Lorna Fitzsimons 2013-05-20T17:53:25-04:00 Lorna Fitzsimons http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=lorna-fitzsimons Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Lorna Fitzsimons Good old fashioned elbow grease. Hate - The Evil Within tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1369857 2012-03-21T19:00:00-04:00 2012-05-21T05:12:01-04:00 Lorna Fitzsimons http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lorna-fitzsimons/
Hate makes me so angry but it doesn't drive me to hate. Hate corrupts those that hate, it consumes and distorts the hater, very much like envy and paranoia.

Very rarely does the object of one's hate suffer the same internal turmoil, indeed sometimes they will be blissfully unaware of the animus. I have two thoughts about hate; that it is quite pointless, the practice of the mentally weak or lazy, but I have always respected and understood its danger.

As such we can not be superior observers of hate. We have to be its most trenchant enemy. We can't be passive against hate or in the end it will consume what we know and love. Because we know others are not as strong, we have to be strong, proactively and visibly so. We have to fight hate with ever fiber of our being as it destroys and diminishes all of us.

The fact that the tragic killings outside the Jewish School in the South of France come with the same MO as the killings of three soldiers of black or north Africa origin should have us all worried. Hate crimes are crimes against us all, as we could all be the victim. Hate is blind and we don't have the luxury of thinking that it doesn't affect us.

Wether it is in Rochdale or Toulouse you can be on the end of a hate crime, white or black, Asian or Jewish.

I was brought up by remarkable parents who taught me that it was wrong to hate. Why were we any better than the others? What gave us the right to think we were superior? In the end, although my parents weren't religious it boiled down to one simple belief - do as you would be done by. This one belief can unite people of all faiths and none.

But more than this, I was taught that it was my responsibility to be a warrior against hate. That I couldn't and shouldn't walk on by. For one simple reason; who would stand up for me when I was under attack?

As a child this poem was the most simple but effective message my parents ever used.

The origins of this poem first have been traced to a speech given by Niemöller on 6 January, 1946, to the representatives of the Confessing Church in Frankfurt.

"When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out."

How may of you pull you children up when they say that hate someone of something? How may of you use the word without thinking? All this seems small and some of you will be shouting at the page because you think the comparisons diminish the scale of the events the poem talks about or indeed yesterday.

However, hate starts small and children learn what they live. How many of you challenge it at your sons football match when other parents indulge in racist banter? We as parents have a huge opportunity and responsibility to educate future generations not to hate.

I speak in so many forums up and down Britain and people of all races, creeds, colours are full of fear. Fear driven because they think others mean them harm, driven by perception of what they think the other thinks. Perception is king.

Yes, some individuals are a threat, but they are just that, individuals, they are still the exception. However, this fear can be fed, sometimes unwittingly, by our own isolationism and in an attempt to protect ourselves or our community we become less open, less welcoming, more insular. More willing to believe the worst in the other.

Trust in our fellow man is key to our survival, showing that we want to be friends, that we mean no harm. From the most simple act of smiling at a random stranger, to saying hello. Try it and you will be not only surprised at the reaction but also how good it makes you feel. These acts all seem small in comparison to hate and the acts of yesterday. But hate starts some were. If each of us takes the step of trusting and reaching out, hate and fear have less chance of growing.

Always remember that others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself - Richard M Nixon.]]> An Idea Fit for a Golden Jubilee tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1347098 2012-03-15T08:56:25-04:00 2012-05-15T05:12:01-04:00 Lorna Fitzsimons http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lorna-fitzsimons/
Like most parents I worry about what the world will be like for my son when he is older and I am gone. I was reminded of an essay in foreign affairs by Jack A Goldstone about decoding demography, when I listened to the interview Today program earlier this week with Professor Sarah Harper of the Oxford Centre for Population Ageing.

Although demography is a hotly contested field there are some certainties, that fertility is decreasing everywhere apart from Africa. That if Africa continues (very unlikely) at the current rate of four children per women, that continent alone will have a population of 15 billion by the end of the century.

The obverse is true for Europe where we are in a low fertility trap. Less and less working age population and a burgeoning aging population. Put simply Goldstone argued that the middle class of the world in 2050 would be in what has been known as the third world and the west would be full of old age pensioners not earning.

If the demographers are right the working age population in Britain and Europe could work all the house under the sun and still not contribute enough to cover the cost of the non working population. So they need to be smarter. For that they need to be invested in and that means education.

The key to all our destinies, but specifically in Europe and Africa, is education. As Sarah Harper said, the single most effective way of changing fertility, in other words population growth, is educating women. The only way we are going to be able to support an aging population in Europe with a shrinking working age population is though ensuring they are the best educated in the world.

Given the long impact of recession this is an even bigger challenge for us in Britain. However it is a challenge we have to meet. We need to become the engine of ideas, inovation and invention just like we were in the last century. When we excel it has always acted as a beacon giving others hope and ambition. We need to show again the value we place on education for all.

Parents worry that our kids will not find jobs and that they will become young adults without hope. To me, I can't think of anything worse.

Here is my pitch, I think we need a national objective, as Coleridge says hope is nothing without an objective. Something that brings us all together across the political and class devide. An objective fit for a Golden Jubilee year .

Although this has to be lead by government, the nation as a whole should dedicate our selves to the ambition of having the best education system in the world. No child should be left behind.

I believe that this ambition is so import that both government and the opposition should work together on it. Indeed, I think it is impossible to achieve if we don't all work together. It would give people hope but hope with an objective. I certainly think Michael Gove and Stephen Twigg are up for it and that's a start, but we shouldn't underestimate the size of the task and the cultural change it entails.

I still can not quite believe that 20 % of school leavers can't read and write properly. You wonder why the prison population has such high numbers of illiteracy or people with learning problems.

What is sinful, is that over 20 year ago Ann Powers of LSE published Estates on the Edge which pointed out that it would save us money and alter society more beneficially if we stopped failing the bottom 20%.

Elie Weisel said "Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings".

The way we can do our bit to alter the world for all our children is by concentrating on what we do and excel.

There is a wonderful ancient Japanese tale about The Samurai Warrior and the Tea Maker. So proud was his master that the tea maker was honoured and given the rank of a Samurai and required to ware the robes. One day he came to a narrow passing, there was a Samurai warrior coming the other way. So out of respect the tea maker moved aside to let him pass. The Warrior was perplexed, what sort of Samurai was this that willing stood in the gutter. So he asked. The Tea maker told him he was no worrier but a tea maker. In outrage the warrior challenged the tea maker to a duel "He who wears the robes of a Samurai must fight like a Samurai". He gave the tea maker one day.

In a panic the tea maker sought out his lead's master of fencing and asked him to learn how to die with honor as he thought he would face certain death. The master of fencing was a wise man and he had great respect for the tea maker so he said " I will teach you all you require, but first, I ask that you perform the way of the Tea for one last time". So the tea maker performed the ceremony, all the trace of fear seemed to leave his face. He was serenely concentrating on the simple but beautiful cups and pots, and the delicate aroma of the leaves. Their was no room in his mind for anxiety.

When the ceremony was complete, the fencing master slapped his thigh and exclaimed with pleasure: "There you have it. No need to learn anything of the way of death. Your state of mind when you perform the tea ceremony is all that is required. When you see your challenger tomorrow, imagine that you are about to serve tea to him. Salute him courteously, express regret that you could not meet him sooner, take your coat and fold iras you did just now. Wrap your head in a silken scarf and do it with the same serenity as you dress for the tea ritual. Draw your sword and hold it high above your head. Then close your eyes and ready your self for combat."

So this is what the tea maker did. The warrior saw a different man altogether and he thought he must have fallen victim to some kind of trick and he was the one then to fear for his life. The warrior bowed and asked to be excused for his ruder behaviour.

If you can gain mastery over your mind and then your spirits - you can over come almost anything.

Lets give our children a true gift and in turn a gift to the world.
]]> We Need to Talk About Bibi tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1323889 2012-03-06T19:00:00-05:00 2012-05-06T05:12:01-04:00 Lorna Fitzsimons http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lorna-fitzsimons/ Avi Shlaim, went a-hunting, and his quarry was the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Here is his case. The central thread of Netanyahu's policy, he argues, is "outright hatred towards the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular." Bibi "does not believe in peaceful co-existence" but in the "never-ending struggle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness" - hence his war-mongering over Iran. Netanyahu leads "the most...diplomatically intransigent, and overtly racist government in Israel's history" and under his watch "settlement expansion has gone ahead at full tilt," making negotiations with the Palestinians impossible. After a career spent denying the possibility of Arab democracy, "the Arab Spring has proved him wrong," but this "jim-crack politician from a small country" can't seize the moment.

There are a host of problems with Shlaim's caricature.

Far from inciting hatred against Arabs, Netanyahu has repeatedly spoke of his vision of Israel as "a mosaic composed of Jews and Arabs, secular and ultra-orthodox, and until today we have agreed on peaceful coexistence and mutual respect among all sectors." He opposes attempts to unravel this coexistence. "For example, today I heard about a case of moving a woman on a bus. I strongly oppose this. I think that marginal groups cannot be allowed to dismantle our common denominator and we must maintain the public space as an open and safe for all Israelis. We need to look for what unites and bridges, not what divides and separates."

Nor is Bibi a war-monger. In fact he has never taken Israel into a war in either term of office. He has accepted a two-state solution and he has done meaningful work on movement and access on the West Bank. He stood before the US Congress and said this: "I stood before my people, and I told you it wasn't easy for me, and I said...'I will accept a Palestinian state.' It is time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say...'I will accept a Jewish state.' Those six words will change history."

As for Bibi leading Israel to 'fascism' - Shlaim's most ridiculous claim - what did Bibi do when faced with controversial bills to cap foreign government funding for NGOs, tax NGOs 45% on foreign government funding, limit access of judicial review from third parties, and in choosing judges? He rejected every one of them.

Indeed, one may cite against Shlaim a raft of liberal measures undertaken by even the right-wing coalition: from a vocal defence of gay rights (Netanyahu visited a gay centre after hate crime shootings), to the approval of a NIS, five million per annum for its project to promote sports for women; from measures to reduce the level of inequality and social gaps among the Arab, Druze and Circassian populations to increasing the employment rate of people with disabilities; from stepping up the enforcement of labour laws to encouragement for the employment of single parents.

Or how about the work of Minister Limor Livnat who chairs the Ministerial Committee on the Advancement of the Status of Women, in tackling violence against women and the exclusion of, and discrimination against, women in the public sphere? What of the five-year plan (2012-16) to promote the greater integration of Negev Bedouin citizens in the Israeli economy and society?

Netanyahu has spoken powerfully of his hatred of war. "I know the terror of war, I participated in battles, I lost good friends who fell [in battle], I lost a brother. I saw the pain of bereaved families from up close - very many times. I do not want war. No one in Israel wants war." He has called upon Arab leaders and Palestinian leaders to "go in the path of Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein."

To that end in June 2009, in a speech at Bar-Ilan University he accepted the principle of a Palestinian state. And in November 2009 he made his most significant gesture in attempt to kick start the process, by announcing a 10 month moratorium on all new settlement construction in the West Bank. Though this did not include East Jerusalem (which is part of sovereign Israeli territory under Israeli law, and therefore beyond the legal authority of the government to stop construction by military order) and did not stop work continuing on homes that were already under construction, or the construction of public buildings like classrooms, it was nonetheless a significant move, correctly described by US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton as "unprecedented."

Shlaim claims that under Netanyahu settlement building has been at "full-tilt". That is not so. Bibi made this pledge at Bar Illan. "The territorial issues will be discussed in a permanent agreement. Until then we have no intention to build new settlements or set aside land for new settlements." For much of his term Netanyahu has quietly held back new construction in east Jerusalem, especially after the embarrassing Biden incident in 2009. Between two thirds and four fifths of the population growth in West Bank settlements since between 2005 and 2010 was within settlement blocks which Israel can expect to keep in a final status agreement.

From March 2011, Netanyahu made clear he wanted to negotiate with the Palestinians without preconditions. A further step, first made in private, then hinted at in Netanyahu's UN address of 23 September 2011, was tentatively accepting Obama's proposal that 1967 borders plus land swaps be the basis for a territorial agreement, albeit taking into account demographic changes on the ground.

Sometimes, Bibi is hated for the inconvenient truths he tells.

Here is one. "The greatest danger to Israel, to the Middle East, and to all of humanity, is the encounter between extremist Islam and nuclear weapons." Even if Shlaim was right about Bibi's malevolence, this terrible truth would stand.

Is he wrong to find it hard to trust others with Israel's security? Would we put our fate in others hands? The IRA was not an existential threat to the UK but we didn't let anyone tell us what to do in Northern Ireland, not even the US. If Bibi let's Iran's nuclear programme develop past Israel's lesser military capability to stop it, he will have lost the ability to protect his people. He is then in the hands of the world, and the Jewish people have been there before. Look back at Rwanda, or look at Homs today - too often the world is incapable of action.

And here is another inconvenient truth Bibi tells. There has indeed been an "Islamisation of the Arab Spring movement" and this has placed "enormous pressure" on Israeli defenses and progress in the peace process. That a serious historian like Shlaim can treat the Arab awakening as a simple story of Arab democratic advance is sure indicator of animus driving, and distorting, argument. Bibi has tracked the facts: "We looked at it with sober eyes and we said it might go to the Google generation, but it might not. It might go to the Islamist direction. And by and large it has."

The fact is that Bibi is a complicated person and politician. One Bibi is steeped in the historical imperative of the Jewish people to return to the Land of Israel. That Bibi is obsessed with confronting (real) threats to the survival of the Jewish people. Another Bibi is a party manager mostly concerned with political survival and coalition juggling. But there is also the Bibi who led his Likud party into new political territory by explicitly acknowledging that the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will include the creation of a Palestinian state. This forward-looking Netanyahu might yet see fixing the permanent borders of the State of Israel would be a fitting contribution to the future of the Jewish people. The Shalit deal indicates that he, and his right hand man Yitzhak Molcho, know how to close a deal.

Cathartic it may be, but as long as our analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains in this form of arrested development, childishly blaming Bibi for all ills, it only masks the deeper problems and perpetuates a danger for us all - that we learn no lessons and so heighten the probability of making further mistakes. And that none of us can afford.]]> Syria: The International Toolbox is Perilously Empty tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1310402 2012-02-29T19:00:00-05:00 2012-04-30T05:12:01-04:00 Lorna Fitzsimons http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lorna-fitzsimons/
For example, during the 2008-9 war in Gaza I came up against a widespread misapprehension that there were better options there for the taking. However, I learnt that in this connected and complex world of ours you can very rarely do anything successful on your own.

Israel couldn't stop the rockets unless she could stop the smuggling, but she couldn't stop the smuggling without Egypt's support. But Egypt couldn't do it on its own without the help of other African and Arab states, and they couldn't do it without the help of the international community due to the laws that govern the high seas, amongst other things.

Even when after the war in Gaza when there was international agreement and political will to take on the issue of smuggling, the will soon ran out and nothing got done; we still have smuggling of arms and Islamic Jihad in Gaza is now at least as well-armed as Hamas.

We are flailing around about the tragic situation in Syria as though it is in our gift to sort it out if we only 'did something'. We talk about the UN and international law as though it is a magic wand. But as Israel found out, after 18 months of trying to get the international community to help it solve the problem of terror caused by smuggled rockets into Gaza - the international tool box is perilously empty. It is all too hard even where there is unanimity to achieve a desired outcome but virtually impossible without it. It shouldn't stop us trying, but we need to be realists if we are going to help anyone.

Often, we are left with no options or just bad ones. We rarely have international unity - and on Syria we can see the tragic consequences of Russia's and China's support to the Assad regime.

And when we lack that unity (sometimes, even when we have it) we are reduced to trying to convince the only country in the world that is still willing and able to act to be the adult - America. We need to bear that in mind before we wish away a uni-polar world.

We are seeing the green shoots of leadership in the Arab League through the courageous efforts of the Qataris, amongst others. But we are also reaping the reward of decades without it.

So we need to encourage them. Leadership isn't easy at the best of times but in the Middle East today, it could not be more difficult. We need to have some humility and remember we still make mistakes ourselves. Let's allow them to make theirs whilst doing what we can to minimise them. The best hope this region and the Syrian people have is that the Arab League stick at it (and improve their performance) while we encourage Russia to change its position.

We need to be a bit more circumspect about what options there are, and not just in Syria. We help no one by inflating expectations and we know through tragic recent experiences that we overestimate our own powers at our peril. We constantly say that Israel should do this, that or the other, but not once do we think about the realities as if we were in her shoes. None of this is to say that we should or should not intervene in Syria - the international community has an absolute responsibility to protect - but it does tell us that there are very rarely easy answers to be had.

Ours is a culture of "I want it all, and I want it now," as the song has it. But life is not like that because human beings are not like that. There is many a slip between the grandiose certainties of the op-ed writer and the messy world of the soldier or a decision-maker in the thick of it.

The tough question to ask ourselves is this: where is that small zone of influence in which our statecraft, allied to that of our partners, can help us improve our options? And then, how can our diplomacy open up those options, including the military option should we take it. No more talk of easy choices.

Next time you are tempted by easy rhetoric, think first.]]> Iran Through the Optics of Iraq tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1293830 2012-02-22T19:00:00-05:00 2012-04-23T05:12:01-04:00 Lorna Fitzsimons http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lorna-fitzsimons/
Yes, we should all be more exacting in the questions we ask after the painful lessons from the flawed intelligence on Iraq. But if this means we fail to take the threat of Iran seriously we will be making a terrible mistake. The memories of Iraq are fuelling some basic misconceptions over Iran that need to be cleared up. We are not and should not 'sleep walk' into a war, but if we take the military option off the table, we may paradoxically bring a conflict closer.

Is the threat exaggerated, just like in Iraq?

This is not like Iraq, where our assessment of the threat was based on hazy intelligence. Many of the unacceptable Iranian activities, such as uranium enrichment, are happening in the plain sight of IAEA inspectors, following their exposure by Iranian opposition groups and Western intelligence agencies in 2002. Intelligence evidence of many other aspects of the programme, such as weaponisation, were studies by the IAEA for years before the agency declared the evidence 'credible' in its November 2011 report.

I am not one of those who think Iran is irrational. On the contrary, their pursuit of nuclear weapons is a highly calculated strategy to maximise their power in the region. But the fact that they are rational does not make their programme benign.

Iran's already sponsors radicalism and terror not only throughout the Middle East but across the world from South America to Asia. They already position themselves as a pillar of resistance against Western influence in the Middle East, against the Middle East peace process and against any international attempts to resolve the crisis in Syria. They already call for Israel's destruction and provide the arms and money for extremist groups on Israel's borders to perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They already hope to bully and intimidate their Gulf Arab neighbours into accepting their regional leadership and turning away from their alliances with the West. The acquisition of nuclear weapons capability, in bald defiance of American and international, will only further enhance their capacity to advance this dangerous agenda.

William Hague has been clear on this issue since long before his time as Foreign Secretary. He sees the threat from the perspective of Iran's Gulf Arab neighbours. They are among the countries most immediately threatened by Iran. Hague understands also that British national interests are directly affected. Look at the percentage of inward investment into Britain from the Gulf. Just think what would happen to those trade interests if a nuclear armed Iran, for whom Britain is the 'little satan', became the dominant power in the region.

Our government also knows that the Iranian threat is real. There is no significant difference in assessment between Britain, the US and Israel. If anything, the UK shares Israel's concerns that the US has tended to understate how advanced Iran's programme is.

Are we sleepwalking into a war?

Today, the US and Europe have a well-coordinated policy of squeezing Iran through crippling sanctions. The decision for the West to give up that track and resort to military action will ultimately be an American one. Of the Western powers, only they have the military capacity to seriously degrade Iran's nuclear programme.

Obama understands the scale of the Iranian threat and sees it in a wider context. His vision of a nuclear weapons free world was the subject of his first international speech in Prague in 2009. In recent months he has been clear that the US will not allow a nuclear Iran.

We cannot underestimate his capacity to take decisive military action. In the last chapter of Bob Woodward's brilliant book on the Obama decision making process on the Afghan surge, Woodward asks Tom Donilon what he has learnt about his President. Donilon said that the president thinks if you are patient and resolute then others will come round to your thinking. This is an indication of his single mindedness.

He made the decision on the hit on Bin Laden when others would not take the risk and he allows the repetitive use of lethal force by US drones even in sovereign Pakistani territory. We know from recent statements from US officials that preparations have been ongoing under his administration for a credible military option against Iran.

But if Obama decides to take military action it will not be for lack of attention or through carelessness. It will be an act of clear rational assessment of costs and balances, in the knowledge that no choice, including the choice to do nothing, is cost free.

We also know that the US believes Israel does not have the capability to do a military operation well enough. Their assessment is that Israel could not reach all the relevant sites and could only set the programme back a few years. The US could do a much more comprehensive job. For that reason the US does not want Israel to launch a military strike. But at the same time they do not want to be pushed by Israel into a decision on military action in an election year.

Can Israel be persuaded to wait?

No one in Israel is gung ho for action. It will be Israeli citizens who will have to take cover in bomb shelters as Iran and its allies retaliate with thousands of rockets on Israeli towns and cities. But the noise coming from Israeli officials shows that they are losing patience. Israel's sense of urgency comes from a fully understandable feeling of dread at what the region will look like for them with a nuclear armed Iran.

What's making Israel particularly jittery right now is that key aspects of Iran's programme are moving towards what Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak calls a 'zone of immunity', meaning the point at which Israeli weaponry will no longer be able to damage them. Iran is already starting to operate an underground uranium enrichment facility in Fordow which may be impossible for Israel to bomb.

After that point, the better equipped US forces may still have a viable military option, but Israel does not like to leave key questions about its security in the hands of others, even its closest allies. Israel knows if it were to go it alone the risks would be enormous and the impact on the programme less than if the US were to act. But Israel has a deeply ingrained political culture of self-reliance.

It is a lesson Israelis take from Jewish history. They should never rely on others to defend them. Even if an Israeli strike only sets the Iranian programme back a few years, they may reason that this could buy time for other developments which undermine the Iranian regime.

That we have reached a point at which Israel may feel the need to act alone, without warning, indicates that we have not acted decisively enough before now. The severity of the sanctions is now catching up with the severity of the problem, but it is late in the day. Asking Israel to wait through 2012 and see if the sanctions will work means asking them to potentially give up their capacity for independent action.

It is not clear if Israel would warn the US in advance if it were to launch a military strike. It could inform the US what it is about to do in the hope that the US will step in. But this risks the US telling Israel flatly not to do it. Israel might be willing to act without an explicit US 'green light', but it is much harder to act in the face of an explicit demand from the US to stop.

Should we be taking the military option off the table?

The conclusion this leads to is that if we want to remain in control of the situation, we need to be absolutely clear in our determination that we will not allow Iran the capability for nuclear weapons. We need to be equally clear that we will consider all means, including military means.

If Israeli leaders suspect that the rest of the world is going to duck its responsibility, it is more likely to conclude that it has to act alone, despite the consequences. Equally concerning, is that if our Gulf allies think we are going to abandon them whilst Iran get nuclear weapons they are going to start considering whether they need to appease the playground bully. And if Iran hears that military action is not an option, they are going to be encouraged to hold out against the sanctions, in the belief that once they reach nuclear armed status, they will be able to negotiate with the world from a position of strength.

Iran, therefore, is not Iraq. To maintain the best chance of preventing a conflict, we need to keep all our options very much available.]]> The Rise of Political Islam Presents Challenges, But We're Not Doomed! tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1277536 2012-02-14T17:52:31-05:00 2012-04-15T05:12:01-04:00 Lorna Fitzsimons http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lorna-fitzsimons/ Dad's Army. Set amongst the hapless volunteers of the Home Guard during World War Two, one of my favourite characters was Private Frazer. A depressed undertaker who had grown up on the "wild and lonely" Isle of Barra, Fraser responded to every sticky situation with the catchphrase 'We're doomed!'

When Islamists of various stripes won 70% of the vote in Egypt, the temptation to say 'we're doomed' and give up was understandable. But it was fundamentally mistaken. If western powers set clear standards and make use of their economic leverage they can maximise their ability to shape the development of rising Islamist powers in the Middle East.

Over the past few decades Western powers have swayed between two approaches. One approach assumes that for most part Islamists will moderate their positions when faced with the realities of power, and calls to engage Islamist parties and find ways to get along with them. The other assumes that the ideology of the Islamists inherently runs contrary to our values and out interests, and takes the approach that the only way to deal with the Islamists is to isolate them and restrict their ability to influence the region. The Arab Spring has changed the equation. Now that Islamist parties have achieved impressive electoral results in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and elsewhere, the option to avoid contact with them and hope they wither away is no longer available.

Nonetheless, how we engage with rising Islamist powers, and on what terms, still matters greatly. This is because Islamist parties are undergoing an extraordinary period of evolution and change forced on them by the Arab Spring. The opening up of Arab societies and the opportunity to compete in fair elections has created enormous opportunities, but also great dilemmas. It is one thing to claim that 'Islam is the solution' whilst in opposition. But when standing for office or actually making governmental decisions, the public need something more.

How will they respect human freedoms and the rights of women, and non-Muslim religious minorities? How will they approach Islamic observance in public spaces? What role will Islam take in their new constitutions? Will they cooperate with the West in countering violent extremism, promoting stability and furthering the Middle East peace process? And will they maintain their enthusiasm for democratic institutions once in power or will they use their power to silence opposition?

There are reasons to fear the worst. The former Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Muhammad Mehdi Akef said following the 2005 Egyptian elections that: "for us, democracy is like a pair of slippers that we wear until we reach the bathroom, and then we take them off." Past cases seem to bear this out. After achieving power through elections in 2006, Hamas used its power to reinforce its own military forces, violently oust its Fatah rivals from the Gaza Strip, and create a regime which muzzles opposition and has so far prevented new elections from taking place.

So what can we do? External powers have only limited influence over what takes place within Arab societies. But as a new paper by BICOM Senior Visiting Fellow Michael Herzog argues, we do have some leverage afforded to us through our economic relations and we should use it to pull movements in the direction of the values and interests we hold. This week the US administration published its draft budget showing that it intends to maintain its $1.55bn economic aid commitments to Egypt, including $1.3bn of military aid - an annual aid package which rewarded Egypt's peace treaty with Israel. Last May at the G8 summit in Deauville the European Investment bank committed 3.5bn Euro to a global fund of $20bn for transitioning Arab states.

Taking into account the dire economic straits of Egypt in particular, the largest Arab state, this aid matters, and Islamists cannot ignore our concerns. Given that fact, BICOM's paper proposes four criteria according to which Western powers should measure the extent of their engagement and support for Islamist parties: commitment to non-violence; adherence to values of democracy; approach to the application of Islamic law ("Sharia") in public life; and attitude towards the West and Israel.

Given the plurality of Islamist voices now emerging, and the speed with which positions are evolving, there is a need for some flexibility in the application of these criteria. But at the same time, there must also be clear red lines. Western powers must be clear that violent or extreme anti-democratic, anti-Western and anti-Israeli attitudes and behaviours are unacceptable. In the particular case of Egypt, any threat to abrogate the Israel-Egypt peace treaty, which is a cornerstone of regional stability, must also be clearly beyond the bounds.

Arab peoples have the right to elect whoever they choose. But we have a right to say who we are going to support both politically and economically. We need to exercise this right with judgement. ]]> Why My Grandmother Would Agree With David Miliband tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1262141 2012-02-08T19:00:00-05:00 2012-04-09T05:12:01-04:00 Lorna Fitzsimons http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lorna-fitzsimons/ David Miliband this week, my mind turned to my grandmother. Let me explain.

She had no expectation that either the state or the local rich mill owner would provide for her and hers, so she banded together with her family and, together, they relied on their own endeavours to better themselves and their community.

These traditions of local working class self-help involved her (and her sister and her brother-in-law) setting up women-only speaker meetings, literacy classes, choirs - you name it. My great uncle Sam even turned his living room into a library! We have to thank this kind of personal agency for the freedoms and opportunities we now take for granted.

The post-first world war, pre-welfare state generation was remarkable. And we can learn from them. That generation gave me my political values: each of us has a personal responsibility to do it for ourselves and a social responsibility to our neighbours. A single mother and twice widowed, my grandma taught me that you don't have to be a Conservative to have aspiration.

It is through that prism of my Rochdale family that I read the debate that has broken out about the renewal of the Labour party. It is one of the most important in my life time.

There is a tempting option open to the party. David Miliband, in his much-discussed intervention last week, called it reassurance Labour. I think of it as the back-to-the-future option. In the mid-1980s we were deciding the future of the party and for young members like me we faced a choice between the politics of envy and the politics of aspiration.

The party's renewal began when we convinced the party that aspiration was a Labour value - put simply we weren't scared of success. The party that won elections by embracing the politics of aspiration and levelling up is being tempted once again by the hair-shirt politics of levelling down. Reassurance Labour, warns Miliband, risks taking us back to the politics of envy.

The challenge today is to marry together a modern social democratic politics of aspiration with a modern politics of participation. As David Miliband argues:

Active government is important beyond the demands of a minimal state. But it will only be effective when it mobilises people, whether as patients or parents or employees or citizens, to make choices and take decisions that reshape their own lives. That is why we are enjoined on our party membership cards to put power as well as wealth and opportunity in the hands of the many, not the few.

We need to ask "what would contemporary versions of my grandmother's local activism look like?" And at the other end of the social scale we should use the post-crash mood to open up a dialogue with the bankers and so called 'Masters of the Universe' in the city about using their wealth to help? After all, they want Britain to be successful and a great place to live and bring up their children. They already do give millions but they can do more.


We on the left have a problem. Whenever anyone talks of personal responsibility and of philanthropy and co-operation they are accused of proposing a move back to 'charity'. We need to get over this - philanthropy, localism and cooperation were essential building blocks of the welfare state during the industrial revolution (and of the strength of the working class). Asking individual citizens to do more will not undermine our commitment to the welfare state or to the state per se. It will enhance both.

We are not anti-capitalists but we do need to learn the lessons of the last Labour government. First, that we got the big issue right. David Miliband is absolutely correct to point out that we need to remain committed to "a politics of economic growth, not just redistribution and regulation" because "growing the pie and distributing it more fairly should be mutually reinforcing. Miss one of them out and we cannot help those who need it." But we do need a retooling of our economic policy. We achieved great things in government but as David points out, "it was funded in part from the unsustainable proceeds of the financial sector - far more sensible grounds for concern, as both Eds have said."

One of Labour's historic achievements was the creation of the welfare state. But we can't run away from the fact that the law of unintended consequences got to work, and we ended up with a dependency culture rather than a responsibility culture. My grandmother would have been appalled, frankly. We should be the people who strive to ensure the system is fair, and is seen to be fair. We need to say loud and clear that the individual has responsibilities as well as rights. My grandparents understood a basic truth: you get out what you put in. People of my step-daughter's generation often haven't had to fight for any of the rights they enjoy and consequently don't value them or understand how to maintain them.

During the Labour leadership contest Andy Burnham argued that "Socialism should be about aspiration." His philosophy also grew out of his working class roots, he said: "It's not about leveling down, but people coming together to let people get on and make something of themselves." Exactly.]]> Bread, Circuses and Stephen Hester tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1249453 2012-02-02T19:00:00-05:00 2012-04-03T05:12:01-04:00 Lorna Fitzsimons http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lorna-fitzsimons/ panem et circenses, or bread and circuses. Faced with a crumbling economy, growing social divisions, urban riots, and a sharp decline in public-spiritedness, the political elites sought to distract the people by staging spectacles - above all the Games. Seneca, the Roman Stoic philosopher and statesman, warned that "Nothing is more damaging to good character than the habit of wasting time at the Games, for then it is that vice steals secretly upon you through the avenue of pleasure."

This week, the political class have been wasting time at the games and allowing vice to secretly steal upon us.

Don't get me wrong. I shed no tears for Stephen Hester, the chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland. Yes, he was forced to give up his bonus of £963,000 (the tax charge would have been £500,760, by the way), but anybody's basic salary should be enough. The bonus was always politically toxic. RBS received a 45bn state bail-out in 2008, so the government owns 83% of the bank (though it remains a public company that is run by an independent board of directors); the same government is now freezing public sector pay and cutting benefits

But Hester's public humiliation - and, though the two individuals are very different, also that of Sir-no-more Fred Goodwin - was nothing but a modern-day version of the Roman games. By putting these men in the modern arena (24 hour news) and having them metaphorically put to the sword, the political class has created the illusion of tackling the real problems for which their names stand as proxies - a global economy that is at best out of kilter with our best values, and at worst suicidally badly engineered. In the UK, politicians can still not get the banks to lend to small firms. Net lending (what banks handed out to firms less the amount paid back to banks by firms) was minus £10.8billion in 2011. Meanwhile, consumers are facing the highest overdraft charges since records began in 1995.

Benedict Brogan has criticised the leader of the opposition and the prime minister for "flirting with the mob over Mr. Hester's bonus." He fears a populist 'anti-capitalist campaign' is under way. I have a sneaking suspicion that Ben knows the British public is not a mob and they are certainly not 'anti-capitalist'; most remain Thatcher's and Blair's aspirational children. But their good common sense tells them we need real reform to ensure risks are manageable and the system fairer. And they want their politicians to work together to deliver that reform. They know that genuine solutions that can prevent another crash of this scale require grown-up political cooperation across borders to construct a new global, not just local, economic architecture. They want heads knocked together, not cut off.

The spectacle provided by the ritual humiliation of individuals like Stephen Hester is a distraction from the agenda of one of the greatest political challenges of our generation - the small matter of the future of democracy and capitalism. The conundrum is that politics around the world, not just in the west, is going local while the answers to fixing the economy are more and more global. The public got there before us and they know we don't have the answers - the games don't fool anyone. Politicians need to earn the political trust of the people to secure the mandate to make the global economic reforms necessary; and as yet they haven't secured that trust.

We can't fix this by just getting Hester (relatively speaking one of the lowest paid bankers, given the size of RBS) to give up his bonus. We need to do many things - yes, change the bonus culture but not just at the top but also in the middle and the bottom of banks. At the top, bonuses don't really alter a CEO or chairman's productivity or performance: they are already highly motivated people. But at the middle and lower levels in the banks the bonus culture really did have law of unintended consequences for us.

How many of us took loans out or restructured our finances on the advice of a young bank employee through the boom years? We trusted that they were telling us what was in our best interests, only to discover that we should have paid more attention. They were actually selling products to us to achieve their targets and improve their performance related salaries. We all thought we could 'afford' more than we really could and we changed the country's culture from the post-war 'save first and spend later' to thinking, in the words of the Queen song, "I want it all and I want it now." Reforming the City alone will not change this culture - change is needed in both individual behaviour and global systems and practices.

And we also need a new culture of philanthropy and cooperation. To be clear, this is not my contribution to the 200th anniversary of Dickens' birth - we can't return to the days before the welfare state. Nonetheless, we can learn much about individual philanthropy from America, where millions from the hard-working family to the Carnegie's and Buffet's believe they have social responsibility and avowedly not just the state. And let's make more of our own history. I come from Rochdale, a town with rich traditions - from the birthplace of the cooperative movement to the more recent philanthropy of Sir Peter Ogden. I also work with one of the most philanthropic British communities. The Jewish community is small, as yet untypical in their giving, yet they demonstrate that philanthropy and cooperation are covenantal, joining the economic and the democratic, and helping to knit the social fabric together.

Many are desperate to get beyond the games we have been playing. For example, John Slinger, editor of Pragmatic Radicalism: Ideas from Labour's Young Generation, sounds a Seneca-like tone on Twitter when he expresses his irritation: "While ppl r dancing on grave of #Goodwin maybe they'll stop 4 a microsecond, contemplate how 2 prevent future crises, avoid this blood lust."

Let's listen to Seneca. Let's agree not to allow vice (i.e. our evasion of tough regulatory reforms and our failure to forge a new global economic covenant) to steal secretly upon us as we indulge the cheap pleasures of humiliating individuals like Stephen Hester. We have no more time to waste on games.]]> Hamas: Wishful Thinking is No Basis for Policy Making tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1231235 2012-01-25T19:00:00-05:00 2012-03-26T05:12:01-04:00 Lorna Fitzsimons http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lorna-fitzsimons/
Is the Palestinian Islamist organisation Hamas about to give up its strategy of armed resistance? Hopes were raised when Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal told Al Jazeera on 26 December 2011 that "all forms of resistance, especially armed resistance [i.e. the path of terrorism], are our right, but now, during the Arab Spring, we prefer the popular resistance and to focus instead on a unified strategy of popular resistance."

I would be the first to dance a jig if there was a genuine rethink on the part of Hamas. A 'new Hamas' would indeed bring comfort. It would open the way to Palestinian unity and the extension of the West Bank nation-building strategy to Gaza. And it would boost the search for a two state solution, as well as encouraging other Islamist movements to give up violence. These are all glittering prizes, to be sure.

But it's all 'a bit previous'. And in the Middle East, as in life, it's all about the timing. If European politicians get the timing wrong and drop the 'no-contact' policy too soon they could put back the clock on progress, inflict tremendous damage on the peace process and the undermine moderate politics throughout the region.

For four reasons, now is not to time bringing Hamas in from the cold.

First, Hamas is more likely responding tactically to short-term pressures not rethinking its basic strategy

The Arab Spring has created both threats and opportunities for Hamas. The uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime has undermined a key patron of Hamas which hosts its political bureau in Damascus.

Hamas is caught between its loyalty to Assad and its affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood, whose spiritual leader, Sheikh Yussuf Al Qaradawi, has openly backed the uprising against Assad. Hamas chose its spiritual leader (which casts an interesting sidelight in itself) and lost its patron and its headquarters. It seeks a new home in places - Cairo, Amman, Qatar - that do not want to hear talk of armed resistance.

The conflict in Syria is widely seen in the Arab world as a sectarian confrontation - a majority Sunni population being suppressed by a non-Sunni, Alawite minority. Hamas's failure to identify with Assad has led Iran - which has a strategic alliance with the Assad regime - to reportedly cut back its financial support to Hamas. This has contributed to financial strain on Hamas, which was already suffering from a decline in revenue from smuggling after Israel relaxed many of its restrictions on imports to Gaza.

The Arab Spring has also re-energised Palestinian society to demand political unity between the Hamas regime in Gaza and the Fatah-dominated PA in the West Bank. This has prompted Hamas to sound more conciliatory on the issue of Palestinian unity, to be more ready to accept Egyptian intervention in Palestinian affairs and to seek ways to improve its standing in Palestinian public opinion. These factors partly explain the sudden conclusion of the deal to free Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit last October. It may also explain Meshaal's talk of a new non-violent Hamas.

Second, Hamas is not speaking with one voice

Not all the Hamas leadership in Gaza is in agreement with the Damascus-based Meshaal. Addressing a crowd in Gaza on 14 December, Gaza prime minister Ismail Haniyeh said, "Today, we say, in a clear and unambiguous fashion: the armed resistance and armed struggle are our strategic choice and our path to liberate the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River, and to drive the usurping invaders out of the blessed land of Palestine." He added, "The fact that Hamas, at one stage or another, accepts the goal of gradual liberation - of Gaza, of the West Bank, or of Jerusalem - is not at the expense of our strategic vision with regard to the land of Palestine."

Hamas's internal leadership was angered at Meshaal's December 26 pronouncement. Senior Gazan Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar has been scornful of the attempts at reconciliation with Fatah and objected in principle to the call for popular resistance, which he said was not relevant in Gaza as it is no longer under occupation. Ahmed Jaabri, leader of the Hamas military wing in Gaza, is also believed to be increasingly independent from Hamas's external leadership, and was a key figure determining the outcome of the Shalit deal.

Perhaps significantly, Meshaal has now announced that he does not wish to stand again for the leadership of Hamas's political bureau.

Third, Hamas-in-Gaza is exploring a reconciliation with Palestinian Islamic Jihad

While the much-hyped 'reconciliation' between the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank is advancing at a snail's pace, there have been merger talks between Hamas's Gaza-based leadership and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

PIJ is a terrorist organisation even more extreme than Hamas, which has avoided participation in PA elections and is closely tied, financially and ideologically, to Iran. It has been growing in military strength over the last year and poses an increasing challenge to Hamas's authority in Gaza.

Fourth, if the West dropped its non-contact policy now that would fatally undermine the moderates

In the Middle East, as in life, timing is all. And for Europe to drop its non-contact policy with Hamas at this time would undermine President Abbas and the regional moderates.

There is no reason for us to fall into despair. Hamas may yet reconcile its Islamist ideology with a permanent renunciation of violence and acceptance of Israel. But there is no place for C.S Lewis' "soft soap and wishful thinking." However much we may wish it to be true, there is currently no evidence that the underlying position of Hamas has changed. It remains focused on securing its ability to rule in Gaza, reversing the clampdown on its activities at the hands of the PA in the West Bank, assuming leadership of the Palestinian national movement and gaining international legitimacy, without giving up on its core ideological principles.

We should monitor Hamas and encourage those who seek to push the organisation in a new direction. As regards to engagement it is not a case of if, but when. But right now there are just too many contradictory messages coming out of this turbulent and hitherto violent organisation to allow any western politician to take any risks. All policy makers should remember that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.]]> Why Nick Clegg Should Focus on the Settlement Not the Settlements tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1211170 2012-01-17T19:00:00-05:00 2012-03-18T05:12:01-04:00 Lorna Fitzsimons http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lorna-fitzsimons/ Nick Clegg described Israeli settlement building on Monday. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who was in London, cheered him on; his negotiators having made a full settlement freeze a precondition for the resumption of direct negotiations with Israel.

The deputy prime minister was not wrong to articulate widespread international concern. And he was clearly following his Foreign Office briefing. But the demand for a complete halt to all Israeli construction over the Green Line is now a road-block preventing the commencement of bilateral talks. This may not seem fair, but it is the hard reality that we must confront if we want to help rather than hinder the parties reach a final resolution of the conflict.

I am no apologist for settlements, but I want a settlement more. By focusing obsessively on the short-term (something for which we are over-fond of criticising Israel for) we have given ourselves less scope to solve the problem in the long term. We need to practice what we preach and be strategic. Instead, we are too often becoming an unwitting impediment to peace by making settlements the issue - ironic, sad, and maddening, but true.

Yes, Israel must give up all but a small percentage of the West Bank in any conflict-ending agreement. In 2007 Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered the Palestinians 93% plus land from Israel to compensate for land annexed from the West Bank. But that's the point - he made the offer inside the negotiating room, face to face with the man with whom the agreement must be struck, when the subject was borders.

By making Israeli settlements (plural) the issue, we inadvertently make the settlement (singular, and conflict-ending) almost impossible to reach because we block the direct negotiations which alone can secure a Palestinian state. No matter how overwhelming the desire to speak out, there are times when we need to practice a self-denying ordinance if we are to help the parties back to the table. We need to ask ourselves religiously whether what we are doing or saying is more or less likely to get the parties to negotiate which we all accept is the only way we will get a deal that both peoples will accept.

Anyone who reads this post as in praise of settlements is missing the point and not listening. I want a settlement but as the Prime Minister said on Tuesday, we can't want it more than the Palestinians or the Israelis.

For four reasons, the way in which settlements are often discussed is counter-productive for all of us who want a lasting settlement and justice for both peoples.

First, settlement policy has never stopped or started negotiations before

The historical record does not bear out the idea that a settlement freeze is the indispensable condition for solving the Israeli-Arab conflict. From 1949-67 Jews were forbidden to live on the West Bank but that did not mean the surrounding Arab states sought peace. After 1967 for a decade only a few strategic settlements were built in the territories, but still the Arabs states refused to negotiate peace with Israel. But once the settlement project got under way after 1977, after the Likud government came to power, Egyptian President Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel, as did Jordan in 1994 at a time when the number of Jews living in the territories was growing. The Oslo Accords in 1993, Camp David in 2000, the near-thing negotiations at Annapolis in 2007, were all conducted without a settlement freeze.

Conversely, in August 2005, when Israel evacuated all of the settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in the Northern West Bank the result was...more terror attacks.

Let's be clear: the Palestinians are using settlement construction as an excuse for not talking because they don't see negotiations as in their interests. They negotiated with the Olmert government in 2008 with no settlement freeze. And even when Netanyahu went a considerable way to meeting the Palestinian demand, and created a window of opportunity by imposing a ten month moratorium on new construction in November 2010, the Palestinians prevaricated for nine and half months before entering talks. As the US Special Envoy George Mitchell noted "The Palestinians opposed '[the freeze] on the grounds, in their words, that it was worse than useless ... then [it] became indispensable and they said they would not remain in the talks unless that indispensable element were extended."

The inconvenient truth is that when we made settlements the precondition for talks, we made talks absent from the peace process. And there can't be a process without talks.

Second, by making settlements the issue, Abbas and the Palestinians have been put 'up a tree without a ladder'

President Abbas has complained that 'It was Obama who suggested a full settlement freeze... I said OK, I accept. We both went up the tree. After that, he came down with a ladder and he removed the ladder and said to me, jump.'

As we noted in a BICOM analysis at the time, The Bush Administration and Israel had reached a tacit agreement that construction in isolated settlements East of the Security Barrier was effectively frozen, while construction on the basis of 'natural growth' continued in those large settlement blocs close to the Green Line - settlements which at the Camp David negotiations, and at Taba (Clinton Parameters), Geneva, and Annapolis were expected to be retained by Israel in a final status agreement. In a policy error, the Obama administration - seeking to distance itself from Bush-era policies in the Middle East and rebuild America's image - insisted that Israel had to freeze all building, including 'natural growth' to demonstrate good faith. Obama then changed his mind, after wasting two years, but it was too late: Abbas could not look more accommodating to Israel than the US President. We are still wrestling with the consequences of that policy error.

Third, a 'full settlement freeze' is impossible to deliver for Israel

No Israeli government has ever enforced a complete 'freeze' on settlements, i.e. a freeze on all building not just in the West Bank but even those parts of East Jerusalem that are not even seen as 'settlements' in Israel. It is impossible politically, for coalition governments. But it is also impossible in human terms; existing communities, which have typically young and growing populations, cannot freeze their natural growth. Even dovish Israeli President Shimon Peres has pointed out the impracticability of a total freeze, stating that "Israel cannot instruct settlers in existing settlements not to have children or get married." Think of a family with married children living at home with them, who then become pregnant and need extra room. And in time the nursery school or health centre needs expansion. And all this within what the leaked 'Palestinian Papers' tell us even the Palestinian negotiators recognised will remain in Israel proper after a deal.

Fourth, the settlements are almost all concentrated in areas that both sides agree will remain Israel anyway

Settlements are Israel's past. Israel has not built a single new 'settlement' since Oslo in 1993. The unhelpful announcement (and reannouncement!) of historic contracts and the running commentary on each step of the planning process for every extension may make it sound like there are lots of new 'settlements' being built but there simply are not.

The era of Israel grabbing every hill top has long gone. Today, IDF troops play cat and mouse with 'hill-top youth' chasing them off illegal outposts. Slowly, and too infrequently, demolitions have been conducted, recently at Havat Gilad.

Abbas knows that between two thirds and four fifths of the population growth in West Bank settlements since between 2005 and 2010 was within settlement blocks which Israel can expect to keep in a final status agreement. According to data provided by Peace Now, population growth in West Bank settlements between 2005 and 2010 was 63,760. Crucially, approximately two thirds of this growth was West of the border proposed in the Geneva Accords, and four-fifths was West of the proposed route of the Security Barrier.

Settlements have not eaten up vast tracts of the West Bank. The Palestinian Monitor notes that "Settlements are built on less than 3% of the area of the West Bank." Lead Palestinian negotiator Saab Erekat puts the figure at 1.1%. Yes, the surrounding municipally controlled land, and the roads and checkpoints associated with occupation means that a much larger area is currently beyond Palestinian control, but the answer to that is a conflict-ending agreement about borders.

Everyone accepts East Jerusalem will be the capital of a future Palestinian state if there is to be a deal. The Clinton Parameters drawn up at the Taba negotiations in January 2001, stipulate that Jewish neighbourhoods are to go to Israel and Palestinian neighbourhoods are to go to Palestine, while the future of disputed neighbourhoods should be determined through direct negotiations. Sadly, 10 years on, the lack of success in talks means that settlement building in East Jerusalem has made the clear demarcation of a Palestinian capital more complex but not impossible: another reason for urgent direct negotiations which is the only route to a final settlement.

Finally, settlements are reversible. Most Israelis favour withdrawing from all but the largest communities in a conflict-ending agreement. In 2005 Israel pulled out 9,000 settlers from the Gaza Strip, facing down fierce internal opposition.

If we are really serious about peace and statehood for the Palestinians we will focus more on the final settlement and - objectionable as they are - focus less on temporary settlements.]]> Women, the Islamist Moment and Us tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1198937 2012-01-11T19:00:00-05:00 2012-03-12T05:12:01-04:00 Lorna Fitzsimons http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lorna-fitzsimons/ "I have never been so worried about women's freedom as I am now. The threat is everywhere - on what women wear, how they think. If you are not with them (Islamists), they will insult you, harass you." - Saida Garrach, a lawyer and activist in the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women.

"The Islamist moment has arrived", warns Adam Shatz in London Review of Books. And that means that democratic western leaders and activists now face a fiendishly difficult challenge: how to encourage stable transitions to democracy in young societies that are stumbling out of the rubble of dictatorship, mired in poverty, with weak democratic traditions, but with Islamists of various stripes wielding decisive influence in both legislatures and civil society.

So, what are our red-lines? The temptation for western policy-makers is to limit themselves to just two - persuading the Islamists to respect the democratic rules of the game and to eschew violence.

Each is vital, of course, but western governments and civil society should have a third red-line: the protection and extension of women's rights. To insist upon women's empowerment is not a case of orientialism or cultural imperialism, and nor is it to endorse the spurious notion of a 'clash of civilisations.'

It is the key to making the transition to democracy work, in the Middle East or anywhere else. It is the right thing to do. And the smart thing.

It is right because to accept a quid pro quo - you embrace non-violence and we will turn a blind eye to your treatment of women - is not only to condemn women to a future of oppression, but to condemn the democratic transitions per se to stall in poverty and extremism.

It is smart because women's equality is close to being a policy silver bullet. From a raft of research we know that every good that we desire as democrats correlates with women's empowerment. Executive Director of UN Women, Michelle Bachelet stated in 2011 that "Ending extreme poverty and hunger, improving women's and children's health, combating AIDS, and ensuring universal education all depend in large part on the progress that is made by and for women and girls."

The subjugation of women is still the most important global social inequality. It sears deepest into experience, molds political cultures most decisively, and determines both individual life-chances and global development. For all the hysterical talk of a 'clash of civilizations' it is actually the fight for women's equality and empowerment, across the globe, that is the world-historical struggle to be won.

And nowhere is the relationship between development, democracy and women's equality clearer than in the Arab world.

In 2005 the respected United Nations Arab Human Development Report concluded that women's empowerment was one of three decisive changes that are required, alongside good governance and a culture of knowledge, to encourage the development of societies across the Arab world. "In public life, cultural, legal, social, economic and political factors impede women's access to education, health, job opportunities, citizen's rights and representation", it reported, identifying a lack of power as the critical factor: "In all cases...real decisions in the Arab world are, at all levels, in the hands of men."

We need to face some depressing facts about the Arab Spring and develop a robust policy response. While the Arab Spring has opened up opportunities for women in the long-term, in the short-term the google-generation has - for now, at least - been pushed aside by the hard men of the military and the long-established Islamist parties. And as a result, women's rights are under threat.

Take Libya. The leader of the National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, used Liberation Day to announce that laws contradicting sharia would be annulled. When he pointed out that this meant polygamy would be made legal, he drew "cheers and celebratory gunfire from the mostly male crowd."

Take Egypt, where women played a central role in the Tahrir Square protests that toppled Mubarak. The YouTube images of a woman protestor being half-stripped and stamped on by a group of soldiers shocked the world. Women protestors have been humiliated by so-called 'virginity tests' - in reality, sexual assaults - by the Egyptian military. Not a single woman has been appointed to the constitutional committee. There are plans to revise a raft of legislation that underpins women's rights in Egypt.

Even in Tunisia, where Ennahda - the Islamist victors in recent elections - have promised to respect the old relatively progressive family code, women activists fear a 'double discourse' is being used by the Islamists to play for time. Reporter Marie-Louise Gumuchan cites 30-year-old Houda Ben Zid, an insurance worker: "Ennahda cannot make any threats now because everyone will turn against them. But they could do something later. Our way of life could be threatened."

We will need to proceed carefully. First, there is a wave of anti-western feeling to overcome - we backed the autocrats for decades and that will not be easily forgotten. Second, there is a suspicion of feminism itself in many parts of the Arab world, not just because of a deep-seated patriarchy but also because the old women's movements were often state-run and led by the wives of the autocrats, such as Egypt's Suzanne Mubarak, Tunisia's Leila Ben Ali, Syria's Asma al-Assad and Jordan's Queen Rania. The Islamists exploit this by talking of legislation protecting women's rights as 'Suzanne's Laws' - an alien 'western' implant. But the essence of democracy is the all, not the few, and that means securing the dignity of girls and women as well as men.

Of course, no external agency can simply impose progress; and there are no quick fixes - two of the neo-conservative errors. But there is so much we can do. In the words of the political theorist Michael Walzer, the state has one role and civil society another.

States can use diplomacy and conditionality to exert "steady pressure on behalf of political decency and a sustained critique of brutality and repression". Civil society can seek a different kind of influence: "non-coercive, dependent on persuasion, and slow enough in its effects to allow the "other people" time to consider and reconsider what they are doing." Sometimes the quiet word can have more impact than the lecture.

But make no mistake, while democrats cannot impose equality, neither can they extend a free pass to those who oppress women. We must be determined to respond urgently to the chant of the brave Egyptian men and women who protested the brutal beatings of women by the military. "The women of Egypt are a red line", they shouted. Western policy-makers and activists, each in their own way, should echo that.

For us too, the women should be a red line.]]> The Peace Process: Three New Year's Resolutions tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1181356 2012-01-03T19:00:00-05:00 2012-03-04T05:12:01-05:00 Lorna Fitzsimons http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lorna-fitzsimons/
It would be naïve to expect too much from these first halting contacts. But jaw-jaw is always better than war-war, as Churchill said, and optimism is no vice, especially at New Year. Perhaps we can be allowed three resolutions in the spirit of Ben Franklin.

First, we won't give up on negotiations - after all, Israelis and Palestinians haven't.

Western commentators are prone to dismiss the prospects for compromise. Not so Israelis and Palestinians. The regular poll conducted jointly by the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah has a most encouraging finding. There has been an increase in Palestinians' and Israelis' willingness to compromise.

Our December poll shows an increase in support for the Clinton permanent settlement framework on both sides. 58% of Israelis and 50% of Palestinians support a permanent settlement package along the Clinton parameters; 39% of Israelis and 49% of Palestinians oppose such a settlement. These results mark a significant increase in both sides' willingness to compromise compared to recent years.

Although there is much talk of three decades of failed negotiations, there have actually been important achievements. Before Oslo, contacts were unofficial and in Israel's case not even legal. Today, the negotiators know each other's positions like the back of their hands. Negotiations have helped Israelis and Palestinian leaders clarify their own positions. And the process of negotiation has made the two-state solution into common sense, and marginalised the purveyors of violence.

Out of Oslo came Palestinian self-rule, without which a Palestinian state would be unimaginable. Camp David to the Clinton parameters in 2000-1, and the 2007-2008 Annapolis process each glimpsed conflict-ending resolutions and on both occasions Israel offered close to the maximum any Israeli government could offer.

Second, we will continue to think creatively.

One of the encouraging developments has been the coalescence of American, European and now Jordanian energies around the focussed goal of getting the parties back into negotiations.

The positive intervention of King Abdullah of Jordan which created the first meeting between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in 15 months is particularly welcome. However, there is a need for more creative thinking on all sides. Even the back-channel proposal to release 100 ageing Fatah prisoners as a way to get negotiations moving, while perhaps never a starter, was at least an example of thinking outside the box.

Third, we will seek to be an honest broker.

One-sided calls for Israel to offer concessions in order to entice the Palestinians back into negotiations have been the catch 22 of international intervention. Diplomatic pressure should, rather, be carefully balanced, with both Israel and the Palestinians feeling that the international community will not tolerate measures that undermine the search for a conflict-ending agreement.

For the same reason, we need to stand firm against boycotts. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign encourages the Palestinians to avoid the difficult compromises necessary to end the conflict, and reinforces the case of those in Israel who argue that there is no partner for peace.

In the West Bank the UK is doing much to build bottom-up progress in the security field, taking a lead role in the day-to-day support of the National Security Forces, and as part of the EU POL-COPPS project to support the Palestinian Civil Police.

This work should continue alongside diplomatic efforts to prevent flash points that could both trigger confrontations between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinians should also be pressed to act with restraint in international forums, and Israel to maintain and enhance existing cooperation. And when engaging with emerging political forces in the region, Britain should encourage emerging Arab political actors to express their support for a negotiated two-state solution and the principles of the Arab Peace Initiative (as Syrian National Council leader, Samir Nashar, has just done).

The UK should also continue to encourage the practical measures that could be taken on the ground in the West Bank that are mutually beneficial and move the parties in the direction of a two-state reality. Many Israelis support interim steps that would move the Palestinian Authority in the direction of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, including expanding areas of Palestinian control in ways that do not compromise Israeli security. Britain, in partnership with the international community, can play a role by legitimising this kind of approach. It should encourage Israel to propose such initiatives, and encourage the Palestinians and the wider Arab world to embrace them, rather than pursuing counterproductive UN resolutions which are designed to isolate Israel, but do nothing for Palestinians or Israelis on the ground.

Britain, in partnership with the international community, can play a role by legitimising this kind of approach. It should encourage Israel to propose such initiatives, and encourage the Palestinians and the wider Arab world to embrace them.

The New Year is no time for cynicism. It is a time for thinking creatively about how to helping to bring the parties together in direct negotiations and for sustaining the regional environment that can help keep them there. ]]> The European Project Can't be Achieved Against the Will of the People tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1160725 2011-12-20T12:35:54-05:00 2012-02-19T05:12:01-05:00 Lorna Fitzsimons http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lorna-fitzsimons/ Denis Macshane MP it is the same story among opinion-shapers: "the isolationists...have conquered the field [and the] pro-Europeans have shrunk away."

This is no cause for celebration. Rather it should be cause for bitter regret for pro-Europeans. But also for some brutal honesty about where the European project has gone wrong. An unreflective lashing out at 'English Europhobia' does not even begin to address the real problems.

In the project for European integration, leaders wilfully allowed their publics to get left behind. Whilst all politics remains local, economics continues to become ever more global. Now in addition to the economic crisis, we have an even more fundamental problem, which is an undermining of public trust that democratically elected leaders will reflect the will of the people.

The utopian visions of some of Europe's most articulate cheerleaders show how expectations for Europe were set far too high. The late historian Tony Judt wrote of Europe as "a paragon of the international virtues...an exemplar for all to emulate."

New Labour's Mark Leonard invited us to imagine a "New European Century' of 'peace, prosperity and democracy." The writer Jeremy Rifkin went even further. Europe was "on the journey towards a third stage of human consciousness' no less, creating 'a new promised land, one dedicated to reaffirming the life instinct and the Earth's indivisibility."

But the politicians imbued with such visions, and pursuing greater integration, failed to make the case to the general public. In the words of Perry Anderson, "the ensuing debacle came as a brief thunderclap to the Western elites' when it turned out that 'the light of the world ... cannot even count on the consent of its populations at home." The voters of France and Holland (not, note, 'Europhobic' Britain) decisively rejected the grandiose 500-page European Constitution even though it was supported by every mainstream continental political party.

Next, the European political class, rather than accept that a premature federalism was straining the relationship between the project and the people, decided to place the project beyond the will of the people. And as Anderson sardonically noted, it was not the first time.

Virtually every time - there have not been many - that voters have been allowed to express an opinion about the direction the Union was taking, they have rejected it. The Norwegians refused the EC tout court; the Danes declined Maastricht; the Irish, the Treaty of Nice; the Swedes, the euro. Each time, the political class promptly sent them back to the polls to correct their mistake, or waited for the occasion to reverse the verdict. The operative maxim of the EU has become Brecht's dictum: in case of setback, the government should dissolve the people and elect a new one.

This shielding of the European project from the European peoples - stealth integration, so to speak - has reached new and deeply worrying heights with the replacement of elected national politicians by EU appointed technocrats; Mr. Monti at the head of Italy and Mr. Papandremos in Greece.

We are in treacherous waters now. Democratic politicians cannot govern without the will of the people, and for the European project to become associated in the popular mind with arrogant elites acting on their own whims is a disaster. For make no mistake, that association is now firmly entrenched in the UK and it cannot be blamed solely on the hostile UK press. The drive by European elites towards an ever closer union has created a chasm between policy makers and the public which is critically undermining trust not only in Europe, but in democracy itself.

Declining faith in elected leaders is not only a trend in Europe. It is a global phenomenon, and a deeply disturbing one, as evidenced by declining voter turnouts and falling levels of trust in politicians. This threat could indeed prove more fundamental to our values and way of life then the economic crisis we are facing. If elected leaders and institutions lose the trust of the public, they will not have the authority to make the difficult decisions necessary to get out of the economic mire.

The situation has not been helped by the petty and politically driven tone of public debate. We must improve the quality of the conversation in the public square about Europe, and bring an end to the parliamentary knockabouts dominated by the unhelpful caricatures of the 'Little England' and the 'European Superstate'.

The European Union matters deeply but the people of Europe do not want federalism. Not yet, anyway. The beginning of political wisdom is to respect that, back off, listen to the people, and build the Europe they do want, from the bottom up. What is at stake is much more than the European project; it is the credibility and principle of democracy itself.]]> Israeli Democracy: Time to Tamp Down the Crisis Talk tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1146394 2011-12-13T12:00:00-05:00 2012-02-12T05:12:01-05:00 Lorna Fitzsimons http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lorna-fitzsimons/
On the right, the leading Likud figure Benny Begin, son of the former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, is astonished at colleagues who have "forgotten the basic rules of democracy". In the centre, Tzipi Livni is aghast at bills that push the country "towards dictatorship." And on the left, Haaretz columnist Ari Shavik fears the country's very survival is being put in jeopardy by a "vile reactionary spirit rising from the parliament."

Short-sighted and opportunistic politicians, he believes, are playing to their base inside the country upon which their Knesset seats depend, and alienating Israel's base outside the country - the democratic Westerners upon which the state's survival depends.

The problem is not that the alarm bells are being rung - a healthy democracy always needs its citizens to be watchful. The problem is that a notion is spreading in the West that Israel is fast becoming an illiberal ethno-democracy - fear-driven, bigoted, and small minded. And that just is not true. And how we debate the state of Israel's democratic future casts a light on how we view our own, as well as being vital to Israel's international standing.

We need to see the bigger picture. The prospects for Israeli democracy look much better once we place the current crop of controversial Knesset proposals into three contexts - the long-term historical development of democracy in Israel, the short-term political pressures driving some of the controversial pieces of legislation, and the larger debate raging across academia and among politicians of all stripes about the global crisis of representative democracy.

Historical context. "If ever it comes to awarding a Nobel prize for democratic achievement in recent decades" says the Hebrew University historian Alexander Yacobson, writing in Justice: the journal of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, it should be shared by India and Israel. The latter, he points out, faced conditions "about as favourable to liberal democracy as the Dead Sea is to fishing."

Waves of immigrants, mostly from countries without a democratic culture, built a vibrant democracy while fighting a series of Arab-Israeli wars, maintaining a near-permanent state of emergency, and integrating a sizeable national minority that identified with the 'enemy.'

And miraculously, Israel has become more of a liberal democracy over time (in a region that has seen many countries travel in the opposite direction). The late 1970s were more liberal that the early 1960s, and - despite dire warnings that Israeli democracy would not survive Begin's Likud - Israel is today more of a liberal democracy than it had been in the late 1970s. (Begin, it turned out, was a liberal parliamentarian who did much to boost the Israeli judiciary.)

Today, the Knesset is stronger, political parties more in the hands of their members, local government more autonomous, the judiciary stronger (despite noise in the Knesset), the High Court more willing to overrule the government, media scrutiny more intense (despite threats to curb its power), the culture less deferential, and the State Comptroller is more mighty. And as we saw in the summer, Israeli civil society is so robust it can re-shape the country's economic and social policies through protests characterised by a constructive spirit and creative imagination that protests here in the West, so often scarred by confrontation and violence, can only dream of emulating.

Political context. Writing in Ma'ariv, Nadav Eyal argued that the laws are often signs of weakness not strength. The left may have suffered electoral reversal, Eyal argues, but it is their two-state programme, not the old right's dream of a Greater Israel that is dominant politically. The sponsors of the controversial bills, Eyal claims, do not have a coherent project to challenge Israel's democratic institutions but they do have an eye on the next election and on stroking their political base. They are more about short-term positioning than anything else. These are the death-throes of the old not the birth-pangs of anything new - "the convulsive actions of a dead idea' produced by 'a political camp seeking a direction' and which amount to 'parliamentary running amok... terrible ideas and bad laws and a difficult spirit of division."

The International context. Shock! Horror! Israelis can be parochial (as can we all). Look around. Yes, criticise this or that illiberal bill, but spare a thought for what Israel has not yet sunk to. Lucas Papademos now runs Greece. He is a former vice-president of the European Central Bank and is unelected. The elected Greek premier George Papandreou was gone four days after he proposed giving the people a vote on the cuts package the EU demanded. As for Italy, a former European Commissioner, Mario Monti, is now in charge, and he did not submit himself to the ballot box either. Nor did his cabinet, not one of whom has a mandate from the voters.

If Israeli commentators would lift their eyes they would see that we 'democratic westerners' have been having our own anguished debates about 'the state we're in.' Our academics talk endlessly of the 'hollowing out' of representative democracy, arguing that power has moved up to global institutions, out to corporations, and down to individual consumers. Levels of trust and confidence in the political system have plummeted. Our politicians bemoan the decline in voter-turnout and in political participation, and wonder what will replace the mass party. The 2006 Power Inquiry into the state of British democracy, chaired by the QC Baroness Helena Kennedy, concluded that 'the main political parties are widely held in contempt' and are 'seen as offering no real choice to voters.' And that was before the parliamentary expenses scandal!

Israel is not alone in wrestling with the balance between freedom and security (the UK government proposal to hold terror suspects for 90 days without trial led to a debate about a 'creeping authoritarian state'), or the competing claims of judicial activism and the legislators popular mandate (one major party, the Conservatives, are pledged to repeal the Human Rights Act in part because it allows judges too much power relative to the government of the day), or the balance between press freedom and press responsibility - after some newspapers were caught hacking into phones, a public inquiry has been set up in the UK and some politicians favour setting up a register from which journalists could be removed for gross misconduct. The point is not whether any of these proposals are right or wrong. The point is that the dilemmas are universal and the controversies they produce can be signs of rude democratic health.

'The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, not eternal panic-mongering' writes Alex Yacobson. Wise words.]]> Ed Miliband Needs to Seize This Teachable Moment tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1133406 2011-12-07T06:27:34-05:00 2012-02-06T05:12:02-05:00 Lorna Fitzsimons http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lorna-fitzsimons/
Paul Flynn is not an anti-Semite. But his recent remarks, about the British Ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould, gave expression, surely inadvertently, to a very old anti-Semitic idea: the eternally 'divided loyalty of the Jew.'

At the Public Administration Select Committee on 30 November, Flynn complained that "the ambassador has proclaimed himself to be a Zionist" and then raised doubts about Mr Gould's loyalty. Flynn then compounded the problem by telling the Jewish Chronicle that Britain needed "someone with roots in the UK [who] can't be accused of having Jewish loyalty."

Today, Flynn has apologised and withdrawn his remarks, following a meeting held last Friday with the Chief Whip. "I greatly regret the interpretation that has been placed on them and I fully understand why offence was given...There is no reason that anyone of any race or religion should be debarred from public office."

Good. In the past Jews were depicted a 'rootless cosmopolitans' loyal to the wandering tribe and not the nation in which they would never be more than an interloper. In the present Jews are depicted as the 'Zionist' or part of the 'Israel lobby,' loyal to Israel not the nation in which he or she is, once again, no more than an interloper.

This is not a left-right issue. The Conservative MP Robert Halfon said "Mr Flynn's actions betray an extraordinary mindset on the left, that allows normally highly intelligent and engaging individuals to lose all sense of proportion when the word 'Israel' is mentioned" said the. The hard-left pro-Palestinian campaigner Owen Jones was equally outraged at the encouragement for anti-Semitism Flynn's tirade had encouraged.

Jenni Frazer noted at the Jewish Chronicle that 'Flynn has now brought this attitude into respectable conversation.' In truth the attitude has been there for a while. Back in 2002 the New Statesman cover featured a gold Star of David impaling the Union Jack and the words 'A kosher conspiracy?...Britain's pro-Israel lobby.' As the online journal Engage has pointed out the message was 'What about these Jews, whose classic apart-ness, epitomized by their dietary habits (keeping kosher), pits their own self-interest over that of the supine UK (graphically portrayed as if it were a recumbent trophy base)?'

Usually, when this kind of anti-Semitism raises its head the left sobers up and apologises. Back in 2002 the editor of the NS Peter Wilby admitted he had 'gotten it wrong' because '(t)he cover ... used images and words in such a way as to create unwittingly the impression that the New Statesman was following an anti-Semitic tradition that sees Jews as a conspiracy piercing the heart of the nation.'

But the dual loyalty slur is still with us, as Flynn's comments showed. In fact with the publication in 2007 of John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M Walt's flawed but deeply influential book The Israel Lobby it has taken on a new respectability.

And that is why the absence of an on-the-record condemnation of Flynn's remarks by Labour Party leader Ed Miliband has drawn a rebuke from Jenni Frazer blogging at the Jewish Chronicle: "I have rarely felt such a sense of disappointment in a Labour leader as I do today in Ed Miliband."

In fact the Labour leader spoke powerfully to the recent Labour Friends of Israel dinner about his commitment to the state of Israel;

I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for the State of Israel and what it has achieved, and I wanted to make that clear. I'm grateful to Israel, I respect Israel, I admire Israel and that is why I'm proud to be here to be here, to be part of Labour Friends of Israel. And I give you my word that under my leadership I will ensure that the Labour Party remains a strong and steadfast friend of Israel.

Because he went on to express his absolute commitment to the two state solution and his vision of 'Israel and Palestine living side by side; and with each enjoying self-determination and mutual recognition" this eloquent and intelligent Labour Leader now can restore moral clarity to the debate by not just condemning, but by using his bully-pulpit to educate. This is what President Obama called a 'teachable moment.' Ed should seize it.]]>