Advent 13

Volume 13 (Jerez to Libe): Jews

I promise you I'm not doing this on purpose. I don't look at the volume of the encyclopaedia until the evening before the day in question - the one exception to that will be the final entry on Christmas Eve. That is planned, but even in that case the text will only be scripted on the day itself.

I have dear friends who are Jewish. Equally, I have encountered confrontational and mean Jews. I can say the same of most races and creeds, not least the Catholic faith to whose elegant wreckage I cling. At this point in history it is the case of Israel that most concerns. Last month that stupefyingly self-regarding institution the Oxford Union staged a debate around the proposition, 'This house believes Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide'. The proposition passed by a substantial majority. Cue the understandable cries of protest at the ant-semitism wrapped around the debate and its pre-destined verdict. 

Of course I've never met the man (just as I have never met Trump) but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't take to Benjamin Netanyahu. I am entitled to reach this conclusion - the man has put himself on the world stage and his actions have implications for the multi-racial land I live in. I am also clear that I have no truck with radical Islam (in its many factions) and its resolve that Israel has no place on the world map. If pressed, I am a Zionist and believe in a two-state solution. This simple conclusion is, I accept, about as much use as a chocolate teapot. There can only be prayer and reason.

The Oxford Union has been down this road before. Consider one of the speecehes made in 2008 in suppport of a motion that 'This house believes that the State of Israel has the right to exist':  Zionism and Neo-Zionism . This elegant argument offers intellectual cover for the two-state solution. But consider this - if you research a little deeper you find that the maker of the speech got so aggravated by the conduct of his own side that he crossed the floor of the debate and voted against the motion. Anyway, and as we say at the best point in the Catholic mass, peace be with you.