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Could twitter diplomacy be today as ping-pong was then.. ?

September 7, 2013

Forty odd years ago it was ping-pong diplomacy which was used to break the stalemate of the the China -US section of the cold war. (And where would Forrest Gump have been without it?)

The era of Ping-Pong diplomacy had begun .. (in 1971) ….  when the American team—in Nagoya, Japan, for the World Table Tennis Championship—got a surprise invitation from their Chinese colleagues to visit the People’s Republic. Time magazine called it “The ping heard round the world.” And with good reason: no group of Americans had been invited to China since the Communist takeover in 1949.

It could be an electronic “ping” from Iran to Israel in the 21st century.

Now it is Iranian tweets. Israel is “perplexed and pleased” at the messages from the new Iranian President and his Foreign Minister sending Rosh Hashanah wishes to Jews around the world.

Hassan Rouhani.

Hassan Rouhani. Photo: REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi

Jerusalem Post:

Israelis reacted with a mixture of pleasant surprise and wary skepticism on Friday to reports that the new Iranian president and his foreign minister had both issued greetings to mark the Jewish New Year.

Relations between the two countries have been dire for years, with Israel threatening to attack the Islamic Republic over fears it is planning to build nuclear weapons that could one day jeopardize the survival of the Jewish state.

Haaretz: 

After sending out Rosh Hashanah wishes to Jews around the world, Iran’s foreign minister tweets that Iran doesn’t deny the Holocaust in response to a tweet by Nancy Pelosi’s daughter.

Reuters:

In a change of tone, his successor Hassan Rouhani and the new foreign minister, Javad Zarif, appeared to issue tweets in English wishing Jews a good Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish new year that is being celebrated this week. Iran has long declared an official respect for the Jewish faith while condemning Israel.

“Happy Rosh Hashanah,” tweeted Zarif on a profile that notes his career as a diplomat, academic and “Uni of Denver alum”.

The reported greetings came just as Israel was settling into a long holiday weekend and there was no official reaction.

But of course Iran has always held that it is Israel and not Jews that Iran is opposed to. Reuters continues:

Confusing matters, Israeli news websites quoted an official in the Iranian president’s office denying any New Year greetings had been sent and saying Rouhani’s English-language Twitter account, used during his election campaign, was not active.

There was no denial from Zarif and the minister went further to push back on a comment that Iran denies the Nazi Holocaust: “Iran never denied it. The man who was perceived to be denying it is now gone,” he tweeted, apparently meaning Ahmadinejad.

On Facebook, he wrote: “We condemn the massacre of Jews by the Nazis and we condemn the massacre of Palestinians by the Zionists.”

Iran is home to the second largest Jewish community in the Middle East – albeit only a few thousand people following mass emigration last century. It denies Israel’s right to exist but even Ahmadinejad embraced some Jews – as long as they rejected the Zionist movement that established the Israeli state.

Neither Rouhani or Zarif mentioned the word “Israel”.

Perhaps it is the right time – with Syria in the background – for an Israeli “pong” to Iran’s “ping”.

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Qualifying democracy

September 7, 2013

Every “so-called” democracy defines suffrage in its own way. There are always some restrictions on who is permitted to vote. There is always a minimum age to qualify – but not a minimum wage. There is usually no maximum age either. Some mentally disturbed may be disenfranchised but there is no intelligence or knowledge requirement. Some civil servants or military personnel may be barred from voting.

In Party democracies, which individuals may be voted for is restricted by the parties. In countries practicing proportional representation, voters choose a party who each have their lists of individuals to be elected. The individuals are themselves chosen by party members in various ways. Once chosen representation is nearly always for themselves first, parties second, party supporters in their own constituencies third, party supporters in other constituencies fourth and non-supporters in their own constituencies only after that. “Block voting” is common – by ethnic or language affiliations or caste or tribe or community affiliations. Voters can be “bought” and are. Polls can be rigged and are.

Criminals may vote and may even be eligible to stand for election. Idiots and the ignorant have the same vote as the intelligent and the knowledgeable. Personal wealth is not a criterion in having the vote. A responsible person has the same vote as an irresponsible person. Lunatics may have the same vote as the sane. A mental cripple may have a better chance of exercising his vote than a physical cripple. A large tax-payer has the same vote as one who lives on hand-outs. “No taxation without representation”  it is said. Corporations usually pay more tax than individuals but they have no vote. Individuals who don’t pay tax don’t lose their vote. Those who are paid by the public purse have the same vote as those who provide the public purse.

“One vote for every person” is fundamentally inequitable.

And yet this is the “best” system we have.

McClatchy:

Two-thirds of Americans cannot name a single Supreme Court justice, former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor told the crowd that packed into a Boise State ballroom to hear her Thursday.

About one-third can name the three branches of government. Fewer than one-fifth of high school seniors can explain how citizen participation benefits democracy.

“Less than one-third of eighth-graders can identify the historical purpose of the Declaration of Independence, and it’s right there in the name,” she said. ….

It cannot be the optimum when representatives are chosen by a majority of the ignorant. Rule by a simple majority has already been discarded in the name of party politics and party lists and minority parties holding the balance of power.

I can’t help but think that if we are to improve the manner in which our democracies function then the “right to vote” has to be elevated in status , has to be “earned” and has to carry some duties. It is just too easy to be qualified to vote. Knowledge and intelligence must have some say in the matter. Being a giver or a taker must also have some say.

Or perhaps universal suffrage can give everybody a base vote with additional votes being earned by individuals for whatever a society values. For example, why not one vote at birth but only activated when some threshold of knowledge and/or intelligence is attained (not age)? A further maximum – of say 10 – votes to be earned by intellectual, service or economic achievements. And why not 10% of all votes for corporate tax payers?

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What do Obama, Blair and Al Qaida have in common?

September 6, 2013

They all want a  US strike on Syria – each for his own reasons.

Al Qaida has the most to gain by a weakening – rather than an elimination – of Assad’s regime. That would give them time to consolidate their dominance among the opposition groups while ensuring the eventual demise of Assad.

Tony Blair is desperate to show that all attacks by Western interests which help regime-change in the area are justified in themselves. His duplicity about WMD and Iraq will always dominate his place in History and that rankles. He is still looking for the argument which can support his fantasy that the intervention in Iraq – even without any WMD – was a good thing. He has just been interviewed by the BBC and this is to be aired on Monday. The excerpts released so far clearly reveal how utterly self-centred and self-serving he is.

What exactly Obama hopes to accomplish is quite unclear. It could be for intellectual satisfaction for having – recklessly – made his red-line box for himself. It could be to demonstrate his “moral superiority” and by extension that of the US. He (through Kerry) says 1429 people were killed by sarin gas. The French put the number at 281. The British said it was about 350. How will Obama measure success? By the number of fresh bodies on the ground? Score 1 for every Assad soldier killed! An “eye for an eye” or will he need to multply by ten to ensure that his actions are a deterrent? It is the gassing of children that must be addressed he says.  Is it only the manner of their deaths he wants to react to? How many children have died in US drone attacks so far?

Israel will be very satisfied if Syria remains in internal turbulence for as long as possible. Turkey’s Islamists will be very happy to see Assad go. Will Obama be satisfied for having strengthened Al Qaida and other Islamist groups?

Perhaps Obama with his drones and his “limited and targeted strike on Syria” is just one of the “wannabe soldier(s who remain enamored of the lure of bloodless machine warfare”.

I think war is deplorable but unfortunately necessary. Human behaviour has not yet evolved to be able to avoid it. But war without any objective and primarily to demonstrate “moral superiority”?

Robert H. Scales, a retired Army major general, is a former commandant of the U.S. Army War College and writes in the Washington Post:

A war the Pentagon doesn’t want

…. After personal exchanges with dozens of active and retired soldiers in recent days, I feel confident that what follows represents the overwhelming opinion of serving professionals who have been intimate witnesses to the unfolding events that will lead the United States into its next war.

They are embarrassed to be associated with the amateurism of the Obama administration’s attempts to craft a plan that makes strategic sense. None of the White House staff has any experience in war or understands it. So far, at least, this path to war violates every principle of war, including the element of surprise, achieving mass and having a clearly defined and obtainable objective.

They are repelled by the hypocrisy of a media blitz that warns against the return of Hitlerism but privately acknowledges that the motive for risking American lives is our “responsibility to protect” the world’s innocents. Prospective U.S. action in Syria is not about threats to American security. 

 The U.S. military’s civilian masters privately are proud that they are motivated by guilt over slaughters in Rwanda, Sudan and Kosovo and not by any systemic threat to our country.

They are outraged by the fact that what may happen is an act of war and a willingness to risk American lives to make up for a slip of the tongue about “red lines.” These acts would be for retribution and to restore the reputation of a president. Our serving professionals make the point that killing more Syrians won’t deter Iranian resolve to confront us. The Iranians have already gotten the message.

Our people lament our loneliness. Our senior soldiers take pride in their past commitments to fight alongside allies and within coalitions that shared our strategic goals. This war, however, will be ours alone.

They are tired of wannabe soldiers who remain enamored of the lure of bloodless machine warfare. …. 

…. Soon the military will salute respectfully and loose the hell of hundreds of cruise missiles in an effort that will, inevitably, kill a few of those we wish to protect. They will do it with all the professionalism and skill we expect from the world’s most proficient military. I wish Kerry would take a moment to look at the images from this week’s hearings before we go to war again.

Read the whole article.

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Labour has given up and starts looking for Rudd’s successor

September 6, 2013

In theory I suppose the election is still there to be lost by Abbott and the Coalition.

I am biased. If I were in Australia – which I am not – I would probably prefer Abbott on policies but as an interested observer I find that my preference for Abbott is based – not so much on policies – but almost entirely on the the level of “squirm” that Rudd engenders in me. Trust is not something that politicians generally deserve but I perceive Rudd as being particularly insincere.

The betting money and the bookies are now expecting a rout.  It is no longer possible to place a bet on the outcome but Abbot may still not get his own majority in the Senate.

Sportsbet has decided the Coalition is likely to win at least 20 seats, increasing its position from 72 to at least 92 seats, giving it a hefty majority of at least 34 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives.

It has low odds of $1.85 for the Coalition to win 91 to 100 seats. The odds drift out to $2.35 for the Coalition to pick up 100 or more seats. They drift further out to $2.75 for a more constrained 81 to 90 Coalition seats. Sportsbet thus sees a landslide as much more likely than a tight election.

When you look at Sportsbet’s odds on a seat-by-seat basis, it looks even more grim for Labor, with 30 seats in danger.

But it’s not all good news for the Coalition. Sportsbet has essentially closed its books on the overall Senate election outcome. The Coalition is at long odds, $13, to win a majority in the Senate.

The politics of gridlock may thus drag on, with the Coalition declaring a mandate and the Greens and others declaring they have a mandate as a house of review.

Rudd, by party rules, has to vacate the leadership if he loses. And I suppose that it is only natural and to be expected that Labour politicians looking beyond this weekend are now beginning to position themselves for a new leader. I don’t suppose that there is a scenario which could bring Julia Gillard back. The speculation has begun though the contenders would first have to be returned in their own constituencies:

BOB Hawke has tipped Bill Shorten as the front-runner should Labor need to find a new leader.

With the Coalition looking likely to form government after tomorrow’s election, attention is turning to who may succeed Kevin Rudd as Labor leader if the ALP is defeated.

Mr Hawke said Treasurer Chris Bowen is talented but first needs to retain his seat, and Health Minister Tanya Plibersek is unlikely to be in the running.

“But she could be a candidate for the deputy. I think Tanya is a very impressive representative.”

The former prime minister was unsure if Immigration Minister Tony Burke would step forward.

“On all the indications … you would think that Bill (Shorten) has got the front running.”

Mr Rudd has vowed to stay on as the member for Griffith if Labor loses, but he would be forced by party rules to vacate the leadership and may be unlikely to renominate.

All relatively unknown names for me.

I still am of the opinion that Australia could be a major force for the region and a leader – by example – of how things can be made to work. From Japan to India. But that does require that Australia to be less of a blind “follower” of the US and to get rid of of the many trappings of the “nanny state” that have been indulged in. And that in turn requires that the leaders of the two main parties be capable of being taken seriously.

Interesting times.

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Trust your politicians

September 5, 2013

AFP issued this picture of Hollande yesterday, then withdrew it. When it went viral they then reinstated it.

“I’m the President – I am – I am!” Francois Hollande

Photo - AFP

Photo – AFP

I particularly like these from The Guardian’s gallery of politicians caught in less than flattering moments:

” I tell you – we are all going to die!” Al Gore

Photograph: Stephen Chernin/Getty Images

Photograph: Stephen Chernin/Getty Images

“You all get up my nose” – Geert Wilders

Photograph: Marcel Antonisse/AFP/Getty Images

Photograph: Marcel Antonisse/AFP/Getty Images

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War, doping and radiation fears could give 2020 Olympics to Madrid

September 5, 2013

UPDATE! 7th September –

Tokyo Won.

================

Istanbul, Tokyo and Madrid are competing for the right to hold the 2020 Olympics and lobbying is at its peak since the decision is expected on Saturday 7th September.

Madrid was first trailing because the Spanish economy was/is not in the best of shape. Since Tokyo has already hosted the summer games (1964) and two winter games have been held in Japan, this opened the possibility of Istanbul getting the honour for the first time ever . This is their 5th attempt. But now lingering fears of radiation from Fukushima and of Turkey becoming embroiled in war (even though the games are 7 years away) seem to be bringing Madrid to the forefront again. This is Madrid’s 3rd attempt and the summer games were held in Barcelona in 1992.

Tokyo still has the best chance of raising the necessary finance. Both Istanbul and Madrid give cause for concern for financing. The greatest amount of new construction would be needed for an Istanbul games.

The Telegraph:

Fukushima failures threatening to derail Tokyo’s 2020 Olympics bid

The team behind Tokyo’s bid to host the 2020 Olympics Games is scrambling to save its long and expensive campaign from falling victim to the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant. …… Until a few weeks ago, the Japanese capital had been considered the front-runner, thanks to a slick campaign that has emphasised Tokyo’s efficient infrastructure, experience in hosting global sporting events, financial guarantees backed by the government and the fact that Tokyo “is one of the world’s safest and most welcoming cities.”

But recent civil unrest in Turkey and the potential for war in the region are worrisome. Istanbul is struggling also to dispel perceptions of rampant doping in Turkish athletics:

A new “zero tolerance” policy and a reaccredited testing laboratory will help Turkey fight doping following a string of positive cases, the head of Turkey’s bid to host the 2020 Olympics said on Wednesday.

More than 30 athletes were banned by the Turkish Athletics Federation in August and Turkish official Ugur Erdener said this was the result of the country’s new hardline stance and a previous lack of comprehensive testing.

“We understand there is no gain without pain,” Erdener, President of Turkey’s National Olympic Committee, told reporters, referring to the recent positive tests.

“Turkey now has a very aggressive anti-doping system. The lab will also be re-accredited by the World Anti-doping Agency this year. Not in the near future but in this year,” said Erdener who is also a WADA executive committee member.

The rumours are now that Madrid is going to win:

Huffington Post

…..  it seems increasingly likely the IOC will choose the Spanish capital of Madrid.

“To my astonishment, it seems like it’s going to be Madrid,” Wolfgang Maennig, a professor of economics at Hamburg University, told HuffPost.

Maennig, an expert in sports economics, is in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at a sports business symposium. Not coincidentally, representatives of the national Olympic committees are also currently in Buenos Aires, meeting to decide where the Summer Olympics will be held seven years from now.

Maennig said he met with two Olympic officials, including the president of a national delegation he declined to name, and both said Madrid was quickly pulling away as the favorite to host the Olympic Games over candidate cities Istanbul and Tokyo.

“I talked today to the president of a national federation and people are still afraid of Syria and even Iraq, even though that was years ago, affecting Turkey,” Maennig said on Wednesday. “There are also many concerns about the level of radiation in Japan.”

Lobbying is heavy and a great deal of Japanese money is being dangled in front of the IOC. It is said that the Japanese Prime Minister might attend but I would have thought he might find it difficult to get away from the G20 meeting in Saint Patersburg.

Well we shall know in a couple of days.

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Guardian’s “catastrophe” correspondent supports Rudd: Could be the final straw

September 5, 2013

If anything convinces me even more than the bookies that Rudd will lose the election this weekend, it is that George Monbiot of the Guardian has developed the catastrophe scenario for Australia if Abbot wins. He has the uncanny knack of picking dead – and useless – causes.

For those who have not been exposed to George Monbiot, he is the Guardian’s “catastrophe” correspondent. He can manage to find a looming disaster in every human development. His articles tend to lurch from one catastrophe scenario to the next. That his “catastrophes” never happen and keep disappearing into the future never discourages him. He can always find a new catastrophe. And now he has picked on Tony Abbott! He does write for The Guardian and support for Abbott would not be possible but the demonisation of Abbott – like carbon dioxide – is a Monbiot speciality.

Fighting global warming is his reason for living. He detests – and denies – the hiatus in global warming since it might prove that there is no impending catastrophe. He denies that changes to climate may be due to natural variability. He doesn’t like fracking or the Farmers Union. In fact he doesn’t like fossil fuels of any kind. Coal – he thinks – has been disastrous for Australia. Tourists and sheep in the Lake District should be banned. Exotic trees should be banned and only “native” trees should be planted. He has a fantasy that woolly mammoths could be brought back to life. Neonictinoids are like DDT. The shooting of one of the Boston bombers was an “execution”. Oil companies and tobacco companies are to be shunned. He really does believe in “peak oil” and “peak gas”. Earning money and creating wealth is fundamentally wrong. Faith in the markets is misplaced and only governments can save our living planet. Having resources is a curse. Exploiting such resources is to court eternal damnation. He is a firm adherent of the precautionary principle.

In short he knows best what is best for others.

And he does not like Tony Abbott – probably to Abbot’s great advantage. His headlines can be worth looking at but to read through his articles requires a strong stomach. It’s not just that he does not like humanity; he does not like people doing well. Coal and its exploitation – he believes – has degraded and brutalised Australia.

The Guardian: 

If Abbott is elected, Australia’s natural wonders will gradually be rubbed away

Tony Abbott’s climate policies are about removing the social and environmental protections enjoyed by all Australians to allow the filthy rich to become richer – and filthier.

…. Why? The answer’s in the name. Coalition policies begin with coal: getting it out of the ground, moving it through the ports, stripping away the regulations that prevent mining companies from wrecking the natural beauty of Australia – and from trashing the benign climate on which we all depend. The mining boom in the world’s biggest coal exporter has funded a new, harsher politics. 

… Like the tar sands in Canada, coal has changed the character of the nation, brutalising and degrading public life. It has funded a vicious campaign of mud-slinging against those who argue for the careful use of resources, for peace and quiet and beauty and the health of the living planet. Australia, like Nigeria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, suffers from a resource curse. …

Read the whole article (if you really must).

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Obama arrived 8 minutes early, Swedish Television caught napping

September 4, 2013

It has been a glorious day in Stockholm today. Blue skies, sunshine, 20°C and Obama touched down 8 minutes early. His arrival was being carried live by Swedish TV (Sveriges Television) on one channel and by Independent TV on another.  The Swedish TV channel literally “blacked-out” for about 5 minutes but the Independent channel coped though their audio feed went haywire for a few minutes.

Somebody should have told Obama that the correct form would have been to circle around in a little loop and land precisely on time. While punctuality is almost a religion here, and being late is a qualifier for eternal damnation, being early is not considered very polite either.

I remember the birthday parties for our kids when we were still new to Sweden and I could not quite understand why all the guests – and their parents – were hanging about down the street for a good 5 to 10 minutes before ringing the bell precisely – but precisely – at the appointed time. Mind you I quickly grew to appreciate that punctuality. Especially the custom of always having a  specified start and an end time for birthday parties. The relief after four hours of enduring 30 hyperactive kids when they all disappear at exactly the stipulated time is something close to ecstasy!!

Half the day’s program is over. A joint press conference with the Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt has been held. Nothing of any great significance was said. The full transcript is here. The most profound part was when Obama said:

It’s only been a short time, but I already want to thank all the people here for the warm hospitality that’s been extended to me and my delegation. This is truly one of the world’s great cities. It is spectacularly beautiful. The prime minister tells me that the weather is like this year ‘round. 

Only 2 Swedish journalists were permitted to ask questions and behaved themselves very correctly. Of course Syria and Putin and the NSA came up but little was said beyond the level of platitudes. Reinfeldt took the opportunity to mention that Sweden would now give refugees/ asylum seekers from Syria permanent residency and thereby avoided having to support or condemn military action.

But this is the first ever bilateral visit by a serving US President to Sweden and the value is more symbolic and it would be quite wrong to expect this visit to contain much substance on controversial matters. I had lunch today at my circular club and there was some little comment about the “circus” but nobody was really negative to Obama’s visit. Most were quite pleased that the President of the USA was visiting little Sweden.

Apart from the little TV glitch, everything else seems to have gone according to plan.

So far so good.

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How long can Germany bear the cost of their Greens?

September 4, 2013

Less than 3 weeks to go for the German elections and the polls put Angela Merkel at 39% with the Social Democrats at 23%, the Greens at 11% and the Far Left at 10%. But polls have been wrong in German elections and sometimes spectacularly wrong:

Reuters:

Eight years ago Angela Merkel stared gloomily at the election results with disbelief when her party crashed to 35.2 percent of the German vote, seven points below the opinion poll forecast.

Her poll lead melted away again on election day four years later, though her conservatives stayed in power despite their worst result since 1949. Indeed her Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), have fallen short of forecasts in the last six elections.

They are leading again as the September 22 vote comes round, but that humbling record explains why Merkel is not letting up, with 56 campaign stops in the month before voters give their verdict.

The chancellor warns in her speeches that supporters will have a “rude awakening” if they place too much faith in polls.

Once highly accurate, voter surveys in Germany have become a less reliable barometer as party allegiances weaken, voter turnout falls, differences between parties disappear and small newcomers crowd the ballot sheet.

The success of the Greens and their profligate policies have been mainly due to the German electorate looking desperately for a “feel-good” factor. My 3 years living in Germany – in the heart of the “old” Eastern Germany – only convinced me that the normally very pragmatic Germans were extremely apprehensive and tentative about touting their undoubted economic successes. They feared to take too much pride in their achievements since it brushed perilously close to Nationalism and all the dark ghosts that evoked. The Green Party – I think – filled this need for somehow “feeling good” about their own achievements in a benign way while avoiding any of the sinister negatives associated with “national pride”.

But this has been an expensive experiment – in money and in jobs. How much longer the Green bubble will continue remains to be seen. It is fundamentally unsustainable and all over Europe it is beginning to penetrate that the cost of “feeling good” for no benefits is a luxury. But German common sense, pragmatism and realism will eventually prevail as the costs of “feeling good” become increasingly obvious.

The Local:

Higher renewable energy subsidies due to be introduced in October will add an extra €40 onto the annual energy bill for a three person household, wrote Der Spiegel magazine in a report published on Monday. 
The cost of supporting German producers of renewable energy is, under German law, passed on to the consumer. The cost per kilowatt hour of green energy is simply added onto their bills. 
Set every October for the following year, this year the cost is set to jump 20 percent from 5.3 cents per kilowatt hour to 6.5 cents, wrote the magazine. 
Perversely, the price hike is necessary because the electricity market is actually being flooded with cheap electricity, wrote the magazine. 
Germany’s green energy producers have been guaranteed fixed rates feed-in-tariffs for 20 years, while recently the electricity stock market price has fallen to its lowest value in years. 
This has led to a widening gap between the falling prices grid operators are able to sell electricity for on the market, and the fixed guaranteed prices they have to pay out to producers of renewable energy. The result is that consumers have to make up the difference.

And consumers can only take so much. My expectation that common sense will prevail is – to no small part – also dependent upon the Greens propensity for being silly. Many of the Greens’ policies are silly without initially being seen to be silly. But calls – by some Green leaders – for a ban on driving cars on weekends and by other Greens for the legalising of incest go beyond silly and enter the realms of “stupid”. It is beginning to dawn on the electorate that the Greens may be a luxury – in money, jobs and in ideas – that Germany can ill afford.

NoTricksZone:

German daily Die Welt writes that one of the leaders of Germany’s influential Green Party is now calling for a ban of car driving in Germany on weekends.

Die Welt writes:

Green parliamentary group leader Fritz Kuhn wants cars of German drivers to be idle on weekends. […] With a driving ban a clear signal against climate change would be made. According to estimates by Kuhn, the citizens would quickly notice, “that you can also get along without cars”.

Fritz Kuhn, the mayor of Stuttgart, cites a ban used in Northern Italy in 150 cities last Sunday in order to fight air pollution. People can use their bicycles or go by foot.

By now readers may be thinking that the German Greens want to ban everything. Though it seems to be that way, this is not true.

There are some things they want to legalize: incest for example. According to FOCUS magazine here:

The incest ruling by the European Court of Justice for Human Rights (EGMR) against a 34-year old man from Leipzig has led to controversial reactions. Green Party politician Hans-Christian Ströbele reacted the most sharply. He wants to permit sex between siblings and other close relatives, and is requesting doing away with the incest laws. It is an isolated relic of another time when adultery was punishable, which we also have done away with,’ Ströbele told news network N24. Paragraph 173 no longer matches ‘in this time of enlightened opinion on marriage and family. It must be abolished’.”

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Israel Education Ministry bans sex education material in text books

September 3, 2013

One has to conclude that everything is circular. If you go far enough to the Right you approach the Extreme Left. If you go to the extremes of one religion you approach the extremists of another.

Ultra-orthodox Imams and Rabbis, invariably male, seem to share a similar view of women and sex and sex education.

The Orthodox religious right in Israel has just got its way in its effort to return to good old-fashioned prudery.

Haaretz reports that “Chapters on human reproduction don’t accord with state religious school system’s educational doctrine for junior high schools, says Education Ministry”.

The Education Ministry has asked textbook publishers to eliminate chapters on human reproduction, pregnancy prevention and sexually transmitted diseases from science textbooks used in state religious junior high schools as well as from their teacher manuals.

The Guardian writes:

State education in Israel is divided into religious and secular sectors for Jewish children, with separate schools for Arab children. Many ultra-Orthodox Jews send their children to segregated private schools, with strict controls on curricula, behaviour and dress. Around a quarter of Israeli children attend ultra-Orthodox schools, according to 2010 data – a figure that is steadily rising.

Anat Hoffman, executive director of the Israeli Religious Action Centre, which advocates progressive Judaism, described the education ministry’s move as a “slippery slope. When we start filtering science for modesty reasons, that in the end will hinder our ability to teach science to Israeli children,” she said. …. The move should be seen in the context of the growing influence of rightwing rabbis in Israel. “Modesty considerations are being used as a political tool to keep women ‘in their place’,” she said.

Some elements of the ultra-Orthodox community in Israel have campaigned in recent years to remove images of women from advertising hoardings, and impose gender segregation on buses and in other public spheres.

The education ministry said the changes did not cover pictures of women. “The image of women has a place and expression in school textbooks,” it said.

But what the ultra-Orthodox want in Israel is not so very different from what Hamas wants in Gaza.

Israel National News reported in June this year:

A new law passed by the Hamas government in Gaza banning co-ed schools has left many Christians fearful that their schools are in danger of closure, according to the Beirut-based Al-Akhbar daily.

The new law, which mandates gender segregation in all schools, also bans men from teaching at girls’ schools. The law will likely force Christian educational institutions to close their doors to Muslim and Christian students alike, reported the newspaper.

Mutassim Minawi, director of public relations at Gaza’s education ministry, …… argued that “the Gaza Strip’s culture is conservative and does not favor gender mixing. The majority of Palestinians in Gaza praised the law and only leftist parties criticized it.”

Several months ago, Gaza’s Hamas terrorist rulers took another step towards the implementation of strict Islamic sharia law in the region by introducing a strict dress code for female students at the Al-Aqsa University. A letter distributed to students in November stated that all students should wear “modest clothing” on campus.

Since violently taking over Gaza in 2007, Hamas has enforced a stringent interpretation of Islamic law in Gaza. The terror group has banned women and teenagers from smoking hookahs in public, ordered that women’s clothing stores are not allowed to have dressing rooms, men cannot have hairdressing salons for women and that mannequins shaped like women must be dressed in modest clothing.

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Posted in Behaviour, Education, Israel, Politics, Religion | Comments Off on Israel Education Ministry bans sex education material in text books

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