It is becoming one of the hottest questions in international politics: Is Barack Obama’s terror policy little more than the Bush policy in kinder and gentler wrapping paper? If so this would be a stake through the heart of any claims made by or on behalf of the new administration that the most controversial issue in US politics over the last eight years has been subjected to radical change. If Bush was right all along then why was Obama’s victory such a big deal? For my part, I think it is too early to give a definitive answer, though I always suspected that as Obama entered the White House he would leave many of his more radical supporters standing on the doorstep in the rain.

For an excellent discussion on the subject Jack Goldsmith — Harvard law professor and an assistant Attorney General in the Bush administration — has given a nuanced and thorough appraisal in the current edition of the New Republic.

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On June 4, President Barack Obama will make his long awaited address to the Muslim world. He has chosen Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt as his venue. What should he be telling them?

What he should be telling them is that the hand of friendship will be extended conditionally. Genuine peace with Israel, for example, will never be enduring until governments, media and religious authorities cease to pump the kind of anti-Semitic agendas into the minds of the people that the world has not seen since the era of the Third Reich.

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In an interesting piece on the Guardian’s Comment is Free website, long-time Conservative activist Harry Phibbs had Guardianistas hopping with rage over his assertion that the fascistic British National Party (BNP) is better understood as a manifestation of the far-Left rather than the far-Right. The BNP has been gaining ground in recent years and there are fears that it will make further gains at next month’s European elections. It is important to know one’s enemy so Phibbs is to be congratulated for getting us to think about ideology rather than simply to accept the received wisdom. Ultimately, I believe he is mistaken in his analysis. But first, here is what he said:

“The Conservatives need to get stuck in and expose the BNP as a neo-Nazi outfit. This task can no longer be satisfactorily left to the Socialist Workers party. Voters will understandably dismiss anything coming from that quarter as hysterical abuse – even if in this case it happens to be true.

“What Conservatives can add to this critique is something that the left can never admit: Nazism and communism are ideological twins. The BNP is in fact an extreme leftwing outfit. It wishes individual liberty to be sacrificed to state control. It seeks the overthrow of capitalism, and rages against profit and speculators. It wishes to institute a siege economy with protectionism and the nationalisation of foreign-owned companies. In this it is being consistent to its founding inspiration. Hitler nationalised the banks and insurance companies, the economy was rigidly centrally planned, there was an extensive programme of public works, independent schools were banned.”

For the full article click here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/22/conservatives-bnp

Phibbs has an important point, but not the one he thinks he is making. It is true that totalitarian ideologies converge on a number of core issues. They are indeed collectivist rather than individualist. They are, in essence, fundamentally opposed to the rights-based societies typified by the modern West. Phibbs is also right to say that this extends beyond political authoritarianism into the social and economic spheres.

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Question: What happens when you try to hammer a square peg into a round hole? Answer: Well, it’s going to look a mess isn’t it. Question: What happens if you keep on banging a square peg into a round hole even when you know you’re going to make a mess? Answer: You get an even bigger mess and you humiliate yourself in the process.

As we gear up for next month’s elections to the European Parliament, that is a pretty fair summary of the performance of the EU’s political classes and its laughably servile commentariat in contemplating the rising fortunes of fringe groups from across the political spectrum. With far-Right organisations such as the British National Party, radical EU reformists such as Ireland’s Libertas — fielding candidates in every EU country — and fringe groups of all complexions imaginable now licking their lips you would have thought that this would occasion some soul searching.

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Over here in Washington D.C. (where I have been for the past few days), the main event has been President Obama’s meeting with new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The tone of the reporting in many media outlets has been predictably censorious over Netanyahu’s refusal so far to endorse a Palestinian state. Reports have usually led by creating the impression that Obama had effectively lectured Netanyahu about his responsibilities to uphold previous agreements which have specifically called for progress towards a two-state solution.

The following report from the BBC is typical:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8055105.stm

But what is interesting is how the reporting has referred in passing to Netanyahu’s call during his meeting for the Palestinians to recognise Israel as a “Jewish state” but has subsequently glossed over it. This could, of course, be incompetence. But it could also represent a conscious effort to ignore a vital and legitimate Israeli demand that the Palestinians have consistently refused to accede to.

All senior Palestinian officials including Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian authority, have made it clear that they will never recognise Israel as a Jewish state. They will, however, go through the motions of telling an international audience that they will, under the right circumstances, recognise a state called Israel. The distinction here is crucial. What would that state look like? It could be a bi-national state. It could be anything. But, the Palestinians are telling anyone who will listen, it will not be a Jewish state. In other words, they are not in fact serious about recognising the real existing Jewish state of Israel.

This all adds a very different complexion to the picture, doesn’t it? A clear understanding of that reality would make it significantly more difficult to portray Netanyahu as the real obstacle to peace and the poor, forlorn Palestinians as the eternal victims, just praying for an equitable settlement in the face of an intransigent and unforgiving aggressor.