Way of the World Michael Deacon

All over the Western world, armies of Left-wing students are marching in support of Palestine. Touching though it is to see the young taking an interest in politics, I find the ferocity of their passion somewhat curious. Not because these Western students live thousands of miles from Palestine. But because many of them seem to know next to nothing about it.

This week, Ron E Hassner – a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley – carried out a survey of students from across the US, to gauge the depth of their knowledge. First the students were asked whether they endorsed the controversial pro-Palestine chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Those who said they did endorse it were then asked to name the river and the sea in question.

Remarkably, less than half of them could do so.

The correct answers are the Jordan and the Mediterranean. Yet 53 per cent of these crusaders for Palestinian rights didn’t know this. Some thought the river was the Nile. And even more incredibly, some thought the sea was the Caribbean.

A fascinating thought. Because, if Palestine stretches from the Nile to the Caribbean, that means it encompasses most of Africa, and indeed the

West Indies. Which means that the students are calling for all non-Palestinian inhabitants of Africa and the West Indies to leave, so that the Palestinian people can at last reclaim their rightful territory.

Logically, in fact, the Atlantic ocean must be Palestinian, too. In which case, all the fish in it are settler colonialists. They, therefore, must also leave, so that the Palestinian people may swim peacefully once again in their rightful waters.

The most important point, though, is that if Palestine stretches from the Nile to the Caribbean, its territory does not include Israel. Which means the Israelis can keep it.

There’s been a peculiar twist in the never-ending row over trans rights. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – the New York congresswoman and darling of the millennial Left – argued this week that trans women must be permitted to compete in women’s sports. Otherwise, she said, all competitors would have to undergo “genital examinations”, so that organisers could check that they were biologically female.

I find this a puzzling claim. Ms Ocasio-Cortez is suggesting that it’s impossible to tell whether someone is male or female unless they’re naked. If this is indeed what she thinks, I have just one question for her.

When she first met her fiancé, a web developer named Riley Roberts, how did she know he was a man?

Most of us would probably consider his large ginger beard to be something of a giveaway. But not, presumably, Ms Ocasio-Cortez. Since she finds it impossible to tell the difference between a fully clothed man and a woman, she must have been utterly flummoxed. Indeed, she must have remained in ignorance until the two of them first went to bed together. Prior to that point, I wonder how she introduced him to her friends. “Hey everyone, this is Riley, my new girlfriend or boyfriend.”

Perhaps this is the reason why young people no longer wait until marriage before sleeping with each other. It’s because they simply have no way of knowing whether their date is male or female until they’ve carried out a genital examination.

Three years ago, John Kampfner – a British journalist who writes

regularly for The Guardian

– published a book entitled Why the Germans Do it Better: Notes from a

Grown-Up Country. Essentially, it was about the innumerable ways in which Germany is superior to poor old Brexit Britain.

It now seems, however, that life in Germany isn’t quite as blissful as we thought. Because, according to a new poll, the Germans are the second most miserable people in the EU. In the latest annual “happiness rankings” by the EU’s own statistics agency, only Bulgarians are more dissatisfied with their lives than the Germans.

Frustratingly, the poll doesn’t reveal why the Germans have grown so glum. It may be to do with their stagnant economy, or unrest over immigration. I, however, have an alternative theory. They’re bored.

According to a report in yesterday’s

Telegraph, a mayor in Germany has been accused of paying a civil servant a total of £300,000 to do nothing. Literally nothing. Investigators allege that, in five years’ employment on an annual salary of £60,000, the civil servant did not a single jot of work.

If this is what modern Germany is really like, it doesn’t just blow apart the German reputation for efficiency. It also explains why Germans are so depressed. Sitting around in an office doing nothing for five years, anyone would lose their zest for life.

In Britain, as it happens, we appear to have the opposite problem. Civil servants at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are currently demanding the right to work only four days a week, because they find a five-day week too gruelling.

The solution is obvious. British civil servants should all move to Germany, where they won’t have to do any work at all. German civil servants, meanwhile, should all move to Britain, to stop them feeling so bored.