I Never Thought That I'd Say This

I loathe Zionism, one of only two ideologies ever to define "the Jews" as a "race", two ideologies that emerged from the same rancid intellectual swamp and whose adherents understandably fought the Second World War on the same anti-British side. I vividly recall my late father's reaction to the sight of Yitzhak Shamir on the television in the 1980s.

Furthermore, pan-Arabism, with its Christian roots, is at its best one of those fundamentally humane causes, like pan-Slavism or Bolivarianism, for which it is worth fighting precisely by reference to Christian roots, both against Marxism within, and against the neoconservative-Islamist alliance without.

And yet, when I look at the decision to give Fatah and Hamas a state each, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip respectively, I really do have to wonder if, badly off though the Israeli Arabs certainly are, they might not have it rather better than the rest of the Palestinian people.

Yes, Isreal has far to go to make real her utterly anti-Zionist claim that all her citizens are equal. But, if the choice had to be made, wouldn't you rather be an Arab citizen of Israel than a vassal of Fatah or Hamas?