Charles Grant, in the Guardian. Last bit reminds me of Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby, his racist old-WASP rants:
Within Israel, there is very little pressure for a peace settlement. Israelis are getting on with their lives, without – for now – the threat of suicide bombers. There are virtually no rocket attacks from the areas controlled by Hamas and Hezbollah. The barrier that snakes through the West Bank makes Israelis feel safer – and also less interested in what happens on the other side.
As for the Gaza strip, most Israelis do not want to think or talk about it. The only people I met who seemed worried about the situation there were foreign journalists…
Many Israeli politicians and businessmen have a dark view of Europe. At a conference I attended in Jerusalem, one minister – a noted dove within the Israeli government – complained about the influence of Muslim minorities on the foreign policies of EU countries. I told him that Germany and the Netherlands, two states with large and vocal Muslim minorities, were among Israel’s best friends in Europe. He countered that the Czech Republic and Poland, which had very few Muslims, did not criticise Israel. And he claimed there was a direct correlation between the willingness of British MPs to criticise Israel, and the size of the Muslim minority in their constituencies.
Several Israelis at the conference complained that, having sprung from European civilisation, they were now among its last defenders, given that the high birth rate of Muslim immigrants and Islamist ideology were undermining that civilisation from within (I have heard very similar comments in Serbia and Russia).
