is that the values I have listed are actually, I believe, universal ones, but they need specific cultures to embody them. Can Islam become such a culture? I don't pretend to know the answer, but I am fairly certain that politics, though clearly vital, is not the only factor needed. My wife has been reading Irshad Manji and telling me about her call for an Islamic Reformation. There is something pretty artificial about the distinction between Islam and Islamism, even if it has practical value in combatting Islamophobia. Islam is a religion with political consequences, and if you want to change the politics you have to change the theology.

I don't claim to be an expert on Muslims in Holland either, but I have had an interest in the topic since I chanced to be working in The Hague the week Theo van Gogh was killed. I think what has been unmistakeable in Holland is the sense of stunned disbelief that somebody born and bred in Amsterdam should have demonstrated such utter contempt for the culture of tolerance from which he had personally benefitted so much.

When your immediate reaction to the situation is to talk in terms of the 'racist threat' to Muslims, I fear you are getting caught in exactly the mindset which leads so many on the left to the assumption that it is progressive to be anti-Israel. Whilst of course any generalization about a social group will be unfair to individuals, I think we have to be able to say that as a group the Dutch Muslim community is generating more 'threat' than it is suffering. Plainly there are only a small minority of actively murderous Islamists, but the ideology that spurs them on is far more widely diffused. If the legendary tolerance of the Dutch is in danger of being exhausted I think we owe it to them to ask seriously why that has happened rather than jump to the conclusion that they must have been racists all along.

I must confess to a certain irritation when I read about the explosion of "faith hate" crimes in Britain since 7/7. Clearly none of this acceptable, and the serious assaults that have occurred are of great concern. But if I am expected to feel in some way accountable when a Neanderthal who happens to share my skin colour spits at a woman wearing a hijab, I think it is a fortiori mandatory for British Muslims as a community to accept responsibility for combatting the infinitely more dangerous (to them, never mind to anyone else) hate criminals who gave us 7/7 and 21/7 in the name of their faith. And for everybody's sake that needs to be a lot more than a half-hearted and defensive damage limitation exercise; it is heartening that some Muslim leaders recognize this, but more need to join them...

Best wishes,

Alan

Quiz Time

Who said...

1. 'As the situation in the Middle East grows ever more volatile, the international community must find a just and peaceful solution which addresses both the threat of war in Iraq and the escalating conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The international community must ensure that UN resolutions are upheld by Israel as well as by Iraq.
   
   'A key to lasting peace and justice in the Middle East is an end to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories through a peace process based on international law.'



2. 'Israel is a constant source of threat vis-a-vis peace in the Middle East and the whole world. Since the liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence and will contribute to the establishment of peace in the Middle East, the Palestinian people look for the support of all the progressive and peaceful forces and urge them all, irrespective of their affiliations and beliefs, to offer the Palestinian people all aid and support in their just struggle for the liberation of their homeland.'

Answers in my comment.

Parents' Circle

Full marks to Christian Aid for its recently-formed partnership with Parents’ Circle, a group which brings together bereaved parents from both sides of the conflict. This seems to me an immeasurably more positive step towards peace than supporting organizations which deny their own side’s contribution to the violence. These parents are apparently learning to really listen to each other’s stories and to discover how much they have in common. This is a process that can lead them to confront the reality that responsibility for violence is shared – and when that happens the foundations of trust are laid upon which peace and justice can be built.