Epidem-ideology: how political dogma affected the response to Covid-19

According to an opinion poll published on 15 March by NBC/Wall Street Journal

I just looked up the data: worldwide, the number of deaths caused by Covid-19 is fast approaching 100,000.  It will probably run past that heart-breaking milestone, by the time I finish writing this.

Italy is (still) the country most affected: with a population of 60 million, it registered more than 18,000 Coronavirus deaths – that’s 300 per million inhabitants.  Italians have already spent weeks in lockdown.  The Italian economy – not very healthy to start with – is in intensive care and may never completely recover.

South Korea has a somewhat smaller population: 51 million.  But its death toll currently stands at just 208 – 4 deaths per million inhabitants.

Why this huge difference – no less than two orders of magnitude in mortality rates?  I could tell you that there are many reasons, that they are complex, that we are studying them carefully…  But I’m not a politician and – even more so under the current circumstances – am disinclined to muddy the waters.

We find a hint about the reasons for the Italian-Korean disparity in a recent interview with Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.  Asked whether his government’s response had not been ‘too little, too late’, Mr. Conte doubled down:

"We have a completely different system to China. For us to severely limit constitutional freedoms was a critical decision that we had to consider very carefully.  If I had suggested a lockdown or limits on constitutional rights at the start, when there were the first clusters, people would have taken me for a madman."

Mr. Conte is probably right: some people, perhaps many people, would have taken him for a power-grabbing madman, had he imposed “limits on constitutional rights” too early in the process.  But then, isn’t this what a leader is expected to do – make unpopular, but timely and efficacious decisions in an emergency?  Spot the iceberg ahead before it becomes obvious to the naked eye – and veer hard to avoid it, even if it rocks the boat and nauseates the passengers?  Otherwise, Mr. Conte, nobody needs you: let’s have governance by opinion poll!

The cruel, brutal, heart-wrenching irony is that Giuseppe Conte has not protected constitutional rights: his government ended up imposing a tougher, longer and more painful lockdown than the South Koreans ever experienced.  In the process, he trampled the most important constitutional right of all: the right to live.

In South Korea, legislation allows the government – in times of emergency only – to access essential information, such as the telemeter data from mobile phones, the location of credit card transactions, etc.  Some may see it as a ‘Big Brother’ invasion of privacy.  But that information is collected anyway – in the databanks of telecom companies and financial firms.  And access to it is crucial to containing the pandemics, by locating and isolating early people who came in contact with already identified virus carriers.  In Israel, there is even an app for that: one can register on that app and check for him/herself whether they have been in the immediate proximity of a known virus carrier.

Of course, this does not provide full-proof (or even fool-proof) protection; it does not kill the infection – but it prevents it from killing too many people.  Would you suspend for a while – just for a while – your oh-so-dear right to perfect privacy, if you knew it may save one life?  Or 10?  Or thousands?  I know I would!

Of course, I know the dangers: ‘it’s a slippery slope…’, ‘once there’s a precedent…’, ‘ give them one finger…’, etc. etc.  But hey: as Mr. Conte said, we do not live in China.  We are lucky enough to live in countries with a tradition of democracy, with governments that are elected and accountable.  The risks are there, yes, but so are the solutions; we can deal with those risks after we save those old and vulnerable (or just unlucky) among us.  Denying ourselves the means to save people’s lives in an emergency, just because those means may be misused later?  That’s like not calling armed officers during a terrorist attack – to pre-empt the risk of future police brutality against peaceful protesters.

But it’s not just about accessing data – there is more misplaced ideological ballast that should have been thrown overboard, once that iceberg first appeared onto the radar screens.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and
President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.
No, they do not congratulate each other for their response to Covid-19. 

For a certain tinge of politicians, political activists and just loud-mouthed scatter-brains, ‘freedom of movement’ has morphed from a desideratum to be considered and adopted where beneficial – into the be-all and end-all of ‘progressiveness’ and political correctness.  To the point where they now see it as an immovable principle – circumstances be damned.

As early as 24 January 2020, France had identified three cases of Covid-19 on its territory – all three imported from China.  A month later, Italy had announced its third Covid-19 death.  Yet on 29 February, as the infection was expanding like fire in a pile of dead wood, the pompously named – but poorly led – World Health Organisation was issuing the following ‘wise’ recommendation:

“WHO continues to advise against the application of travel or trade restrictions to countries experiencing COVID-19 outbreaks.”

Needless to say, the European Union bureaucrats were only too happy to comply with – and reinforce – that mind-boggling advice.  As late as 2 March 2020, as no less than 66 countries were reporting Covid-19 cases, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control was serenely assessing:

“The risk of acquiring the disease for people from the EU/EEA and the UK travelling/resident in areas with no cases, or multiple imported cases, or limited local transmission, is currently considered low to moderate.”

In blissful accordance with the EU ‘multilateral’ and legalistic approach, ECDC also advised that

“Travel and trade restrictions during a public health event of international concern (PHEIC) are regulated under the International Health Regulations (IHR), part III.”

Well, this is what ‘the experts’ said, but what about the politicians?  The ones elected to keep us all safe?  The captains charged with steering us away from death and misery?

On 22 January 2020, the annual World Economic Forum was taking place, as usual, in the beautiful, tranquil ski resort of Davos.  Defying that tranquility, some experts chose that posh gathering of international figures to ring the alarm bells about a strange pandemic that was already devastating Wuhan.  A former US disease control czar named Dr. Richard Hatchett was among the first to spot the approaching iceberg:

“China was unfortunate in that that’s where the epidemic started, but it is now a global problem.”

Few of the politicians paid attention.  The newly-elected (appointed?) European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen did not even mention the pandemics in her hour-long speech.  The address was, instead, laden with all the formulaic niceties politicians use when they have nothing particularly interesting to say.

Of course, European politicians are not stupid enough to rely on EU Commission’s clairvoyance at the best of times – let alone when flying excrement hits the proverbial fan.  Give it a bit of strain (let alone a global pandemic) and the ‘Union’ dis-unites into national governments driven by the good ol’ ‘each man for himself’ attitude.

So on 31 January, the Italian government banned flights to and from China.  Of course, to describe this as ‘closing the stable door after the horse has bolted’ would be charitable.  In fact, while people could no longer fly directly from Beijing to Milan, they could still fly there via Berlin, Paris or Vienna; they could even drive or train it across the beautiful Alps – and the Schengen Area’s non-borders.  No, this was definitely a case of closing the door of a stable that had no walls.  If you, dear reader, think that this is particularly stupid… well… I can’t really blame you.  But then, you must remember that the Italian prime minister’s main concern was not keeping his people healthy – but keeping them from doubting his own mental health.  He needed to accomplish that difficult task – while also being seen as ‘doing something’.

On 25 February, a gaggle of European health ministers met in… Rome.  Where they sagely decided that imposing a travel ban within the EU would be “disproportionate and ineffective”.

It’s not that the EU Commission was oblivious; no, they were widely awake to the danger posed by Covid-19… to Africa’s weak healthcare facilities.  On 13 February, they attended a presentation by World Health Organisation officials, who warned that the entire African continent had only two laboratories able to test for Coronavirus.  Consequently, on 24 February, EU commissioners announced a donation of €114 million to WHO and €15 million earmarked for African lab facilities.  An ample Commission delegation flew to Addis Ababa on 26 February, for a series of meetings with African Union officials.  (The only thing that the European Union and the African Union have in common is the word ‘Union’; but hey: it’s such a powerful word!)

At the time (and still today) Africa was the least affected continent.  No, not because of the abundance of testing labs and ventilators – far from it; just because… most Africans don’t travel that much, and not that many people travel to Africa.

Why, then, you may ask – the focus on Africa?  Well, it’s just another instance of ideological – rather than logical – decision-making: a large part of the European political class is constantly on the look for ‘weak and oppressed’ to save; even when they don’t particularly need saving.  That admirable attitude comes with quite a pinch of racism: Africans are seen as the eternal victims, the world’s quintessential ‘weak and oppressed’.  It’s the new ‘white man’s burden’; but also a well-tried way for a ‘privileged white person’ to feel good about him/herself.

And it’s not just career politicians – the same frame of mind has infected the layer of professional political activists who like to – rather pompously – refer to themselves as ‘civil society’ or ‘human rights organisations’.  By the beginning of April, the number of Covid-19 deaths in the UK was edging towards 3,000; the country had already spent a week under lockdown.  An even tougher (and earlier) lockdown had been declared in Israel, where there were already dozens of deaths.

Yet two ‘pro-Israel’ outfits decided to convene a (virtual, because of the lockdown) ‘emergency briefing’ on… the dire Coronavirus situation in the Gaza Strip (which, ironically thanks to the Israeli-Egyptian blockade, had 9 already isolated cases and – fortunately – no deaths).  I read their advert twice, to make sure this was no April Fools joke.

It wasn’t – it was dead serious.  Yachad UK and New Israel Fund UK had entrusted the ‘emergency briefing’ to a couple of ‘civil society’ representatives from Israel and Gaza, chaired by Donald Mcintyre – a journalist/political activist with The Independent with a history of very harsh anti-Israel ‘criticism’.  Mr. Mcintyre had also in the past blamed the failures of British foreign policy (revoltingly pro-Israel in his opinion) on “Jewish party donors”.  But hey: why should valiant builders of the ‘New Israel’ disqualify someone for chairing their briefing, merely because he is suspect of harbouring antisemitic prejudice?

Anyway, I was interested to learn from that most absorbing briefing that, according to international law, Israel is responsible for everything that happens (or might happen, or could conceivably happen) in Gaza.  I must admit that my knowledge of international law cannot compete with the expertise of those civil society luminaries.  Still, I was wondering how exactly was Israel supposed to discharge that clear responsibility – given that any Israeli who ventures onto the Strip is imprisoned – if not immediately killed?

By the way, I tend to focus on the failures of European leaders and ‘civil society’ simply because I happen to live in what is – only arguably by now – Europe.

Not that the US administration – which comes from a rather different ideological neck of the woods – did much better.  Trump started by dismissing the whole thing as leftist exaggeration – if not outright fake news designed to hurt the great American economy and his own chances of re-election as President.  After all, no sensible virus would take on the might of the United States – now would it?  

But, by 12 March, with South-Western Europe claiming a rather inglorious leadership in Coronavirus pandemics, the US imposed a 30-day travel ban on the entire European Schengen Area.  With hindsight, this was a modest and very, very belated step in the right direction.  But one that immediately attracted the bitter ire of European freedom-of-movement ideologues.  Indeed, EU officials condemned the new Trumpian heresy in the strongest terms.  A prominent Belgian MEP (from the Green Party) called Trump’s decision “irresponsible”.  A physician by training, she delivered that sage verdict in a TV studio, while sitting face-to-face with her interviewer.  Then she turned her attention to more burning issues: the (harsh, in her opinion) EU asylum policy; and the bloc’s far-from-sufficient cuts in carbon emissions.

But only 5 days later (17 March) the EU chiefs were imposing a ban on travel into the Schengen Area.  By then, however, they were just desperately trying to board a train that was already moving away – as several Schengen countries had already re-instituted border checks…

On 23 March, Italy reported 602 Coronavirus deaths in just 24 hours; the total number had exceeded 6,000.  On the same day, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borell announced that the bloc would send €20 million in humanitarian aid to I… no, not I-taly, but I-ran!  Which had just announced 127 new deaths in 24 hours, bringing the official count to 1,812.

No doubt, the Italian prime minister (whose mental sanity must by now be well-established with his co-nationals) had that little Iran detail in mind when he bitterly declared, in a recent interview, that the “European project” might fail over its response to the pandemic.  But I’m positive Mr. Borell will reassure him that it’s nothing personal: helping Iran, rather than Italy, is just deep-seated EU ideological impulse.

As for myself, I'd like to reassure Mr. Giuseppe Conte that he is not alone: I, too, am most concerned about our “constitutional rights”.  I think we have the right to be led by people endowed with leadership qualities and a sense of civic responsibility.  We have the right to demand that those leaders (politicians, civil servants and ‘experts’) wean themselves from the intoxicating political dogma; that they check their ideological baggage in at the gate – before they start making decisions about our life and death.  Because, if they keep betraying their oaths of office; if they get it wrong by placing ideology before epidemiology – I say we have the right to demand a reckoning.

Is Corbyn an antisemite?

I’m only stating the obvious: freedom of speech is arguably the very basis of democracy. The right to speak one’s mind freely is a fundamental human right.

Sounds like a cliché, doesn’t it?  That’s because these concepts are so often used, misused and abused in modern political discourse.  We are so often bashed on the head with the term ‘human rights’ (often by dictators for whom the term has no real meaning) that we’ve come to accept it without question.  In fact, not everything we feel entitled to do is a ‘human right’; and even when it is, that does not mean that such right is unconstrained.

Our unquestioned human right ends where it impinges on another human right.  At that point, the two clashing rights need to be balanced; which is just another way of saying they need to be curtailed.

Freedom of speech is no different.  A fundamental right it may be, but it is far from absolute.  In fact, it is strictly curtailed, even in a democracy.  Because words have consequences.  In fact, words can kill.  The Talmud sages put that observation in a statement that loosely translates as

"Life and death by the power of the tongue."

In modern political thought, the textbook example is shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre.  That ‘freedom’ is prohibited, because the ensuing stampede impinges on the right to live – and to live free of bodily harm.  For the same reason, incitement to violence (and not just the violence itself) is proscribed.

But the line is not drawn at bodily harm.  UK statutes outlaw speech that stirs up racial hatred (the so-called ‘hate speech’), even when the words did not actually result in violence.  That’s in recognition of the fact that not just people’s body needs to be protected, but also their spirit and dignity.  This is also why the UK has laws against defamation.

In both cases (hate speech and defamation), the law does not require proof of intent.  It is not concerned with the motivations behind the act, but with its (potential) consequences.

***

Having established that, let us now go to the (by now famous) fact that the UK Labour Party, while ostensibly agreeing with the Definition of Antisemitism published by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), has deliberately not adopted the part which describes as antisemitic

"Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis."

Instead, Labour’s ruling body (the National Executive Committee – NEC) has introduced in its Code of Conduct the following statement:

"Discourse about international politics often employs metaphors drawn from examples of historic misconduct.  It is not antisemitism to criticise the conduct or policies of the Israeli state by reference to such examples unless there is evidence of antisemitic intent.  Chakrabarti [inquiry into antisemitism] recommended that Labour members should resist the use of Hitler, Nazi and Holocaust metaphors, distortions and comparisons in debates about Israel-Palestine in particular.  In this sensitive area, such language carries a strong risk of being regarded as prejudicial or grossly detrimental to the Party within Clause 2.I.8."

Contrary to what some Party spokespersons claim, the Labour Code of Conduct’s statement does not ‘expand’ the Definition – at least not in this respect; in fact, it clearly contradicts the Definition: where the IHRA Definition declares the Israeli-Nazi analogy a “[c]ontemporary example of antisemitism in public life”, the Code of Conduct says that “[i]t is not antisemitism […] unless there is evidence of antisemitic intent”.  That’s not saying much: surely anything is antisemitism if there is evidence of antisemitic intent.  But I struggle to understand what such evidence would be and how it could be obtained.  And why would the Labour Code suddenly become concerned with intent, rather than the consequences of the act?

So, is the Israel-Nazi analogy (or “metaphor”, as the Code of Conduct so poetically calls it) antisemitism, or is it not?

To avoid being accused of circular logic, I will deliberately not rely on the IHRA Definition.  Instead, I will use a definition of antisemitism proclaimed not by a supporter, but by a critic of the IHRA Definition. Former Court of Appeal judge Stephen Sedley defined antisemitism as follows:

"Shorn of philosophical and political refinements, anti-Semitism is hostility towards Jews as Jews. Where it manifests itself in discriminatory acts or inflammatory speech it is generally illegal, lying beyond the bounds of freedom of speech and of action."

Sedley, who is currently a Visiting Professor at Oxford University, is right to distinguish between immoral prejudice (“hostility”) and illegal acts, such as discrimination and hate speech.  But the fact that the former is allowed by law (i.e. it is within “the bounds of freedom of speech”) does not mean that it is acceptable.  Antisemitism is racism; profoundly immoral and therefore abhorrent.  If I were to use the ‘n-word’, I would not be imprisoned; but I would rightly be called a racist by every person of good character.

Neither the IHRA Definition, nor the Labour Code of Conduct deal with criminal offences; they are concerned with ethics, not law.

On the other hand, it is clear that in Professor Sedley’s view, discrimination and hate speech (whether they reach the legal threshold or not) are manifestations of antisemitism.  And therefore, they are in themselves evidence of antisemitism.

Those who insist that drawing the analogy is not antisemitic do so based on the assertion that Israel does similar things to those perpetrated by the Nazis.  For instance, Israel ‘occupies’ – and so did the Nazis; Israel ‘kills’ – and so did the Nazis; Israel ‘discriminates’, Israel ‘ethnically cleanses’, etc.

UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn compared the Israeli blockade of Gaza Strip with the Nazi sieges of Stalingrad and Leningrad, which killed millions of people.

Let us move away from the debate of whether Israel actually does those things and whether some or all of them are justified in the circumstances.  Such debate would not only be endless, but also irrelevant.  Personally, I do believe that many of the accusations against Israel are at best distortions and at worst amount to hate speech.  However, that’s not my point here; my point is that, even if everything that Corbyn claims Israel does were true, the Nazi analogy would still constitute antisemitism – because it is employed in an incendiary and discriminatory fashion.

Because what is clear is that Israel is hardly the only country that perpetrates those things.  There are many territories that are ‘occupied’; more Palestinians have been killed by other Arabs than by Israel; extensive ethnical cleansing occurred in ex-Yugoslavia, Cyprus and in many other conflicts, etc.  Not one thing that Israel did and does is really unique; similar (and much worse) acts have been committed by other nations.

Yet the Nazi analogy is almost never employed in relation to other nations.  EU member state Croatia has an incontestable history of collaboration with the Nazi regime that far exceeds even Ken Livingston’s most outrageous accusations against ‘the Zionists’.  The establishment of modern Croatia involved war and the forced expulsion or flight of most of the Serbian population of that territory.  Yet Croatia is not accused of ‘behaving like the Nazis’ – not by Corbyn and not with his support, anyway.

In practice, Israel is the only entity against which that particular analogy is so often and so vigorously deployed.  It is hardly ever used with regard to Assad (who has butchered hundreds of thousands of people, including using chemical and incendiary weapons); or even with regard to Islamic State – a supremacist ‘Caliphate’ with global ambitions, guilty of exterminating entire populations.

Whatever one chooses to accuse Israel of ‘committing’ – the fact of discrimination remains: Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters are more exercised about Israel than about any other topic in international politics – bar none; and the Nazi analogy is the obvious expression of that unparalleled hostility.

Why Nazis, though?  Of course, Nazis are themselves a “metaphor” of ultimate evil.  But it’s more than that.  It is not by chance that the event that Jeremy Corbyn facilitated in 2010 in the Houses of Parliament took place on Holocaust Memorial Day; it is not by chance that Jeremy Corbyn and his best mate John McDonnell also wanted to take out the term ‘Holocaust’ from the ‘Holocaust Memorial Day’.  This is not ‘just’ about the Nazis in 1930s – it’s of course about the Holocaust.  The Israel-Nazi analogy is employed not despite, but because Jews were the Nazis’ quintessential victims.  Israelis are compared to Nazis because they are Jews.

This has two subliminal motivations:

Firstly, for antisemites, the Holocaust has always been the ultimate reproach, the pointing finger exclaiming ‘this is what you did!’ and causing some nagging feelings of guilt.  The Israel-Nazi analogy is an attempt to push back against that guilt.  If Jews (or at least ‘some Jews’) can be shown to be ‘just like the Nazis’, then there is less of a reason to feel bad for harbouring feelings of hostility against them.

Secondly, the accusation of ‘behaving just like Nazis’ is likely to be more painful for Jews than for anyone else.  Being called a Nazi is a grave insult for any normal person; but for Jews, who lost a third of their number to Nazi crimes, it is devastating.  Arguably no other accusation can be equally shocking for a Jew.  Those who use that particular analogy do so knowing that it causes the ultimate, most unbearable type of pain and distress.

***

Jeremy Corbyn is an antisemite; the Labour Party – with its current membership – is riddled with antisemites, including at its highest levels; the Code of Conduct condones antisemitic prejudice, even while paying lip service to anti-racism.

But it’s more than that: the Israel-Nazi analogy is not ‘just’ antisemitism; it is in fact Holocaust inversion – the ultimate, most pernicious form of Holocaust denial.  It does not deny that the Holocaust actually happened; but, by pretending that the victims can just as well be the perpetrators, it robs it of any moral significance; it kicks the Holocaust into the swamp of moral relativism, there to sink among other ordinary (and debatable) historical episodes.  Changing the name of the Memorial Day is part of the same pattern: the Holocaust thus becomes just a (non-particular) genocide in an ocean of genocides.

Jackie Walker (a devoted Corbyn friend and supporter)
claims that the Jews were responsible for the
Atlantic slave trade and for the ‘African holocaust’.

All this is not ‘just’ an attack on Israel, or an assault on Jews’ connection to the Jewish state; it is not even an ‘intellectual’ pogrom à la Bruno Bauer or Karl Marx.  No, it’s more than that: it is an attack on what it means to be Jewish in the 21 century; an onslaught upon the very soul of the Jewish people.

Football and other forms of ‘progressive’ colonialism

Two European (and global) football powerhouses clashed recently in Sankt Petersburg.  France ultimately beat Belgium 1-0, through a goal scored in the 51^st minute by Samuel Umtiti.  But many would argue that the star of the match was another French player, 20-years-old Kylian Mbappé.  Kylian was born in Paris, but both his parents hail from Africa – and both are talented sportsmen in their own right: his Algerian mother is a former handball player; his father originates from Cameroon and is a football coach.  Cameroon, by the way, is also the birth place of French goal-scorer Umtiti.  The country’s national squad, unfortunately, failed to qualify for this year’s World Cup.

Kylian Mbappé's mother was a talented handball player inconservative
Morocco, where women rarely get a chance to shine.

Most spectators would agree that among the best Belgian players were Marouane Fellaini and Nacer Chadli – both born in Belgium to Moroccan parents.  A third Belgian player – Romelu Lukaku – is often cited as the national squad’s star player.  He was also born in Belgium, but to parents who had migrated from Zaire.  All three hail from ‘sportsy’ families; there’s clearly a strong component of ‘nature’ in the ‘nature + nurture’ mix that produced these outstanding footballers.

They are not the only ones.  Another Belgian player (Carrasco) has a Portuguese father and a Spanish mother; Vincent Kompany’s parents are Congolese; Kevin De Bruyne’s mother was born in Burundi…

On the French side, Lucas Hernández was born to a Spanish father; Antoine Griezmann – to a German father and a Portuguese mother.  Besides Umtiti and Mbappé, at least three other French players are of African descent: N'Golo Kanté’s parents from Mali; Paul Pogba’s from Guinea; and Blaise Matuidi’s from Angola and Congo.

These are interesting observations, especially at a time when migration to ‘the rich world’ (or indeed ‘the free world’ or ‘the safe world’) is becoming a top political issue in Europe and North America.

The footballers mentioned above are living proof that migration can be a success story – and that its effect on the host country can be very positive.  Indeed, without those talented players, it is doubtful that France and Belgium would be as strong as they are.

There is, however, a dark side to this success – one that pro-migration ideologues pretend not to see: France and Belgium’s gain is also the loss of countries like Morocco, Cameroon, Zaire, Congo, Mali, Angola and Burundi – all of them former European colonies.  And all of them able to field much poorer football national teams, compared to their former colonisers.  Only one of the list of African countries above – Morocco – qualified for the World Cup; and even Morocco was forced to pack their bags early, after two defeats and a draw in the groups stage.

No, this is not Samuel Umtiti; they are Cameroon's children -- those that
didn't make it to Europe.

It’s not just football players, of course: it’s doctors, engineers, scientists, artists, entrepreneurs from former European colonies in Africa and Asia.  Having robbed those countries of their natural resources – for decades or even centuries – Europe now drain them of their most precious asset: their best, brightest, most talented people.  And no, not every one of them gets to be a football star or a university professor; most migrants end up eking out a living by doing the jobs Europeans can’t be bothered to do themselves – a ‘modern’ form of exploitation that borders on slavery.  If you don’t believe this – go out there and look who’s cleaning public toilets in Paris and Brussels.  Or indeed in London!

Who is cleaning your street?

It’s not just former colonies: it’s poorer countries, in general.  Romania, for instance, is one of those poor countries – the poorest in the European Union; maybe not quite as pauper as Cameroon and Zaire, but certainly poorer than France and Belgium.

Poverty destroys everything – but arguably nothing as much as healthcare.  There is a huge healthcare gap between France and Romania (let alone France and Cameroon!)  But healthcare is not an easy profession: training a doctor involves many years of study followed by even more years of hard graft leading to – at best – mediocre pay.

That’s in recent times in France, for instance, the medical profession has been attracting few ‘native’ Frenchmen and women.

So the French authorities invited foreign doctors (primarily Romanian) to apply for jobs in the French healthcare system.  And the applicants were so numerous, that the French could afford to be really choosey: they employed the best of the bunch.  Between 2008 and 2013, the number of foreign doctors working in France shot up by 43%.  According to the president of Romania’s College of Physicians, between 13,000 and 14,000 Romanian doctors work abroad, 4,000 of them in France.

Says Prof. Vasile Astarastoae, president of the Romanian College of Physicians:

"There is a major crisis in Romania when it comes to having enough doctors. In 2011 there were 21,400 doctors working in Romanian hospitals. On 1 November 2013 there were only 14,400."

By 2014, France had circa 330 practicing physicians per 100,000 inhabitants.  Romania had just 270; Poland had only 230.  According to an academic study

“The brain drain of Romanian doctors constitutes […] a dramatic loss for the national healthcare provision”

Life expectancy in France is currently 82 years – and significantly longer if you happen to be white.  In Romania, it’s just 75 years…

In Pakistan, there are just 81 physicians per 100,000 inhabitants; in India, just 73.  Yet many Pakistani and Indian doctors work in the British NHS – which takes pride in its enlightened, ‘progressive’ diversity.

This Romanian doctor looks happy: he practices in Northern France.  His
compatriots, however, were left with even poorer health care.

It requires many years and a lot of money to train a doctor.  And if that physician ends up working in oh-so excitingly multicultural London or Paris – rather than in native Bucharest (or Karachi or Mumbai or Kinshasa) – then that celebrated diversity comes at a heavy cost in ‘diverse’ life and limb.

And it’s not just about healthcare or economics.  By uprooting talented people away from their own language, customs, identity – the rich countries perpetrate something akin to cultural genocide.  There is nothing ‘progressive’ in that.

It is ‘progressive’, charitable and simply humane to give to the poor – not take away even the little they have; so why are we taking doctors away from Pakistan and Romania – rather than sending doctors and nurses there??

Whether in Europe or USA, Australia, Canada and Israel, ‘pro-migration’ ideologues feel inherently superior to those ‘populist’ cavemen who object to unrestricted migration.  As I sit writing this, a cohort of self-proclaimed idealists use ships bought with donors’ money to ‘rescue’ migrants.  They pick them up from just outside Libyan waters, lift them from the overcrowded and shabby boats provided by people-smugglers and drop them on the nearest European beach.  There is ‘instant gratification’ in that – at zero risk to the ‘idealists’.  But this free ferry service also causes more and more pauper Africans to take the risk – to pay more and more money to board increasingly overcrowded, ever-shabbier boats.  In so doing, the ‘idealists’ probably end up killing more people than they ever ‘save’ (more than 8,000 would-be migrants drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in just two years!)  The idealists’ enthusiasm would be put to much better use persuading people not to take this route and instead help them improve their lives in-situ.  But that is much more difficult, onerous and risky.

Smuggler boats off the coast of Libya. Unseaworthy, yes; but then the hope
is not to reach Europe in this boat -- just to get a lift on a 'charity ferry'.

If your real purpose is to feel good about yourself for helping a few migrants land on a European beach, at no cost to yourself, then knock yourself out.  But if you truly care about people – rather than pandering to your own narcissism – then you will recognise that the problem of abject poverty isn’t solved by bringing a few people (those more proactive, who had the money to pay a people-smuggler and were lucky enough not to drown) from Zaire to Belgium, or from Romania to France.  That kind of selective ‘assistance’ just makes the rich richer and the poor poorer.

You cannot air-lift all Zaire’s population to Belgium; but you can (although not easily and immediately, but eventually and with great difficulty) hand-lift, heart-lift and soul-lift Zairians out of their poverty in Zaire.  If you’re French and thirsty for justice – then draining Cameroon of talent really isn’t the way to go; shouldn’t you instead pit your own talents to help fix their country – the one your ancestors broke?

Burkini Ban, Burkina Faso & Israel

Mao Zedong decreed that everybody should dress the same in China. 

I don’t like burqas; just as I did not like the choke-collar suits of Maoist China, the black garb of Charedi Jews or the tophats City bankers wore until not that long ago.

I don’t like them, mostly because I feel that people should not be regimented.  Wearing a uniform is loss of freedom, just like being in the army or in prison.  Plus, people wearing that kind of garb seem to be yearning to go backwards – to 7^thcentury Arabia or to 17^th century Poland – rather than forwards.

In recent weeks, several municipalities in France have decreed a ‘burkini ban’ – meaning that women using public beaches are fined if they wear that ‘Islamised’ type of costume.  Even more recently, a French ‘administrative court’ – whatever that is – has banned the ban.  Yet, apparently, the story is not over yet: some of the mayors involved (and quite a few national politicians who jumped on the bandwagon) have vowed to overturn the suspension that suspended the ban that banned the burkini… you know how it goes!

Even some burqa-inspired garb looks
trendy when Italians design it! 

Well, I may not like burqas (or indeed burkinis); but the idea of a ban is wrong, stupid and – perhaps worst of all – a populist distraction from the real issues.

It’s wrong because, just as people should not be told what clothes to wear, they shouldn’t be told what not to wear.  It is even more wrong because one particular distinctive garb was singled out and banned.  Yes, I know there are ‘reasons’ – there always are; but no: there are no excuses for double standards.  Or, rather, there are only dishonest excuses.

The burkini ban is stupid, because it completely lacks purpose.  What exactly is it supposed to achieve?  Will it prevent the radicalisation of young Muslims?  How exactly?  Which of France’s recent terrorist attacks would have been prevented, had the burkini bans been in place?

Finally – and worst of all – the burkini ban is a populist distraction.  This trifle of an ‘issue’ deflects attention from the very real and grave concerns: the radicalisation of young Muslims, the religious extremism which begets intolerance and terrorism.

The ban is not just a golden opening for political demagogues – of every tinge – to burnish their credentials; it’s also a cop out for everybody: an excellent excuse to duck the real challenges, while furiously debating a marginal issue.  What a superb opportunity for doing nothing – with great determination!

Even worse – the motivations are, let’s face it, obviously racist.  Granted, there was no obligation for the French state to open its borders and its population registry to a wide variety of people – including some who have not exactly been raised up in the spirit of  ‘liberté, egalité, fraternité’.  But once they did let them in, once they recognised them as French citizens, they can’t tell them what they are allowed to wear, now can they?

‘Special laws’ for one category of people?  Haven’t we seen that before, somewhere?  A bylaw is still a law.  And singling out one particular category of French citizens deserves just one name: no, it’s not ‘love of nudity’ – it’s ‘naked racism’!

Nor am I particularly surprised: in the latest elections for the European Parliament, the far-right Front National won a third of the votes.  And those European Elections took place in 2014, before the latest bout of jihadist terrorism that hit France.  (Contrary to popular belief, the fully proportional European Parliament elections are the best indicator of people’s real political opinions, which are masked by plurality election systems based on geographic constituencies.)

So much for the far-right.  There is, of course, quite a bit of far-left racism in France (and elsewhere in Europe).  In the process of crowning them as ‘oppressed’ and hence in perpetual need of their rights being ‘defended’ by Good (Marxist) Samaritans, the far-left denies Muslims their God-given agency; it infantilises them.  When it comes to Muslims, far-rightists demand a higher standard than for anyone else; far-leftists set the standards lower than for anyone else.  Both positions are racist because both deny Muslims their status as equal members of the human race – with the same rights and obligations everyone else has.

Prefers not to wear hijab (but wouldn’t be fined if she did):
Noura Abu-Shanab, an Arab Israeli and captain
of the women football team Hapoel Petah Tikva. 

Sure, France has seen quite a bit of Islamist terrorism; but Israel has seen more.  Circa 7.5% of French citizens are Muslims; the proportion is roughly 3 times larger in Israel.  And yet, in Israel not even the far-right tries to control how Muslims dress.

If you are a Muslim in Israel, you are entitled to have your personal status matters (such as marriage and divorce) adjudicated according to Shari’a – the Islamic law.  The qadis (traditional Islamic judges) receive their salaries from the state budget, as do the dayanim – their Judaic counterparts; and the Jewish State will apply the decision of the Shari’a court just as it does with that of a Beth Din – the traditional Rabbinical court.  French Muslims can only dream of that level of freedom and consideration.

An Israeli beach: the way to heaven is a matter of opinion...

And yet, it is the French government that, every year, is paying a lot of money to far-left Israeli organisations dedicated to inspecting ‘human rights’ in Israel.  That money, it turns out, would be put to much better use, were it invested in France.  There is, it seems obvious, a lot to be done to root out extremism and racism from the French society – both Muslims and non-Muslims.  Perhaps Israel – a good friend of that troubled country – should weigh in to prop up the increasingly shaky French democracy?  Lest it becomes more like – say – Burkina Faso?

Gewalt yidn! Israel’s democracy in danger – again

In a previous series of articles, I described the cohort of 'Israeli Non-Governmental Organisations’ (NGOs) funded – directly and indirectly – by foreign (mostly European) governments.  We are not dealing with pennies or eurocents here, but with massive finance: according to NGO Monitor (an organisation aiming to research and publicise the extent and influence of such funding)

“European governments provide at least $100 million annually to Palestinian, Israeli, and international NGOs that utilize these funds for anti-Israel campaigns and promote BDS under a façade of promoting human rights, peace, and capacity building.”

In fact, such enormous funding is without parallel.  NGO Monitor provides the following example:

“in 2014, civil society in Israel received €3,754,133 from EIDHR, and adding NGOs in the West Bank and Gaza €5,630,323 – the majority of which are related to the conflict. In contrast, Ukraine – a deeply flawed democracy with a population roughly five times the size of Israel’s and at the time (2014) a war zone affected by severe human rights violations – received just €3,400,575.”

EIDHR stands for ‘European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights’ – this is just one of the many channels through which money is distributed.

How Europe invests in democracy and human rights: bubble size represents EIDHR per capita funding, as per the 2015 Annual Action Programme

This is why I ended a recent article by stating

“As a democracy, Israel should be (and very much is!) open to criticism.  But it should not be a push-over.  The most basic tenet of democracy is, after all, that it is the people that makes the decisions.  ‘The people’ as in ‘those who live, pay taxes and vote in that country’.  To preserve that basic tenet, a democracy has the right (nay, has the duty!) to defend itself – not just against the enemies who want to physically overcome it, but also against the false friends who attempt to undermine it.  It is high time Israel told Europeans, in no uncertain terms, to mind their own business.  And their own (rather heavy!) conscience.”

Well, I don’t know if the powers that be in Israel read my humble articles, but someone decided to do something about it.  The country’s parliament (the Knesset) has just passed an amendment requiring NGOs that rely on foreign governments for more than 50% of their annual budget to disclose that fact on their official reports, adverts and formal communication with elected officials.

The law was proposed by the Justice Minister, supported by the government and lambasted in harsh terms by the opposition.  So far, so good – that’s the role of opposition in a democracy.  The amendment has also been attacked, naturally, by the NGOs in question.  No surprise there, either.

But – here comes the issue – it has also been criticised by foreign powers: the Obama Administration and the European Union.  Both have cried ‘gewald yidn!’ (or the English equivalent), decrying the new law as a threat to Israel’s democracy.

If I had a dollar for each time I heard that Israel’s democracy is in mortal danger – I’d be a millionaire.  Last time I checked, the country was still very much the only democracy in the Middle East – so I guess it has somehow managed to duck those grave dangers.

But hey, one never knows…  So I thought I’d look into the issue, to check whether the Israeli democracy was really on its last legs.

To start with, I read the proposed law in its latest version; I know, I know: I’m such a sad person!  But at least, now I can assure you: the text does not declare any NGO illegal; it does not force them to disband – or else; in fact, it does not impose any restriction whatsoever upon NGOs’ activity.  All it does is require them to state clearly, in their public and official communications, that they are funded by foreign governments – and to list those governments.  But only if that constitutes the majority of their total funding.  If, for instance, just 49.9% of an NGO's budget comes from foreign governments and the balance from non-governmental sources (either Israeli or foreign), then the law places no special requirement on that NGO.

'So what’s the big deal?' you’ll ask.  'How does a mere requirement to disclose information constitute a threat to democracy?'  Well, according to the law’s critics, the new amendment discriminates between left wing and right wing NGOs.  For instance, one such critic – an organisation called Americans for Peace Now (APN), claims that

“The bill requires no transparency from right-wing groups – who are promoting an agenda that lines up comfortably with that of the current government – although they are massively funded by foreign donors.  As such, the clear objective of this bill is to enhance the hegemony of this government’s narrative by silencing dissent.”

Worried, I read the law again.  It says nothing about left, right or centre: it refers to all NGOs, with no regard to their political agenda (or lack thereof).

So I turned again to Americans for Peace Now, for an explanation.  Here it is, from the horse’s mouth: the bill, they say,

“require disclosure […] only with respect to foreign government funding (which goes almost entirely to progressive civil society NGOs and NGOs working on peace and human rights)…”

It does not, on the other hand, require disclosure

“with respect to foreign individuals (who provide massive amounts of funding for right-wing NGOs).”

You got that?  It’s not the Israeli law that discriminates between left-wing and right-wing NGOs.  It’s actually the foreign governments that make that difference: they provide funding only to left-wing NGOs, but not to right-wing NGOs.  Err… why??

As an aside, it seems to me that Americans for Peace Now have committed a bit of a Freudian mistake in their passionate argumentation.  I don’t know about you, but their reference to “left-wing NGOs” and “right-wing NGOs” kinda grates on my ear.  Aren’t charities supposed to be apolitical??  Are these human rights organisations, or political outfits?  If the latter (a conclusion that the left-wing/right wing classification inexorably leads to), then why do foreign governments bankroll political movements – of a particular tinge – in a fellow democracy?

Still, what about APN’s basic argument?  Why does the law refer only to funding by foreign governments and does not apply also to donations by foreign individuals?  Well, individuals are fundamentally different from states and governments.  As an individual, I can give money to whoever I please; it’s my private money.  Not so a government; it operates with public money.  Which is why an individual is entitled (in law and in practice) to privacy; conversely, governments are required (in law and in practice) to exhibit transparency and be open to public scrutiny.  Hence, there is a reasonable argument that a requirement to publish names of individual donors might spook them; it would amount to an infringement of their privacy.  Not so in the case of governments, to which the opposite principle applies: the duty of transparency, rather than the right to privacy.

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary (an Irish national, i.e. a foreign individual as far as the UK is concerned) is reputed to have used his own and his company’s money in support of the ‘Remain’ campaign.  ‘Leave’ campaigners must have resented that, but nobody said it’s illegal.  But what if the government of Ireland (a foreign country with interests not necessarily aligned with those of the UK) would have done the same?  What if – say – Israel’s government would have donated tens of millions of pounds to organisations promoting Brexit?

There is another issue, too.  See, I always thought (and most people do, I’d guess) that ‘NGO’ stands for Non-Governmental Organization.  But how ‘non-governmental’ is an organisation if the majority of its funds come from governments?  At the very least, the public is entitled to know that this or that particular Non-Governmental Organization is… rather governmental in terms of its finances.

Americans for Peace Now disagrees, however:

“this bill clearly portrays Israeli civil society organizations – organizations that obey the law and work to advance an agenda that differs from the current government’s worldview – as ‘foreign agents’ which are disloyal to the state, which represent foreign interests, and which act to undermine the state and its institutions. This bill does not only seek to stigmatize these progressive groups but also seeks to humiliate them by demanding that they stigmatize themselves through slapping a ‘warning label’ on their public communications.”

Well, “Israeli civil society organisations” have every right “to advance an agenda that differs from the current government’s worldview”.  Nobody disputes that right – I certainly don’t!  What raises eyebrows, however, is the fact that the majority of their funds are contributed by foreign governments.  One would think that “Israeli civil society organisations” would be able to raise the funds needed for their operation from within that civil society.  Moreover, since the fact of the matter is that they don’t, that they are mainly bankrolled by foreign governments, why should that fact be concealed from the “Israeli civil society” – i.e. from the Israeli public and its elected representatives?

Since Israel is a democracy, “Israeli civil society organisations” can (and should!) question government policies; they have the right to criticise them and claim that they are bad for the country.  But those organisations cannot at the same time demand to be themselves above scrutiny.  Doesn’t the Israeli public have the right to question their wisdom – and, yes, even their loyalty?  After all, foreign governments – even friendly ones – are driven by their own national interests, which are not necessarily aligned with and may even drastically diverge from Israeli interests.  Shouldn’t the Israeli public be given the tools to question and decide for themselves whether a particular organisation claiming to speak for the “Israeli civil society” really does?

Furthermore, if those “Israeli civil society organisations” consist of “progressive groups” of loyal patriots “that obey the law”, then what do they have to hide?  How does disclosing the source of their funding – in a format easy to grasp by the public – “stigmatise” them?  Since when does the truth (nobody disputes that it is the truth) “humiliate”??

The lady doth protest too much, methinks!  It would seem that somewhere, somewhere deep inside, those “Israeli civil society organisations” feel that what they do, while legal, is not exactly… shall we say… cool.  It may be kosher, but it stinks.

If that is how they feel, I think they are right.  In fact, a similar conclusion has recently been reached by a bipartisan US Senate inquiry.  It found that the Obama Administration (through the Department of State) funded an NGO called One Voice.  In turn, that NGO used the funds to campaign (through an “Israeli civil society organisation”, of course) against Benjamin Netanyahu, during the latest parliamentary elections in Israel (2015).  The Senate inquiry found that the transaction had been legal – no US law had been infringed; it just wasn’t ethical, fair or democratic.  In other words – kosher, but stinking to high heaven.  Both the Democrat and the Republican Party co-chairs criticised the Administration, with the latter stating:

“The State Department ignored warning signs and funded a politically active group in a politically sensitive environment with inadequate safeguards.  It is completely unacceptable that US taxpayer dollars were used to build a political campaign infrastructure that was deployed — immediately after the grant ended — against the leader of our closest ally in the Middle East.”

Sorry, “Israeli civil society organisations” – but I don’t see at all how the new law is undemocratic.  That doesn’t mean I have no problem with it – I do.  I suspect it’ll be ineffective.  Money is fungible and it is all too easy to move it around and disguise its sources.  As I’ve explained elsewhere, charities such as Oxfam get a huge chunk of their budgets from the British government and the various purses it controls.  So when Oxfam funds – say – Breaking the Silence (as it did), is that to be counted as government money or not?  How about if Oxfam funds a charity which bankrolls a programme with another charity which pays a third charity to commission a report from “Israeli civil society organisation” Breaking the Silence?  You get my drift…

Legislation is a good thing.  Over-legislation isn’t.  And when it comes to foreign interference, legislation is often toothless and weak.  It is defensive.  And – as Israeli soldiers know and Israeli footballers unfortunately don’t – sometimes offence is the best type of defence.  The way to put an end to foreign – especially European – subversion is not to protest and legislate, but simply to establish, quietly but effectively, that two can play at this game.

Take for instance Spain.  The country is a major donor to “Israeli civil society organisations” – including extreme-left fringe outfits such as ICAHD.  Israel can return the compliment by providing funds to secessionist movements… err… civil society organisations in Catalonia and the Basque Country.  Not directly, of course – but through a charity funding another charity…

Peaceful protest on the streets of Barcelona. Not funded by Israel.

France is another country that seems to care deeply for Israel’s civil society.  Certainly more than it does for its own Roma population, which faces widespread, systematic racism, discrimination and even persecution by the authorities.  Morality will surely oblige Israel to fund French civil society organisations fighting France’s rampant antiziganism.

British police forcibly evict inhabitants of the Dale Farm travelers’ camp.

And so on…  Don’t worry, this won’t cost a lot of money: political activists are cheap – one can buy a dozen for the cost of one honest worker.  And they specialise in generating maximum noise for the buck.  Once a few European countries get a taste of their own medicine, I’m sure that brutal, 'anti-democratic’ legislation will become unnecessary.  A gentlemen’s agreement between fellow democracies is a much better solution.

Because Israel’s democracy is indeed under threat.  Not from Knesset’s legislation, of course; but from the anti-democratic, subversive practices of some ‘friendly foreign governments’.  Well, every stick has two ends; and old Hillel said it well:

“What is hateful to you, do not unto your neighbor.”

Those ‘friendly governments’ could do with a reminder.  After all, what are friends for??

How much, Mr. Osborne?

Imagine that tomorrow morning Israel amasses troops on the outskirts of Ramallah.  A plane carrying the Palestinian leadership regrettably crashes en-route to negotiations in Israel.  To avoid another unfortunate accident, a few Palestinian leaders ‘agree’ to ‘merge Palestine into Israel’.  The next day, Israel’s Parliament (the Knesset) declares the West Bank as the 'Palestinian Autonomous Region', an indivisible part of the State of Israel.  A regional government is appointed, made up of Jewish Israelis and ‘friendly Muslims’.  Civil servants are sacked if they ‘look Muslim’ (i.e., wear beards if they are men or veils if they are women, if they fast during Ramadan, etc.)  Hundreds of thousands of Jewish Israelis are settled in the Region, lured by better-paid government jobs, while the Region’s Muslim inhabitants are ‘encouraged’ to move elsewhere to ‘better assimilate’ into the Israeli society.  Any dissent is swiftly and brutally dealt with, the leaders being either executed or carefully ‘re-educated’ over a few decades in prison.

If you think that such scenario would cause a global uproar the like of which has never been heard before – you are certainly right.  But hey – don’t worry!  Just give it a bit of time, they’ll all get used to it.  Look forward to a visit from UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Right Honourable Whateverthenamewillbe, who will smile kindly and offer his country’s considerable expertise and entrepreneurial spirit to help develop the Palestinian Autonomous Region to its full potential.

What – you think that’s extremely unlikely?  Well, you may be right again.  But it has just happened elsewhere.

Situated to the north of Tibet, the territory of Xīnjiāng has been, for many centuries, inhabited by a Muslim population speaking Uyghur – a Turkic language.  Like many other territories, Xīnjiāng (pronounced Shinjang in Uyghur) has had a turbulent history – alternating between Mongolian, Chinese and Tibetan rule; occasionally, the Uyghurs managed to govern their own affairs – at some point even establishing an Uyghur Khaganate.  The latest such attempts occurred twice in the 20th century, when Uyghurs declared the territory’s independence under the name of East Turkestan Republic.  In August 1949, with the Chinese Communist Army approaching, five Uyghur leaders boarded a Soviet plane, to attend a conference in Beijing; they all perished in a mysterious accident.  It was thus left to three other leaders – who wisely chose to travel by train! – to agree to join the People’s Republic of China.  Communist China incorporated Shinjang as the Xīnjiāng Uyghur Autonomous Region.  Several Uyghur armed groups continued to resist the Chinese takeover, but were eventually defeated, their leaders either fleeing or being caught and executed.

Enticed with plush jobs, millions of Han Chinese have settled in the ‘Autonomous Region’ – causing the ratio of Uyghurs in the Region's population to plummet from 73% in 1955 to circa 45% in 2000.

Just like every other Chinese citizen, Uyghurs are required to learn Mandarin and use it in dealing with the authorities.  Overt displays of Uyghur nationalism – however peaceful – are harshly suppressed as ‘separatism’.  Muslim religious practice is ‘subtly’ and not so subtly discouraged.

Hundreds and perhaps thousands of people have been killed in the frequent bouts of violence that erupt in the Region, with Uyghur rebels clashing with Han settlers, as well as with the Chinese police and army.  Nobody really knows how many have been imprisoned and executed.

In May 2014, the otherwise ‘progressive’ New York Times reported that China’s leader, Xi Jinping,

has called for tighter state control over religion and for better assimilating Uighurs into Chinese society, including moving more Uighurs from Xinjiang to other parts of China, where they can live among the Han, the nation’s dominant ethnic group.

The paper further reported that Mr. Xi also announced that China will use “special measures” in Xinjiang to “deal with special things”.  No specifics were given.

Even Amnesty International – which usually treads as if on eggshells when it comes to criticising dictatorships – reported:

On 28 July [2014], state media reported that 37 civilians were killed when a ‘knife-wielding mob’ stormed government offices in Yarkand County (in Chinese: Shache) and that security forces had shot dead 59 attackers. Uighur groups disputed this account, putting the death toll much higher and saying rather that police opened fire on hundreds of people who were protesting against the severe restrictions placed on Muslims during Ramadan. Uighurs faced widespread discrimination in employment, education, housing and curtailed religious freedom, as well as political marginalization.

But all that did not stop the Right Honourable George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom, from visiting China at the head of a large delegation, eager to increase the economic cooperation between the two countries.  Mr. Osborne has even visited Xinjiang – presumably to see how British firms can benefit from China’s investments in the Region’s infrastructure – an infrastructure that (so Uyghurs claim) is designed to serve the Han settlers.

By the way, words like ‘settlement’ or ‘settlers’ were never pronounced in the many speeches and interviews given by the Right Honourable on this occasion.  Nor are they to be found in any official UK declaration in the context of China.  There is clearly a big difference (though also a very subtle one, ‘coz I can’t see it!) between Han Chinese settling in Xinjiang and Jewish Israelis settling in the West Bank.  Because when it comes to the latter, Her Majesty’s Government does not mince words:

Our position on settlements is clear: they are illegal under international law…

Needless to say, none of the disciplined and ‘progressive’ mainstream journalists who interviewed Mr. Osborne was rude enough to ask why that exalted International Law applies to one case, but not the other.  Nor did Her Majesty’s Opposition – rendered even more ‘progressive’ by its new leader Jeremy Corbyn – raise any major moral objections to the idea of a closer relationship with the Chinese Occupation (‘occupation’ – either with or without the capital ‘O’) was yet another word blatantly absent from the whole UK-China conversation).

In case you wondered, let me reassure you that there are no plans to distinctly label Chinese products made by Han settlers in Xinjiang or Tibet – even though the UK Foreign Office wants to ‘expedite’ the implementation of such labelling for products made in Israeli settlements.

Nevertheless, some people and organisations did criticise Mr. Osborne’s visit and his eagerness to collaborate with China, pointing out that the Communist regime in Beijing is one of the world’s worst human rights violators.  But even that criticism was calm, measured and polite; there were no calls to ‘Boycott, Divest and Sanction’ China – that particular punishment appears to be reserved exclusively for use against the Jewish State.

Mr. Osborne has shrugged off even that light and mannered criticism, explaining that

I have raised the human rights concerns that we have with the Chinese authorities as part of the broader conversation.

The conversation must have been very broad indeed – or perhaps it was conducted in Chinese whispers.  Because the Chinese hosts don’t remember that part at all.  In fact, the Chancellor has been praised by Chinese government-controlled media for… not raising the human rights issue.  One Chinese paper called him

the first Western official in recent years who focused on business potential rather than raising a magnifying glass to the 'human rights issue’

The paper further opined that Mr. Osborne’s behaviour should be emulated:

It should be diplomatic etiquette for foreign leaders not to confront China by raising the human rights issue.  Keeping a modest manner is the correct attitude for a foreign minister visiting China to seek business opportunities.

Mr. Osborne may not be “foreign minister”, but he appears to understand why he is required to keep “a modest manner”:

Of course we're two completely different political systems and we raise human rights issues, but I don't think that is inconsistent with also wanting to do more business with one-fifth of the world's population.

And therein is – obvious for all but the wilfully blind to see – the double standard: China is a huge country – as well as an economic, political and military power.  Israel is almost exactly the size of Wales and its economy is on a par with those of Singapore and Hong Kong.  Her Majesty’s Government does not wish to upset China; it does not care if it upsets Israel – in fact that might earn it a few brownie points with Arab dictators who rule over half a billion people and command the majority of the world’s oil and gas reserves.

All of which does not make it moral.  In fact, it reminds me that, a few years ago, I was walking with a Jewish friend through the streets of Amsterdam.  All of a sudden, my friend – a happily married, moral-to-the-point-of-obsession man – knocked on a window and asked the woman inside ‘How much?’  ‘Eighty euros’ answered the prostitute, ‘do you want to come in?’  ‘No’, answered my friend, ‘I just wanted to know’.

And so, since the UK Government’s benevolent interpretation of International Law appears to be for sale – just like the body in the Amsterdam window – may I respectfully ask Mr. Osborn how much it is?  I just want to know…