Posts by Jenni Frazer

Vidal Sassoon: What a nice man

Jenni Frazer — Wed, 09 May 2012 22:41:47 +0100

Without a doubt, Vidal Sassoon, whose death has just been announced, was a really lovely guy. I interviewed him a few years ago and was astonished when Sassoon, rather than take refuge behind a usual retinue of "people" and hangers-on, made all the arrangements for the meeting himself, phoning me up, just like a regular human being. This was unusual behaviour for a celebrity, but Sassoon was unusual. A fierce anti-fascist and lifelong fighter against antisemitism, he didn't just talk the talk. He was a mensch who never forgot his roots. Baruch Dayan emet.

The Nordic noir detective you've been waiting for

Jenni Frazer — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:36:47 +0100

Britain is in the throes of a full-on love affair with all things Scandinavian, on television, film, and books. From The Killing to the just launched The Bridge, from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo to the gore of author Jo Nesbo, it is simply cool to be - well, cool.

And now Nordic Noir has its very own Jewish hero, in the unlikely figure of a Finnish Jewish police detective, Ariel Kafka. Inspector Kafka's first appearance in English was made this month with the publication of Nights of Awe, a wonderfully seedy crime thriller with bodies aplenty and a great deal of philosophical musing on the meaning of the Ten Days of Repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

As the bodies pile up and suspicion is thrown on Mossad, Kafka reaches back to his childhood to figure out who is the real killer.

Ariel Kafka's creator is a former crime journalist, Harri Nykanen. Helsinki-born, Nykanen concedes cheerfully that he is not Jewish - "but who knows! My grandfather came from behind the Russian border."

For 20 years Nykanen worked as a crime reporter for the largest daily newspaper in Scandinavia, Helsingin Sanomat.

"That's why I know many policemen," he says. "One of them is Jewish, Dennis Pasterstein, who is now a chief inspector in Helsinki. There is another Jewish policeman in Finland too, but I've never met him."

Ten years ago Nykanen was fired and began writing novels. To date he has written more than 30 books.

"I have three series: Raid, about a Finnish hitman; Johnny & Bantzo, a comic crime series, and the Ariel Kafka books (so far there are four). I have also written a nonfiction book about the Helsinki underworld and some TV-series and screenplays."

Readers of Nights of Awe may be understandably confused about Jewish religious customs as expressed in Finland. As Kafka moves in on identifying the murderer, he is obliged to go to a large family Yom Kippur gathering at his brother's house. Given that Yom Kippur is a fast, it is difficult to interpret this festive family meal at the start of the Day of Atonement. But Nykanen shrugs this off.

"Basically, it's a detective or crime story, not a Jewish dictionary or non-fiction book. That's why there may be many inaccuracies, maybe clichés too. I hope that people will take that into consideration as they read my books".

Which is not to say that this one-time journalist has not done his research. "When I started writing the Ariel Kafka series, I asked Dennis Pasterstein many questions. I asked him if he could go to work on the Sabbath, and what his family thought about him being a policeman. I'm interested in the clash of everyday life and kosher traditions in Judaism. I know that many Finnish Jews are assimilated. Of course, I went to visit the Jewish community. I met Dan Kantor, executive director of the Jewish community of Helsinki, in one of the synagogues. After this I read many books about Jewish traditions, culture (Jewish humour, too), the history of Finnish Jews and Ha-Kehila (the magazine of the local Jewish community)."

Nykanen believes that there are few Orthodox Jews in Finland, although in fact there is a thriving Chabad community. Perhaps his most hilarious - and not necessarily innocent - question to Detective Pasterstein was the following: "If you are in the sauna with your friends, and your friends offer you barbecued sausage which perhaps contains pork - do you eat it to be polite?" The detective's response has not been recorded.

Since Mossad features so strongly in Nights of Awe, Nykanen is keen to point out that he knows Mossad agents.

"Many readers may think that a Mossad operation in Finland would be impossible, but I know a non-Jewish Finn who is a Mossad officer. He was both a Helsinki policeman and a criminal. He was a gun and drugs smuggler, and also sold fake dollars.

"And I also know a Finnish Jew who is an IDF officer. You might recall Mossad's disastrous operation in Norway, where they mistakenly killed a man because they believed that he was a terrorist. So, knowing many unbelievable stories during my career as a crime reporter, I may say that everything is possible."

The Finnish Jewish community, Nykanen says, "is very small but important. There are many Jewish artists, musicians, writers, journalists, including Ruben Stiller, and Congressman Ben Zyskowicz [Finland's first Jewish parliamentarian]. I think that Finland is a good country for Jewish life - or I really hope so".

Kafka, he says, is "a real Finnish Jewish name." His fictional detective is endlessly asked if he is related to Franz Kafka, but according to Nykanen: "The original Mr Kafka used to own a secondhand shop in Helsinki, where I bought my first American jeans, Lee Jeans, in1 968".

Nights of Awe has so far been followed by Ariel and the Spiderwomen, Behind God's Back, and Holy Ceremony, all of which have been published in German, though not yet in English. (Nykanen's UK publishers are considering bringing out the rest depending on the response to Nights of Awe.)

Accepting that Ariel Kafka has a terrible love life, Nykanen amusedly reports: "The most recent book gives hope that Ariel will find a nice Jewish girlfriend, which isn't easy here in Finland because we have a small Jewish population of about 1300, so there aren't so many single Jewish women."

With good nature he accepts my suggestion that he should send Kafka to Tel Aviv and have him work with an Israeli woman detective. "That's a good idea. Maybe I will steal it."

But it does not sound as though Kafka is going to find happiness any time soon.

"Ariel is always a little bit of an outsider and a little bit of a melancholic character. Like Finnish men often are."

Extraordinary

Jenni Frazer — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:48:57 +0100

The Guardian's letters page and its adjunct Corrections column is a constant source of fascination. This week it excelled itself with a letter from Ben (I am not an antisemite) White, letters attacking the Globe Theatre for not withdrawing its invitation to Habima to perform in London, a correction for having traduced the JC over a BNP blog, and this little gem:
"The caption on a photograph featuring passengers on a tram in Jerusalem observing a two-minute silence for Yom Hashoah, a day of remembrance for the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust, wrongly referred to the city as the Israeli capital. The Guardian style guide states: 'Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel; Tel Aviv is.'"
Well. Where to start? With one hand the Guardian giveth, with the other it taketh away. It carefully cloaks itself in we-love-the-Jews-hood by running the Yom Hashoah photograph in the first place. Even the Guardian couldn't find anything snarky to say in the caption.
But wait! Yes, it had made a mistake according to the paper's style guide. It is the paper's style guide, you see, which carelessly runs roughshod across international norms of sovereignty and a country's right of self-determination. No matter that Israelis believe Jerusalem to be their capital; the Guardian style guide trumps that belief, as simply wrong.
No ifs, buts, qualifications; the Guardian knows best. Here is The Times on the same issue: "Jerusalem must not be used as a metonym or variant for Israel. It is not internationally recognised as the Israeli capital, and its status is one of the central controversies in the Middle East." That's a reasonable and sane approach.
Sad conclusion: the Guardian has lost the plot.

Wanted: high fliers to lead Jewish Community Centre

Jenni Frazer — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:10:27 +0100

The Jewish Community Centre for London's announcement that it is seeking a new chief executive means that three high-profile Jewish community posts are now up for grabs.

Aside from the JCC job, the chief executive position at Bicom, the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre, until recently held by Lorna Fitzsimons; and the chief executive role at the United Jewish Israel Appeal, whose outgoing CEO is Doug Krikler, are both being vacated.

The new chief executive of the JCC will initially work alongside incumbent Nick Viner, who joined the organisation in 2005.

Mr Viner will stay on until the opening of the JCC's newly-built community centre, scheduled to open in autumn 2013.

Debbie Klein, chairman of the JCC board, said: "We're very excited to be recruiting for this crucial role. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for someone to stamp their imprint on the future of London Jewry by transforming Jewish life in the capital."

Mr Viner joined the JCC after 20 years at the Boston Consulting Group where he was a senior partner. He has overseen the transition of the organisation - the brainchild of Dame Vivien Duffield - from social and cultural "cuckoo", whose diverse programmes take place at a number of venues across the capital, to the planning and delivery of the new building on Swiss Cottage's Finchley Road.

Mr Viner said: "Programmming and running a thriving community building requires an entirely different set of skills. It has been an immense privilege to lead the JCC to this point, but now it's time to begin the handover to the person who will take the organisation forward and enable it to fulfil its potential."

In Israel, it's not the political fight that makes a difference

Jenni Frazer — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 11:12:00 +0100

Tzipi Livni's dramatic rise and fall has been pored over by the commentariat. From being the golden girl of Israeli politics on the international stage - cool and gorgeous with a "mysterious" Mossad background - one-time Foreign Minister Livni managed effectively to throw away the leadership of Kadima, after being dealt a knock-out blow by Shaul Mofaz. Livni has held a clutch of ministerial posts: housing and construction, immigrant absorption, agriculture, justice. She was one of the Time 100 Most Influential People in the World. Forbes ranked her the 40th most powerful woman in the world in 2006. Now she is reported to be considering giving up politics altogether.

Most commentators believe that Livni's downfall could be attributed to her serial dithering, her failure to put together a coalition in 2009 after she won the leadership of Kadima - narrowly beating Mofaz at the time - her inability to lay a glove on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or her all but inexplicable silence during last summer's social protests.

She has not exactly been helped in her bid to retain control of Kadima, the party bequeathed to her by former prime minister Ehud Olmert, by the long-heralded appearance on the political stage of Yair Lapid, the journalist and high-profile television presenter. Even before he jumped feet-first into the swamp of Israeli politics, Lapid was working the squeezed middle - yes, it exists in Israel, too - by appealing to those who were unhappy about the absence of the strictly Orthodox in the jobs market, and most of all, in the military.

And it is there, in the drab olive and khaki uniforms of the IDF, that I believe lie the true seeds of Livni's downfall. For Mofaz is not just another unlovely Israeli politician. He is a former chief of staff and, as such, follows a long tradition in Israeli politics: the army will provide.

From the 1950s to the 1990s, the army did provide. Generals and brigadiers, admirals and air force chiefs, all moved seamlessly sideways into the political arena. If not in actual political parties, the brass secured themselves nice little earners as heads of the Jewish Agency, the Port Authority, El Al, etc, etc.

The list is endless, from Yigal Allon to Yitzchak Rabin to Ehud Barak, from Moshe Dayan to Chaim Herzog to Ezer Weizman, and, of course, to the uber-soldier, Ariel Sharon. Those few politicians who did not have a glittering army career, such as Abba Eban, Menachem Begin or Shimon Peres, had to work that much harder to win the public's trust and affection. Arguably Peres has taken until today, aged nearly 89, to get to that stage, gaining plaudits internationally as Israel's ninth president. His very popularity today makes it hard to remember the attacks on him as a man who did not see army service, despite everything in his career that he did to further Israel's aims and interests.

Instinctively and unfortunately, the army comes first for Israelis. The plain truth is that if you don't have a military background, you are nowhere. And Livni, who reached the rank of lieutenant during her army service, does indeed have a military background. But crucially, and inevitably, she doesn't have the sort of old boys' network military background enjoyed by Mofaz and the many other army contemporaries who slide so easily into the governance of Israel, effectively making the IDF a kind of training springboard for running Israeli society.

Got a niche that needs filling in your company? Remember Moshe who went through basic training with you… or Chaim who spent time on the tanks with you…or Yossi who you knew from your time in the Golan/on the southern border/in Gaza/disengaging from Gaza/bombing Gaza…One way or another, the Moshes and the Chaims and the Yossis form an impregnable arch in Israel, through which the Livnis of this world can never enter.

For all her political and ministerial experience, for all her international profile, for all her identification as the poster girl of the universal jurisdiction campaign (it was an attempt to arrest Livni during a visit to London which galvanised the British government into changing the law), Livni had one vital missing USP - the military factor. Add to that her shadowy Mossad career and it's really not that surprising that she lost to a far more mediocre candidate, Mofaz. Short of physically bringing home Gilad Shalit herself, Livni had nowhere to go but down.

Jenni Frazer is assistant editor of the JC

Wilful blindness

Jenni Frazer — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 13:56:55 +0000

Our story this week about Ken Livingstone's remarks, which prudence dictates we should still refer to as alleged, is fascinating on a number of levels. For new readers, Livingstone apparently dismissed the possibility of most Jews voting for him, because Jews were "rich" and thus unlikely to vote for the left.

Leaving aside Livingstone's effrontery at even suggesting such a thing, it makes no sense even in his own terms. It is well known that Livingstone has spent many years cosying up to the community in Stamford Hill, whom he perceives to be "real Jews," not the inauthentic, ersatz model who give him such a hard time over inconveniences like the Oliver Finegold incident and all the other "difficult" baggage which he trails with him.

It cannot have escaped even Livingstone's blinkered world view that surprisingly few of the Stamford Hill crowd fall into the "Jews are rich" category.

On the other hand, I am grateful to the people who held the meeting with Livingstone this month, who were ready to out the pusillanimous newt-lover for what he is. Nobody should be in any doubt about his stance now, spin it however you like.

Over to you, Ed Miliband.

George Osborne tells of his warmth for CST and Israel

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:12:11 +0000

Chancellor George Osborne robustly defended the decisions of his colleague, Education Secretary Michael Gove, when he addressed the annual Community Security Trust dinner on Wednesday night.

Mr Gove recently came under fire over his decision to make funding available for security for Jewish schools through grants given via the CST.

Mr Osborne, in an at times emotional address, told the 1,000-strong audience: "We know that security costs are a significant financial burden for the Jewish community. And we don't believe you should have to pay to protect your own children when they go to school.

"It is bad enough that they have to be educated protected by security guards and big gates. So we have provided funding for security guards at 42 Jewish schools. And we have guaranteed it until 2015".

And he added, pointedly: "We are proud to have done it and we are proud to have done it through the CST. And the Guardian can print that next time it decides to attack the CST on Holocaust Memorial Day."

Praising the work done by CST, the Chancellor said: "The extraordinary thing is that your annual report is ultimately not a depressing document. It is an uplifting one. Because it tells the tale of a community that has organised itself to ensure security and protection for its members... To read the CST's account of its work is to be aware, not just of man's inhumanity to man, but of man's dedication to man.

"That is the triumph of the CST".

Turning his attention to the Middle East, Mr Osborne, who helped launch the UK-Israel Technology Hub in Tel Aviv just four months ago, spoke warmly of his own and the government's friendship for Israel and its commitment to "the right of the people of Israel to live in peace and in security alongside a state for the Palestinian people.

"We are friends of Israel. And we welcome Israelis to Britain. Our coalition government has legislated on universal jurisdiction to make sure that Israeli officials and ministers can come to this country free from fear of politically motivated attempts to arrest them. And it was right that we did so".

He urged broadcasters and media to tell a different story when they wrote about Israel. "Don't just speak about bombs, terror and arms. Tell the story of the technology, the hospitals, the creative work. Never forget the enterprise, liberty, prosperity and caring - they are all part of the story of Israel, too."

Recalling a visit to Israel eight years ago when he stood in Tel Aviv's Carmel Market after a suicide bomb, Mr Osborne said he had been accompanied by then-MP Boris Johnson. The event, he said, had made Mr Johnson a lifelong friend of Israel. With London's mayoral elections in sight, Mr Osborne said that what was needed was Mr Johnson, "not a mayor that is no friend to the Jewish community."

Mr Osborne, like Ambassador Daniel Taub, took the opportunity to send a message to Baroness Tonge, whose resignation from the LibDems was announced at the dinner. The Chancellor said: "Jenny Tonge - the state of Israel is going to be around a lot longer than you!" Ambassador Taub's message was as tough: "We have no intention of going anywhere."

Mr Osborne issued a public call to Syria's President Assad to stand down. And he won sustained applause when he declared: "It is the determined policy of the British government that Iran not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons."

Morocco: A land of charmers

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 11:54:08 +0000

If ever there were proof that you can't always believe what you read in the travel guides, it's Conde Nast Traveller's assertion that "there are 12 times as many cows in Morocco as humans".

Disappointingly, I have to report that the cow population of Morocco does not seem to reside in Marrakech. Despite an assiduous search over four days, we failed to spot any more than one miserable, scrawny beast, lurking in a field in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. Sheep, goats and donkeys aplenty; snakes, stoned to the eyeballs; and even a whole cageful of tiny tortoises, were among the wildlife on offer. But only one cow.

No matter. Even Conde Nast, I don't suppose, goes to Marrakech for the cattle quotient.

Instead, Marrakech runs the gamut from quasi-European sophistication, complete with winter sun, to enjoyably ethnic mystic East. The aforementioned snakes in a trance are the star players, together with their charmers, in the city's Djmaa el-Fnaa central square, a vast sprawling plaza of beggars, hucksters, fortune tellers and shamans, swirling with noise and colour.

Depending on your age and appetite, Djmaa el-Fnaa is an endless source of photographic delight, heaving with orange-seller stalls in the morning and dark with barbecue smoke as the dusk settles, rich with nameless food odours.

Or it is the main gateway to the city's famed souks, or central market, the place in which, apparently, you can buy absolutely anything you can think of - and more besides.

Forget shopping as you understand it in the UK. If you've spent any time in Israel you are off to a flying start. (And your hidden advantage, in Marrakech, is that Israelis can only visit the country as part of a group tour, so you're unlikely to encounter random Israelis beating you to the count in the bargaining stakes.) Nothing is the price you first hear. Think of the souk as the very opposite of Ronseal. Instead, your mission is to figure out a realistic price for something you have set your little heart on - and always remember that, as with the principle of wholesale, more will cost you less.

You may not want six plates or four tagines, but you will almost certainly have friends at home who will be happy to have a proper Moroccan souvenir.

So, what to buy? Without doubt the cheapest and most accessible items in the souk are the spices. Just drift past a spice stall, heavy hessian sacks full to the brim with myriad reds, yellows, greens and browns, and breath in the scent of the east.

Or go inside one of the stores and be enchanted by the tiniest of sets of scales, fit for a doll's house but actually for weighing out minuscule amounts of saffron strands, perhaps the most expensive and desirable of all the spices.

Don't leave Marrakech without the ubiquitous argan oil. It comes from a tree which they say grows only in Morocco and you can buy it for cooking or for your face and body. The most popular use of the latter, by the way, is for putting on the hair as a treatment, once a week. It's highly prized in this usage and has many fans in the UK. You can buy argan oil in Britain but it is fearfully expensive, so take advantage of the local produce.

You might also be tempted by the glorious colours of the scarves and textiles. Just be aware that - unlike in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, where every stallholder is a human calculator who will accept every currency and credit card going - the Marrakechis only take Moroccan dirhams. On the new side of the city, of course, the Western shops do take credit cards. But why would you want to go to a Western shop here?

Everywhere you turn in Marrakech, there are well-dressed businessmen walking, cycling, or zipping along on puk-puk motor cycles, weaving dangerously in and out of the traffic. And over their smart Western suits, you are just as likely to see them wearing the national dress - long djellabahs with pointy hoods, worn by everyone from the King downwards. It is, indeed, a nation of hoodies, but a relatively well-behaved one, knocking back glass after glass of mint tea rather than copious amounts of alcohol.

There is alcohol, of course, and none in more classy a joint than the grandest of hotels, La Mamounia, Churchill's choice whenever he was in Morocco. Gorgeously restored recently, La Mamounia reeks of money; in one of its many bars, designed to pander to your inner leopardskin, even the armchairs have epaulettes, and the drinks menu is eye-wateringly expensive. But you should go, just once, just for the experience.

For another view of Marrakech that is diametrically opposite, it's not hard to gain an invitation from the famously hospitable Moroccan Berbers - some of whom say they were descended from the Jews. In the village of Ait-Ourir, just outside the city, nestling at the foot of the Atlas Mountains, lives Fatema Souah and her husband. It's fair to say they don't have much in the way of material goods: water is brought by donkey cart, and electricity is intermittent. But Mrs Souah and her family could not be more welcoming and the sumptuous spread she served up for lunch for a group of Western strangers - complete with vegetable tagine for the non-meat-eaters among us - was a highlight of my trip.

The Berber language, Amazigh, is properly impenetrable.

But even if you don't speak that or Arabic, just a smattering of school French will get you a long way.

Not with the cows, though.

Sirayane boutique hotel and spa

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 11:54:07 +0000

Sirayane is the brainchild of a former Moroccan merchant banker, who broke away from the traditional style of Marrakech hotels, or riadhs. Located 10 minutes from the airport, it is unusually spacious with giant doors and a huge reception area with a high vaulted ceiling. It nestles in a complex of gardens and the pools - a massive 29 metres long swimming pool, and a winter pool, heated to 30 degrees, plus four private pools in the junior and de luxe suites.

Much of the charm of Sirayane derives from its intimacy - just 28 rooms. The ones by the pools are mini-villas. The spa is equipped with international and Moroccan cosmetic brands, and an Oriental hammam and a variety of treatments, many based argan oil.

There's a gym with cardio training equipment and a small hair salon. Sporty types should check out the paddle tennis court and the 400m jogging track.

The Atlas Mountains provide a stunning backdrop to the hotel and if it's cold, there's a library with a glowing fireplace.

The hotel menu is slightly meat-heavy, but the staff will provide fish and vegetarian options. Every day Sirayane provides a free shuttle service to Marrakech's legendary Djmaa el-Fnaa Square, the gateway to the souk. Dip in, then zoom back to the peace of the Sirayane, laden with purchases.

RATES: From 150 euros
TEL: +212 5 25 11 88 80

Extraordinary

Jenni Frazer — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:34:38 +0000

The news last week that there had been multiple resignations from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should have attracted rather more attention than it did. At least two of the resignations were whistleblowers who wanted to highlight the behaviour of a third colleague, the Prime Minister's bureau chief, Natan Eshel. Eshel has now resigned after admitting to sexual harassment of a female employee in the office.
It really says something when the country's former president is in prison for multiple sexual harassment and rape, and still there are men who believe they can behave as inappropriately as they like towards women, secure in the illusion that they are untouchable because they are in positions of power.
Eshel, plainly, learnt nothing from the Katzav affair. I do wonder, however, whether Mr Netanyahu himself has absorbed any useful lessons. He reserved his rage last week for his whistleblowing staffers because he had to learn about the Eshel situation from the media. Too much amour propre and not enough attention to what was going on, almost literally, under his nose.

Review: Pantheon

Jenni Frazer — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:22:52 +0000

By Sam Bourne
HarperCollins £12.99

Jonathan Freedland's previous fictional outings in his alter ego of Sam Bourne have been set well into the 21st century. In Pantheon, however, his newest novel, we are firmly in the fervid 1940s, in the days before America entered the Second World War.

This was when, as Freedland/Bourne reminds us, America's continuing neutrality opened up the terrifying but clear prospect that Britain would lose the fight against Nazi Germany.

The often forgotten stories of the "America Firsters", who wanted nothing more than to leave Britain and France to their fate, are revived in this novel, bound in with some dismaying tales of those who believed in eugenics and the survival of the fittest. In a melting pot of eugenicists and America Firsters, antisemitism was never very far behind.

The novel's hero, James Zennor, is in many senses damaged goods: literally and metaphorically. Once the pride of the British rowing team, when we meet him he is a not very believable Oxford academic who has never recovered from the mental and physical wounds he received fighting against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War.

A bad shoulder injury has rendered him unfit for military service in the Britain of 1940 but he does have a scarily beautiful wife, Florence, and an adorable two-year-old son, Harry.

And suddenly, without warning, Florence ups and leaves James, taking Harry with her. What follows is James's mad, wartime, translatlantic chase after his wife and child, caught up in the aforementioned lunacy of deranged right-wingers and racist theories about breeding.

I couldn't help feeling that, at some stages, Freedland was hampered by not being in the 21st century as he sought to rush his tale along. It takes James no time at all, for example, to sort out passage to America and accommodation, as he leaves Britain in hot pursuit of Florence. Just a week, in fact. Really? Long-distance calls from wartime Britain notwithstanding?

Oh, well, this is fiction, so go with the flow. But James quite definitely could do with being able to look up some of his enemies online. Instead, he relies on a series of lucky breaks and a handy ability in top surveillance, gleaned from his experience in Spain.

Pantheon is an absorbing page-turner with a dark background. But please, Jonathan, tell Sam to come back to the 21st century.

Israel's orchestra celebrates but sounds a note of caution

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:31:20 +0000

It was, in the end, left to the long-time music director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Zubin Mehta, to put his finger on what was being celebrated.

On a cool, clear night in Tel Aviv last month, Maestro Mehta, himself celebrating 50 years with the IPO, led hundreds of international patrons and well-wishers in a rousing chorus of "Happy Birthday, dear Philharmonic", as the orchestra marked its 75th anniversary.

But as the cheers died down, it was Mehta who reminded his audience of the very real human sacrifices which had been made when the orchestra was founded in 1936 by violinist Bronislaw Huberman. Huberman, who famously persuaded Arturo Toscanini to conduct that first concert on December 26, 1936, had paid, "out of his own pocket", recalled Mehta, "for around 80 musicians and their families to come from Europe". They became what was originally the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra and, by Huberman's action, were certainly rescued from the Holocaust. "Many more did not make it," said Mehta, asking his audience to remember those doomed musicians.

It was a telling reminder of the founding of a unique orchestra, which in its 75th year is undergoing yet another convulsion and transformation - almost taking it back to its roots. In those first uncertain days, the Polish-born Huberman was faced with creating an orchestra out of a Babel of European individuals. The main languages spoken were "German, Polish, Hungarian and Russian, with a little Hebrew spoken by the youngsters". These days, of course, there is a fair amount of Russian spoken among the 107 permanent members, although both the longest-serving musician, trumpet player Ilan Eshed, who has been with the orchestra since 1968, and its newest member, principal bassoon player Daniel Mazaki, who joined just last October, are both Israeli-born.

But, now as then, the orchestra is camping out, this time waiting for a return to its permanent home at the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv.

Avi Shoshani, the secretary-general of the IPO, dressed from head to foot in Issey Miyake, shrugs good-humouredly when asked about the difficulties facing an orchestra without a proper base. "We are promised a return to the Mann in December 2012," he says, noting that among the major renovations taking place will be the building of 1,400 square foot of offices under the main auditorium, with proper dressing rooms for the musicians and the guest artists, as well as newly-appointed adminstration and teaching areas.

For now, however, and for the next year, the venerable IPO is making the very best of the most difficult of circumstances, playing out of two temporary venues: the Smolarz Auditorium on the Tel Aviv University campus, and the unimpressively named Hangar 11 at Tel Aviv Port. It is fair to say that Hangar 11 was not designed for a classical orchestra and its audience. Vast and cavernous, with the seating laid out on the flat rather than the usual rake, the area was at least cheerfully decorated during the anniversary concerts with huge reproductions of posters from seven decades of the IPO's work.

But for the first time, at Shoshani's initiative, the celebration concerts and the music of the stellar guest artists were streamed live on the internet. The filming of the concerts and the transmission of some of them on Israeli TV necessitated both hot Klieg lights and the turning off of the air-conditioning in the hangar. For some of the musicians, it was just too much: artist after artist took to the stage in cool confidence, only to end up fiercely perspiring. The master violinist, Pinchas Zukerman, was an unfortunate victim: during his performance of the Beethoven Concerto in D Major, he desperately mopped his brow and his violin. Pianist Evgeny Kissin, his shirtsleeves flashing treble clef cufflinks, strove manfully to avoid dripping sweat over his Steinway grand piano; while the 20-year-old pianist, Daniil Trifonov, seemed virtually to be dissolving as he hunched over the keyboard.

Trifonov, it seems clear, is at the beginning of a long relationship with the Israel Philharmonic. Musicians, once they encounter the orchestra, frequently fall in love with it. Zukerman, 64 this year, first played with the IPO when he was 12. "It was a youth concert. I played the Mozart B Major concerto. I heard the orchestra a lot when I was nine or 10, my father used to take me to the concerts," he said. "Then, after I had studied in the US, I came back to play in 1968."

For the ever-amiable Zukerman, the relationship with the IPO "is something ongoing. We just do it. We come and play. The orchestra is a symbol of something very profound, to do with the country itself. A lot of it is Zubin, but some of it is simply the music and the striving for freedom of expression that is part of Israel's DNA. You can't really explain in words the power of the music, how it takes over. That's what the orchestra is, a powerful symbol of what this country is about, brought to life by extraordinary circumstances in the 1930s. It's changed its personnel, but it's not changed its core. That's what's important."

The Russian-born Trifonov is the son of musicians - his father is a composer and his mother a teacher of music theory. He entered music school when he was just five. By the time he was 14, and had broken his left hand so that he could not practise for three weeks, Trifonov knew the piano was his instrument. "I was really suffering without the piano. It was torture for me."

Crouched before the grand piano on the night of one of the IPO concerts, Trifonov initially looked scarcely able to cope. Skinny, floppy-haired, and wearing a suit that looked too big for him, he elicited a near-universal "aww" from orchestra and audience. Until, that is, he began to play. The orchestra, who knew what was coming after a scintillating morning rehearsal, nevertheless almost discernibly sat forward and rose to the occasion. Zubin Mehta looked transported. After rapturous applause, he leaned over and offered the pianist an encore. The audience went wild.

Both Pinchas Zukerman and Avi Shoshani are flag-wavers for improving music education, not least because classical orchestras are such an expensive model to maintain.

"Perhaps orchestras are at a crossroads now," said Zukerman. "While there is an economic downturn, there is a need to re-vamp the system. I hope we can do more outreach programming, and particularly using technology, such as the live streaming of the concerts. That's what we need to do to sustain the product we have, but it is difficult. How do you tell Oklahoma to listen to the Israel Philharmonic? Sustainability is what it's about. It's not a question of how much money you have, it's how you spend it. How important is culture, that's the question."

Avi Shoshani, in his orchestra's 75th year, has no doubt: he will go on doing everything possible to bring in a younger audience and educate youngsters. "I strongly believe the government has a responsibility to help in this matter," he says.

Interview: Yair Lapid

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:31:17 +0000

Imagine a cross between Jeremy Paxman and Jonathan Ross, with a twist of Daniel Craig-style good looks and a soupçon of Ian McEwan, and you are on the way to de-coding Yair Lapid. Now imagine that "PaxRo DanMac" has announced that he is entering the political world and you get some measure of the impact of Lapid's announcement in Israel that he was abandoning the comfortable studio sofa of his weekly television show, Ulpan Shishi, to run for the Knesset.

It helps, of course, that Lapid, 48, is strikingly good-looking and oozes charm and self-confidence. We arrange to meet in his neighbourhood, an upmarket suburb north of Tel Aviv, in a café where the customers are so cool that Lapid's entry does not even turn heads. In the café's tiny car park, a space has suddenly and magically opened up for him. "That was lucky," I say. Without missing a beat, he fires back: "Luck is my middle name."

Earlier this year Lapid published an extraordinary memoir, Memories After My Death, in which he seamlessly told the life story of his beloved father, Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, a Hungarian immigrant who was himself a long-established journalist who entered politics.

"I could hear his voice in my head," says his son, smiling, when asked about the process of writing the book. "Hungarians, by nature, are inveterate storytellers. It's their favourite pastime. My father never forgot what he was or where he was, but he dedicated his life to becoming a prototype of an Israeli in a time when everyone was trying to create that."

Lapid draws a distinction between himself and his father, not least because Tommy Lapid, a self-described "European gentleman", remained, despite his best efforts, an immigrant. But a close reading of the book, where Lapid Senior's political opinions are expressed with pugnacious honesty, will grant the careful reader an insight into what Lapid Junior might bring to Israeli political life.

When we meet it is only days before his volcanic declaration, via Facebook, that he is indeed jumping into the political scene. He steadfastly refuses to confirm, at our meeting, that he is doing so, at one point laughingly noting: "I'm too experienced to trick".

But, in fact, his entry has been one of Israel's worst-kept secrets, on the cards for more than a year, during which time he has been carefully securing political support by going out on the stump and addressing meetings, big and small, all over the country.

During our wide-ranging discussion he tries hard to distance himself from his imminent declaration, but is clearly frustrated expressing policies that he has to pass off as merely opinions. A poll issued by the respected Smith Research Centre in Israel this week showed that 43 per cent of the Israeli Jewish public [55 per cent of secular Jews] supported Lapid's entry into political life.

There are, says Lapid, two major areas to be addressed. "The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the other, perhaps less attractive to the international press, is the inner field of Israeli society, which interests me more. With the Palestinians, I think both big ideologies ruling the Israeli arena were proved wrong in the past decade or so. The Israeli right has realised that we cannot rule three-and-a-half million Palestinians for ever. The left has realised that this daydream of two nations living together… actually, it goes even deeper than that. They've realised that this idea that all men have been created the same and that all they want is peace, love and to be able to support their families, is just bogus. Because people have different needs and wants, and for the Palestinians, their desire to have their own version of nationalism is stronger than peace and love and let's all hold hands and be friends.

"My thinking is that the conclusion of the collapse of these two ideologies, is that it is not for peace we should aspire, but for a solid agreement which would help us separate as efficiently as possible."

This, I suggest, is the Amos Oz solution: divorce.

"That's the difference between me and Amos," says Lapid. "Amos thinks it's going to be a friendly divorce. I don't. I just want it to be a divorce. And I do not desire any relationship with the divorcé. In 10, 20 years' time, the economy and life will take its course. But what we need right now is to separate. And it will help us a lot if there are some European and American soldiers in between." The UN, he says, is doing just this in Lebanon. "And," he adds with a grin, "they have nice blue hats."

At this stage Lapid, even if he has answers up his sleeve, is not ready to provide them. "I will tell you what the problems are, but not the solutions," he says. The major problem in Israeli society, for him, is the abyss between secular Israelis, for whom he is the poster boy, and the strictly Orthodox. Just over 50 per cent of first-grade (five-year-old) pupils in Israel this year, he says, "are either strictly Orthodox or Arab. Which means that if we don't do anything, 12 years from now more than 50 per cent of 18-year-old Israelis are not going to go into the army, university, or the job market. That is the end of the Zionist idea, without a single shot being fired. That's why internal affairs are way more crucial, in my view."

He is aware that secular Jews are unlikely to be able to redress the demographic balance ("although," he says cheerfully. "I can recommend it as a hobby"). More seriously he wants to address trying to get Charedim into the job market. "We should help them any way we can, including helping them with core studies of maths and English."

Remarkably, Lapid claims that he has had a positive response from young Charedim when he has gone on the stump. "If you go to the Charedi michlala [teacher training college] in Kiryat Ono, you find a new generation of young Charedim who are tired of being poor, of being ruled by extreme rabbis, taking them to the point of no return in their relationship with the secular Israelis. They are even tired of knowing that they are being supported by the labour of their wives, who are themselves tired of being the slaves of this society. These people are my allies. I want to help them in every possible way, because I don't hate Charedim, I don't hate a single Jew in the world. I am even willing to consider separating the question of going into the army from the question of going to work. We should start that way: tell them, no money for your schools unless you teach maths, English, Hebrew and computers; but if you want to go to work, we will do everything to help you."

He has, he says, had a number of less public meetings with the Charedi leadership. "And I still haven't done enough. I should have done more." It is not, he insists, the start of a political campaign. Slightly disingenuously, he says: "As long as I'm not in politics, and maybe I will never be, I wouldn't do anything to compromise the ethics of the people I work for. People are paying me money to be a journalist, not to politically campaign."

Nevertheless, he says candidly: "If I am going into politics, there's not going to be a single Charedi who will vote for me [an assertion borne out by the Smith Institute poll]. I have nothing to gain from this dialogue. I only do this because I really care about it."

Israeli Charedim, he says, "are just tired. They're not tired of being religious: they find great comfort in it. But they are tired of the way of living they were forced into by a blunt combination of cynical politicians and extremist rabbis. They are tired and they want out. And, by the way, I get the same sense from the Israeli middle-class, which is also tired. They are tired of paying all the taxes, doing reserve duty, and being used over and over again by a system which doesn't care."

Sharp and funny, and well aware of all the nay-sayers and critics who charge him with being a shallow media five-minute wonder, Yair Lapid may well regret leaving the comfort of the studio sofa for the rough world of politics - though some have hailed him as Israel's saviour.

But he looks to me, like his father, like a man who relishes a fight. And for Lapid, it is a fight he cares passionately about.

Israel Philharmonic hope to play in Britain again

Jenni Frazer — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:35:10 +0000

The secretary general of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Avi Shoshani, has categorically denied that the IPO will not return to play in Britain, in the wake of the row over September's disrupted Proms concerts.

A report in today's Times suggested that the IPO was unlikely to play again in Britain. But Mr Shoshani insisted: "I did not say I did not want to come back to the UK. I did say that I did not want to put my musicians in such a situation again, where they were being abused and threatened.

"As for the Proms organisers, I have nothing but praise for them; I can only say good things about them, they behaved beautifully. The Proms is a very important festival and we would like to return. "

Mr Shoshani explained that the IPO, which has just celebrated its 75th anniversary, was unlikely, in any event, to tour in Europe for another four years. He said: "I have nothing against demonstrations, where they are carried out in a civilised fashion.

"There was a civilised demonstration against the orchestra after the Proms, in Italy. People handed out leaflets outside the venue. But they did not disrupt the performance and they did not threaten the musicians. We had no problem with that.

"At the Proms, the concert was interrupted four times, in a very ugly way. I thought that it was one step away from a situation in which things would be thrown. I don't want to put any of my musicians, some of whom have very expensive musical instruments, in a situation like that again."

Relief for orchestra over funding

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 12:40:27 +0000

The secretary-general of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Avi Shoshani, confirmed this week that the Israeli government had deferred its controversial plan to suspend the element of merit when awarding state funding to cultural institutions.

In mid-December, the Culture and Sports Ministry announced that future grants to Israeli orchestras, no matter how big or small, or how public their profile, would be awarded on the same flat-rate basis.

This meant that a tiny chamber ensemble would be eligible for the same financial awards as the IPO, without taking into account the national orchestra's international profile, tours or guest conductors and performers.

Mr Shoshani was among a number of music administrators who wrote to the government to complain. He said: "I am surprised and shocked by the manner in which such an important and influential decision has been made… giving the identical performance level grade to all the musical bodies means a further reduction in the ongoing support which we receive."

But this week Mr Shoshani told the JC: "Obviously the IPO would be the first to lose from this arrangement. But I'm pleased to say we've succeeded in getting this plan deferred. It will not happen."

Mr Shoshani was speaking at the end of a successful gala fortnight of concerts given by the Israel Philharmonic to celebrate its 75th anniversary.

Its music director, Zubin Mehta, celebrating his own 75th birthday and 50 years working with the orchestra, remains the only world classical conductor to have been named music director for life.

No one is ready to talk about a successor for the energetic Maestro Mehta, but the IPO has just appointed the Italian Gianandrea Noseda, normally based in Turin, as its principal guest conductor. Mr Noseda's evident enthusiasm for the 114-strong IPO - and his fluency in Russian, among other attributes - may well hint at his future with the orchestra.

Meanwhile, Mr Shoshani praised Roger Wright, director of the BBC Proms, who presided over the IPO's disrupted concert in September when pro-Palestinian activists interrupted its Royal Albert Hall performance. Mr Wright was "a good friend" of the IPO, said Mr Shoshani, adding that although he was not against demonstrations per se, this one had had the opposite effect to that intended.

One more and we'll have a set

Jenni Frazer — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:07:41 +0000

According to the Mail on Sunday, disgraced MP Aidan Burley not only sat beside his friend who wore full Nazi uniform at the now notorious French stag party, but Burley actually ordered the uniform.
This rather begs the question of not only Burley's own judgment, which we may accept is dubious, but in the Conservative Friends of Israel rush to cover him with the mantle of their blessing. "Not an antisemitic bone in his body," the CFI declared. That would be the non-antisemitic bones which persuaded him to order an SS uniform, I imagine.
Who's kidding who, here?
Burley himself, asked directly why he hadn't got up and left the event when someone appeared in SS dress, burbled something weaselly about its being difficult to leave somewhere when one was 800 miles up a mountain. Now we know: he was protecting his investment.

A guide for the perplexed

Jenni Frazer — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:14:17 +0000

This is for MPs and MEPS, of whatever party, who appear to be intellectually challenged.

1. If someone appears at a celebration, and sits next to you wearing full Nazi uniform, it's time to go home. Do not even think of posing for a picture. You will not look good. Early Day Motions will be tabled.

2. If you even think about making a comparison between the treatment of present-day Palestinians and either Holocaust behaviour or 19th century antisemitism, you need to lie down in a dark room for several days. You will not look good.

3. Do not blog citing Hitler in any way, shape or form. You will not look good.

4. Do not leap to condemn stupidities uttered by the famous if you aren't bothering to condemn blatant antisemitism on your own doorstep. You will not look good.

5. And finally, if you have done any or (horrors) all of the above, consider whether being in the public eye is the right place for you. After all, you want to look good, don't you?

Obama's Israel policy could mean the end of his presidency

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 11:46:05 +0000

If you cut David Frum, there is every possibility his blood would run Republican Party blue. President George W Bush's one-time speechwriter, credited with coining the phrase "the axis of evil" to refer to terrorist groups and extremist governments, Frum is the Republicans' Republican, exhorting and hectoring the Grand Old Party in the belief that Barack Obama's presidency can be ousted next year.

Since leaving the White House, the Toronto-born Frum, who is 51, has made his living mainly as a political commentator, most recently from the online website FrumForum.com, where he acts as a sort of lightning conductor for voices from the right. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

But even a man apparently so convinced of his own correctness occasionally hesitates. In London last week to speak to the annual dinner of the Anglo-Israel Association, Frum admitted that he is having second and third thoughts about the current crop of front-runners vying for the Republican presidential candidacy.

"I am worried about the state of the party," he confesses. His problem is that he wants "an electable and effective Republican alternative" to Obama and so far only Mitt Romney, the former Governor of Massachusetts, fits the bill in his view. Republican support, says Frum, has dropped over the summer months by seven points in the US polls; in areas where the Tea Party, the new right-wing political phenomenon espoused by Sarah Palin, is strongest, support has dropped even faster. Frum is careful not to attack the Tea Party too strongly - recognising, perhaps, that one day they may become the new political masters - but he is clearly uneasy about their effect on mainstream Republican politics.

A viable candidate is doubly important because President Obama is vulnerable, and his "greatest vulnerability is his foreign policy failure". He acknowledges that in some areas of foreign policy, Obama has done well - he pulled the troops out of Afghanistan and is doing so from Iraq, and Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Colonel Gaddafi all fell on the president's watch.

But speaking to the Anglo-Israel Association, Frum reported that the Hill newspaper has written of "a warning sign for the president" on Israel. "Among likely American voters, 40 per cent say that President Obama is not supportive enough of Israel. And this is not some idle opinion: a quarter of voters say Israel is very important to the way they vote, a majority of voters say Israel is very or somewhat important to the way they vote."

Frum is dismissive of the suggestion of an "Israel lobby" driving opinion on Capitol Hill. "We have lobbies on issues such as fuel subsidies or solar energy or oil," he says. If there is a Israel lobby, he adds, "it is successful for exactly the same reason that Mothers Against Drunk Driving is successful: because Americans approve of and admire motherhood, and dislike and disapprove of driving drunk."

But in the "huge Middle-East industry" in America, he says, there is a false belief that the Israel-Palestine situation "is in some way central to the problems of the region. That if a Palestinian state were created, all would be well, that it is Israeli politicians who are blocking something which is in their own best interests". Americans, says Frum, "don't think, how annoying that Israel won't submit to the demands of some international peace negotiator. They think, if I were an Israeli voter, I would not submit to those demands myself."

The advent of the Arab Spring has not made a major difference to the truths of the situation, he believes. "In 2011, if you look at the major problems of the Arab world, and you say, what would creating a Palestinian state, assuming such a thing were possible, do to solve those problems? Nothing. It was just as true in 2009 as it is today, that half the population of Egypt lives on $2 a day or less. These regimes are failing to provide opportunities for an enormous population of young urban males. These facts were known before the Arab Spring.

He continues: "I don't think the president began with an animus against Israel… I think he certainly has an animus against Prime Minister Netanyahu. I think he considers himself as a friend of Israel. But he is a friend who happens to know better about Israel's interests than its prime minister, than its cabinet, than its people. He's right, and they're wrong. But not because he wishes them ill. The president's claim is that Israel is doing something against the interests of Israel, and that he is going to save Israel from itself."

It would be "more logical," Frum suggests, if Obama were to say that it was in the interests of the United States for there to be a Palestinian state, and that he was going to pressure Israel accordingly.

"But Americans don't like the idea of a Palestinian state. I think that President Obama comes from inside this complex of views inside the Middle-East peace process industry... that's where he started in his first two and a half years. But he has received some jolts: the Arab Spring, the worsening relations with Iran, have made it clear that a lot of the assumption of this view are not true. And, finally, the Palestinians' indifference to the president's efforts. That must be the most radicalising thing for him: that he said, I'm going to lean on Netanyahu to get concessions for the Palestinians, and that will cause the Palestinians to respond by joining the peace process and making significant concessions of their own. What he discovered was, that you can press Netanyahu all you want, and it yields nothing. The Palestinians do not reciprocate, and the peace process is as dead as ever."

Nevertheless, Frum asserts, Israel is not central to Obama's re-election. It is, as Bill Clinton so famously expressed it, "the economy, stupid," now surely more than even in Clinton's day. "But given that Obama's going to be facing a tough economy, and emphasising foreign policy as one of his successes, it is going to matter that in an area of foreign policy to which Americans pay a lot of attention, things are not good."

This is not to say that Frum characterises the core relationship between America and Israel as bad. On the contrary, it is a relationship, he says, "deeper than any president or prime minister. And Israel brings a lot to the table. Its greatest threats are not just to Israel… Iran is not just a threat to Israel. I would argue that despite the exterminationist talk by Iran, Israel is not even their first target. That's the Gulf. They want to be the dominant power there. A nuclear bomb would help them do that. Obama thought it was possible to engage the Iranians, but the regime has remained as obdurate and as dangerous as ever."

Oddly for such a hawk, Frum does not believe that there will be military action against Iran. Rather he predicts computer warfare and what he calls "irregular actions" and a tightening of sanctions against Tehran. Nevertheless, Mitt Romney pledges that if he becomes president, he will do "whatever it takes" for Iran not to have a nuclear bomb, and does not rule out military action. Obama, says Frum, will do "whatever it takes, up to, but not including, military action".

Casting an informed outsider's eye over attitudes to Israel in Britain, Frum seems appalled by the UK media, which he thinks belie the healthy working relationship between the two countries. There is an environment, he notes, which hosts "fabrications" against Israel.

"The Jenin story was made in Britain, the so-called Gaza massacres were made in Britain. Because of the extraordinary reach of Britain's media - the BBC, the Guardian - when an invention takes form, it's very damaging. For certain segments of British life, they feel they can't be patriotic and nationalistic any more about their own country. So they are looking for other places to be patriotic and nationalistic about. From Lord Byron on, there's been a tendency to find British people in the middle of somebody else's nationalism. There are people who adopt the Palestinian cause as a substitute for the nationalism that their grandparents felt and that they can't express. It fills a missing place. People in the thrall of this kind of thing are blind. They think they are not antisemites because they didn't start as antisemites. The fact that you found a modern way into antisemitism doesn't make you any less antisemitic - just a more up-to-date version."

Among the missing

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 11:24:15 +0000

I have rarely felt such a sense of disappointment in a Labour leader as I do today in Ed Miliband.
Repeatedly asked to condemn what you might think would be a no-brainer, MP Paul Flynn's scurrilous remarks about the British ambassador to Israel and his alleged "dual loyalty", Mr Miliband took refuge in weak silence. It was left to his shadow foreign secretary, Douglas Alexander, to do the deed and castigate Mr Flynn's comments.
In recent weeks Mr Miliband has let drop intriguing hints about releasing his inner Jew. He has had, we are told, deep conversations with himself about his Jewish identity following the birth of his second son. He has had long discussions with the Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, and the new Israeli ambassador to Britain, Daniel Taub (who, by Paul Flynn's bizarre logic, should also be guilty of dual loyalties since he is British-born.)
I can't imagine that such conversations, were they to take place this week, would be so comfortable for Mr Miliband.
All he has to do - in fact all he had to do - was to state clearly and unequivocally that Paul Flynn's remarks are completely and utterly unacceptable, no ifs, buts, or maybes. No hedging, no fudging, no ringing round with putting in context.
What Paul Flynn said was deeply offensive and completely bought in to every antisemitic trope and stereotype currently being peddled on what we have hitherto considered the lunatic fringe. But Flynn has now brought this attitude into respectable conversation. Mr Miliband needs to tread on this immediately; but I cannot understand why he hesitated. Unless, of course, he believes that his own background will lead to a loss of credibility, and he is allowing his Jewish identity to constrain him.
For shame, Ed. I thought you were better than that.

Livingstone attacks 'Islamophobe' Gove

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 13:57:13 +0000

A furious Education Secretary, Michael Gove, has turned on the Labour London mayoral candidate, Ken Livingstone, after the former mayor called him "an Islamophobe" and attacked him as a "fervent Zionist".

In an interview with the website, London Loves Business, Mr Livingstone said: "People like Michael Gove and others have been stridently Islamaphobic for some time."

He also again defended the Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, whom he invited to London in 2004, despite the sheikh's well-known views on gays and violence against Israelis.

Mr Livingstone said: "The one thing he has always said is that Palestinians have the right to fight and to kill in the struggle round Israel. But he's always been absolutely clear that that was the only area in which violence could be justified."

The former mayor then made his accusation against the Education Secretary: "People like Michael Gove and others have been stridently Islamaphobic for some time, and they assume there are votes in this".

"The people like Michael Gove who are fervent Zionists and Boris Johnson, they wanted to isolate Al-Qarawadi because he's a critic of Israel. And they ignored the fact he strongly urges Muslims not to launch attacks here in Britain."

Asked what he meant by saying Michael Gove was "stridently Islamaphobic", Mr Livingstone responded: "Just look at his writings and the general tone he takes is to depict Islam as genuinely a threat. He's at the extreme end of this."

A source close to Michael Gove responded: "The idea that Michael Gove is Islamophobic is preposterous. The coalition government has given the go-ahead to the first Muslim free school and is working with moderate Islamic organisations to improve state education.

"The real enemy of integration is Ken.

"The Department for Education is in the vanguard of Whitehall's fight against extremism, with a unit staffed by experts in Islam and senior civil servants to help moderate Muslims to prevent extremists trying to subvert state education.

"In contrast, Ken Livingstone has embraced extremist ideologues like Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Mr al-Qaradawi has endorsed domestic violence and global extremist activity.

"Three years ago Londoners recognised that Ken Livingstone was not fit to lead a tolerant multicultural capital.

"Age has not brought wisdom to Ken."

Mr Gove would not disagree with being described as a Zionist, a term he has frequently and passionately espoused.

Last year Mr Livingstone's "shoot-from-the-lip" approach landed him in expensive hot water.

He had to pay an estimated £11,000 in damages to the former leader of Tower Hamlets council, Michael Keith, after accusing him of spreading Islamophobia and smears, and saying he did not live in the borough.

The row between the two members of the Labour Party began when Mr Keith opposed the idea of a directly-elected mayor in Tower Hamlets.

Mr Livingstone, who supported the idea, made his attack on Mr Keith during a speech in the run-up to the mayoral election.

After Mr Keith threatened legal proceedings, Mr Livingstone apologised and agreed to pay a sum of money to a charity of Mr Keith's choice, together with his legal costs.