The United Arab Emirates and Israel

With much fanfare, the Netanyahu and Trump PR machines announced that Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have agreed to establish diplomatic relations. According to the UAE Israel has agreed to give up the West Bank annexation plans, which Netanyahu has been talking about. According to Trump, Israel would forgo for now “declaring sovereignty” over occupied West Bank territory. And... according to Netanyahu his plan to annex part of the West Bank “remains on the table.” 

 

The Israeli move seems brilliant: they first announce that they would take over (others call it steal) Palestinian land and then in return for agreeing to cool their landgrab plan for a while, get something tangible. It is, of course, far from brilliant: without reaching an agreement with the Palestinians, their frustration will continue to fester. Israel might get richer and militarily stronger, but it will not live in peace. Rich and strong and screw the rest.

 

It has been reported that settlers are livid. They had believed Netanyahu and were hoping for the formalisation of the de-facto annexation, that Israel has been carrying out salami-fashion for years. To be told that you have to put off stealing for a while must be difficult for them. Judging by the past, they need not worry. Operation Landgrab will be allowed to continue.  

 

Palestinians too are disappointed – by their “brethren”. I don’t know why. They should have gotten used to it. They have been mistreated by the Arab world throughout their history. Yet, neither pointing to that fact, nor to the Palestinians' own mismanagement of their interests, will solve the problem. And, as already said, unless it is solved, there will regularly be trouble.

La bella Venezia

In their reports, the media reported about a tourist-free Venice and so I went, hoping  to enjoy the emptiness. Others must have had the same idea. Indeed, there seem to be no Americans, Chinese or other tourists from far away countries. Not many Brits. The main foreign language one could hear was German.

 

And here are some of the sights...

 

 

Portman Square

A year ago, in what seemed like a prettification exercise, the pavement stones surrounding Portman Square in London were all replaced by what, at the time, seemed luxury type of pavement stones. The new stones looked very elegant and I assumed that the fact that the offices of the Portman Estate were situated in the square was not unconnected. Why else would the City of Westminster spend all that money?

 

This is what the place looks like now: 

  

Who is the architect, who chose these stones? Who are the people in charge who spent public funds on these unsuitable stones? The least one could expect is that they are sent to regularly clean them. In person.

Corona and the Salzburg Festival

On the 20th of May, I blogged “Austria, the country that gave us Ischgl, source of corona contamination this winter, is now preparing a similar hotspot for the summer.“

And now, I have succumbed to the temptation and am also here. A couple of days ago, I went to the premiere of Cosi fan Tutte, conducted by Joanna Mallwitz and directed by Christof Loy. The splendid clean and clear lined sets made by my friend Johannes Leiacker were a special bonus. It was wonderful: wonderful to go to the opera again, after all the Corona shutdowns of cultural life, and a truly wonderful production. Splendid young singers, who not only sang beautifully but also acted convincingly. An all-round elating evening.

The Festival’s PR machinery has been trying to virally spread the news of how disciplined their hygiene and prevention of infection measures are. No intervals to lower mingling risks, certain “social distancing”, as one was sat in a chessboard pattern and only half of the seats were filled. But the fact is that you get 1000 people spreading those dreaded aerosols in the closed space of the opera house. More than that, once the performance started, people were permitted to take off their masks. I didn’t. Very many did. In fact, I wore an FFP2 mask, that supposedly also protects the wearer throughout the evening.

 

One of my friends sent me a link to an interview with the Festival’s president with a comment “charming lies”. Well, charm is a matter of personal taste. I do not trust messages, statements, interviews with salespeople and the Festival’s president is trying to sell her product. Tickets, in fact, are still to be had. This is unprecedented, like so much else in these Corona times. This saleswoman has an uphill struggle.

Was it wise to go? No. Is it responsible to stage events? No. The least they should have done would have been to make wearing of masks during the whole evening compulsory. Austria succumbed to the powerful Salzburg lobby – it should not have. I can but hope, both egoistically and generally that we will not pay with our health for this experience.

arte have recorded the performance of Cosi, which can be watched here. It will be available until 30 of October 2020. Definitely worthwhile.

Revolution or foam soon to evaporate

Anti „Bibi“(Netanyahu) demonstrations having been gathering pace recently.  We are still only talking thousands and not hundreds of thousands, but there seems to be stamina and perseverance.  How will this all end?

 

The ugly and sad fact is that neither the occupation of Palestinian territories nor the illegal settlement of these territories with more than 600,000 Israeli Jews are causing Israelis to demand Netanyahu’s departure. The ugly and sad fact is that the majority of Israel’s population has been voting for politicians and politics that enable and enforce the occupation.

 

Even Netanyahu’s personal corruption (he is awaiting a whole case load of personal corruption trials), does not prevent his supporters from voting for him. The man is a master of political marketing. His personal charisma has produced one election result after another that have kept him in power.

 

And then came Corona. It seems that Corona, and Netanyahu’s management or rather mismanagement of the crisis, are the energiser of this latest bout of unrest. There is growing frustration with a man who quite evidently has taken advantage of Corona to further his personal needs, at the top of which stands his attempt to flee justice.  

 

What will make Netanyahu go? Old-school politicians knew when to go. Almost always too late, but at some point, they would bow out. Doing the honourable thing can be ruled out in Netanyahu’s case. There never was anything honourable about that man. Moreover, the one thing he is frightened to death by are his court cases (the next hearing has been set for December) and possible jail terms. There are precedents: Ehud Olmert, a predecessor of Netanyahu's was for corruption. At some point Netanyahu might go for some plea-bargain deal, that would remove him from his office, whilst keeping him out of jail. Such a deal would be a catastrophe for democracy. The man needs to stand trial. Justice must be done and must be seen to be done.

 

A terrible alternative would be mob justice. Nobody can wish for Ceausescu-like solutions and this is unlikely to happen in Israel. The Israeli right-wing produced Rabin’s murderer; those calling for democracy will not succumb to similar acts of violence. 

 

There are countries in which the senior members of a ruling party would make it clear to their leader that the time has come and he or she must go. This, for instance, was the case with Margaret Thatcher. Up to now, nothing of the sort has happened in Netanyahu’s Likkud party. Netanyahu has surrounded himself with a junta of enablers, whom he manages to bribe and cajole to keep him in office.

 

One can but hope that the anti-Bibi demonstrators will persevere until the internal supporting walls in his party will crumble and thereby bring about his downfall.

Masks / Personal Freedom /

If I fear infection, because wearing of masks, as the regulations require, is not enforced on German trains, I should not travel by train, the service director on my train to Paris told me last week. Is that the right attitude?

 

Almost everything a state does infringes upon a citizen’s personal freedom: the state take our money in taxation, it forces us in certain situations to serve in an army, it prevents us from harming others and it even tries to prevent us from harming ourselves.

 

Some people consider mouth and nose masks an infringement of their personal freedom. True, these masks are not very convenient but why are feelings running so high? Violent demonstration against the “lie of the pandemic” have been reported in various countries. Recently, even in Germany, a country which has up to now managed Corona extremely well. There are, of course, always the “usual suspects”, those who feel that the state is too strong, or that their liberty, whatever that may be, is being trampled upon. And there are always those, who flee to wild conspiracy theories, in order to make sense of a world which is too much for them.

We are living in unusual times, most of us have not experienced such limitations before. For most of us these are not just unusual but unprecedented times. And here mainly local leaders are failing. The opposition to masks seems to be partly the result of a failure to communicate the right message, a message of respect for the fellow person, the love-thy-neighbour message. So, for example, chaos in Frankfurt is the personal failure of Peter Feldmann, the city’s mayor, who failed to communicate with the revelling crowds, who for weeks, systematically broke the regulations in his city. It is up to every local and communal leader to produce the atmosphere of thoughtfulness and consideration.

Just do it.  

It is all a conspiracy

It is all a conspiracy, Corona is not dangerous, a 28-year-old (or so) woman with a Russian accent, told me when I asked her to wear her mask. She sat next to me on the flight to Berlin, and I had to be quite insistent to get her to put it on again.