I watched the rather shallow Channel 4 programme about the problems in Jerusalem last night. It was not so much what was said - which was fair enough in its execution - but rather the tremendous omissions which devalued the whole exercise.Not a word about the Balfour Declaration or the agreement with the Arab peoples which had preceded it, as well as the playing down of the fact that Israel's very existence is threatened by surrounding nations who do not believe that she has any right to even exist. It is all very well for Paddy Ashdown to say he believes that it should - but, so what?
There was virtually no mention of the broad divisions within the Israeli nation and this in spite of the fact that the variety of people interviewed could have brought this point across.
Mr Ashdown gave viewers no insights whatsoever to the even deeper divides amongst the Palestinian people.
He forgot to mention Yasser Arafat's intransigence in Oslo when solutions were genuinely seeming possible.
He seemed to believe that a nation which has been invaded treacherously on four occasions since 1948 and which faces suicide bombers at every turn can act in liberal manner in terms of security. It cannot.
He certainly showed the innate unfairness of the Israelis in power but failed to note the persecution of Christians and the historical and ongoing onslaughts against the few remaining Jews in Palestinian areas which rather suggests a lack of balance.
Worst of all, even after proving how entrenched the rival positions were, he emerged with a simplistic solution to the problems with what I suspect was meant to be an appeal to everybody's good will.
Good will!?
To gain a far superior overview, I strongly recommend Con Coghlan's excellent; "A Golden Basin Full of Scorpions." It is very evenhanded and is deeply insightful.
NOTE: The Rod Liddle programme on Jerusalem on the 20th of May fell into all the same traps. [Just how does that man of such limited talents manage to get so much air time on Channel 4. Is he a major shareholder?]
