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So far so good, as they used to say in Buenos Aires as we Nazis got off the submarines. But it ain’t necessarily so. Ten years ago I lunched at Highgrove in the presence of the Queen. It was the King of Greece’s 60th birthday, and our then boss Lord Black introduced me to Lord Janner, head of the Jewish community, as the ‘house Nazi’. Janner broke up and we talked about it. I left early to play cricket at Badminton, and when Harry Worcester asked me how I could arrive drunk for a match I told him I’d been drinking with the Queen but he didn’t believe me.
But on to Israel, the reason the poor little Greek boy is seen in some quarters as Himmler. Violations of human rights and international law can no longer be hidden behind claims of anti-Semitism and calls for solidarity against a false Iranian threat. It is time for Western leaders to put basic principles ahead of the demands of lobbyists and neoconservative propagandists. More important, past persecutions of the Jews cannot be a licence to subjugate another people, the Palestinians. Nor can the American promise to stick by Israel be a blank cheque for the Jewish state to undermine American aims. The US objective is a two-state peace. But every day, inch by inch, the physical space of Palestine is disappearing. Gaza is like a sardine can, and the West Bank a labyrinth laid out by crazed settlers convinced that the Palestinians are subhumans out to get them. And as far as negotiations are concerned, how can one negotiate when the map is changing day by day in Israel’s favour.
Gaza, needless to say, is an ongoing tragedy with no end in sight. The despair and suffering are there for everyone to see, while the deprivations and hardships resulting from the Israeli blockade are a blot on everything Israel was once supposed to represent. Eighty per cent of the Gazans live below the poverty line, and only receive the basic rations of rice and milk from UNRWA. Worse, the tragedy of Gaza is turning into a tolerated humanitarian crisis, a Netanyahu plan from the beginning, as far as I’m concerned. This is what drives me into an Orlando Furioso. The people doing this come to New York like conquering heroes, and swan around the West Mugabe-like, except that son-of-a-bitch is no longer welcome in European drawing rooms, whereas Netanyahu, Lieberman and co. are. The European Union simply has to increase the pressure on these thugs. It is ironic how many Jewish people are as appalled as I am at this ongoing human tragedy, but have been shouted down and called self-loathing Jews by neocons such as the Kristols, Podhoretzes and Perles of this world.
And all that the illegal and inhuman blockade has accomplished is to enrich Hamas and marginalise even further the voices of moderation. A Palestinian mother seeing her child wither away without food and medicine cries as bitterly as a Jewish mother once did in German concentration camps. Let’s not forget this while the lunatic fringe of Likud has taken over the propaganda air waves. There are medieval siege conditions imposed on the people of Gaza, yet we sit in our comfortable rooms flicking the channels and watching movies of the bad Germans overrunning Europe. It is time we woke up. In the manner of hundreds and thousands of Israeli Jews who gather weekly in Arab East Jerusalem to protest against the eviction of Palestinian families from homes they have lived in all their lives.
The lunatics have taken over the asylum may sound like a dull cliché, but in the case of the Israeli settlers, I can think of no better description. These fanatics have to be stopped, just as the Muslim holy warriors need to be, and I see absolutely no difference between them. I guess that is why the sweet little valley girl used to try to have me fired. She saw a difference between the two, whereas I do not.
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