In the telegraph today Boris Johnson argues eloquently about the moralities of killing children/civilians in war. Forget the stuff about Mel Gibson (the famous presenter of that well known documentary "Braveheart" and his struggle to come to terms with his support for the Iraq war, here are the good bits:
Of course anti-Americanism wins votes, especially if, like Jack Straw, you have a seat with a lot of Muslims. But show me how it works, this proposed spanking new "independent" British policy on Israel? Presumably we join France and Germany in their vapourings. Presumably we join the European Commission in encouraging the pouring of further squillions down the gullets of the brutal and corrupt Palestinian government.
Then what? Then nothing. The real problem in the region is not Israel, but what it represents to the Islamicists who surround it. The difference between Israel and her neighbours is that Israel is a capitalist democracy, with all the freedom and tawdriness that entails. They don't give a monkey's in Teheran about the fate of the poor Palestinians. Israel incarnates everything the mullahs hate, not least the spectacle of liberated womanhood that they find so appalling and so shamingly tempting.
Israel provides a focus for the resentment of a Muslim civilisation that finds itself materially and intellectually humiliated by the achievements of America and the West. Indeed, Israel provides a convenient proxy target for people in this country who loathe the Yo-Blair way America bosses us around, and who resent our enclitic status: not so much the parrot on America's shoulder as the monkey in the pocket of an organ-grinder who is himself controlled by a vast Zionist conspiracy.
Well, let me remind Mel and all his secret British sympathisers of two last differences between Israel and the Islamicists. Whatever the hideous shambles of the past few days, it is still true, in principle, that when Israeli rockets kill civilians, they have missed their targets, and that when Hizbollah rockets kill civilians, they have scored a deliberate hit.
That is a moral difference that needs to be dinned into the skull of every saloon-bar strategist currently denouncing Israel. Finally, Mel, if you want to get wasted on tequilas and sheilas, you're much better off in Tel Aviv than Teheran.
Boris Johnson is MP for Henley
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/m...ixopinion.html
DA in "Going for 100 postings thread" mode
Of course anti-Americanism wins votes, especially if, like Jack Straw, you have a seat with a lot of Muslims. But show me how it works, this proposed spanking new "independent" British policy on Israel? Presumably we join France and Germany in their vapourings. Presumably we join the European Commission in encouraging the pouring of further squillions down the gullets of the brutal and corrupt Palestinian government.
Then what? Then nothing. The real problem in the region is not Israel, but what it represents to the Islamicists who surround it. The difference between Israel and her neighbours is that Israel is a capitalist democracy, with all the freedom and tawdriness that entails. They don't give a monkey's in Teheran about the fate of the poor Palestinians. Israel incarnates everything the mullahs hate, not least the spectacle of liberated womanhood that they find so appalling and so shamingly tempting.
Israel provides a focus for the resentment of a Muslim civilisation that finds itself materially and intellectually humiliated by the achievements of America and the West. Indeed, Israel provides a convenient proxy target for people in this country who loathe the Yo-Blair way America bosses us around, and who resent our enclitic status: not so much the parrot on America's shoulder as the monkey in the pocket of an organ-grinder who is himself controlled by a vast Zionist conspiracy.
Well, let me remind Mel and all his secret British sympathisers of two last differences between Israel and the Islamicists. Whatever the hideous shambles of the past few days, it is still true, in principle, that when Israeli rockets kill civilians, they have missed their targets, and that when Hizbollah rockets kill civilians, they have scored a deliberate hit.
That is a moral difference that needs to be dinned into the skull of every saloon-bar strategist currently denouncing Israel. Finally, Mel, if you want to get wasted on tequilas and sheilas, you're much better off in Tel Aviv than Teheran.
Boris Johnson is MP for Henley
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/m...ixopinion.html
DA in "Going for 100 postings thread" mode
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