Going wherever the evidence leads
As I discovered on my recent US trip, many Trump voters who are derided as bigoted rednecks are actually motivated by an entirely admirable concern to uphold the rule of law and defend the US constitution. This is a clip from my discussion with Avi Abelow of Israel Video Network. Apologies for any technical glitches but it was recorded between continents. You can watch the entire discussion here.
Read MoreNow it becomes clear why President Trump selected as the destinations of his current tour Riyadh, Jerusalem and Rome. He is re-setting the foreign policy debate around the factor which is both fundamental and at the same time systematically ignored. He is reframing it as a conflict over religion. Not that he is describing it in Samuel Huntington’s terms as a war between civilisations. He reportedly told his son-in-law and key strategist Jared Kushner to construct a tour around the theme of reconciliation and world peace. Nevertheless, he’s doing something…
Read MoreI have now completed my enjoyable and fascinating speaking tour in America. I’m most grateful to all who invited me to speak and who treated me with such graciousness and hospitality: indeed, I was quite overwhelmed by the warmth and enthusiasm with which my presentations were received. I look forward to repeating the experience, and would welcome invitations to undertake further US speaking engagements in due course. On my two week trip I spoke to a wide variety of groups in a number of different cities. In California I spoke…
Read MoreDespite — or perhaps because of — the constant uproar over the doings and sayings of President Trump, those who voted for him remain his passionate partisans. Those against illegal immigration are derided as rednecks and racist bigots. Yet what is enraging them is simply the widespread institutionalisation of illegality and violence. They are trying to promote instead adherence to the constitution, the rule of law and democracy itself. And they believe that the Democrats, the media and even some Republicans who either ignore or tacitly condone such lawlessness and…
Read MoreRecent stories about President Trump’s initiatives in the Middle East have been causing consternation among Israel supporters. First the World Jewish Congress president, Ron Lauder, reportedly told a group of Israeli politicians that the president was confident he could persuade the Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas to make concessions that would renew the peace process. The only concession that matters, though, is to abandon the Palestinian goal of destroying Israel. That one wouldn’t currently seem to be on the cards. The next day, Prime Minister Netanyahu was reported to be…
Read MoreMany universities have stopped being crucibles of reason and knowledge and turned instead into ideological battlegrounds on which protected groups promoting the demonisation of white society or other presumed “oppressors” suppress any challenge to their dogma. University authorities have actively assisted the culture of zero tolerance for opposing views. Lecturers have been disciplined for teaching ideas that fall foul of prevailing orthodoxies. Universities have cravenly given in to violence and intimidation. The universities have steadily replaced education by the enforcement of dogma and then washed their hands of the intolerant…
Read MoreThis week I spoke on the Berkeley campus. A transcript of my remarks follows below the video. I’m on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley, where conservative speakers are being systematically censored by violent protests designed to prevent them from speaking. I am on Sproul plaza in the centre of the campus, where free speech was supposedly enshrined back in the sixties but where it is now appallingly being suppressed. This is the campus where conservative views are called fascism and shouted down. As you can see…
Read MoreIt’s 45 years since the iconic film The Godfather was first screened and transformed mafia hoodlums into high art in the public imagination. The film can be considered an audacious inversion of morality and an apologia for evil. Although such criticism has undeniable force, it is ultimately misplaced. The film is not in essence a gangster movie but an epic family tragedy of the highest order. It is precisely because it puts loving family life on a pedestal that its deepest message is so devastating. You can read the whole…
Read MoreFor the next couple of weeks I shall be on a speaking tour of the US. If you are interested in attending any of my presentations, here are details of some of them. On April 28/29 I will be speaking at a Yom Ha’Atzmaut Shabbaton at Young Israel synagogue, Century City: www.yicc.org On May 2 I shall be speaking to the Conservative Forum of Silicon Valley at 7.15 pm. Please go to their website for further details. On May 4 in the evening I shall be speaking in Redlands, California:…
Read MoreAccording to this account of a story in the Arab newspaper Al Quds, the Trump administration intends to offer a deal to the Palestinian delegation which is due to arrive imminently in Washington. Stop paying salaries to the families of terrorist prisoners and those terrorists killed in their attacks on Israel, the Americans will say, and in return President Trump will shelve his proposal to move the US Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Oh dear. If this is true, the sting of this apparent proposal is not just…
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