Israel

An article in an Iranian state-controlled newspaper has claimed that the Jews are spreading gays. According to Mashregh News the ‘Zionist regime’ (with the help of the US and UK) is deliberately spreading homosexuality to pursue Zionism’s real goal of world domination. Quite how you can dominate the world through gays, I don’t know. It’s true that the very hard to spell Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir became the world’s first openly lesbian head of state in Iceland a few years ago. And only last year Elio Di Rupo became the first gay Prime Minister of Belgium. But if Israel is in fact the force behind this then it seems to me one

The same problem keeps occurring for the megaphones of Iranian propaganda in the West: they keep being let down by their own side.  Every time another op-ed appears in the Guardian or Nation arguing that Iran isn’t seeking a nuclear device (and even if was it would never use it, and even though it doesn’t want a nuke and wouldn’t use it if it did, it does still at least have the ‘right’ to one) another Iranian official or one of their proxies lets slip the truth. The latest person to let the side down is the Hezbollah MP Walid Sakariya.  The MP for the Iranian Revolutionary government’s party in

My fellow Spectator blogger Douglas Murray wrote a powerful post yesterday. Like him, I was disturbed by the way the Bulgarian bus-bombing and the Manchester terror trial were treated in the media. You won’t hear me say this very often, but I don’t think Douglas has gone far enough. For once, I think even he has pulled his punches. ‘What links these two events across a continent?’ he asks. ‘The answer is ideology. It is an ideology which deliberately targets Jews as Jews.’ I know what Douglas means: that there is a deeply entrenched anti-Semitism at the heart of the politics of extremist Islamism which strips its victims of humanity.

The war with Iran has already been raging for many months. So far, Western powers have largely confined themselves to covert operations designed to thwart Tehran’s nuclear aspirations. However, the bombing of a bus carrying Israeli tourists in Bulgaria on Wednesday marks a dramatic escalation in hostilities. In the past, western intelligence agencies have assassinated and kidnapped Iranian nuclear scientists, at one stage picking off a different target every few months. Not only did this hinder Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons, but it was also deeply embarrassing to the regime because of the sophistication with which attacks were being conducted right under its nose. Further embarrassment occurred in late 2010

The journalist Tom Gross notes a story that you may have missed.  One hundred and twenty families in Gaza have lost their homes. ‘Ma’an and other Palestinian news agencies report that the Hamas government in Gaza has renewed its policy of demolishing the homes of Palestinian families in order to seize land for government use. 120 families are to lose their homes in the latest round of demolitions – a far greater number than the number of illegally built Palestinian homes Israel has demolished in recent years – and unlike Israeli authorities, Hamas doesn’t even claim these homes were built illegally or with dangerous structures. Yet western media and human

Don’t expect Cairo to become Kabul now that the Muslim Brotherhood’s presidential candidate, Mohammed Mursi, has been sworn into power earlier today. There are real fears, of course, about the future of Egypt under an Islamist president and it’s foolish to whitewash Mursi as either moderate or benign. The Muslim Brotherhood is a deeply reactionary and dangerous group, but Mursi will find it extremely difficult to implement the more radical aspects of his agenda.   Officially, the Brotherhood has said it will respect all existing treaties – a subtle attempt to placate fears about Egypt’s future relations with Israel. Yet, when Mursi’s candidature was announced one of the clerics invited

Will they or won’t they? Most political parlour games involve a question of this kind and the one about whether Israel will strike Iran – played out regularly in Washington, London and Paris – is no exception. The last couple of days have seen more sabre-rattling than before. Israeli Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon, who heads the Strategic Affairs Ministry, and is a former commander of the Israeli military, said all of Iran’s nuclear installations are vulnerable to military strikes while the US defence secretary was quoted as saying he thought Israel was likely to bomb Iran within months. They may or may not, but it is unlikely they will communicate

An Israeli strike on Iran has to be the most over-predicted event of recent years. It was meant to happen last year. And the year before that. But now there are reasons why 2012 could, indeed, be the year when Israel will find it propitious to take overt military action against Iran’s nuclear programme. (Everyone assumes that a range of covert activities, from assassinations to cyber attacks, are already ongoing). The Iranian government is moving closer to having the requisite capabilities, and can reasonably be expected to take the final steps towards nuclearisation. What better way for Tehran to distract attention from their burgeoning problems — including sanctions, economic hardship,

While the Palestinian bid for membership at the United Nations moved closer to rejection, it turned out that Palestine has a veto over which UN agencies the United States funds. For after Palestine gained admission to UNESCO, the US administration followed through on its threats and cut the organisation’s funding. As UNESCO is based on assessed contributions from member-states, others cannot make up the short-fall. The Palestinian Authority is now considering making applications to the WHO, WIPO and the International Telecommunications Union – technocratic bodies that actually play a large in role. For example, the WHO is crucial for dealing with global pandemics like SARS and Swine Flue. So while

There are many questions arising from the prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas, not least whether it opens the door to a more lasting deal in future. But one question that deserves more attention than it will get, and ought to concern European policymakers, is where international aid is going. Take this little snippet from Reuters: “Palestinians freed by Israel in a trade for soldier Gilad Shalit took their morning exercise on Wednesday around a luxury swimming pool overlooking the Mediterranean, instead of circling the prison yard as they have done for long years inside. There was none of the usual breakfast-room free-for-all at Gaza’s 4-star Al-Mashtal beach front hotel. The