A Matter For Now

This must be this season's look.

And this is certainly the most CNN thing ever.

But there is nothing funny about this combination of flags alongside the old IS executioner, by beheading, who has just been installed as Prime Minister of Syria.

The Parliament and Constitution of Syria have today been "suspended" by a new regime that has declared its commitment to "a free market system based on competition" and "integrated into the global economy". The Assad regime gave up on Socialism in any practical sense a long time ago, but it never went so far as to align itself, as its successor has done, with the Constitution of the British Labour Party.

Not that that affection is fully reciprocated. This afternoon's COBRA meeting rightly decided not to remove Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham from the list of proscribed terrorist organisations. So why are the same individuals welcoming its victory on behalf of the United Kingdom, and sending it British public money? How are they are not in breach of the criminal law? Imagine that they were doing that in relation to any other organisation on that list. At 10 o'clock in the morning of Thursday 19 December, Tony Greenstein is to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court, to be formally charged with supporting a proscribed organisation under section 12 (1A) of the Terrorism Act 2000. If convicted, then he would face a potential prison sentence of 14 years. Has he expressed such support on behalf of the King, including in the form of monies from His Majesty's Exchequer?

But none of the other proscribed terrorist organisations is letting Israel grab as much of Syria as it pleased while destroying Syria's navy, air force, and much else besides. If what mattered were to keep those things out of the hands of the terrorists in HTS, then why are we all supposed to be so pleased that HTS has won? In the CNN interview shown above, Abu Mohammad al-Julani (He/Him) never mentioned anything to do with the Palestinians. That omission is very nearly unheard of in Arab leaders. They almost always do nothing for the Palestinians. They very often treat them abominably. But they shoehorn in their supposed concern as a matter of ritual obligation.

Yet not so al-Julani, lately the second-in-command both of Al-Qaeda and of IS, neither of which has ever attacked Israel, and it is not as if fanatics are "deterred". Hamas rounds up both Al-Qaeda and IS in Gaza and kills them, but Israel gave IS the field hospital in the Golan Heights to which Priti Patel was sacked as International Development Secretary for having diverted, again, British public money. Personally and politically close to Nigel Farage, Patel is now Shadow Foreign Secretary. Insofar as Britain matters, then, too bad for the women who have already been banned from sitting as judges in Syria, too bad for the Christians there whose churches have been ordered to display nothing relating to Christmas, and too bad for the people who are already being given a lot worse treatment than that. What did Travis Timmerman think that he was joining? If he is an American hero, then why is Shamima Begum not a British heroine?