Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

The Palestinians

Mahmoud Abbas has announced that he will not stand again to lead the Palestinian Authority as he is utterly fed up with the lack of any concessions from Israel and its unwillingness to halt its settlement policy, condemned even by president Obama.The future of the Palestinian Authority is uncertain. Hamas, having won the last elections but whose government was driven into Gaza after a mini civil war, remains holed up and unwilling, in that shattered coastal strip.

The latest thinking is that the Palestinians will wait no longer and next year will set up a State and declare themselves independent. Good for them. They must have proper institutions of government and administration to help their struggling population. Even if the rest of the world does not recognise the new State (many countries will) it will no longer be credibly able to pretend it is not there. It will also give the Palestinians hope and pride.

Israel was  a post WWII achievement by the traumatised and oppressed Jewish people, which gave hope to all the world. Its politicians were giants upon the world stage and its generals were heroes.  What a complete and utter tragedy it is, that is has used such a worthy foundation to turn itself into a vindictive and provocative zealot, pursuing policies which cannot possibly succeed, which are in many parts unjust, which grotesquely prolong the sufferings of their neighbours and which condemn their own population to live forever in fear.

It is not in the mountains of Pakistan, nor in the wild majesty of Afghanistan that the threat to our security lies. Those places may be the nursery of terrorism, but conception occurs in that cauldron of suffering and injustice on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean.

 More on Afghanistan

We hear a lot about training up the Afghan army to take over ‘security’ and then we can all go home. The ineptitude of the policy staggers. First the ‘democratic’ government in Kabul is utterly rotten, its institutions an arm of the unlawful state within the state. Second the so called Afghan army is no more reliable than the one left behind by the Russians which caved in to the Taliban within months of the Russian departure. Third, the mantra that our security in these islands depends upon fighting an ineffectual war which cannot be won in this tribal country, with its unique culture, unconqured down through the centuries, is rubbish.

Knowing all this, even if they are too caught up in their own spin or listening too intently to Generals sunk  in way above their heads, politicians who continue to order our brave young people into harms way, almost daily costing lives, have blood on their hands. It will not wash off.

Glasgow North East

Labour will be relieved. Their victory was expected, but we have become used to upsets. There wasn’t one and the Government will take comfort from that. Gordon Brown’s position is strengthened. The Conservatives, who hardly count in Scotland did badly, but the Lib Dems, who do, did a lot worse. The Nationalists did not pull off a miracle, but  the burdens of office reduce their grip on the miraculous.  

The one fact which should send a shiver into every corner of the democratic institutions of our nation is the turnout. 32.97%. Even for a by-election this is dire. Put the other way round 67.03% of the people with the right to vote turned their backs. A victory for Labour perhaps. A defeat for democracy certainly.