THE TABLET
THE INTERNATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY Founded in 1840
ISRAEL NEEDS ITS CRITICAL FRIENDS T
hose who thought the “Nixon in China” effect might make Benjamin Netanyahu the crucial Middle East peacemaker have been disappointed. President Richard Nixon, the epitome of a right-wing Cold
Warrior, went to Communist China in 1972 to break the ice between the two major powers that had fought on opposite sides in the Korean War –something that would not have been possible for a more left-wing president. Because the Israeli Prime Minister was seen to have similarly hawkish credentials, he had the potential to do deals with Palestinian leaders like Mahmoud Abbas, just as his hardline predecessor Ariel Sharon was able to pull Jewish settlers out of Gaza six years ago. And the deal he had to do, which both the American Government and the Palestinian leadership were insisting on, was to halt the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements on occupied West Bank land. Although Mr Netanyahu is undoubtedly the strong man of Israeli politics, he has shirked this major challenge. The halt on settlement building was a reasonable Palestinian precondition for talks. Indeed, the Israeli Government had sus- pended it precisely in order not to jeopardise the peace process. Settlement building is a function not so much of government policy as of a religious ideology driven by Jewish hardliners, who wish eventually to be so strong in the West Bank that annex- ation of the whole Palestinian territory is the logical next step. They believe that if they are obstinate enough they can wreck the two-state peace process, just as Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon try to derail the peace process by anti- Israeli terrorism. To defeat both these threats, Mr Netanyahu
and Mr Abbas had to stand together, under the warm embrace of the AmericanGovernment. Instead, Mr Netanyahu has appar- ently allowed himself to be driven offside by forces he cannot control – unless he secretly supports them. To help the Israeli Government decide, President Barack Obama had put together a package of civilian and military aid which was dependent on Mr Netanyahu’s cooperation over settlements. Now there may be measures in the pipeline that Israel will not like – for instance, international recognition of a free Palestinian State – and that the United States is no longer so keen to block at the United Nations. While Washington has said it is abandoning its efforts to get Israel to renew its settlement freeze, it has suggested finding other ways of bringing the two sides together. But it is not clear how much tougher with Israel Mr Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are prepared to be. Mr Netanyahu knows the US may need Israeli help to deal
with Iran’s nuclear threat. Meanwhile, the Arab-Israeli con- flict will continue to spread its infection, not least to the rise in anti-Semitism that worries Jewish leaders worldwide, and ought to worry Christians too on their side of the Jewish- Christian dialogue. Jews outside Israel are sympathetic to a country many regard as their homeland, but for the major- ity that does not mean sympathy with Israeli Government obduracy over the settlements. Yet they will unfairly be blamed for it. For Christians, though solidarity with Jewish support- ers of Israel and with the Israeli people has been made more difficult, it has never been more necessary.
A LESSON IN PHILANTHROPY I
t is no great secret that substantial gifts were received from wealthy people to help defray the cost of Pope Benedict’s state visit to Britain in September. The Catholic Church is one of many institutions which have reason to be grateful for the philanthropy of the rich (and not so rich). Last year, £655 million was donated by such people to the arts in Britain, and the Government is hoping to raise that figure considerably in the future. The Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt is to announce a pro- gramme of tax-break incentives similar to those available in America, so that charitable donations help not just the recipi ent but also the giver. There is an apparent contradic- tion in appealing to self-interest in order to encourage people to be unselfish, but in America it seems to work. There are far fewer big philanthropists in the United Kingdom per capita than in the United States, and it is one of those areas where the British have a lot to learn from their transatlantic cousins. Essentially the difference is cultural, even political. The Americans are not shy of immense wealth, and do not appear to feel either the guilt or the defensiveness that come over rich Britons when their supposedly “ill-gotten gains” are in the pub- lic eye. Although philanthropists such as Lord Shaftesbury and John Passmore Edwards did make a significant impact on the lives of the poor in nineteenth-century Britain, a sense that “charity” was demeaning developed and has lingered. It followed from a conviction that the answer to widespread
poverty was not more generous alms-giving or dependence on a Lady Bountiful, but social and structural reform. In other
2 | THE TABLET | 11 December 2010
words, the argument for and against philanthropy became politi- cised in Britain in a way it never was in America. And it still is politicised, largely because the coalition
Government has embarked on a programme of deep cuts in public expenditure which are likely to force all sorts of insti- tutions to look elsewhere for funding. But the American Catholic philanthropist who now lives in Britain, John Studzinski, said on BBC radio this week that the British were mistaken if they saw tax breaks as a magic bullet that would trigger a vast unlock- ing of private wealth for benevolent purposes. Habits of philanthropy need to be instilled in childhood, he added, even before the wealth itself is created or inherited, and should form part of a general education in the obligations of citizenship. This chimes with the memorable question posed by the Catholic bishops of England and Wales before last May’s elec- tion: “Have we allowed ourselves to be seduced by the myth that social problems are for the Government to deal with?” While this anticipated David Cameron’s promotion of his Big Society idea, it also chimed with Labour’s (and the Liberal Democrats’) increasing interest in the role of civil society. It is unfortunate that the promotion of these ideas has coincided with massive reductions in government spending, for other reasons. That makes it look as if the Government is shifting part of the burden of providing public services on to unpaid volunteers – and wealthy benefactors – in order to afford tax cuts and bring down the national deficit. But philanthropy is its own justification: the word itself means love of humanity. There can be no better motive.
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