Should I have bothered to go to Israel so many times, or to the West Bank or to Iraq or Gaza or Jordan or Egypt? Should I have tried so hard to get into Iran, when they so very plainly did not want me there? Perhaps not. What good has all this education done me? Because I actually know something about that part of the world, I am at a terrible disadvantage in what passes for debate on the new war in the Middle East.

As streams of militant bilge shoot from the mouths of bomb-happy commentators and politicians, I shout pointlessly at the radio and the TV, on which I no longer appear because I made the same mistake over the Ukraine war.

I knew something about the subject. I expect you are all sick of those maps of Iran with red blobs on them, or those films of fire and death in the midst of populated cities. Or of experts droning on about centrifuges. Or of Mr Benjamin Netanyahu betraying his considerable intelligence by talking rank nonsense about democratic uprisings in Iran.

If there is one thing which will reconcile Iran’s population with its horrible regime, it is being bombed by Israel.

How odd this is. For many years I have been a dogged defender of Israel for the simple reason that hatred of Jews never dies out and can easily become homicidal quite quickly. So there must be somewhere for Jews to go. That’s it.

An explosion is seen in Tel Aviv during a missile attack on Friday

An explosion is seen in Tel Aviv during a missile attack on Friday

It always seemed to me that any move to make Israel indefensible (and much Western diplomacy had this aim) must therefore be a mistake.

This view made me reliably unpopular with the powerful, fashionable pro-Arab consensus. I remember at a university debate being screamed at by an opponent as an ‘Arab-hating racist’, which I am demonstrably not.

Now, since I have failed to express enthusiasm for Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, it cannot be long before the war faction denounce me as an ‘anti-Semite’ or an ‘apologist for Hamas’. Which I am demonstrably not.

The level of this debate is so low that it would be too kind to call it childish.

And now this unthinking, pig-ignorant frenzy has joined arms with the ‘war at all costs’ faction. These are people who are as ignorant about the past as they are about the present.

They have succumbed to a half-witted account of the rise of Hitler and the crisis of 1938-1940. This ended with most of Europe under the German boot, to be rescued years later by the tyrant Stalin. They think, for some reason, that starting wars and shouting loudly will bring peace. They pay no attention to the previous mistakes made by people who believed this.

Let me remind them. Anthony Eden, Britain’s premier in 1956, decided that Egypt was the new Germany, and attacked it. Disaster followed. Centuries of British power and prestige dissolved in a few weeks.

Learning nothing from this, we and the USA marched off into similar adventures in Afghanistan, where we lost to the prehistoric Taliban. Then there was Iraq, where we helped destroy the Christian community and increased the oppression of women.

Israeli flags stand in the city of Ramat Gan near buildings damaged by an Iranian missile

Israeli flags stand in the city of Ramat Gan near buildings damaged by an Iranian missile

Israel's Iron Dome air defence system tries to intercept projectiles over Tel Aviv. 'As its most crucial uranium enrichment equipment is undamaged and unreachable by Israeli weapons, Tehran will soon make its first actual nuclear warheads,' writes Peter Hitchens

Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system tries to intercept projectiles over Tel Aviv. ‘As its most crucial uranium enrichment equipment is undamaged and unreachable by Israeli weapons, Tehran will soon make its first actual nuclear warheads,’ writes Peter Hitchens

In Syria we reduced a reasonably prosperous, religiously tolerant despotism to ruins. Then we handed over its government to an Al Qaeda fanatic who is now building his own police state, while the ‘West’ smiles feebly. And then, of course, there was Libya.

It may be a century before the full price of that particular adventure is paid. Our interference there helped cause the irreversible transformation of Europe into a totally different continent.

All these thought-free spasms hugely increased migration from Africa, Asia or the Middle East into Europe, a revolution which nobody has a clue how to stop, let alone reverse.

The whole thing has been yet another demonstration of the law of unintended consequences.

My guess is that Iran will now become more of a tyranny than it was before. And, as its most crucial uranium enrichment equipment is undamaged and unreachable by Israeli weapons, Tehran will soon make its first actual nuclear warheads.

If that happens, Saudi Arabia, another even more terrifying despotism, will not be far behind. How do you fancy a three-way nuclear confrontation? You may yet get one.

Even if this does not end with much of the region turned into a radioactive wasteland (and it might), it threatens the world with an oil crisis which will kick many tottering economies into an abyss. Yet we may also be lucky again. Boring diplomats may retrieve peace (we had it, but Donald Trump chucked it in the bin in 2018). The USA may exert the undoubted power it has over Israel. If we are so fortunate, it will not be because of all these voices yelling for more war.

In 1897, at the very zenith of this country’s power, Rudyard Kipling, the great poet of empire, saw the unmatched might of the Royal Navy assembled at Spithead and was overwhelmed at the sight.

But the poem he wrote as a result was a warning, not a triumph song. He prophesied accurately that our far-called navies would melt away, as those of every other empire had.

Kipling warned us against being ‘drunk with [the] sight of power’ and of forgetting God by loosing ‘Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe’.

He deplored the heathen heart ‘that puts her trust in reeking tube and iron shard’ and asked forgiveness for ‘frantic boast and foolish word’. How right he was.

My 1950s childhood was spent among what was then left of our naval might – I was born in one naval base, christened in another and watched, sunk in gloom, 65 years ago, as the last of our great battleships was towed to the breakers under a sultry Portsmouth sky.

None of this decline was prevented by shouting for war. Much of it resulted directly from the braggart folly of Suez.

Might we possibly learn from that? I doubt it. I hope so.

Search for Alas Vine & Hitchens on Apple, Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts now. New episode released every Wednesday. 

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