JERUSALEM—Suddenly, my city feels again like a war zone. Since the suicide bombings ended in 2005, life in Jerusalem has been for the most part relatively calm. The worst disruptions have been the traffic jams resulting from construction of a light rail, just like in a normal city.
LONDON -- Could Prime Minister Gordon Brown become the Harry Truman of British politics?
For many long months, Brown and his Labor Party were written off as sure losers in this year's election, likely to be called for May 6. David Cameron, the young, energetic and empathetic Conservative Party leader, was all but handed Brown's job by the chattering classes, so consistent and formidable had been his lead in the polls.
Today the European Union finds itself with two new top leaders--Herman Van Rompuy, the EU’s first president, and Catherine Ashton, the new high representative of foreign policy. If the names are unfamiliar, you’re not alone. In fact, the buzz surrounding Van Rompuy, who has been the Belgian prime minister for less than a year, and Ashton, who was most recently the EU’s trade commissioner, is that there is no buzz.
Take this morning’s headlines from around the world: “Leaders lambasted over low-profile EU job nominees,” “Europe’s leaders strike up the bland,” “Von Rampuy—The Reluctant Leader,” “Herman Van Who?” and “Van Rompuy-Ashton appointment: The EU has opted for the quiet life.”
So who are these people?
I believe in "the two-state solution" even though I don't really believe that the Palestinians constitute much of a nation. I also think that this is the reason why the Arabs of Palestine, historically and now, have never been able to muster the inner resources to grasp the spiritual strength (as well as the materially transformational qualities) of Zionism that made it all but impossible to beat. Whatever Obama is trying to coax out of the Israelis will not alter the Palestinian realities.
Still, the Jordanians aren't much of a nation either. Nor the Lebanese or the Syrians, the Saudis or the Iraqis, and certainly not the Yemenis, the Somalis and Sudanese who also parade as one people. Arabs, maybe; Muslims, certainly. But not what history recognizes as coherent peoplehood.
Now, Shlomo Avineri--Israel's most distinguished political intellectual, professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, an éminence grise of the Labor Party and former director-general of the foreign ministry--disagrees with me on this matter. And, frankly, I'm not eager to argue with him: He's too learned and has too much moral authority with me. Anyway, as I said, I accept the necessity of a Palestinian state if the Palestinians accept the legitimacy and reality of a Jewish state. They really don't have much choice, do they? Of course, it's not my role to accept or not to accept.
If governments around the world, including our own, had not acted aggressively--and had not spent piles of money--a very bad economic situation would have become a cataclysm.
To the unschooled eye, the photograph of the 1987 class of the Oxford University Bullingdon Club could be mistaken for a 100-year-old image. The ten young men crowding the frame are dressed in long tails and blue bowties and pose on marble steps, most of them studiously looking away from the camera. But this is a relatively recent photo of members of the aristocratic, and destructive, drinking club: Participants honor the unofficial motto--"I like the sound of breaking glass"--by getting drunk and trashing private property.
This article was originally printed on July 4, 1955
