The drumbeat of doom echoes across the airwaves. As conflict rages in the Middle East, fearmongers now warn that the region, even the world, is on the brink of all-out war. But predictions of a looming catastrophe for mankind have been wildly overdone. Thanks to the astonishing heroism of Israel, events of recent days may well herald the greatest advance for peace and security in decades.
What has been dramatically exposed in the crucible of the armed struggle is the weakness of the Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies.Together they boasted of creating a “ring of fire” around the Jewish state, but the flames are burning low in the face of Israeli ingenuity and resolve.
Iran’s huge aerial bombardment this week was driven by a desperate impulse to lash out after suffering a disastrous series of humiliations. But the barrage of ballistic missiles could not penetrate Israel’s sophisticated defences, based on the so-called Iron Dome.
This highly effective system is a further example of Israel’s brilliance and innovation in military technology, which is turning out to be a decisive factor in the fight against Iranian-sponsored terrorism. Even more daring was the secret deployment of over 3000 pagers, filled with explosives, to bring death and destruction to the ranks of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Such bold unorthodoxy has been backed up by satellite and by intelligence from courageous agents operating deep under cover.
These assets have enabled Israel to inflict crippling damage on the terrorists. The entire leadership of Hezbollah has been wiped out, including its long-serving chief Hassan Nasrallah, while the head of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, has also been killed. Similarly, weapons stores have been obliterated, command facilities smashed and tunnels demolished.
The reduction in the militant Islamists’ capacity to wage war should be a cause for relief. Every dead jihadist makes the world a safer place. Yet, when it comes to the Middle East, much of the media’s coverage has a mournful tone, focused on the dangers of “escalating the crisis.” In the political arena, calls for restraint are accompanied by demands for a ceasefire followed by peace talks, while on the British left Israel and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are demonised as the real menace to humanity.
But such attitudes are a grotesque inversion of the truth and morality. Israel is acting in self-defence against a vicious foe that, because of its burning hatred for the Jewish people, wants to wipe the country off the face of the earth. What part of that genocidal agenda is Israel meant to discuss in negotiations?
The Islamists’ lethal enmity was proved in the barbarity of Hamas’ invasion of Israel on 7 October 2023, the most deadly act of violence against the Jews since the Nazi holocaust. After that, Israel had no alternative but to fight back against Hamas and Hezbollah. The threat to its right to live in peace – and even to its existence – had become intolerable.
This is what those calling for “a ceasefire” or urging Israel to adopt “a proportionate” response fail to recognise. Full of their own virtue, they are in effect colluding with the terrorists by seeking to shackle Israel. If their view had prevailed, Hamas and Hezbollah would be more strong, Iran more powerful and Israel more vulnerable.
Behind the “ceasefire” chorus, there is an ugly kind of moral equivalence, as if there is no difference between the values of Israel and those of the Islamists. But in truth, Israel is a bulwark of civilisation, and a beacon of democracy whereas the Mullahs of Iran run a savage, misogynistic, antisemitic theocracy. The White House warns Israel against attacking Iran’s nuclear energy facilities, but the idea of this tyranny developing a nuclear arsenal is genuinely terrifying.
Israel’s fight for survival represents an existential clash between light and darkness. We will all gain from the ultimate defeat of extremism. The West should be right behind the Jewish state, united in admiration and gratitude.
Behind the “ceasefire” chorus, there is an ugly kind of moral equivalence, as if there is no difference between the values of Israel and those of the Islamists. But in truth, Israel is a bulwark of civilisation, and a beacon of democracy whereas the Mullahs of Iran run a savage, misogynistic, antisemitic theocracy. The White House warns Israel against attacking Iran’s nuclear energy facilities, but the idea of this tyranny developing a nuclear arsenal is genuinely terrifying.
Israel’s fight for survival represents an existential clash between light and darkness. We will all gain from the ultimate defeat of extremism. The West should be right behind the Jewish state, united in admiration and gratitude.
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Even in our online age of social media, the ancient art of oratory still plays a central role in political life. Politicians continue to be judged partly on their abilities as communicators and their capacity to connect with audiences. At the Conservative Conference in Birmingham, the four contenders for the leadership took part in hustings to help MPs and party members make their choice. Though none of their performances matched the magnetism of David Cameron’s debut in 2005, which made him overnight favourite, each of them demonstrated fluency and substance.
Tom Tugendhat’s contribution was solid but probably lacked sufficient sparkle to keep him in the contest much longer. Robert Jenrick was perhaps the strongest on policy but somehow failed to hold the auditorium. The early favourite Kemi Badenoch was at her most persuasive when explaining her political philosophy, but she may not have done enough to regain the ground she has recently lost through a string of gaffes.
Undoubtedly the real game changer came from the Braintree MP James Cleverly, who managed to combine humour and warmth with an emphasis on his experience as a senior Cabinet Minister. Having been an outsider, he is now the candidate to beat. His sudden rise is another illustration of the power of words.
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The process to choose a new Cabinet Secretary is underway, after the incumbent Simon Case announced his retirement on the grounds of ill-health. But a glance at the potential candidates to succeed him provides a depressing insight into how the top ranks of the civil service have surrendered to the woke ideology. So the favourite Dame Antonia Romeo, currently Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice, is Whitehall’s. Gender Champion, works closely with the controversial trans rights group Stonewall, campaigned to raise the profile of Non-Binary Awareness week and established the Gender Equality Leadership Group.
Another leading mandarin, Sir Matthew Rycroft, who has been head of the Home Office since 2000, is Whitehall’s Race Champion and a passionate advocate of the fashionable doctrine of diversity. He once even implied that the bureaucrats should be in control of this policy, regardless of elected politicians’ views.
“I think it is for us actually within the civil service to be stewards,” he wrote. It is little wonder that, with this pair in charge, faith in the justice system is so low and immigration so high.
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Taking a break in Gloucestershire this week, I marvelled at the beauty of the landscape and the local architecture. I just pray that the intense pressure for massive new housing developments is not going to destroy this captivating corner of England.
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The distinguished former news journalist Colin Brazier is fulfilling a lifelong dream by training to become a farmer. But he remains a wonderfully acerbic voice of wisdom on social media. Here he is on a recent visit to his home city of Bradford: “I felt a profound sense of otherness – the West Belfast expressions of territoriality, the sense that, contra expectations, assimilation has gone into reverse. It may not – but I fear it does – foreshadow our future.”
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Neville Chamberlain may be despised as the architect of appeasement but his private correspondence is worth a fortune. The last letter he wrote as Prime Minister – to the Express owner Lord Beaverbrook in May 1940 – has just sold at auction for £93,000. It is a fascinating document that reveals his awareness of history. “The next two or three days will decide the fate of mankind for the next hundred years,” he wrote with the kind of prescience he failed to show against Hitler’s Reich.
