A Question Of Viability

In further response to the reader who thought I ought to say more about the struggle for peace in the Middle East, in addition to my post yesterday exploring the effects of the 1967 Six Day War on the rise of political Islam, may I commend to you the Christian Aid report launched at Chatham House yesterday?

Israel and Palestine: a question of viability

Failure to secure a lasting solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is causing poverty to deepen, and allowing violence and despair to persist. Poverty in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) has increased more than threefold since the Oslo peace process began in 1993, while violence on both sides has escalated. Combined with the regional and global implications of this conflict, there is an urgent need to address the situation as a whole – and without delay – if further human misery is to be avoided, and before the rapidly changing facts on the ground preclude any lasting solution.

The international Quartet comprising the United Nations, European Union, USA and Russia, has repeatedly voiced its commitment to a viable Palestinian state but has yet to define what this means. Meanwhile, Israel is imposing de facto changes that erode the very foundations of a viable Palestinian state.

Christian Aid believes the way forward requires a long-term, just and peaceful solution that brings an end to occupation and guarantees viability for both Palestinians and Israelis. This requires a radical shift from the current political stalemate to a position where Palestinians, Israelis and the international community create the political will to take the bold steps necessary to implement such a viable solution.

Christian Aid has consulted with its Palestinian and Israeli partners, as well as other experts from the region and from Europe and the US, to consider what viability means for Palestinians and Israelis. In this document we explore the elements of and process towards a viable solution and bring it to the political debate. We demonstrate how viability is the defining characteristic of a lasting solution to the conflict, and provide a checklist against which any solution can be analysed to answer the question: is it viable?

Checklist for viability

Essential elements for viability are:

• an end to occupation: the bedrock of viability
• self-determination and sovereignty: exercise free political will and be free from external control
• effective governance: a coherent political system and government control over the collection and use of financial resources
• protection of rights: for Palestinians and Israelis
• security for all: the security of Israelis is indivisible from that of Palestinians
• freedom of movement: between and within the West Bank and Gaza Strip
• control over natural resources: land, water, minerals, sea – for the benefit of the whole population
• economic growth and prosperity: an end to aid dependency.

The process towards viability must be:

• guided by international law
• impartial
• and must hold both sides to account, bringing an end to impunity.

Captive Childhoods

At Easter, my wife and I took one of those bold steps of parenthood: we started allowing our 4½ and 6½-year-old children to play unsupervised in our quiet cul-de-sac; coincidentally, a neighbour up the other end of the street took the same decision at the same time, so our four children have been riding their bikes up and down the street and playing in each other's gardens ever since.

If today's Children's Society Good Childhood Inquiry truly represents society at large, then it seems that we are in the minority and rather old-fashioned in our views (but then, we probably knew that anyway!) as 43% of adults believe that children should not be allowed out with friends until they reach the age of 14. As the BBC's commentary notes: in 1970 the average nine-year-old girl would have been free to wander 840 metres from her front door; by 1977 it was 280 metres; now the limit appears to have come down to the front doorstep. Children are no longer allowed to spend time independently with friends—something that used to be thought fundamental to every child's well-being and social and emotional development.

The disappearance of four-year-old Madeleine McCann forces every parent to re-evaluate the freedoms that they permit their children. Yet, it was Inspector Gadget who recently observed that it is often the people who display 'Find Madeleine' posters in the window who don't know where their own young children are at 9.00 pm at night! We have reminded our children that they should stick together and are not to go into even a friend's house without first letting us know, but perhaps we should be keeping a tighter rein on them?

As we learnt back in February from the UNICEF Innocenti report Child Poverty in Perspective, the physical and emotional well-being of British children is now the worst among the world's wealthiest nations. Have we truly become a nation of paranoid isolationists raising a risk averse generation stifled by illusionary fears? Whatever happened to the adventures of The Famous Five and The Hardy Boys — is it in any way symbolic that their seemingly realistic tales have been replaced by the impossible dreamworld of Harry Potter?

No doubt you will let me know what you are doing or would do in my position as a parent who wants to do the best by his children.

Canute Climate Change Demands

"The temperature of the winter season, in northern latitudes, has suffered a material change, and become warmer in modern, than it was in ancient times. ... Indeed I know not whether any person, in this age, has ever questioned the fact."

Christian Aid, which represents the cooperation of 40 denominational and ecumenical groups in Britain, believes it is crucial that this week's G8 meeting "agrees to the principle of a ‘stabilisation goal’ for atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, which would limit global warming to 2°C"—an arbitrary target also favoured by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

If for one moment we might be permitted to entertain the heretical possibility that a significant proportion of currently observed climate change might be attributable to natural causes, such as variability in solar activity, then any demands to limit global warming to 2°C, or any other level, will prove as effective as those of King Canute to hold back the rising tide.

The real challenge facing our politicians, as I have stated previously, is how we are going to end our dependency on the world's finite reserves of oil and to achieve energy security without damaging either our economy or our ability to compete internationally. The international challenge for groups such as the leaders of the Group of Eight richest economies is what we are going to do to ensure poor countries get access to clean, renewable sources of energy, and thereby help eliminate global energy poverty.

Just to prove that some things never change, the quote with which I began came from Noah Webster ... in 1843!

From 1967 To Post-9/11

The publication of Ataullah Siddiqui's Department of Education and Skills report is no doubt correct in its claim that the teaching of Islam in English universities is based on "out-of-date and irrelevant issues," being overly focussed on the Middle East and ignorant of the realities of modern Islam in multi-cultural Britain. However, if we do not understand where our post-9/11 and 7/7 world came from, then we will fail to make any progress either domestically or on the international stage. Therefore, in all that will be said and written over the coming days about the 1967 Arab-Israeli Six Day War, with its inevitable focus on the struggle for peace in the Middle East, I hope the media will also explore the contribution made by the war to the development of political Islam.

Speaking ten days before Israel launched its pre-emptive strike against the Egyptian Air Force on 5th June 1967, Egypt's President Nasser declared, "If Israel embarks on an aggression against Syria or Egypt, the battle against Israel will be a general one and not confined to one spot on the Syrian or Egyptian borders. The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel." The trouble was, the Arabs believed him. Their resounding defeat quickly led to the belief that Israel launched the war with the support of Britain and the United States. As one Israeli historian has noted, this now deep-rooted conviction "established a direct link between the 1967 war and former imperialist attempts to control the Arab world, thus portraying Israel as an imperialist stooge."

The failure of Arab nationalism in 1967 thus opened the way for mosques to provide answers to questions that the secular leaders had been unable to deliver and bred a distrust of democracy, which was seen as the heritage of Western imperialism. The political Islamists that emerged were unable to accept the notion of sovereignty in the people for they maintain that sovereignty is only to be found in God—not in people, who are servants of God. Equally, they reject the idea that laws are made by the people, for they hold that laws are God-given in sharia—the divine, immutable Islamic law. With every attempt to "bring freedom and democracy" to the region—and with every failure to deliver on such promises—we have strengthened the hand of political Islam. So it is that just as Israel's victory in 1967 was the beginning of the end of pan-Arabism as an ideology to unite the region and define its people, Israel's defeat in last year's war in Lebanon has given added momentum to the new religious nationalism provided by the Islamist movement.

Contrary to popular myth, 9/11 did not change the world. It merely opened the eyes of many in the West to a struggle that has been brewing for decades. 1967 arguably did change the world. The "realities of modern Islam in multi-cultural Britain" have some of their roots in those defining six days and have been cultivated by our continued frequent mistakes in the region ever since. The proper study of history, not just Islam, is also a "strategic subject" if education is to have a real role "in preventing extremism."

America's To Blame!

In words reminiscent of a petulant schoolboy complaining, "But he started it!" President Vladimir Putin says that Russia will once again aim its missiles at targets in Europe if U.S. plans to build a missile defense shield near Russia's borders go ahead. Putin acknowledged Russia's response risks restarting an arms race but he said Moscow would not be responsible for the consequences because Washington had started it.

I can but point to what I have already said in A Country Without A Hero, The New Cold War, and Star Wars.

Source: Reuters—Putin warns he will point missiles at Europe

Israeli Time Bomb

A reader has written to ask why I have not mentioned the kidnap of BBC journalist Alan Johnston, who disappeared in the Gaza Strip on 12 March. In part I have not done so because others, such as Charles Moore in today's Telegraph, have done so far more effectively than I could do — In the spirit of which, I point you in the direction of an item that I suspect most readers in Britain will otherwise miss out on, "Israel’s “sadistic torture” of Palestinians" at AlJazeera. It begins:

In Israel, there is “no effective barrier – not legal and certainly not ethical – that stands in the way of using torture,” concluded a recent report by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI).

The report slammed the Israeli High Court’s approval of the use of tough tactics to interrogate Palestinians classified as “ticking bombs”, saying that the ruling was interpreted by Israel’s internal intelligence service, the Shin Bet, as a green light to torture almost every Palestinian detainee. Moreover, PCATI said that prison wardens, policemen and even doctors took part in torturing Palestinian detainees, as well as lawyers, military judges and senior officials in the Justice Ministry.

In the report, titled “A Time Bomb”, PCATI detailed accounts of nine Palestinian detainees who have been subjected to physical, sexual and psychological abuse at the hands of their Israeli interrogators over the past year.

Reflecting on Blair's Reflections

"In this age, foreign policy is not an interesting distraction from the hard slog of domestic reform. It is the element that describes a nation's face to the world at large, forms the perceptions of others to it and, in part, its perception of itself."

Those who know me will know that I have long held that the next generation of politicians need to possess a far greater knowledge and experience of international affairs. Two of my favourite quotes are Michael Portillo's "Today’s politicians are amateurs who turn to foreign affairs only late in their careers" (The Sunday Times, 1 August 2004) and Alan Duncan's "Why are we talking so little of foreign affairs and social cohesion?" (18 July 2005)

I am therefore delighted to read that Tony Blair has now realised the central role of foreign policy in this country's future. It's just a pity that his Government is still not acting upon his reflections:

1. Be a player not a spectator

"There is no international debate of importance in which we are not as fully engaged as we can be... And the agenda constructed should be about our values—freedom, democracy, responsibility to others, but also justice and fairness."

Like we're not doing in places like Zimbabwe, Sudan, Somalia, and across the developing world.

2. Transatlantic co-operation is still vital

"Europe and America share the same values. We should stick together. That requires a strong transatlantic alliance. It also means a strong, effective and capable EU. A weak Europe is a poor ally."

So why have we not done more to defend our special relationship with America or more to limit the European Union's anti-American policies?

3. Be very clear about global terrorism

"Revolutionary communism took many forms. It chose unlikely bedfellows. But we still spent decades confronting it. This new terrorism has an ideology."

Yes! Islamism is ideological. So let's start having an intelligent debate at the level of ideas, without making accusations of racism or islamophobia and without allowing the terrorists to exploit our democratic rights and freedoms to achieve their destructive ends.

4. We must stand up for our values

"We are faced with a challenge derived from a world view. We need our own world view, no less comprehensive but based on the decent values we believe in."

Indeed, so why are we not standing up for those values when it comes to China, Burma, Central Asia, or Zimbabwe?

5. It's about tomorrow's agenda too

"We need a sufficiently strong basis, founded in a clear and even-handed commitment to our values, for the world as it changes to adopt these values, universal as they are, to guide us."

Right, so it would help if we didn't constantly undermine those values, either domestically or internationally, and if we knew what it meant to stand for them.

As Blair concludes, over to you...

Big Brother Hoax

BREAKING NEWS: The Dutch kidney transplant reality show was a hoax!

Dutch kidney transplant reality show was a hoax

A Dutch reality television show in which a supposedly dying woman had to pick one of three contestants to whom she would donate a kidney was a hoax, the programme makers said on Friday.

The show, produced by the public broadcaster BNN, was condemned by Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende of the Netherlands ahead of transmission and sparked controversy worldwide.

Identified only as "Lisa," the 37-year-old woman who had been said to have a brain tumor, was to base her selection on the person's history and conversations with the candidates' families and friends.

At the last minute, she was revealed as a healthy actress. The contestants were also part of the deception.

BNN said it wanted to draw attention to the growing shortage of organ donors in the Netherlands.

Cox on British Islamism

"Islamist groups are using our institutions to recruit young people, and preventing any critical analysis of Islam. We need to wake up, draw a line in the sand, and say enough is enough - Britain's cultural and spiritual heritage are under threat."

Thanks go to Cranmer for pointing out an Ynetnews report of these comments by the indomitable Baroness Cox, co-author of The West, Islam and Islamism. Speaking about radicalised British Muslims, the threat to Israel, and the 70,000 capacity mega-mosque in east London, Baroness Cox also quoted a senior British bishop as saying that "most of our educational institutions have been infiltrated." That this is even a problem—let alone one as great as that posed by Communists in our universities throughout much of the last century—seems to have gone unnoticed by the vast majority of our elected politicians. Labour, seemingly oblivious, continues to bend over backwards to appease the Muslim Council of Britain while the leader of the opposition recently suggested that it is a "lazy use of language" to describe the threat from radical, militantly ideological versions of Islam as "Islamist."

Lest any of us need reminding that this ideological struggle is not merely an intellectual debate but also poses a threat to national security, Cox cites the case of Salah Idris, a shareholder in two high-tech security firms that provide security for the British parliament, the Royal Courts of Justice, UK military bases, and eleven nuclear installations—also the owner of a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory destroyed by America in 1998 after it was linked with al-Qaeda activity. Yet Cox claims, "When we brought this matter to the attention of the authorities, we were told there was no cause for concern."

As I wrote a couple of months ago in The Rise Of Islam, "We all need to understand Islam and the differences between moderate Islam and fundamentalist Islam, or Islamism" and it is therefore crucial that the media becomes a positive force for change in inter-religious relations and starts giving a prominent platform to experts such as Baroness Cox who actually understand the threats that we all face in twenty-first century Britain.

Justice: Retributive or Restorative?

What is so wrong that the former Deputy Director of the National Crime Squad and head of Northern Ireland's anti-terrorist intelligence unit in Belfast believes that answers to the problem of paedophilia need to be found outside the criminal justice system? Quite clearly, having passed the best part of 400 acts of Parliament and in excess of 32,000 statutory instruments over the last ten years, part of the answer is this Government's unhealthy obsession with new legislation.

Yet, today's call by the chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), Jim Gamble, for child sex offenders to receive a police caution and be managed within the community, rather than sent to jail, also raises a number of fundamental questions about how we understand justice and the role of prisons.

At present, crime is treated as a violation of the state and its laws and justice seeks to establish blame and administer punishment. However, there are alternative models. Indeed, the long term use of incarceration as a method of legal punishment is a relatively modern idea, introduced in the late 18th century with the aim of improving prisoners through a mixture of work, discipline and personal reflection. As a friend pointed out to me over the bank holiday, the Old Testament legal system made no provision for prisons. Instead, crime was treated as a violation of people and their relationships and justice sought to identify who had been hurt and what could be done to make things right.

So, instead of simply asking, "Who is to blame?" and seeking retribution, perhaps we should also be asking, "Who has been hurt?" and seek restoration. A greater focus on responsibility and reconciliation, restitution and rehabilitation would certainly be cheaper for the victims of crime and innocent taxpayers, who presently pay £32,888 a year to accommodate each of the country's 80,000+ prisoners (almost one in six of whom come from abroad, costing us almost £400 million a year).