Ignorance and anger drive the debate on Israel and Russia

WHY is politics like football? I have no idea. But it is. If you take one political position, you are automatically assumed to have joined a side, and so to have chosen all the other views that often go with that one. You either cheer for United, or you cheer for City. What if you like some things that United do, and some things that City do?

For example, take my strong dislike of Britain’s surrender to the IRA in 1998, now approaching its final outcome, the takeover of the whole island of Ireland by the ghastly Sinn Fein. If ever I state this, I am bombarded on social media by people who think I support the horrible ‘loyalist’ gangsters. Or they think I sympathise with discrimination against Catholics in Northern Ireland. I very much do not.

Or there is the current gory mess in the Middle East. You must either be a keen supporter of the Arab cause in Israel, which I am not. Or you must back the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, which I do not. This foul assault is not just indefensibly cruel to the innocent. It is also a giant political mistake, destroying what

remains of public support for Israel in much of the West. In this case there is a third view, which is, if anything, even worse than the other two. The official ‘moderate’ position is to support something called ‘the twostate solution’, perhaps the stupidest and most obviously disastrous plan for deadly chaos ever devised by a human mind.

This scheme would create a sovereign Arab state smack next to Israel, its capital, its most populous regions and its only international airport. Nothing would divide the two except a fence and a ploughed strip a few yards wide, impossible to patrol effectively and, of course, no barrier to rockets. What if such a state were taken over (which it very easily could be) by Hamas or some similar faction?

The revolting pogrom near Gaza last October is now alas largely forgotten, thanks to Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to flatten Gaza. But I remember it. And I would not advocate a ‘solution’ that made it not just possible but easy to repeat it, dozens of times a year.

And then, of course, there is the Ukraine war. When I suggest that America’s policy towards Russia over the past 30 years has been misguided and dangerous, I am immediately insulted with accusations that I am an agent of Moscow. Well, listen a moment. I have spent a lot of my life travelling in the areas now in dispute, from Jerusalem to Moscow and from Ukraine to Iraq. Yes, I have even visited Hamascontrolled Gaza. I have followed my travels with much reading, to answer the questions my journeys raised in my mind.

And I can tell you that foreign policy debates in this country now, especially when David Cameron is involved in them, are on a level that makes Toytown look sophisticated. It is a positive disadvantage, in these matters, to know anything about the issues involved or the places affected. If you like football, that is your misfortune and you have my sympathy. But please do not apply your crude ideas of ‘one side good, other side bad’ to foreign policy.