In a July 12 Globe and Mail opinion piece, “Is Israel a normal country?” Ian Buruma raised a number of important questions about why Israel, as he acknowledged, is “judged by different standards from other countries.”

Buruma gave a few reasons for the double standard (although they are only part of a much longer list): the charge of imperialism and colonialism is projected onto Israel, making it bear the burden of the West’s past sins in the Third World; as a democracy Israel inevitably is going to be judged by higher standards than are applied to the surrounding Arab dictatorships; but related to this is what Israeli philosopher Avishai Margalit has termed “moral racism” – which Buruma explains as the “bloodlust of an African or Asian people is not taken as seriously that of a European – or other white – people.” In other words, since the West has systematically low expectations of others (but why did Buruma fail to also mention Arab people in this context?), this racism results in intensified scrutiny on those seen to be “like us” – the Israelis.

What Buruma failed to note, however, is the crucial fact that Israel is not only judged by a higher standard than is applied to “Third World” people, it is frequently judged by a higher standard than is expected of the “First World” – of other democracies in the West. We see this most clearly in the emotionally charged rush to judgment by the United Nations and organizations such as Human Rights Watch, which condemn Israel for “war crimes” against the Palestinians while remaining silent when U.S. and NATO forces kill large numbers of civilians in their counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Buruma went on to fault Israelis for using their role as victims of the Holocaust as an excuse to act brutally and aggressively against Palestinians, implying that this is a wilful policy. Yet, by depicting Palestinians only as victims, not actors shaping their own destiny, he ironically committed the very sin he commends Margalit for recognizing.

Buruma, for instance, ignored the long history of Arab and Palestinian rejection of Israel’s very right to exist. He ignored the fact that previous Israeli governments have tried to reach a negotiated resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians, only to be met with violence that has left the majority of Israelis who favour a two-state solution convinced that they do not currently have a reliable negotiating partner.

* * *

Speaking of “Israelis” – Jim Lederman, who is writing a book on the nature of Israeli society and governance, asked (in conversation from his office in Jerusalem), “Which ‘Israelis’ is he talking about? To Buruma and others like him, the ‘Israelis’ seem to be a formless miasma of oppression.

“That, of course, is not true. Most Israelis, Jew and Arab, are sensible, humane, sentient individuals.”

Lederman is appalled by the failure of journalists to pay any attention to the 70 per cent of ordinary Israelis who comprise what he calls the “rational centre” of the country. “They’ve not only been written out of the story of what is happening here, they’ve been written out of history,” he said. “And it is these people who make the country work, make all the final decisions on policy, and who have to clean up the mistakes their own governments make.”

Lederman added: “Instead, what we get is not even a cartoon or a caricature of ‘the Israelis,’ but a stick-figure drawing – one arm is the settlers, the other arm is the army; one leg is the government, the other is the ultra-Orthodox, and the torso is the ‘occupation.’ But in this case, the head – the people – is invariably left out.

“The situation is exacerbated by the fact the elites in the Diaspora follow the journalists and talk only about the elites. Then, both the journalists and the elites have the gall to claim that the Israeli public is apathetic because they’re not out marching in the streets. Those who count the most are simply too busy working. Nonetheless, when presented with an existential problem or the need to make a fundamental decision about peace, they do rouse themselves and provide the needed legitimacy for compromise. Without their participation and consent, no agreement is possible.”

Charity is supposed to be fuelled by a selfless desire to help others, but it's hard to see any such motivation in the plans advanced by members of Gaza Freedom March (GFM) to charter a boat and sail to the Gaza Strip. On the contrary, the idea reeks of self-aggrandizement and narcissism, along with the usual helping of contempt for Israel.

Canadian activists belonging to the group launched fund-raising efforts last week with the aim of mustering $300,000 to hire and staff a vessel in an all-Canadian effort to sail to Gaza despite the Israeli blockade. The trek's primary aim is "to bring attention to the suffering of the people of Gaza," presumably without going into much detail as to why Israel believes its security requires it to take a stand against Gaza's Hamas run government, which still refuses to accept the Jewish state's right to exist.

Whether the boat will actually carry any goods on its supposed mission of mercy or sail empty has yet to be decided. This might reflect the fact that Israel has largely lifted the blockade, allowing in most consumer goods, or it might be a tacit admission that the trip is more about egoism than compassion. Why spend money on supplies when the goal is swift, efficient martyrdom? What these activists seek is a self-serving stint in Israeli custody, which amounts to both a badge of honour and a battle scar.

The GFM has talked vaguely of using an empty vessel to transport Palestinian goods abroad for export, but they are undoubtedly aware that regardless of whether they arrive with their holds bulging or yawning, Israel will not permit them to make landfall. The fate of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which was halted in May and resulted in the deaths of nine activists aboard a Turkish vessel during a struggle with Israel special forces, is surely very much on the Canadians' minds.

The GFM has been quick to proclaim that its mission will be peaceful, and doubtless the Israeli response will be similar after the fiasco in May, but all this careful talk on the activists' part fails to mask their other goal, shared by the earlier convoy: putting on a show meant to prompt the rest of the world to heap obloquy on Israel.

As a liberal democracy in the Middle East in a region awash in authoritarian regimes and militant puritanism, Israel has had to fight for its survival right from its inception.

Despite being a beneficiary of the very same freedoms Israel is defending, the GFM is anxious to lend its support to the other side in a struggle half a world away. These activists could do with a little less selfishness and a lot more self-reflection.

When Israeli commandos killed nine Turkish jihadis on board the lead ship of a Gaza-bound flotilla six weeks ago, Israel's enemies exhibited unusually fervid spasms of agitation. Never mind that about half the victims already had declared their aspiration to die at Israeli hands as violent "martyrs"; or that the organizers were part of an NGO that Western prosecutors and researchers have linked to terrorism. As with the Gaza war in late 2008, the case was presented as a black-and-white morality play, with Israel in the role of vicious marauder. Indeed, left-wing commentators could barely contain their glee at how these "martyrs" had passive-aggressively engineered an epochal shift in the balance of Middle Eastern power. "Israel's ill-fated boarding operation of the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara has become a nightmare for the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, but a dream come true for the leaders of Hamas," reported The Globe & Mail's Patrick Martin. "It took the deaths of nine international activists, most of them Turkish, to make a difference."

Sorry, Patrick, but this "dream come true" now appears to have been short-lived. Though tarnished in the court of global opinion, Israel's embargo remains intact (though the Israeli government has decided to expand the list of permitted humanitarian imports). A copycat Iranian flotilla operation was scrapped in the face of Israel's proven resolve. And this week, the captain of a Libyan ship chickened out in similar fashion — sailing his cargo to Egypt instead of Gaza. Turkey is still sulking, and has demanded an official Israeli apology. But as The New York Times reported earlier this month, "in most other respects, it is still business as usual between the longtime allies."

Meanwhile, Israel's economy continues to outperform other Western economies: As Robert Fulford reported in Saturday's edition of the National Post, the "boycott, divestment and sanctions" campaign (which, Mr. Martin and other left-wing pundits tell us, is poised to bring the Jewish state to its knees) remains a fantasy of union activists and student street marchers.

Click here to read the entire article »

If you missed the broadcast, or would like to review it in depth, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs has posted a transcript with annotated links.

You can also watch the show  on YouTube – part 1 is embeded below:

Yet another surprise from the Economist magazine. In its editorial, "Pakistan, India and the anti-nuclear rules" (June 26), the publication took a strong stand against the Egyptian-led effort to single out Israel at last month's Nuclear Non-Proliferation (NPT) Review Conference. The conference's final declaration, orchestrated by Egypt on behalf of the Arab League and as chair of the Non-Aligned Movement, explicitly called on Israel – but not Pakistan or India – to sign the NPT, and it omitted any mention of Iran, an NPT member, that is in serious violation of binding IAEA safeguards.

As the Economist noted: "Picking on Israel makes the silence – and hypocrisy – that surrounds nuclear-armed India and Pakistan all the stranger. Like Israel, neither joined the NPT so their bomb-building did not break its rules. Yet their rivalry is fuelling the fastest, most dangerous build-up of bomb-usable plutonium and uranium anywhere. And a proposed sale by China of two civilian nuclear reactors to proliferation-prone, unstable Pakistan points to a further distinction. Although much of the world has co-operated over North Korea and Iran, everyone is competing over India and Pakistan to make things worse."

Despite all the anti-Israel propaganda, everyone knows – including Arab states – that Israel's (undeclared) nuclear arsenal is purely defensive and that Israel has always behaved responsibly. The real threat of aggressive, indeed potentially catastrophic, behaviour comes not only from North Korea and Iran but also from Pakistan which has an intense, bitter rivalry with India. The danger of nuclear conflagration there is a serious, but largely unexamined, possibility, especially if Pakistan's weapons fall into the hands of the Taliban.

Now with China's renewed involvement in Pakistan's nuclear program (following U.S. help to India's program under former U.S. president George W. Bush), prospects for instability in Southeast Asia are only increasing. And the Economist reminds us that the history of China's proliferation record in Pakistan is nothing short of reckless: "[China] helped Pakistan make uranium and plutonium. It handed over the design of one of its own nuclear warheads, which Pakistan later passed on to Libya and possibly Iran."

China needs to be held to account, indeed needs to be "embarrassed," the Economist concludes.

But it probably won't be. After all, there's always Israel to conveniently distract the world's attention.

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While Rick Salutin's June 25 Globe and Mail column didn't deal with the Middle East but with the "walling" off of large parts of Toronto for the G20 summit, his concern that this represented an assault on democracy here has wider implications. Ironically, Salutin might not care to face the logic of his argument given his support for the "Free Gaza" movement in his June 4 column.

Here's the relevant excerpt from his June 25 Globe and Mail column: "Democracy isn't about elections. There have been lots of undemocratic societies with elections. It's about a state of mind and a relationship between governors and governed. This is exactly what looks preposterous in Toronto now. What is the sign of the breakdown in the relationship? Police everywhere, to protect the governors from the people. That's how it looks. I'm not saying that's what it is, yet. But it's amazing that they don't even react to the optics of the situation: i.e. a temporary police state."

Salutin is correct about what makes a governing authority a true democracy – not the mere mechanics of elections but the far more meaningful nature of the governing authority itself. Today we read repeatedly that Hamas is the "democratically elected" government of the Palestinians in Gaza, who voted the group into power in the 2006 elections. Put aside for a moment the fact that Hamas only a year later staged a violent coup against Fatah's participation in the government. By Salutin's own definition, there's no sense in which Hamas has anything to do with democracy, when it runs a repressive police state in which women's rights, gay rights, religious freedom, open dissent, etc., are non-existent.

As many analysts have noted, if the "Free Gaza" movement had any concern about freedom for the Palestinians and about democracy they'd put their efforts into criticizing Hamas' extremist agenda and repressive rule, instead of working so assiduously to demonize democratic Israel – their real aim.
 

Given the extent and the intensity of the international condemnation of Israel following Israel's botched May 31 seizure of the Mavi Marmara, it was almost inevitable that a sober re-adjustment would take place.

The Globe and Mail lead editorial of June 22 provided a model of the latter (even though the paper had previously maintained a moderately critical position about Israel's mistakes).

The June 22 editorial made the paper's position clear in the opening paragraph: "Having welcomed Israel's pledge to immediately ease the blockade of goods into Hamas-ruled Gaza, the Quartet of Mid-east peacemakers on Monday warned that the current situation in Gaza is 'unsustainable and unacceptable and not in the interests of anyone concerned.' It is a fine sentiment, but there remains an immutable obstacle to any lasting relief to the Gaza predicament. It is not Israel. It is Hamas."

While the Globe welcomed changes that Israel made to the long list of goods that will be allowed into Gaza for the benefit of the civilians there, the paper was firm about the need for Israel to maintain an embargo on any materiel that Hamas could use for warfare including "dual-use construction supplies."

The paper was also firm about the nature of Hamas, and how Israel should react to it. It commented that "Israel cannot afford to relax its guard against a group that is dedicated to the purpose of wiping it off the map. It cannot deal with the Hamas government, negotiating sensible accommodations with give-and-take."

This might be read as a response to analysts both in the West and in Israel who've been arguing recently that, for pragmatic reasons, Israel should reach out and talk to Hamas. These analysts, however, while raising expectations of what Israel should do, fail to make any demands of Hamas even though the Quartet (the United Nation, European Union, Russia and the United States) years ago set out conditions for Hamas to meet if it is to be considered a responsible negotiating partner: renounce violence, accept existing Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements, and accept Israel's right to exist.

Hamas refuses to comply. Although some of its leaders have appeared occasionally, if inconsistently, to favour the notion of a long-term truce with Israel, even along a supposed “two-state” idea, Hamas' conditions for such an arrangement – including the “right of return” of Palestinians – still entail the elimination of Israel as the Jewish state.

It is no wonder then that the Globe was unequivocal in its depiction of Gaza's rulers: "Hamas has established a terrorist statelet, which harbours a range of extreme Islamist factions, and is a client of theocratic Iran." It was equally unequivocal when it stated that as long as Hamas remains Hamas — that is, refuses to conform to international demands mentioned above – it will remain "the immutable obstacle" to peaceful co-existence between Israelis and Gazans.

While the Globe has not been shy about criticizing certain Israeli policies from time to time, its position on Hamas has been consistent.

What was a greater surprise was the New York Times' editorial on the Middle East, which also appeared on June 22. The Times has not been as consistently firm as the Globe about Gaza's Islamic rulers. Even in this latest editorial, the Times refers to Hamas as a "militant" group.

Still, the paper called on Israel to focus international attention and pressure on Hamas "which continues to rocket Israeli cities and refuses to accept Israel's right to exist." The Times wrote that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "has rightly refused to abandon the sea blockade of Gaza" as long as this prevents Hamas from acquiring weapons and rockets. (The paper commended modifications to Israel's blockade policy that directly affects Gaza's civilians.)

What remains to be explored in media circles is what Egypt's responsibilities should be, given its own border with Gaza. Contrary to common wisdom that views, as hidden, the 500-800 "smuggling" tunnels running between Gaza and Egypt at the border town of Rafah, the traffic of goods is quite out in the open. But Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak keeps insisting that the onus for the delivery of humanitarian aid remain solely Israel's responsibility. Egypt's effort to maintain the fiction that Israel is the "occupying" power of Gaza is worthy of critical examination.

Israel's seizure of the Turkish registered ship Mavi Marmara on May 31 thrust Turkey and its controversial Prime Minister Recep Erdogan into the international spotlight. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Erdogan's – together with his senior ministers' – vitriolic verbal attacks on Israel have raised his profile dramatically.

These profiles have varied considerably in the Canadian and western media circles.

For instance, in his June 5 National Post column dealing with the immediate rush to condemn Israel in the absence of established facts about the Marmara tragedy, Robert Fulford drew attention to rarely examined details about Turkey's hypocrisy. He wrote: "It was striking to hear that the Turkish foreign minister called the boarding of the Mavi Marmara 'an act of barbarism.' Turkey, having helped to instigate the flotilla, is a new voice in the self-righteous clamour against Israel. It still doesn't admit that it perpetrated genocide against the Armenians a century ago, it drags its distinguished authors into court for telling the truth about that atrocity and its attempt to contain the Kurdish independence movement has so far cost some 40,000 lives, mostly Kurds."

Writing from Jerusalem for the Globe and Mail (June 11) about the Turkish government's reaction, Patrick Martin argued that Erdogan's "outcry against Israel… have made him the most admired leader in the Muslim and Arab worlds, shaming those who have done so little for the Palestinians."

Precisely what Erdogan has done for the Palestinians, others would argue, is highly questionable to say the least. Erdogan's rhetorical assaults on Israel (including his tantrum in Davos in 2009 against Israeli president Shimon Peres) are no doubt popular in the Arab and Muslim worlds. But his support for Hamas (and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) only serves to reinforce the hardships Palestinian extremists have inflicted on their own people in Gaza.

Martin paints a mostly positive picture of Erdogan, including his policy toward the Kurds: "He offered peace to the country's Kurds and an opening of relations with Turkey's historic foe, Armenia. He established good relations with Iraq and even with its Kurdish Regional Government that sits on Turkey's border."

What Martin didn't mention is that since late 2007, Erdogan's government has authorized deadly strikes into northern Iraq against Kurdish-PKK rebels operating from there in support of increased autonomy in southeastern Turkey. For instance, the BBC reported on May 3, 2008, that Turkish forces claimed in an army statement to have "neutralize[d] more than 150 [Kurdish] terrorists."

Other such attacks have resulted in scores more Kurds being killed and have prompted Iraq's government to warn Turkey about destabilizing the region.

It's no surprise, of course, that Erdogan's “outrage” against such deadly assaults on the Kurds is nowhere to be heard. And, after all, the Kurds are clamouring only for increased autonomy including language rights to be enshrined in the constitution, not any longer for self-rule which is prohibited and a punishable offence in Turkey.

* * *

Against a glut of uninformed, frenzied charges that Israel had committed “war crimes,” “terrorism” and “piracy” in intercepting the flotilla in international waters, Ed Morgan, professor of international law at the University of Toronto, clarified the facts pertaining to what is called the Law of the Sea (Globe and Mail, June 3). He spelled out the terms according to which it is perfectly legal for Israel, being in a state of armed conflict with Hamas, to impose and enforce a naval blockade on Gaza (to prevent the smuggling of arms), including by intercepting and boarding ships that attempt to run the blockade. Click here to read the story.

The Canadian Navy undertakes similar boardings on a regular basis. Between 2001 and 2003, during NATO's Operation Apollo, Canadian naval personnel made over 260 boardings in their efforts to halt the flow of terrorists and weapons through international waters in the Gulf. Global News reported (April 9) on the HMCS Fredericton's boardings off the east coast of Africa mere months ago: "The boarding party, team of specially trained and heavily armed sailors, was regularly dispatched from the Fredericton to investigate skiffs and dhows [Arab sailing vessels] … often used for pirate attacks or to transport weapons and drugs.”

Israel and the Surrender of the West

One of the world's oldest stories is playing out before our eyes: The Jews are being scapegoated again.

By SHELBY STEELE

The most interesting voice in all the fallout surrounding the Gaza flotilla incident is that sanctimonious and meddling voice known as "world opinion." At every turn "world opinion," like a school marm, takes offense and condemns Israel for yet another infraction of the world's moral sensibility. And this voice has achieved an international political legitimacy so that even the silliest condemnation of Israel is an opportunity for self-congratulation.

Rock bands now find moral imprimatur in canceling their summer tour stops in Israel (Elvis Costello, the Pixies, the Gorillaz, the Klaxons). A demonstrator at an anti-Israel rally in New York carries a sign depicting the skull and crossbones drawn over the word "Israel." White House correspondent Helen Thomas, in one of the ugliest incarnations of this voice, calls on Jews to move back to Poland. And of course the United Nations and other international organizations smugly pass one condemnatory resolution after another against Israel while the Obama administration either joins in or demurs with a wink.

This is something new in the world, this almost complete segregation of Israel in the community of nations. And if Helen Thomas's remarks were pathetic and ugly, didn't they also point to the end game of this isolation effort: the nullification of Israel's legitimacy as a nation? There is a chilling familiarity in all this. One of the world's oldest stories is playing out before our eyes: The Jews are being scapegoated again.

World opinion" labors mightily to make Israel look like South Africa looked in its apartheid era—a nation beyond the moral pale. And it projects onto Israel the same sin that made apartheid South Africa so untouchable: white supremacy. Somehow "world opinion" has moved away from the old 20th century view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a complicated territorial dispute between two long-suffering peoples. Today the world puts its thumb on the scale for the Palestinians by demonizing the stronger and whiter Israel as essentially a colonial power committed to the "occupation" of a beleaguered Third World people.

This is now—figuratively in some quarters and literally in others—the moral template through which Israel is seen. It doesn't matter that much of the world may actually know better. This template has become propriety itself, a form of good manners, a political correctness. Thus it is good manners to be outraged at Israel's blockade of Gaza, and it is bad manners to be outraged at Hamas's recent attack on a school because it educated girls, or at the thousands of rockets Hamas has fired into Israeli towns—or even at the fact that Hamas is armed and funded by Iran. The world wants independent investigations of Israel, not of Hamas.

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That Israel walked into a trap on May 30 in its effort to prevent the Mavi Marmara from running its blockade of Gaza is not in dispute, and it's a valid subject of criticism.

But what is also beyond dispute is that much of the worldwide reaction to this event (partly described in last week's column) can only be described as a fit bordering on hysteria. The next time many in the media rush to condemn Israel for its "disproportionate" reaction (a term never applied to U.S.-NATO operations in Afghanistan and former U.S.-British operations in Iraq where large numbers of civilians have been killed), they should stop to consider whether the extent of the criticism is itself proportionate to Israel's actions. While some of it was, too much of it was off the deep end.

Consider this: By one measure – the total number of items tallied by Google News on a given story – worldwide media paid as much, if not more, attention to the flotilla event (of important but limited international significance) as they did to the election of Barak Obama as the first black U.S. president.

Speaking of being off the deep end, as of late last week, the Toronto Star ran six columns and op-eds on the subject reflecting one point of view – harsh criticism of Israel. One in particular by Jonathan Power, a British writer with a well-earned reputation for Israel-bashing, published on June 2, opened as follows: "The unprovoked and murderous Israeli commando attack on the peace flotilla is the Selma of the Arab-Jewish struggle for the land of Palestine."

Power's piece is crass propaganda. He casts the Palestinians in the role of U.S. blacks during the days of the civil rights struggle under the non-violent leadership of Martin Luther King Jr. He depicts the Israelis as brutal oppressors who "seized 80 per cent of the land that early in the 20th century belonged lock, stock and barrel to the Arabs." Power insists that having usurped the land, Israelis refuse to compromise over the remaining 20 per cent.

As befits Power's extreme polemic, there's no mention at all that Hamas' racist, anti-Semitic covenant and its violent rejection of Jewish sovereignty. He is silent on the launching of more than 10,000 rockets and mortars into Israel since 2005 when Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza. No mention is made of the long history of Israeli compromise leading to peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, and even territorial compromise with the Palestinians under the Olso process – stopped only by the late Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat's own violent rejection the Israel-U.S. offer for Palestinians statehood in 2000. In short, there is no mention of any salient fact that could possibly weigh against Power's determination to demonize Israel.

Power's article is so twisted with distortion and deceit that it's hard to understand how such a screed could end up in a respectable Canadian paper, let alone this country's largest daily.

Yet, absurdly, the Star has defended printing this piece on the grounds that it's fair-minded "analysis," even though there's not a shred of what constitutes real analysis in it. Power's article has been described by a prominent and very moderate Israeli academic (in a private exchange) as "ignorant bigotry."

When one surveys what else Power has written about Israel that term seems apt. For instance, in a piece headlined "Looking at the end of Israel?" (Jordan Times, May 2, 2008) Power argued that the Balfour Declaration, which promised the Jews a homeland in Palestine, was a historical injustice inflicted on the Arabs.

He wrote something that is eerily reminiscent of former White House correspondent Helen Thomas's recent bigoted attack on Israel: "The Jews would not be driven into the sea. But those who wanted to return to Europe, America or even Russia would be more than welcome. Both Germany and Russia, the great centres of anti-Semitism in the past, have seemed to have flushed that horror away." The last line, meant as cover for the previous one, will fool no one. For Power, apparently, the real "horror" is the Jews' presence in the Jewish state.

Why the Star felt it justified to turn to someone like Power, and why it considers the June 2 piece to be analytical, are important questions that require answers.

It is surely one of the great paradoxes of this age that while many of our cleverest minds have fallen headlong in love with peoples whose causes are more or less entirely alien to us, we can find no stirring in our hearts for peoples whose greatest hope is to become . . . well, more like us.

Thus we artlessly dispatched our hearts on a sentimental journey to Gaza designed for our benefit by the canny Islamists in Ankara and their bloodstained allies in Gaza; people who, in any other context, would treat our Western soft-heartedness and woolly-mindedness with undisguised contempt.

And yet our hearts have no space whatever for the thousands of young Iranian students who, on Saturday, defied the threats of their government, the beatings of the extra-legal militias, and the pusillanimity of their erstwhile leaders, merely to ask for the right to have their votes treated with dignity, rather than being fabricated out of some dodgy Russian software in Iran's Ministry of the Interior.

To the best of my knowledge, not one single person has died at the hands of Iran's green opposition, even as thousands of their number have been arrested, hundreds sexually and physically tortured in prison, and dozens murdered in loneliness, often in the most squalid and humiliating of circumstances. Their cause has been Gandhian, almost to a fault. ("The students will die, but they will not accept humiliation", they chanted at Tehran University.)

And yet their plight leaves us entirely cold. Who knows: if they strapped bombs to themselves, or professed a secret admiration for the racial policies of the Third Reich, would they then become sufficiently exotic to pique our jaded imaginations, and would we then love them a little more?

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