Vote Yes to Palestine state - to save Israel

The next few days are vital for global politics. Either it works or it doesn't. If it does, the Palestinian people will have a state recognised by the United Nations by this time next week and Israel will have its status and security reinforced hugely. If it doesn't, I feel that Israel's security will be put at great risk from a people who have found that the diplomatic, democratic route to achieving their aims doesn't work, leaving them with little other option.

I've not commented on this blog before about the Middle East peace process because I feel I'm compromised by my identity and my past. I love Israel and have spent a lot of time there - including my entire gap year. I come from a line of committed jews, my brother is a Rabbi and my father a (almost) rabid supporter of Israel. 20 years ago, when I returned from my gap year in Israel, I was similar to many passionate teenagers - blinded to the other side of the story and willing to die to protect that beautiful country. So I felt that I shouldn't comment on this without pointing out my connection to one side.

Since then, as I have read more and more about the history and the current situation in the Middle East. I'm still a Zionist, but I believe Zionism has a limit. As things have developed, I have become increasingly uncomfortable about the behaviour of those who run the country. Yes, it is the only true democracy in the region, and its system of proportional representation gives an exact link between votes and seats which would be positive in many situations. The truth is though that I have recently begun to accept that criticism of Israel's behaviour isn't fuelled by anti-semitism, but anti-semitism is being fuelled by Israel's behaviour. My father believes that if jews don't support Israel, no-one will - but he is a child of the second world war, which showed what can happen when the Jewish people wait for anyone else to protect them. I'm not, and the global political reality has changed.

Looking at the constant broken promises about settlement building (which I believe to be illegitimate), I'm not surprised it has come to this. Being told, as they are by Barack Obama (I'll come back to him in a while) that they must allow the peace process to run its course, must feel to Mahmoud Abbas - the Palestinian President in the West Bank, like being told to wait until a sponge is nailed to a wall.

Also, the Arab Spring has motivated all of those who do not have sovereignty over their country to want to attempt to achieve some. Now is the time for the Palestinians. The 'unity agreement' between Hamas and Fatah shows that they might take this opportunity seriously.

Israel's issue is its security. Let us not forget they are surrounded by countries who do not believe it should exist and have plotted its destruction since it was created (by the UN, remember) in 1948. Hamas, the governing party in Gaza, still has in it's constitution the aim to destroy the Zionist State. Let's also not forget that the pre - 1967 borders, which are those Barack Obama has stated should be reinstated, will make Israel only 9 miles accross in places, which is very hard to defend should they be attacked.

The Palestinians also claim that refugees and their descendents removed from Israel in 1948 should be allowed a "right of return" to Israeli land, which of course would result in them forming an electoral majority that could overwhelm Israel's existence as a state politically.

But when Palestinians take their quest for UN membership to the Security Council, the council should vote 'Yes'. For three reasons.

1) The official recognition of a Palestinian State as part of a two - state solution is a reinforcement of the existence of the State of Israel. The UN cannot do one without the other. That is important, as it reinforces the political security of Israel.

2) Once the UN has recognised the Palestinian State, it commits itself to defend and protect Israel should any attack on it come from the Palestinians. It didn't have to do so before, as they were an occupied territory and theoretically it was an uprising. But if there is a Palestinian state, a UN state cannot attack another UN state and the UN has to intervene if it does. That is also important, as it reinforces the military security of Israel. Do you seriously think the UN, and in particular the US, would stand by in this age of global media coverage if Israel was actually attacked?

3) The Palestinian people need to see there is a diplomatic and democratic route to achieving their aims. If they don't then it becomes more understandable if they feel no option but to use more violent means. That is not a threat either, it's just that membership of the UN effectively enfranchises the Palestinians in the global political process. If they remain disenfranchised, then they may resort to other means, and it will point to a peaceful attempt to achieve their aims that was turned down.

Looking at a map of  Israel and the West Bank today, you can see that a return to 1967 borders would involve the dismantling of the settlements. Or, as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu calls them - the "facts on the ground". Well, the settlements, in my view, shouldn't be there. They are an obstacle to peace. So if they need to be dismantled, so be it.

And this is where the USA come in. The USA has a veto on the Security Council, and says it will use it. Why? Well, there are numerous political pressures on Barack Obama, not least from the extremely powerful Israel lobby in the USA, which is far less capable of brooking criticism of Israel's behaviour than similar organisations in the UK. Worse, and more importantly, is that the settlements' main source of funding is from the Christian evangelical right (because they believe in the literal nature of every word of the bible and the occupation of the West Bank is apparently justified by words in the bible). Sarah Palin is a huge supporter of Israel. So is Michele Bachman. So are all of the Republican Presidential candidates. Should Obama risk such a vote loser a year before the next Presidential election?

Well, yes, he should. Barack Hussein Obama should have been the best hope the Arab world had of anyone to feel they are being treated fairly. It takes a lot for the Arab world to ever feel they are being treated fairly, but what I know is that if the Palestinians don't get a state under Obama's Presidency, then will they ever? President Perry? No way!

So Obama has the choice of doing the right thing for the world, or the right thing for his chances of winning the US election. Given he is able to choose whether or not to veto at the Security Council without the need for that to be approved by Congress or the Senate....this is his chance to do what is right. Why not use his power instead to demand the Palestinians get their state only if they drop the "right of return" demand?

I love Israel. I want Israel to thrive. It won't thrive until the Palestinians have a viable state.

So let's do it.

The solution to gender pay equality?

The problem with the many explanations being put forward today for the lack of pay equality between women and men is the attempts ignore the contribution of the past. This is particularly important for executive pay.

The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) found that it will take until 2109 for female executives to catch up to their male counterparts in pay parity. On average male managers are paid £42,441 compared to females in the same role who earn just £31,895, despite woman's salaries having grown by 2.4% and men's by 2.1% in the last year.

Attempts to explain this range from straightforward discrimination, to the effect of maternity leave, to women's lack of ability to negotiate better pay terms. But I would like to suggest that the pay gap at executive levels reflects the situation in higher education 20 years ago being reflected now. And a second piece of (less trumpeted) information released by the Chartered Management Institute seems to back this up.

To explain, allow me to take you back to January 2010, and the visit of Glenda Jackson MP to my politics classroom at my old school. A student had pointed out to her statistics showing that Labour's record on social mobility was poor. She argued that it was impossible to blame Labour for any current social mobility statistics. She then explained that social mobility is measured by whether someone is better off than their parents. Given that the main driver of that will be their education, and it takes 20 years to find out whether someone really has become better off, statistics on social mobility now would reflect the achievements of those educated (like me) in the 1980s, under (she was quick to remind us), Tory mismanagement of public services. She pointed to one of the students, who had had their entire education (from beginning of Primary school to that point, halfway into A-levels) under the Labour Party. "Now, YOU", she said "we will take responsibility for. Let's see where YOU are in 20 years time. THAT will tell you whether Labour achieved social mobility."

When you think about it, she was right. By the time the girl in question is 37, she would be settled in a career and probably at executive level. Or not. She would have come through a system which was truly equal. Where boys and girls had equal chances, equal opportunities to take GCSEs and A-levels, and degrees.

Only 20 years ago, that wasn't so much the case as it is now. Less girls did degrees than boys. Less girls did A-levels than boys. Less girls went on to futher qualifications than boys. Women were still having children at an earlier age, therefore not settling properly into a career and leaving climbing up the ladder until later.

Women do, however, earn more than men when in junior management roles. The CMI found on average junior women managers now earn £21,969, which is £602 more than men at the same level, but the gender pay gap as a whole is greater in 2011 than in 2010. But what that shows is that junior women managers, who are likely to have gone through school and our education system in the same numbers and at the same speed as males and are thus achieving equality. It is quite possible that those junior women managers might grow into the equally paid and promoted executives of the next 20 years.

Except for one problem. I'm going to predict that those junior women managers are in the mid to late-twenties, thus the majority have not gone through bringing up children, which is the time when pay equality really starts to bite. People have been trying for a long time to find a way to solve that problem, which has mainly consisted of maternity legislation. Much of that has been protective over women's pay and conditions, but you hear again and again of employers being wary of hiring women of child-bearing age because of the consequences of that legislation.

But we now have new legislation which could change this.  "Additional Paternity Leave and Pay" gives fathers of babies born on or after April 3rd 2011 the right to take 26 weeks paternity leave from 20 weeks after their child's birth. This could make an interesting difference because suddenly there is little legal excuse for mothers to be staying at home for the full year to take care of their children. If parents want to be at home with their children for the full year allowed, the mother and the father will be able to share it, legally. Yes, if the father is the main breadwinner this could be difficult to do, but in any other situation there is no reason why mothers can't return to work without feeling they are abandoning their children to the childcare system.

As Glenda Jackson might point out, this is going to take about 20 years to work through our system. But I'm willing to bet that if it works like I think it might, and if the changes in equality of education and aspiration that I feel New Labour achieved during their time in power work as I think they will, we might get to equal pay between the genders at executive level a great deal sooner than 2109.

9/11 was more successful than often credited, but not successful enough

It was lunchtime, 11th September 2001. I was doing bicep curls in the Broadgate Exchange gym in London. Toby, a web designer colleague came over and tapped me on the shoulder. "Paul, you gotta come and see this, someone's flown a plane into the World Trade Center. It was 13:53 (8:53am in New York) and by the time I got to the treadmill in front of the TV one tower was burning. At the time it was thought (according to the scrolling commentary at the bottom of the screen) that it might have been just a massive misjudgement by a pilot. What happened 10 minutes later proved that in itself to have been a similar massive mijudgement of the situation.

I hadn't brought my headphones, so I wasn't able to listen to the TV, and I still remember the noise as the second plane entered the left hand portion of the screen and headed towards the other tower. It was essentially a strangled cry of amazement, combined with "Oh my G-d"s and other expletives reverberating around the gym. I think everyone knew the significance of that second plane. Due to a big meeting elsewhere in the country I happened to be the most senior person in the office that day, so I ran from the gym to get changed and get back to it. I'm not going to claim I knew that things would never be the same again as I made my way back. The shock was too great for that.

By the time I got back to the office, the TVs were all on and the staff were gathered around them watching in stunned silence. During the next hour I remember dealing with collegues exhibiting a range of emotions. Some of them wanted to go home, some of them were angry, some of them were terrified, some of them were bewildered. We heard that London might also be a target and Canary Wharf was being evacuated. I called my boss, the MD of the company, to ask if I should let people go. He insisted that we didn't panic. Given we were located in a non-descript, old building near Liverpool Street which I had already wryly concluded any terrorists flying around looking for targets would think had already been hit he was probably right.

But I do remember one of the girls who worked on customer service saying something in anger which was a sign of just how effective the attack would be in its aims. "I tell you what, if I see a bhaji on the train goin' home I'm gonna given him what for" was what she said. Putting aside the ridiculousness of using a pejorative term for an Indian to denote who she thought was responsible, this was exactly the reaction Osama Bin Laden was looking for. Not just in normal people either. He was hoping to goad the politicians who ran the Western World into wanting to 'give Muslims what for'. Or at least to be appearing too. I doubt even he could have thought he would be so successful. Maybe he knew George Bush and those around him better than many give him credit for.

Bin Laden had tried for years to rouse the Muslim community into action through his words, detailing the grievances they should have with the West. His actions, including the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, the US Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998 and the USS Cole in the same year, had been aimed at attempting to rouse Bill Clinton's USA government into precipitous action in revenge. Bin Laden's ultimate aim was to goad the Western World into actions against the Muslim community which would in turn goad the Muslim community to rise up in defence of itself  - a "Holy War" or "Jihad" as he called it. But it hadn't worked.

9/11 was different. 9/11 worked. 9/11 got the over-reaction he wanted, and then some.

Going into Afghanistan without a credible exit strategy or understanding of the unlikeliness of there ever being one was the first. We forget now but the Taliban were given 30 days to hand over Osama Bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda fighters they were harbouring, at the end of which the USA and many other countries went in, backed, remember, by the United Nations, to find them. But you have to really understand Afghanistan to know the extent to which it is a collection of disparate tribes with little to bind them together. Suddenly there was a common enemy to bind them together against. That was what Osama Bin Laden wanted.

Meanwhile, on the streets of the USA, hundreds of Arab Americans, Muslims and, lets not forget, turbanned Sikhs were targetted in revenge attacks. A man has only recently been executed for killing a convenience store clerk during a 'revenge rampage'. That was what Osama Bin Laden wanted, mainly because had it carried on without being stopped by law enforcement, the Arab American community would have had to defend itself.

Then there's Iraq. I have written about the Iraq War in previous blogs. I remember trying to use international relations theory to try and explain it and finding it just about impossible. It will probably remain an anomaly in global political theory because in 100 years politics teachers without an agenda will still struggle to explain to their students why it happened. I imagine in his wildest dreams, and I imagine he DID have some pretty wild dreams, Osama Bin Laden never thought he would be handed such a propaganda coup on a plate. From that point, every swivel-eyed idealogue had one word to speak to prove to those they were trying to radicalise that the Western World were against them.

It certainly helped motivate those who planned the 7/7 bombings on tube stations in London. You can still see their videos now as they talked of the reasons behind their plans. Previously, particularly before 9/11, there was a list of spurious excuses for actions. Remember, around the time of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center there was a peace accord between Israel and Palestine and the USA's army were not involved in any muslim country (in fact over the next few years their involvement was to save the Muslim community in Bosnia. Now though, you could just say 'Iraq' and you had a holy army form.

On 21/7 , which was the failed bombing of the Underground, only a fortnight after the successful first, I have to admit Bin Laden nearly got me. What I mean by that is that for about 2 minutes, when the thought entered my head that we might be dealing with bomb attack after bomb attack and I decided that it might be better if the country had no Muslims in. 2 minutes. That's all it was. I'm not proud of it, in fact I'm very embarrassed, but I understand how it happened. By constantly trying to catalyze these actions, Bin Laden was trying to get the British people to attack Muslims around them, thus causing a backlash. But, to the credit of the British people, it didn't happen.

Because, and let's never forget this, the atrocities I talk about were carried out by people who say that they are doing so in the name of the Muslim people, but actually they besmirch the name of those they claim to represent.

Bin Laden's aim was to make us forget that. Bin Laden's aim was to draw the Western World into a Holy War. He came very close. But as long as sensible Westerners remain proud of the liberal democracies we live in, he will fail.