The Social World

Tag: Islam

  • Israel, you’ve gone too far

    Israel, you’ve gone too far

    If any other country in the Middle East had behaved as monstrously as Israel has in recent weeks, the jets would be lined up on our runways ready to do a bit of performative bombing. Never mind BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) and diplomatic pressure. I mention this because those of us who support Israel, and have done so largely uncritically since October 7 2023, need the scales to fall from our eyes a little – for the good of Israel, as well as the good of those starving Palestinians.

    I have been to Israel many times, as a journalist, as a holiday-maker, as a friend. I accept without demurral the argument that it is the region’s only democracy – and a liberal democracy at that – surrounded on all sides by authoritarian failed states which wish to see it wiped from the face of the Earth. I subscribe to the notion, too, that if Palestine got what Palestine wants – from the river to the sea and all that vainglorious spite – then they would turn one of the most remarkable countries in the world into a variant of Somalia within about six months (if that), no matter how much money its gullible white liberal well-wishers poured into the place. I have an absolute lack of respect for the impoverished Arab countries that are governed, in the main, by bloodthirsty and intellectually challenged religious maniacs, just as I have an absolute lack of respect for the rich Arab countries that were lucky enough to find a reservoir of oil in their sandpits and have created odious totalitarian slave states as a consequence.

    This may be unfair, but I have the distinct feeling that the Arab culture, when allied to Islam, makes for a uniquely toxic mindset; one fueled by absolutism, hatred and a disrespect for human life. I despise the feral savages of Hamas and was wholly in support of Israel’s incursion into Gaza, even if, at the time, I thought it might be more useful to begin by lobbing a few missiles at Tehran. Why not target the organ grinder rather than its imbecilic monkeys? Equally, I have a fierce loathing of the Keffiyeh Klan, the deluded legions of affluent western liberals who have embraced anti-Semitism with gusto and when asked to identify the sins of the world have only one answer.

    In short, I am instinctively, politically, morally and pragmatically on the side of Israel. I do not wish our country to recognize Palestine as a sovereign state (and my Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s decision to do so is a crass genuflection to his idiot backbenchers. Just what is it you are recognizing, you abject little man?). Nor do I think, pace Starmer, that Palestinians have “an inalienable right” to independent statehood. Just to press the point home, I believe that from the Maghreb to the Levant and then eastwards, over those vast dunes, into what was once much better off when it was called Persia, corrupt and vindictive regimes govern a corrupt and vindictive culture, one that is responsible for much of the misery in the world. Israel, then, is an oasis – which is why we cannot afford to allow it to pollute its own waters. And that seems very much like what it is doing right now.

    If you are already howling that I have swallowed Hamas propaganda, and that either it is Hamas who is stopping the aid getting through or that the far-from-starving Palestinians are tucking into three square meals per day, eggs Benedict, shrimp étouffée, bananas Foster and so on, then you are laboring under a delusion. If virtually every non-aligned observer in the world, including the President of the USA, believes that the people of Gaza are starving to death and Israel is primarily responsible, then that’s good enough for me, frankly.

    Of course Hamas has looted aid convoys and of course it lies to the press and the press is often far too quick to report what it says as being the truth. But that does not alter the fact that people – largely blameless people – are dying and that Israel is in large part to blame. Of course this conflict has, in the West, become hideously polarized and so it is all too easy simply to continue repeating the mantra that everybody is against Israel and one should believe only what one hears from the mouth of Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF press office. (Even in that case, Netanyahu accepts that there are several areas where assistance has not made it through.) But if you sign up to that credo, you are morally lost. We have to form opinions based upon the evidence that is put before us, not have them devolve from partisan loyalties, no matter how well-founded those loyalties might be.

    It has to be said that the United Nations should be held primarily responsible for the partisan nature of the debate. Supposedly neutral, it has vilified Israel at every turn, just as in the past 20 years it has entertained resolution after resolution condemning Israel while ignoring every other transgression which occurs anywhere else on Earth. It came as no surprise to discover that Hamas terrorists were actively involved in UN programs. As soon as that was revealed, the awful secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, should have resigned. Meanwhile, we should take our leave of an organization which cleaves to the palpably stupid view that the wrongs of the world are the consequence of colonialism, except when those wrongs are committed by Israel. It is very far from being a force for good. Instead, it has become a force for disseminating demonstrably absurd post-Marxist delusions.

    I do not have a solution to the crisis. Frankly, Donald Trump’s idea of turning the Gaza Strip into a kind of Las Vegas, except with falafel in place of T-bone steak, has much to commend it, but that simulacrum of Sodom should not be built over the bodies of dead children. We support Israel because of its erudition and its strength but most of all because it has decency. Had decency. Please let it get that decency back.

  • Trump unleashes the evangelists

    Trump unleashes the evangelists

    The Trump administration issued a memo Monday saying that federal workers are openly allowed to express religious beliefs in the workplace “to the greatest extent possible unless such expression would impose an undue hardship on business operations.” This means that they can display Bibles, religious artwork and items “such as crosses, crucifixes and mezuzah,” among other religious symbols.

    But that’s not all. Workers are also allowed to talk about how their own faith is “correct” and how others should “re-think” their beliefs. “During a break, an employee may engage another in polite discussion of why his faith is correct and why the nonadherent should re-think his religious beliefs. However, if the nonadherent requests such attempts to stop, the employee should honor the request,” says the memo. “An employee may invite another to worship at her church despite being belonging to a different faith.”

    On the one hand, freedom of worship is a fundamental pillar of the US Constitution, alongside freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom do what you want, any old time. But let’s also be clear what this is really about. Hint: It’s not Scientology.

    Despite the mention of “mezuzah,” this order isn’t about Judaism, either. If Jews proselytized in the workplace, or anywhere, there would be a lot more of us in the world, and the kinds of Jews who do seek converts generally aren’t working in federal office buildings. Maybe the administration’s definition of “highly-qualified employees of faith” include Hindu and Muslim employees, but they would be a distinct minority. Mormons love converting people, but they have a well-oiled youth-preaching machine already in place. You’re not going to be hearing, “Hello, my name is Elder Undersecretary at the Department of Agriculture, and I am here to tell you about the most amazing book.” 

    No, this is a purely evangelical Christian play, to go along with a recent White House order about anti-Christian bias in the government, a problem that, institutionally, simply doesn’t exist. Many of the US’s early settlers were Christian dissidents. We’re a place where all different faiths can live in peace. That’s because religious tolerance is baked into the founding documents. But so is separation of church and state, which this memorandum takes a major step toward eroding. There is already a preponderance of Christians in the nation, and, we can assume, in the government. Why do they need to talk about their religious beliefs at work?

    Without a doubt, this memorandum is all part of a larger push about spreading the good news. How, precisely, do you define the “break” during which an employee is entitled to discuss these matters? Is it a lunch break? A coffee break? A bathroom break? Are emboldened, federally employed Promise Keepers going to start sliding pamphlets under the bathroom stall or handing them out in the lunch line? The memo allows uninterested parties to reject the offerings but also allows for the faithful to keep the full-court press going.

    Religion should be a private affair, or at least a family and neighborhood affair. It doesn’t belong in the workplace, unless that workplace is a house of worship or at least a business affiliated with a denomination. The idea that Christians are a persecuted class in the USA is absurd. This isn’t Syria or Lebanon. There are as many churches lining our highways as there are self-storage units and combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bells.

    In his first term, Trump largely kept the evangelical portion of his base at bay. But he’s much more in tune with their needs and interests since the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. He truly believes God saved his life that day. And, who knows? Maybe God did. When he bombed Iran, Trump wanted to thank everyone, “but, in particular, God.”

    That was Trump’s basically harmless way of adding a little juice to “God bless America.” But if God is really blessing America, we don’t need people telling us that at work. It should be implied. Instead, federal employees, whether they want to or not, are going to have to hear that He Is Risen, even if they’re only trying to grab a snack from the vending machine.