Did Benyamin Netanyahu really take an important step forward by committing himself (sort of) to a two-state settlement of the conflict with the Palestinians? Don’t be silly. A Palestinian state that meets the conditions Bibi set -demilitarized, recognising Israel as a Jewish state and abandoning its claim on Jerusalem as its capital- would be a bantustan, not a truly independent entity. Still, so used have we become to hardline, ruthless Israeli behaviour that even this con trick is now being hailed in some western quarters as an encouraging sign that the peace process is once again a going concern. Don’t believe it; the Palestinians themselves aren’t fooled.
What Netanyahu aimed to do was play for time. The election of Barack Obama as president of the United States must have sent a ripple of disquiet through Israel’s nationalist camp. Would the days of limitless, unquestioning American economic, political and military support come to an end? If so, what then? And there was Obama, quick off the mark, dropping all sorts of heavy hints about the desirability of a halt to the construction of further settlements and -from Israel’s point of view- hobnobbing far too chummily with the Arabs. After all, no guy with the middle name Hussein had ever been taken seriously by Netanyahu and suddenly there was one he couldn’t possibly ignore. Hell, this US administration might even stop routinely vetoing anti-Israel resolutions at the Security Council! Other anxieties surfaced: America’s concern at Iran’s nuclear programme might, in time, be matched by a similar unease about Israel’s fully developed and ready-for-use nuclear arsenal. Face it: when the mushroom clouds billow upwards and humans die in their tens of thousands in the blinking of an eye, does it really matter whether the guy who dropped the bombs was wearing a white or a black hat?
So Netanyahu’s subtext consisted of a message to Obama (’seriously Mr. President, we want nothing more than to live in peace and security with our neighbours, but you’ll understand that we have legitimate concerns, the buggers want to kill us in our beds’) and one to his own political friends (’don’t worry boys, we’ll drag this out for as long as we can -four years, or even eight- and hope for better times and a new George W. Bush’). His less subtle message to the Palestinians -unchanged from before- was: ‘up yours buddy’.
So if Barack Obama doesn’t want to become the next in a long line of US Presidents to be defeated by the sheer intractability of the Middle East problem, here’s what I think he should do. To the Palestinians he should pledge his full, unwavering support for a fully fledged independent state, with all the trappings of proud nationhood. These must include full territorial integrity, control of their borders, a viable econonomy and a modern national defence force. Equally full and unwavering should be his support of the Iraelis’ right to a state where they can live safely without fear of attack, where they can prosper and start the process of digesting, and ultimately filing away as history, the horrors of the past. The Holocaust lies 65 years behind us and, for that reason, should no longer play a part in driving Israeli policy. Whatever dangers Israel may face in the future, annihilation isn’t one of them.
But words are cheap and pledges of support in themselves will not bring a settlement an inch closer. Without an extra something from Washington, the immovable object and the irresistible force in the Middle East will continue to grind against each other and, at regular intervals, shed each other’s blood. That extra something should be a stern warning to both sides that, from now on, America’s support no longer comes without strings attached. Actually the Palestinians know this already, they’ve been given short shrift on many occasions; it’s Israel that has so far benefited from Washington’s blank cheques. I feel that if Obama were to make clear to the protagonists that unreasonable intransigence and resorting to violence will forfeit US support and even lead to sanctions things might start moving in earnest. The removal of the word ‘unconditional’ from the language of Obama’s Middle East rhetoric will work wonders.
Something similar, of course, can be expected from this side of the Atlantic. The powerhouse that is the European Union has strong economic tools at its disposal. If the Palestinians won’t play ball, if the Israelis keep stalling, we’ll set Tony Blair on them. To you he may be a greedy, self-serving, sanctimonious squirt and utterly useless with it (I know he is to me) but in Jerusalem and Ramallah he commands great respect. Something to do with him being a recent convert to Catholicism, I believe. 
I’m just back from Spain, where the winter was mild, sometimes a bit rainy but more often beautifully sunny. The fish was fresh, the wine fruity and the carpet of olive groves that covers much of Andalusia as lush and verdant as ever. For four blissful months, blogging was the farthest thing from my mind. Political upheavals, natural disasters, war and pestilence, even the start of Barack Obama’s presidency: what did I care, when there were going to be tapas variadas and a bottle of Rioja crianza for lunch?


I wish I’d paid more attention at school when my physics teacher explained the Law of the Communicating Vessels. As I remember it, it had something to do with a number of tubes of various shapes, open at the top and linked to each other at the bottom. Fill the tubes with water and, by dint of the fact that they
communicate, the water will reach the same level in every one of the tubes. Pour more water into one of the tubes and the level will rise in all of them to the same height. If I forget something, let me know. Of course, if one of the tubes is cut off from the others, the principle no longer applies. Water poured into the isolated tube will not affect the level of liquid in the rest, and vice versa.
As I see it, that’s what is wrong with the world of finance. Huge sums of taxpayers’ money are being poured by governments into the world of banking, in an attempt to restore confidence and get the economy ticking over again. The banking tube should communicate with the other tubes (with names like ‘manufacturing’, ‘consumer spending’, ‘high street retailing’, ‘mortgage lending’ etc.) for the benefit of the whole. But it doesn’t. Of the zillions of our cash that have found their way into the vaults of many large financial institutions little or nothing has so far be used to relieve the pressure on the rest of us. All that huge capital just sits there; some of it is syphoned off into the pockets of the very greed-driven bobos that got us into our current predicament but that’s it.
I, of course, am one such consumer and I resent the accusation that, through my enforced frugality, I am stunting the growth of my country’s economy. Yes, I AM buying less. I haven’t made a major purchase since just before the 2008 World Cup, when I treated myself to a new flatscreen TV. There’ll be no presents at Christmas and the new car will have to wait until the current one falls apart. Eating out has been curtailed, with a surprising side effect: when you do it twice a month you enjoy it more than if you do it twice a week. Less, I assure you, is more. Doesn’t apply to absolutely everything, but there you are.













