Peter C Glover's WIRES (from the UK)

Why British academics and others are in the vanguard of anti-semitic culture wars against Israel needs some explanation.

Those of us that have despaired at the descent of British elitism into leftwing cant and woolly-liberalism need no explanation, but I figured others might. Hence my piece 'Explaining the Anti-Israel Culture War of the British Elites' - and especially the fact that it is NOT a British grassroots movement - published in the monthly edition of New English Review - go here.

Each night as the anti-Israel Western media persists in blaming Israel for causing the impoverishment of Gaza, we could do with the actual facts.

First, it is worth remembering that the Palestinians have been offered EVERYTHING they want from Israel to create a Palestinian state - except the land of Israel itself (pre-1967 borders). Voting in a terrorist government hasn't proved a good deal for the people of Gaza, howeve - and, quite rightly, there's a price to pay for it. 

Having legitimized a terrorist government (that demands the destruction of Israel) the Gazan Palestinians have succeeded in denying themselves access to the billions of dollars that could quickly come their way, after British Gas discovered 1.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas off the coast of Gaza (not to mention the $4 billion in international being held so Hamas doesn't spend it on weapons).

The above titled piece by me is published here over at Energy Tribune. And a different version, written by meself and Michael Economides is published here at TCS Daily entitled "Fuelling Controversy". For the record, the latter version was also published here at Global Politician, too.

I awoke this morning to yet more climate alarmist drivel from the BBC. Anyone listening to Radio 4 Today Programme (why do we do it?) would have been 'treated' to the information that a recent 'computer modelled study' (i.e. the same computers that can't get next weeks weather right) 'predict' temperatures in the UK may rise by 2 degrees average by 2050.(Note the get-out clase 'may', of course.)

Of course, anyone with even half a brain (and no one's ever accused me of not having that!) should recognise these reports for the non-news bilge that they actuallyare. The BBC, of course, not understanding these days what is and what is not news reports it. 

In any event, this morning's nonsense BBC report happens to coincide with my latest article Lies, 'Damned Lies and BBC Climate Reports' published over at American Thinker this morning. That piece focuses on the whole subject of how BBC 'science' and 'environment' reporters ought to be be the first led into the public square for ritual humiliation when the reality of that its actually getting cooler finally dawns.

Finally, a high profile official at the International Atomic Energy Agency has said what some of us have been saying for years, i.e. that it wants superpower status (to match its ideological pretensions) and a nuclear bomb is the only way it is going to get it. Here's what the DG of the IAEA said:

"It is my gut feeling that Iran would like to have the technology to enable it to have nuclear weapons," Mr ElBaradei, director general of the IAEA, told the BBC's Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen.

"They want to send a message to their neighbours, to the rest of the world, don't mess with us.

"But the ultimate aim of Iran, as I understand it, is they want to be recognised as a major power in the Middle East.

But here's the problem for the rest of us. A nuclear device in the hands of a democratic nation (like Israel, say) is one thing, but in the hands of the mad mullahs who foment terror around the globe in th ename of Islamism, is something else.  First of all, Khomeni would be calling in Israel's mortgage policy big-time. So Israel can't allow it.

More broadly, the Iranian nuclear threat is a direct threat to us all. We have heard much lately about what a Taliban controlled nuclear Pakistan would mean. Well Iranian Mullahs with nukes - and a similar ideology to the Taliban, is almost on us.

The only 'fly' in the current ointment is this: how long should Israel and the West wait to see if the current post-election turmoil in Iran can actually unseat the current regime before acting?

So Jimmy Carter - by common consent probably one of the worst US presidents of all time - doesn't like what he sees in Gaza'. So tell Hamas/Gazans to recognise Israel and, hey presto, literally billions of dollars would be released to a new Palestinian state!

That's at least $4 billion from natural gas revenues (held up by the political stand-off - I have an article about to be published on this) that will come to the Palestinians - and another $4 billion in aid money (held because Gazans elected terrorists into government). Easy, isn't it.

Sadly, what Carter 'saw' was the results of a country that VOTED for a terrorist government, 'exports' 8,000 rockets to its neighbours cross-border communities (on the run up to the Israeli incursion in January) and still, after 3 years, refuses to release Gilat Shalit, the abducted Israeli army corporal.

But the fact is, if Hamas Gazans really wanted their own state they would recognise Israel's right to exist tomorrow. The fact is they don't recognise Israel and so are not interested in a state that doesn't include the land of Israel. Carter can see Gaza anyway he wants, but until the issue of recognition is dealt with first all else is just hot air.

With well over half the Iranian population under the age of 30 it was bound to happen sometime. Having lived all their lives under the yoke of brutal Sharia and, via the Net, seen what life can be like in the free West it is no surprise the people, especially young, in Iran would prefer democracy to a theocracy. 

We should not be naive, though their recent election was obviously rigged Muosavi (who only won by a handful of votes in his own region - a region he dominates politically) is a practising Muslim who believes in Sharia. He may be a 'reformist' but he isn't a true democrat. Having said that, I think for many among the youth the election debacle was the final straw.

It may, inadvertently, have a lit a counter-revolutionary zeal that may prove difficult to extinguish. Let us hope so.

Bur for how long, under Obama? There's been a lot of disquiet among Israelis and Jews - and rightly so - about Obama's recent Cairo speech. Why so? Because the speech effectively cited Israel as the major impediment to peace because of the West Bank settlements. (NB. Why? Isn't Israel happy to allow Palestinian settlements inside Israel).

When he first came to office Obama saw the Israeli incursion into Gaza as the major impediment to peace. When Israel withdrew however nothing changed on the Palestinian side. Whenever Obama speaks on the subject of peace he constantly refers back to the Holocaust as the historical reason for a 'Jewish homeland'. In other words, his understanding of history only goes back that far on this subject. He has no other historic understanding to call on, historical or biblical.

In the Cairo speech Obama made no demands of the Palestinian Authority - the same group that authorizes the demonisation of Israel and Jews in its schools, its media and in every other way - not to mention thousands of Hamas rockets. There's a thread to Obama's 'leaning on Israel' that shows he believes that if Israel could just do 'this or that' peace would come - soemthing all recent history shows to be distinctly untrue. Obama should try understanding that the civil war between Islamist Hamas and Fatah along with ingrained cultural Palestinian anti-semitism might just have something to do with it.

There's an excellent op-ed piece from Judea Pearl (the father of Daniel Pearl, murdered by Islamists) in today's Wall Street Journal that puts Jewish disquiet into perspective. Here's a taster:

The hoped-for reciprocal sentence -- "It is time for Palestinian incitements to stop" -- was conspicuously absent. Commentaries on Israeli TV noted disappointedly that not a single demand was addressed to the Palestinian Authority.

This has left many Israelis wondering if the Obama administration is aware of the fierce, subterranean "battle of intentions" that has prevented the peace process from moving forward. In Israel, even the harshest opponent of the settlement movement would not support the emergence of a sovereign neighbor, rocket range away, that is unwilling to invest in education for a lasting peace.

Go here for the rest.

James Purnell - exponent of the 'you have to get behind someone to stab them in the back' school of politicsThey say you have to get behind someone to stab them in the back. While I have no time for Gordon Brown as PM, I equally have no time for backstabbers like James Purnell. Brown, after all, gave him Purnell his real leg-up in politics.

That aside, the resignation of a third Cabinet Minister surely signals the beginning of the end for this appalling Labour Government. Just as pertinent, however, is that the power of the press - ailing as it is through its own lack of integrity - will be responsible for its demise. The Daily Telegraph's campaign over MPs expenses is undoubtedly the straw that broke the nation's patience for Gordon and co. even though the scandal affects all parties. But it happened on Labour's watch and seems to affected their MPs more.

But before my fellow conservatives leap about at this victory for the 'Tory' press they would do well to take into account the Telegraph's increasingly non-conservative stance on various issues, stemming back to when the Barclay Brothers took over and required it to be 'less conservative'. Note the exit of Mark Steyn, a rock solid and consistent conservative thinker. Note its failure to become 'out of the EU' in the face of all the EU fraud scandals ands evidence of the EU's lack of democracy. Chris Booker aside, note its woolly liberal columnists.

Two cheers for the Telegraph if it does prove instrumental in bringing down this government. But as regards the Telegraph itself, being anti-Labour when it leaves a legacy of debt this country has never seen before is one thing, being coherently conservative is something else entirely.

Today the UK goes to the polls to vote for its MEPs. Like most Brits these days I know how hard it is to vote for anyone given that we have become largely disenfranchised by all three major parties on the key issues that matter to the people, including: Europe (we need to get out), illegal immigration (we need to regain control of our borders), Islamization and multiculturalism (which attacks our Judeo-Christian beqeathed 'British' values) et al. None of the major 3 parties has policies that represent the majority of the Brits on these issues.

But above all, we must get out of the suffocating, economy-bleeding, fraud-ridden, anti-democratic European Union. If, at the end of the day, you cannot make your own laws and are beholden to an outside power than ALL the rest - including the current MPs expenses scandal - is frippery.

I am a conservative - that is, a real one not the Cameron Conservative variety - and I cannot with good conscience vote for a Conservative Party that has lost its way (though it is on a roll toward winning the next election) and still, against all the evidence, insists on belonging to the EU. Its absurd position in demanding a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty BUT NOT ON EU MEMBERSHIP per se reflects a lack of both understanding and leadership.

A protest vote is clearly called for on many counts at today's polls. The Labour Government is in for a mauling as we already know. But contrary to the ridiculous editorial in the Telegraph a few days ago, it is a real opportunity to send a powerful message to Cameron and co (as well as the rest) on Europe by voting for the only viable party with a clear 'out of Europe' message: the UKIP (United Kingdom Independent Party).

I am well aware of the problems they have had. I am also well aware that some consider it a 'wasted vote'. But the MEP election is a real opportunity to 'do the right thing' and send a strong message about what is central here - and that is Europe and EU membership.

Here's what matters above all else: If you can no longer rule yourself, then you have nothing. The BP are indeed a bunch of racists so that's not an option for thinking conservatives. The UKIP are a clear alternative.

Footnote: I'm reading a biography of Harold II (an English hero of mine) and his defeat at Hastings in 1066. If Harold's men had obeyed his orders and remained atop Senlac Hill instead of foolishly breaking ranks to chase down a Norman military 'feint' the English would indeed have held the line and ultimately won. It was that close. And Harold would have saved England from the somewhat barbarous and exploitative regime of the foreign usurper William the Bastard (so called for many good reasons) imposed on a fair-minded people that he hated. 

As regards the growing domination of Brussels, we need to hold a similar line on 'Senlac Hill' today. 'Little Englander' be blowed. Protecting national integrity and democratic rights - just as Harold was doing - is what really matters.

If you have't got a copy yet of Marta Anreasen's new book 'Brussels Laid Bare' rush online here/out and get one.

Here is a brave woman taken on as Chief Accountant of the EU to sort out its grotesque culture of fraud and waste who when she tried to do her job was pilloried for failing to join its 'rotten heart' culture. It is a riveting, short read and begs the question why aren't UK politicians fighting to get Britain out of this truly wicked 'evil' empire (read it, you'll see I do not exagerate one bit) that we are subsidizing. 

As Marta says in her intro: "Possibly no other case than mine has shown better how easily a bureaucracy ... can become a tyranny."

Pursuant to the passing comment in the previous blog about the 'obtuseness' of the Brussels Journal...

Regular readers of this blog will know that I write almost exculisvely for US (and Canadian) publications. There's a reason for that. It is because contacting most British editors and the British media is tantamount to communicating with monkeys through the bars at the zoo. They are clueless to what is real news and what needs to be said. Like our politicians, British editors (and most British journalists) just don't 'get it' (e.g. the dislocation between the 'will of the people' and the multicultural, liberal elitist agenda of the politicians and PC mass media.

They both scratch their heads wondering why people aren't interested in politics or voting as if it a big mystery. It's actually very simple. If no one speaks for you on key issues - say, as with all 3 main parties wanting to stay inside the blatantly corrupt, anti-democratic EU - the only thing left is a protest vote or not voting.

I have looked with deep envy across the Atlantic to the marvellous infrastructure of the conservative movement. Numerous think-tanks, funded publications, Fox News, coherent arguments and a lack of fear in speaking out et al - in contrast to the dishevelled, diffuse, incoherence of the British conservative movement. But then, while Cameron Conservatism rules (a kind of fuzzy pseduo-conservative liberal, focus-group-led, hotch-potch of beliefs) it is hard to see anything changing.

I have done my bit to try to bring some strands together. I have met with a 'conservative' millionaire in a backstreet Mayfair club putting forward an idea for a new, non-liberal UK news agency & online magazine (we still don't have anything to match American Thinker, New English Review, Canada Free Press et al). I have put forward ideas to bring coherence to British conservatism. I have written to groups like Brussels Journal, Standpoint magazine with feature ideas, the CPS on policy. I considered standing as a UKIP rep. and wrote a number of times to their head office. All to no avail. Didn't get a single reply from one of them. So I no longer bother, and get what I hope are logically argued, well-reasoned pieces published abroad instead. It seems America is more open to solid argument than Britain.

If my wife would let me, I would be on the plane to the last bastion of Western Christendom tomorrow. For the United States - Obama's Europeanization aside - is where the torch of 'Englishness' (and its sense of freedom and fair play) still burns, albeit less brightly.

God help us in the EU's Britain. Not because of what we have become/are becoming. But because most of the nation is either ignorant of, or has has resigned itself to, its plight. At the last general election remember, England voted conservative. We are today run by a Scot who hardly anyone voted for and who believes in 'Europe' and multiculturalism.

Try asking yourself: now how the hell did that ever happen?

A superb piece at the excellent Brussels Journal this morning by A. Millar (why does the Brussels Journal make itself so obtuse in knowing who does what? Who is Mr Millar - you try finding out).

Miller identifies the UK parliamentary attack on Britishness - more pertinently, in my view, Englishness - its programme of Islamicization and the general political 'out-of-touchness' that infects our increasingly undemocratic system.  Worth reading. Go here.

Just about everyone in the West who believes 'two-states' will prove to be a solution for Israel and palestine have their heads in a very 'dark place'. It's a non-starter and here's why (excerpt from above titled piece from me published today over at the Canada Free Press and, under a slightly different title, at American Chronicle).

In 2007 a Pew Global Attitudes Project reported that 77% of Palestinians claimed they could not live side-by-side with Israel. In May 2009, a new poll declares that most Palestinians (58 percent) want a unity government. But, as the result of the 2006 election made only too clear, majority grassroots Palestinian opinion—the will of the people—supports the Hamas’ Islamist agenda that demands the destruction of the state of Israel. Obama and other democratic Western leaders can cover their ears and continue in denial all they want, but, as Mark Twain once said, “The people have spoken—the bastards.”

Published today at American Thinker this is actually part from me of the (below) Alice in Wonderland World of the Greens.

This piece moves on to focus on how the wishful thinking of green solutions is tranlsating into rushed, poor government policy. The banning of incandescent light-bulbs is a scandal when you consider all the hidden costs...and then there's the idiocy of pushing us to buy allegedly green cars  that also have enormous hidden costs .

Go here for the full article.

Published simultaneously at American Thinker and Energy Tribune today (and written by myself and my colleague Professor Economides) the above title gives an overview of the unreal world in which the average 'Green' exists today. Here's a taster:

An irrational fear of “climate apocalypse” has driven nature-worshipping green ideologues in every age generation. Being inherently anti-capitalist they care little whether their demands threaten to bankrupt modern economies, or deny poorer nations the same hydrocarbon-powered path out of poverty taken by developed nations. For Green World, preposterous self-righteous claims are morally self-evident, Real World facts and reason mere irrelevancies. “The adventures first,” said the Gryphon to Alice, “explanations take such as long time.”

Of course, according to Messrs Gore and Hansen, the BBC, Guardian and NYT, this ludicrously impossible economic and environmental cost is the the price we must pay to save our planet. We've done the maths, however. If that's the case boys, it'll just have to go down the tubes. I wonder if the government will let us trade it in under their new, taxpayer subsidised, scrappage scheme?

This is only part 1 by the way. Watch this space for part 2 shortly.