Orlando Radice's blog



Logic, Mr Hague?

By Orlando Radice, May 31, 2013

The reasoning behind Britain and France’s drive to have the EU lift its arms embargo on Syria – which was agreed on this week by European foreign ministers after considerable bickering - seems to be that by strengthening the rebels, the West can eventually force the two sides to the negotiating table.

That does not seem logical.

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Good luck, Mr Kerry

By Orlando Radice, April 19, 2013

Much has been written in the Western press about Israeli intransigence on the peace process in recent months. There are good reasons for this. Announcing new settlements in sensitive areas such as the E1 corridor – as the Israeli government did last November – is not the action of a side that has any interest in signing a peace deal.

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Hold onto your seats

By Orlando Radice, January 23, 2013

What a wonderful surprise. Israel did not swing en masse to the extreme right as many of us were fearing. Since nobody seems to know what Netanyahu really thinks about anything, it’s time to pray that he will club together with Yair Lapid to keep Naftali Bennett and the one-state disaster out. Here’s hoping for an Aristotelian denouement. Moderation in all things.

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The proof is in the spanking

By Orlando Radice, December 6, 2012

If you were in any doubt that Bibi has made a boo-boo with the E1 settlement plan, here's the proof. Canada's Stephen Harper, probably the most pro-Israel prime minister in the world, has now also given Benjamin Netanyahu a spanking.

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A chink of light

By Orlando Radice, October 26, 2012

Here’s another crazy dream: Israel gets a stable two-party system.

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My election misery

By Orlando Radice, October 12, 2012

For election-watchers, a cursory glance at the candidates likely to be battling it out in Israel next January is enough to make you roll over and go to sleep. But it’s not because Ehud Olmert (as yet undeclared), Shaul Mofaz, Avigdor Lieberman (if he survives his criminal indictment) or Shelly Yachimovich are especially monochrome political characters.

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Stop Iran? Easy, just ask 'em to

By Orlando Radice, February 17, 2012

Writing in this week’s New Statesman, former weapons inspector Hans Blix calls Israel’s use of the Stuxnet virus to hobble the Iranian nuclear programme and its assassination of the country’s nuclear scientists an “outrageous, gangster-style war”.

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Nobody knows what’s going on: Happy New Year

By Orlando Radice, January 5, 2012

If you have been following reports about the state of the British economy over the past month or so, you could be forgiven for believing that even if we are not already in a recession, the UK is lurching towards a double dip.

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Here's to an apolitical Chanucah

By Orlando Radice, December 16, 2011

Today I am feeling light and serene. No, I haven’t just finished a course of acupuncture. It’s that I think I have been ideologically de-tethered. And it feels good.

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Democracy in Israel - how worried should we be?

By Orlando Radice, November 30, 2011

What to make of the so-called ‘anti-democratic’ laws being batted around in the Knesset? Is this the beginning of end of Israeli democracy, as many on the left would have it? Not all bills are as ruinous to political pluralism as they have been made out.

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How not to talk about the Arab Spring

By Orlando Radice, November 25, 2011

Congratulations to Israeli news website Ynet for posting a shining example of the kind of bigoted thinking that keeps the Middle East in perpetual conflict.

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China, Russia and fearful symmetry

By Orlando Radice, November 15, 2011

China may be wavering in its support of “Basher” Assad, but Russia is hanging on in there.

Syria is a crucial stepping stone in Iran’s axis of influence to the west and Iran would view Russian pressure on Assad as a direct affront to its imperial ambitions.

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Let's Occupy this debate

By Orlando Radice, October 28, 2011

It was sad to hear that antisemitism found its way into the Occupy Wall Street demonstration in New York. The odd banner bearing the age-old tropes about Jewish bankers were spotted in the crowds.

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Hearts, minds and Gilad

By Orlando Radice, October 19, 2011

Once you have got over the surreality of it all, one’s first thought on the release of Gilad Shalit might be: so if Israel and the Palestinians can knit a deal like this together – which took years of proposals, planning and attempts at indirect talks – why can’t they get down to the bigger business of peace talks?

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The riots and us

By Orlando Radice, September 2, 2011

As Britain continues to debate why thousands of young people smashed and looted their way through our town centres last month, one very obvious aspect of social reality seems to have slipped out of view.

In fact, it is so taken for granted that many of us probably hadn't noticed it in the first place.

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Yes, it was self-defence

By Orlando Radice, September 2, 2011

Note to all who ever had an opinion on the Gaza flotillas: today’s UN report on the 2010 flotilla, the Palmer Report, finds that Israel's naval blockade of Gaza is legal under international law. And that the Israeli commandos acted in self-defence.

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Notes on a (boycott) scandal

By Orlando Radice, July 15, 2011

There is a sad footnote to Israel’s passing of the much-derided ‘Boycott Bill’.
The fact that Benjamin Netanyahu did not turn up to vote reveals the degree to which he is unwilling or unable to upset his coalition partners.

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How to solve a problem like al Qaida

By Orlando Radice, May 6, 2011

Aditya Chakrabortty writes in the Guardian this week that Islamic terrorism is “soluble” in the healing waters of economic development. By providing sewage and schools, he suggests – citing a study by US academic Eli Berman – Western powers can neutralize terrorist groups, such as Hamas, Hizbollah and al Qaida, whose footsoldiers are motivated by altruism rather than ideology.

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Guardian's April Fool

By Orlando Radice, April 1, 2011

Congrats to the Guardian on an entertainingly crafted April Fool. By debunking the ersatz, media-generated joy surrounding the royal wedding they are standing up for the cultural sensitivity-agenda at the heart of the liberal-progressive movement. (Just don’t mention British culture).

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Eco bravo

By Orlando Radice, February 25, 2011

Most of the attention was appropriately heaped on Ian McEwan at the Jerusalem Book Fair this week – but Umberto Eco grabbed a headline or two with his eloquent trashing of academic and cultural boycotts.

He told an AP reporter: "I consider it absolutely crazy" and "fundamentally racist to identify a scholar, a private citizen, with the politics of his government."

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