Every now and again the local civic society in my town raises funds by holding a second hand book sale in the town hall. It is a gruesome affair, where the thin veneer of civilisation is ripped off and men and women revert to the brutish state of nature. The doors open at 10.00am, by which time the predators have already gathered. Darwinian selection ensures that only the fittest and the most aggressive specimens get through the door first.
It is good to be clear about how the world really is, rather than how we would like it to be. One easy mistake to make is to conflate radical Islam with Islam. Islam does not have a moderate form and an extreme form. Indeed, neither do Christianity or Judaism. All three religions are large social structures with deep roots in history and with a large wealth of inherited experience and tradition. They are big projects which have evolved to meet the needs of their adherents, and like all human creations they have high points and low points, triumphs and tragedies, heroes and villains. As a secular atheist I am inclined to be skeptical of the claims of organised religion, but it is what it is and it isn’t entirely bad. It offers many people a community to belong to, and that is no small thing and not something I would deprive them of.
Britain’s military agreements with France just prior to the First World War were basically a gentleman’s agreement between the Foreign Secretary, Lord Grey and the French military. It is perhaps understandable that the details were not made public by revealing them to parliament. It is a bit more surprising that the Cabinet were kept in the dark. It is even more surprising that the Prime Minister, Asquith, wasn’t in the loop either.
The idea of creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine would have made perfect sense in the nineteenth century. Nationalism was all the rage. Everyone wanted to be in a nation. The British and the French were there already. The Germans and Italians were working on it. Nationalism was opposed to hereditary monarchs and their empires and so was in a way a force for progress and revolution. Why shouldn’t the Jews get in on the act and seek to create their own homeland? Zionism was really just a logical extension of what was the general spirit of the age. As to the people who were already there in Palestine, well the rights of natives weren’t really on anyone’s mind at the time.
