Us politics

Friday

Seth J. Frantzman

Christmas in the Holy Land is once again overshadowed by politics

Christmas in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth has, once again, been overshadowed by politics. The latest controversy surrounds Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The mayors of Bethlehem and Nazareth responded to Trump by toning down Christmas celebrations in a show of solidarity. Outside Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, the lights on the giant municipal Christmas tree were briefly dimmed in the run-up to Christmas in protest. In Nazareth, a traditional Christmas singing and dancing event was called off as a result of Trump’s remarks. In Jerusalem, the celebrations are also muted. There is little sign of Christmas events in the historic Old City, where Christ once walked

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

America has sometimes stood proudest at the UN when it has stood alone

Outvoted on a resolution on Israel, on the wrong side of international opinion, the United States ambassador responded with an intemperate address to the UN General Assembly. America’s diplomat told the countries assembled: ‘The United States rises to declare before the General Assembly of the United Nations, and before the world, that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act… A great evil has been loosed upon the world. The abomination of anti-Semitism… has been given the appearance of international sanction. The General Assembly today grants symbolic amnesty — and more — to the murderers of the six million European Jews.

Jacob Heilbrunn

The desperate struggle of the NeverTrump movement

‘We ex-communists are the only people on your side who know what it’s all about’, Arthur Koestler declared in The God That Failed, the volume of essays by lapsed communists that appeared in 1949, the year that the Soviet Union exploded an atomic bomb and China went communist. There’s a certain loftiness to Koestler’s statement that can be rather grating, as though the formal badge of entry to opposing the dark side requires having submitted to darkness in the first place. Indeed, at the outset of the cold war, the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, who never flirted with the left (unlike many of his British contemporaries) expressed his qualms that more

Thursday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Donald Trump desperately needs some outside help to save his presidency

Donald Trump made a big deal about his new National Security Strategy (NSS), touting a new era of stalwart vigilance when he delivered a speech earlier this week. His predecessors, he said, had frittered away American dominance. He, and he alone, as Trump likes to say, would restore it. Except, as his national security council spokesman Michael Anton, explained on Monday, when it came to the actual document: ‘I can’t say that he’s read every line and every word. He certainly had the document …and has been briefed on it.’ Hmmm. Give points to Anton for trying to put the best spin on matters without purveying any falsehoods. But presumably the

Wednesday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Donald Trump’s presidency now looks in danger of capsizing completely

It’s starting to look as though the historic mission of Donald Trump, who was a registered member of the Democratic party as late as 2009, is to revive American liberalism. On Tuesday night, Trump, who earlier in the day had tweeted ‘Roy Moore will always vote with us’, accomplished his most improbable feat since winning the presidency. He helped hand over a Senate seat in Alabama, sweet home Alabama, the reddest of red states, to the Democratic candidate Doug Jones, a supporter of abortion rights and stricter gun controls. And so there was no sweetness for Trump last night. Instead, he had to eat bitterness, as the Chinese saying has it. A

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

The Democrat victory in Alabama is a huge blow for Trump

These really are wild times in American politics. A Democrat, Doug Jones, just won the Senate Race in Alabama. A Democrat hasn’t won a Senate seat in the Heart of Dixie since 1992 – and that was Richard Shelby, who was so conservative he then became a Republican, and still is the senior GOP Senator for Alabama. The victory gives the Democrats a clean sweep in statewide elections in 2017. The party won the special elections in Virginia and New Jersey in November, and success in Alabama now gives them great momentum going into the mid-term elections of 2018. Trump can keep pointing at the economy and saying he is

Tuesday

Douglas Murray

Sadiq Khan should tell Trump the truth about multicultural London

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, likes to make a stand. Specifically he likes to present himself (and the city in which he has been elected Mayor) as an antidote to global concerns about immigration, human unpleasantness in general and Donald Trump in particular. For instance, on the BBC on Sunday morning he explained his opposition to President Trump receiving a state visit to the UK. Though he added: ‘If [Trump] wants to meet with the Mayor of London, of course I’d be happy to meet with him and show him parts of London where Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Sikhs, members of organised faiths and those that aren’t, don’t just

Thursday

Stephen Daisley

Donald Trump is right: Jerusalem is the capital of Israel

The Israelis are doing it again. That thing they do when someone, anyone, even a total nishtgutnick like Donald Trump, comes along and tosses them a few warm words. Their little hearts leap to be told that, on balance, all things being equal, they have a right to exist, perhaps even to defend themselves, and that calls for their destruction are jolly well not on. Recognition is a miser’s feast but Israel gorges on it like a banquet.   They are dining out on Donald Trump’s proclamation ‘that the United States recognises Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel and that the United States Embassy to Israel will be

Wednesday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Donald Trump’s presidency lurches from embarrassment to disaster

Here we go again. Donald Trump decertified the Iran nuclear deal in October. Now, in another audacious foray into Middle East diplomacy, Trump is waving goodbye to the waiver about moving the American embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It appears that the former real estate mogul will embark upon one last construction project. If he couldn’t build in Moscow, why not give Jerusalem a go? Overnight, an international Nimby crowd has formed to decry the move. The Palestinians are announcing that it’s the ‘kiss of death’ to any negotiations about a two-state solution. The Saudis have voiced their firm opposition. Theresa May thinks that ‘The status of Jerusalem should

Sylvia Rothschild

Trump’s Jerusalem decision may extinguish hope in the Middle East

Let’s face it, Jerusalem is politically, diplomatically and religiously special. It is important to the faith traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And it is important to the political aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians.  Generations of diplomats have kicked the issue of the status of Jerusalem into the long grass, deciding it to be so intractable it could only be dealt with at the very end of the peace process when all other problems were resolved. In November 1947, the United Nations agreed to divide Palestine into two states, one Arab, one Jewish, and designated Jerusalem as ‘corpus separatum’, an internationally administered separate territory. That plan did not last long.

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Donald Trump gives Israel a Hanukkah present to remember

It’s Hanukkah next week, and President Donald J Trump has decided to give the state of Israel a big present. He will today recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and it is understood that America will shortly move its embassy from Tel Aviv to the Holy City.  This is something that Israeli diplomats have long hoped for but did not think possible before President Trump entered the White House this year. His kindness will go down very well with most Israelis and supporters of Israel. However, the Arab world sees it as a deep affront.  Jared Kushner, the president’s 36 year old son-in-law, himself an Orthodox Jew, has been handling Middle

Saturday

Freddy Gray

Donald Trump’s tax cut has united the Republicans

President Donald J Trump likes nothing better than winning, and he has just had the first major legislative win of his presidency. An enormous $1.4 trillion tax cut has now been passed by the Senate. No Democrat voted for the bill, yet still it passed by 51 to 49 votes. This avoided the anticipated legislative deadlock that would have meant Vice President Mike Pence having to break a 50-50 tie. The bill will now be voted on in the House of Representatives on Monday, where the Republicans have a much larger majority. By getting his tax cut through Congress, Trump answers one of the most stinging critiques of his presidency

Robert Hardman

Should Donald Trump be invited to the Royal Wedding?

Two golden rules of royal weddings. First, it’s always wonderful on the day. Second, there is always an almighty official spat beforehand which no one saw coming. When Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer, there was a Spanish boycott because the honeymoon included Gibraltar. In 2011, Prince William’s marriage plans had a crisis moment when it turned out the guest list had included the Syrian ambassador but not ex-PMs Blair and Brown. We can already spot one sensitive issue. Should Donald Trump be invited? For: the bride is American. Against: she backed Hillary. In fact, Mr Trump is unlikely to be invited because he is not a friend and this

Friday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Now that Mueller has flipped Flynn, will he target Kushner next?

As I rode the metro to work this morning, an elderly gentleman holding a sign that read, `Manafort-Flynn. Who’s Next?’ boarded my car at the Judiciary Square stop. It’s a question the Trump administration may be pondering as well. Now that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has flipped former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty today to lying to the FBI, speculation is rife about whom he target next, with much of it centring on Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of the president. Thus Bloomberg’s Eli Lake reports that Kushner is being fingered as the person who ordered Flynn to create a backchannel to Russia. For now the administration

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Should Trump’s state visit go ahead?

Donald Trump’s January visit to Britain now looks to be in doubt following the furore over his tweets. Diplomats in the United States are said to have put the plans on ice, according to the Daily Telegraph. Good, says the Guardian in its editorial this morning: it’s time to ditch the state visit. Tump’s decision to retweet anti-Muslim videos shows ‘again that he panders to bigots and is no friend of this country’, the paper argues. Brexit already makes this a ‘dangerous’ moment for Britain, says the paper, which goes on to suggest that further allying ourselves to a ‘thuggish narcissist’ will hardly help matters. Theresa May was right to

Wednesday

Freddy Gray

By sharing jihadi porn, Donald Trump plays into the Islamists’ hands

Britain First hasn’t really taken off as a political movement in Britain, but it has caught the attention of the most powerful man on the planet. Today President Donald J Trump decided to brighten his and everyone else’s morning by retweeting three videos, posted by Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First, purporting to show Muslims doing horrible things. One is a video that shows a young thug – ‘a Muslim migrant’, according to Jayda – beating up a boy on crutches, the other shows a Muslim cleric smashing a statue of the Virgin Mary and saying Takbir, and another shows Isis-types throwing a boy from a roof and

Friday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Is the net closing in on Jared Kushner?

Is the net closing in on Jared Kushner? It is now being reported that Trump’s son-in-law received a ‘Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite’, which he also reportedly forwarded on. Both Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein are alleging that Kushner did not turn over several important documents to investigators despite numerous requests. If Kushner is engaging in these kind of shenanigans with special counsel Robert Mueller he will be in truly hot water. Kushner’s lawyer has said he was ‘open to responding to any additional requests’. Each day seems to bring a new story about the Trump campaign and Russia, whether it is Kushner or Donald

Sunday

Tina Brown

America has outrage overload

It’s remarkable how fast the unthinkable becomes the expected. It felt almost routine to pick up the New York Post last Sunday morning and see the front page mocked up as a wanted poster for Harvey Weinstein and the news that the NYPD is preparing to arrest him for alleged rape. Between the daily barrage of Trump’s lies and excesses and the sexual harassment tsunami, America has outrage overload. The result is that all the predations, political or sexual or both, come close to drowning each other out. Already Weinstein’s legal advocates are test-driving the theory that the Harvey ‘pile-on’ is really about Trump — that thwarted feminist fury at the serial

Monday

Steerpike

All you need is Kompromat! Did the New York Times fall for a great Trump-Russia hoax?

The big story that British journos are now desperate to break is ‘How Russia hacked Brexit’. Once that rolls out, Britain can be like America, where nobody knows if Vladimir Putin is their true master or just the bogeyman of a paranoid elite. But newspapers should be wary: Russia collusion stories can make the press look deeply silly. Mr Steerpike hears, for instance, that this summer the New York Times fell hook, line and sinker for a great Trump-Russia hoax in London. Apparently, an unknown source contacted the Gray Lady to say he had Russia-related kompromat material which could bring down the US President — but he had to give

Wednesday

Brendan O’Neill

New York now refuses to be terrorised

I am marvelling at the resilience of New York City. Yesterday afternoon a real monster visited Lower Manhattan, weaponising a truck in the foul Isis fashion to mow down scores of citizens, killing eight. Yet just a few hours later the streets of Manhattan were thronging with pretend monsters. With vampires, skeletons, witches, Leatherfaces and other fancy-dress freaks, blood-stained and drunk, acting at being menacing but really being merry, gathered in their thousands for the Halloween Parade. Where I watched them stream by, at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 14th St, there were hundreds of people pressed together, a heaving, happy crowd. They whooped and Instagrammed as floats with