World

Saturday

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

The cultural appropriation of the keffiyeh

I’ve never been sorry that I left education at 17, armed with nothing but my raw talent and splendid rack. The conformity and unworldliness which you need to have if you want to basically stay at school till you’re 21 are things I despise students for – and haven’t these character traits had a lovely outing during the current ugly outbreak of campus Jew-hatred? Jews have never been popular at universities; the phrase ‘too clever for their own good’ might have been invented for them, with a world population of 0.2 per cent taking a whopping 22 per cent of Nobel prizes. The mediocre spawn of the ruling class once

Nadim Koteich

The Arab world still wants peace with Israel

As Israeli forces continue to pound Gaza in retaliation for Hamas’s atrocity, and TV images of dying civilian Palestinians flood the airwaves, some are worried that regional peace with Israel is dead. Such talk makes militants, from Tehran to Gaza, proud. They hope war will bring an end to Israel’s ‘normalisation’ and detente with Saudi Arabia, and halt the ground-breaking Abraham Accords. The reality, however, is more complex. It’s too soon to write off Arab-Israeli peace efforts – even amid the carnage of Gaza. Before 7 October, the buds of peace were quietly sprouting, because it was in the interests of both sides, Arab and Israeli, for this to happen.

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

French Jews live in fear of the far left

One of the most shocking images in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in 2001 was the sight of Palestinians dancing in the street. Who would have known the murder of 3,000 Americans would elicit such delight? A larger number of Palestinians were on the streets of the West Bank in January 2015 following the slaughter of the staff of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Their angry placards and bellicose chants weren’t condemning the two Islamist gunmen who had committed the crime but the fact that the same magazine had, in defiance of the terrible attack, published a caricature of the Prophet in its next issue. ‘France is the

Friday

Nicholas Sheppard

The worst Noel? Why Kiwis are turning against wealthy foreigners

Wealthy foreigners are flocking to New Zealand, but not all Kiwis are happy about their arrival: not least locals who are fed up with their neighbour, Noel Edmonds, of Deal or No Deal and Mr Blobby fame.  Edmonds moved last year with his wife to a small village called Ngātīmoti, in the Tasman region of New Zealand’s South Island. The couple purchased a vineyard and cafe called Dunbar Estates, which they set about adapting into a pleasant English enclave called River Haven, complete with restaurant, general store, and a traditional English pub called the Bugger Inn. The Bugger Inn offers a ‘Dickens Cider’. Edmonds reckons this is ‘Kiwi humour,’ but some locals

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Hamas’s victim complex

‘We are the victims… therefore nobody should blame us for the things we do.’ Who do you think said this? Some blue-haired campus activist who’s convinced they’re suffering from structural oppression? A trans campaigner, perhaps, who thinks being misgendered is an act of violence? Maybe some other social justice type who feels victimised by everything from statues of old colonialists to un-PC jokes? Actually it was Ghazi Hamad, a leading figure in Hamas. Yes, Hamas is now the armed wing of the culture of victimhood. The genocidal army of the cloying politics of self-pity. One headline paraphrased his comments as follows: ‘We are victims – everything we do is justified.’ If anyone

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Oleksiy Arestovych is no friend of Ukraine

The debate over the necessity of Ukraine’s presidential elections is creating chaos in a nation at war. The ceasefire among Ukrainian politicians is crumbling as some of them start to chase votes. Oleksiy Arestovych, a scandal-hit former adviser to the head of the presidential office, has called Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator and announced he will run for office in the next presidential election, whenever it happens. Arestovych now wants to surrender Ukraine’s occupied territories to Russia Arestovych, 47, was one of the most famous members of Zelensky’s team and gained popularity at the beginning of the full-scale invasion. He was the calm voice on TV that conveyed simple messages and

Mosab Abu Toha

The smell of flesh is everywhere: A dispatch from Gaza

When the bombs fell, I was at home. My family has been staying at the Jabalia refugee camp, in northern Gaza, since 12 October. On Tuesday, Israel targeted the camp. The explosions were about 70 metres away from my house. One bomb landed; there was a two-second pause; and then more bombs hit. I couldn’t move my eyes from looking at the ceiling because I was expecting a missile to fall on us. I ran into the street and saw the most horrible massacre and destruction my eyes have ever seen. I tried to help but the shock crippled me. Since Jabalia was first bombed, there has been a strange

Dalibor Rohac

The unfortunate reality about US support for Ukraine

Pranked by a Kremlin-friendly comedy duo, Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, spoke for many when she confessed her ‘fatigue’ with the war in Ukraine. But there is some bad news for all the Europeans ‘tired’ of the conflict. Europe’s real job will only begin when the current war of attrition eventually congeals along more or less static lines, with or without a formal armistice.  The task ahead will not only involve physical reconstruction, budget support, or bringing Ukraine closer to EU membership. Much more importantly, it will involve guaranteeing the stability of whatever formal or informal settlement arises from the war.  The prospect of a sizeable US deployment in post-war Ukraine

Thursday

Angus Colwell

Kamala Harris doesn’t get AI

At least Kamala Harris managed to avoid the dreaded phrase that we should ‘harness AI’s ‘potential’. But that was just about the only blessing in the Vice President’s impressively rubbish speech yesterday at the US embassy in London. Artificial intelligence, it is generally agreed, is the most important issue facing humanity, yet all we had was 14 minutes of waffle from the Veep. Still, it was nice of her to turn up. Joe Biden has put Harris in charge of artificial intelligence. You can read that one of two ways: either Biden thinks that Kamala Harris is perfectly suited to grappling with the gravest existential threat, or that he thinks this

Jawad Iqbal

How does releasing mice in McDonald’s help Palestinians?

It is hard to know what to make of the sheer mindless stupidity of some people who claim to support the cause of Palestinians in the Israel-Gaza conflict. Boxes of live rodents have now been released at a number of McDonald’s restaurants, apparently as part of pro-Palestinian protests. One incident took place on Monday in Birmingham. Video footage widely shared on social media shows a man wearing a Palestinian flag on his head, carrying a box filled with mice from the boot of his car and into the McDonald’s branch in the Star City leisure complex. He tips the mice — painted the colours of the Palestinian flag — on

Wednesday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Is this where world war three starts?

Daugavpils You can tell quite a bit about a place by the number of national flags on display. One or two on public buildings here and there is a healthy genuflection to a moderate and comfortable patriotism. But groups of the same national flag every five paces, on every building and festooning the parks and boulevards – well, there’s something going on, isn’t there? You’re in a place where trouble is surely just around the corner, a place where the national authorities may not feel entirely secure. What sort of trouble? Well, one wouldn’t want to be over-dramatic, obvs, but in this particular case, world war three. The Russian invasion

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Gaza deaths, Covid chaos and looting in Mexico

Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, chaired a Cobra emergency committee meeting on the effects in Britain of Israel’s war against Hamas: his spokesman described videos and pictures on social media at the weekend as ‘extremely concerning’. A large pro-Palestine demonstration had again been held in London. Andy McDonald MP had the Labour whip suspended after using the phrase ‘between the river to the sea’ during the march. Paul Bristow MP was sacked as a Conservative parliamentary private secretary for calling for a ceasefire. A tornado tore the roof off a house in Littlehampton, West Sussex. Plans to close ticket offices at railway stations were cancelled. The government granted 27

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Kamala Harris’s brain-dead AI plan

Try to think of leading names in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Kamala Harris is probably not the first that springs to mind. The woman can barely talk. But she is Vice President of the United States of America and as such she’s in London, about to give a speech ahead of Rishi Sunak’s big AI summit. Brace yourselves. Harris’s speeches often sound as if they had been scripted by an early or pre-intelligent incarnation of ChatGPT. But as sentient beings we can safely predict her gist. The advent of Artificial Intelligence brings many opportunities, Harris will say, but the technology must be carefully controlled to ensure it doesn’t become

Hugh Lovatt

Why Israel’s attempt to wipe out Hamas will not succeed

After three weeks of airstrikes, Israel has begun its ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. The goal, in the words of the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, is to ‘wipe them [Hamas] off the face of the Earth’. But without a long-term political vision, this objective is unachievable. Even if Israel deals a powerful blow against Hamas, the country risks becoming trapped in a long and costly war that will cause a dangerous blowback across the Middle East.  The whole region could easily spiral out of control, potentially directly dragging in the US and Iran For now, Israel is concentrating on northern Gaza – which it sees as Hamas’s beating heart.

Douglas Murray

It’s time to cut our ties with Qatar

A friend of mine was recently doing business with the Qataris. Nothing strange there: a lot of people have in recent years. But of course Qatar is one of the main funders – and the main international host – of the terrorist group Hamas. The Gulf state has form in the area. In the decade before the Taliban seized back – or were gifted – Afghanistan, they had a lovely office in the safety of Qatar. Because while the Qataris would hate an Afghan situation in their own fiefdom, they are happy to play the role of supporting such extremists elsewhere. The UK is arguably not just flush with Qatari

Paul Wood

Can the killing of innocent civilians ever be justified?

Israel has made the first, rather tentative, moves of its ground operation against Hamas – but there’s nothing tentative about its aerial bombing. Here’s a report of one incident: at 4.30 p.m. on 10 October, an explosion collapsed a six-storey building in Sheikh Radwan, a district of Gaza City, killing, it was said, at least 40 civilians. One man, Mahmoud Ashour, had to dig through the rubble with his bare hands to find his family. Buried there were his daughter and her four children, a girl aged eight and three boys of six, two, and six months. They had fled there thinking it would be safer than other parts of Gaza.

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

What did Hamas think was going to happen?

Much misfortune the woebegone couldn’t have seen coming: a raging fire in the house next door that spreads to yours. The invention of some kooky technology called ‘the internet’ that puts your travel agency out of business. Yet other calamities are foreseeable. If you suddenly stop filing tax returns without a good excuse – like, dying – it’s a virtual certainty that the all-seeing computer will come after you. So when compounding fees and interest leave you skint, our sympathies are apt to be scant. What did you think was going to happen? Or to up the moral ante: if you slaughter 18 innocents in a frenzy for no apparent

Jim Lawley

Can Spain’s monarchy survive?

‘We, who are as good as you, swear to you, who are no better than us, to accept you as our king and sovereign lord, provided you observe all our laws and liberties; but if not, not.’ This famous oath of allegiance, sworn hundreds of years ago by the noblemen of Aragon in northern Spain to their king, also neatly expresses the transactional attitude of many contemporary Spaniards to their monarchy. They were willing to accept the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty as part of the post-Franco democratic settlement provided the king deserved their loyalty – but if not, not. And for many, the alleged misdemeanours (personal and financial) of ex-King Juan Carlos mean

Sean Rayment

An Israeli ceasefire would be a major strategic error

It would be a major strategic error for Israel to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza, as some are calling for now. Any let up in air and ground attacks would simply allow Hamas to regroup, rearm and replenish its depleted ranks with new recruits ready and willing to kill women, children and babies the next time the opportunity arises. Israel’s approach should not just be viewed through the prism of rage or revenge for the atrocity which left 1,500 Israelis dead three weeks ago. The military operation in Gaza is designed to degrade Hamas’s military capability to such an extent that it will take years to recover. The primary

Tuesday

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Why Putin thinks war with Ukraine is like the Israel-Palestine conflict

Who is to blame for the shocking pogrom in the Dagestani city of Makhachkala, where a mob of hundreds stormed the local airport in search of Jews on a flight from Tel Aviv? Vladimir Putin has offered a predictable answer: the West. In a meeting with Russia’s security council and law enforcement agencies, president Putin said the actions of the anti-Semitic mob in Dagestan were ‘inspired through social media, including originating from Ukraine, created at the hands of agents of Western intelligence services’.  Putin is trying to present his invasion as an existential fight against encroaching Western influence Putin then went further, suggesting that the US could also be blamed for war in