The controversy was sparked by William Hague's view that Israel had over-reacted to Hizbollah's attacks. The intensity of the row is curious, given that the current conflict will be over long before Mr Hague is Foreign Secretary. His opinion on the proportionality of the Israeli response is thus in the same category as his opinion on the filioque clause or the identity of Jack the Ripper: potentially interesting, but not immediately important. Yet no Conservative politician can talk about it without opening a wider debate about the kind of world we want.
Israel is more than a country; it is an archetype. The Jewish state is the supreme embodiment of the national principle: of the desire of every people to have their own state. For 2,000 years, Jews were scattered and stateless, but they never lost their aspiration for a national home - "next year in Jerusalem", as the traditional toast had it. That they have fulfilled that aspiration delights Euro-sceptics, but unsettles Euro-enthusiasts, who believe that national loyalties are arbitrary and anachronistic.
Then there is the question of whether Britain belongs with Europe or with the Anglosphere. Europhiles understandably want to align our stance with that of the EU, which refuses to list Hizbollah as a terrorist organisation, and sees a degree of equivalence between the paramilitaries and the Israeli Defence Force. The English-speaking democracies, by contrast, are not shy about taking sides. Lining up with George W. Bush and Tony Blair are the Canadian PM, Stephen Harper, who says that Israel's response is "measured" - despite the killing of several Canadian UN peacekeepers - and his Australian counterpart, John Howard, who has told his Muslim leaders that nothing should stand in the way of disarming Hizbollah.
Why, though, do some Conservatives look at the globe through New World eyes, while others remain rooted in Europe? The answer is that the Conservative Party is an amalgam of two different traditions, whose opposition formed the basis of English party politics for more than 200 years after the Civil War. It was only the rise of the Left in the late 19th century that pushed the Whigs out of the Liberal Party and into an alliance with their Tory rivals - a link formally annealed in 1912. The Euro-sceptic/Zionist Conservatives are heirs to the Roundheads. They believe in democracy, however messy its outcomes. They distrust elites and their opinions, and want power devolved to the lowest practicable level. The Euro-enthusiast/Arabists are Cavaliers. They think that democracy sometimes needs to be tempered by good sense, order and seemliness, and worry lest the wisdom of generations be overturned by a transient popular majority.
The Roundhead is philo-Semitic: it was Cromwell himself who brought Jews back to England. When he looks at the Middle East, his sympathy - in the literal sense of fellow-feeling - is with Israel, a state that, even while fighting for its survival, has retained a boisterous parliamentary system, a free press and independent courts. The Cavalier, by contrast, regrets the displacement of a traditional, hierarchical society by a brash and consumerist one. His sympathy is with the simple Bedouin in his flowing robes. He admires Glubb Pasha and T. E. Lawrence, and believes that Britain has obligations to its old friends - the Middle East monarchies.
The Roundhead is pro-American. He loves the story of a nation founded in a popular revolt against a remote regime. He inclines, in particular, toward the Republicans: heirs, both lineally and ideologically, to the American Whigs. He revels in the pluralism of US democracy, where everyone from the sheriff to the garbage man is elected. The Cavalier, on the other hand, thinks that so much democracy opens the door to populism and crassness. He thinks that American foreign policy, especially in its current form, is crowd-pleasing and lacking in subtlety. It goes without saying that the Roundhead dislikes Brussels, seeing the EU as both illiberal and undemocratic. The Cavalier, however, thinks that professional diplomats and civil servants know a thing or two. Cavaliers call their opponents "neo-cons", and accuse them of contracting out their views to Washington. Roundheads retort that their critics are in thrall to Brussels, and often anti-Semitic. Both charges are unfair: the two traditions are indigenous, patriotic and, at their best, high-minded.
Consider, as a contemporary Cavalier, the substantial Sussex MP Nicholas Soames. No one, I hope, would question the former cavalry officer's loyalty to his country. Mr Soames's Arabism, like his Europeanism, is based on his notion of how to project British interests. He wants friendly Arab leaders to buy our weapons, vote with us in the UN, send their sons to Harrow and Sandhurst. Like all good Cavaliers, he values outcomes over process, and frets that Britain's interests are being jeopardised by a dogmatic foreign policy.
For Michael Gove, perhaps the supreme modern Roundhead, it is precisely our lack of dogma that has got us into this mess. In his coruscating book, "Celsius 7/7", Mr Gove adumbrates the view that authoritarian regimes are intrinsically bad for the West, even if they happen to have notionally Anglophile leaders. He would prescribe the same remedy to the Middle East as to the EU and, for that matter, to Britain itself: a radical shift in power from the elites to the people. Time would seem to be on Mr Gove's side. Most younger Tories are pro-Israel, pro-Washington, anti-Brussels. A majority of the new intake has endorsed the manifesto of Roundhead Conservatism, Direct Democracy, which proposes the massive decentralisation and democratisation of the British state, and whose very language is Cromwellian: the authors call for a "New Model Party", whose politicians should adopt a "Self-Denying Ordinance" towards the exercise of state power.
The current controversy isn't only about Israel. It is about whether sovereign states can act unilaterally, whether we trust the United Nations Organisation (UNO) and other supra-national bodies, whether the West is prepared to use proportionate force in defence of its values and freedoms, and, ultimately, whether democracy is worth having.
Dit opiniestuk van Daniel Hannan verscheen ook in The Daily Telegraph en Opinion Journal, alsmede op een groot aantal weblogs.
Meer over dit Europarlementslid op www.conservatives.com.
3 Reacties:
- At 13:40 Anoniem said...
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De wortel van de ganse ellende in het Midden-Oosten is de haat. Men moet zich dus afvragen waar deze haat vandaan komt, en wie daar verantwoordelijk voor is. De vraag of deze haat gerechtvaardigd is, is inzake niet echt relevant, omdat oorlogen uit haat d'office indruisen tegen elke libertarische wereldvisie.
De haat jegens de Joden wordt de Arabische jeugd van kindsbeen af met de paplepel ingegoten. Eénieder die ook maar denkt aan een harmonieuze samenleving tussen jood en moslim/arabier zonder naar de dagelijkse opvoeding/haat campagne te zien moet niet de illusie hebben dat er ooit iets kan groeien naar wederzijds respect.
De oorlogen en aanslagen zijn allemaal het gevolg van deze haatcampagne. Het zijn de vruchten die de Arabieren aan hun nageslacht en henzelf toebedelen.
Dezelfde haat wordt dagelijks richting het westen/amerika gespuit. Dagelijks kan men de propaganda zien van Hezbollah en de haat van de Ayatollahs in de Arabische wereld.
Haat zal uiteindelijk leiden tot de vernietiging van hen die ze uitdragen. Dit is triest, maar wel rechtvaardig. - At 15:02 Anoniem said...
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Eeuwenlang waren de joden vogelvrij in Europa en elders. De komst van Israël moest daar verandering in brengen, maar nog steeds heeft het Joodse volk geen rust gevonden. Het verschil met de Nazitijd is dat Israël nu een eigen leger heeft. Gelukkig maar. Anders waren ze ook in Israël al allemaal terug uitgemoord geweest. Onschuldige slachtoffers zijn altijd te betreuren, ook aan Arabische kant. Maar Palestijnen sturen hun eigen kinderen met bommen op hun rug de dood in. Geen enkele joodse israëlische moeder zou dat in haar hoofd halen. Maakt dat het joodse volk dan superieur? Ik denk het wel. Shalom.
- At 16:56 Anoniem said...
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Elke staat heeft recht op vrijheid en veiligheid. Wanneer een staat andere staten bedreigt, moet de internationale gemeenschap optreden. Eerst met gesprekken, onderhandelingen en resoluties. Wanneer dit niet gebeurd en er een aanval wordt geopend zonder enig greintje rechtvaardigheid vind ik dat de staat die een aanval begon moet worden aangepakt. Ook eerst via diplomatieke manieren.
Ik weet zeker dat lang niet alle Israëliërs de Libanoncampagne gewild hebben. Je moet dan ook deze mensen niet straffen, maar degene die het bevel tot aanval gegeven heeft. Er is dus een mogelijkheid om de Israëlische overheid links te laten liggen en een VN-troepenmacht te zenden naar Israël om daar op mensrespecterende wijze te regeren. Hierdoor wordt de Israëlische overheid gestraft.
Jammer, Vincent. Ik ben ook een pro-Israël'ster, maar de Libanoncampagne was voor mij net die brug te ver. Israël verdient verdedigbare grenzen en we moeten inderdaad de democratie in het Midden-Oosten koesteren, maar we mogen onze ogen toch ook niet sluiten voor de gevolgen van de Israëlische agressiepolitiek tegenover zijn zwakke buurlanden.
Jammer, maar wat Libanon betreft, moet ik mij bij de "socialistische arabisten" rekenen, althans volgens de theorie van Dan Hannan. En jij weet net als ik dat ik allesbehalve een "socialist" of een "arabist" ben. Jammer. Begrijpelijk, maar toch jammer.