As an openly expressed idea polluting the mainstream, classical anti-Semitism is by-and-large behind us. The waning of a religiously and then “racially” based delusion that had stirred the Western world might be considered to be good news. This is so especially when, due to the efforts of Tehran, Pyongyang, Hamas and the collusion of their great power protectors, positive reports are scarce. Regrettably, the good tidings apply only if the eye is focused on the surface and skips the substance. While classical anti-Semitism is losing power, two interrelated “anti-forces” are more than just taking its place.

The 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries have witnessed the most spectacular population growth in human history, most of it in Third World countries. The world’s population, estimated at 6.4 billion in 2006, grows by more than 70 million people per year. In sixty years, Brazil’s population has increased by 318 per cent; Ethiopia’s by 503 per cent. There are now 73 million people in Ethiopia – more than the population of Britain or France.

Deutsche Welle has an interesting little roundup of European press reaction to Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah, most of which appears to condemn the Israeli actions as “disproportionate.” As a corollary, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (of Spanish Flee fame) went on record stating that the results of the Israeli response to the agents of radicalization, fanaticism, conflict and instability will be “radicalization, fanaticism, conflict and instability.” The European reaction is instructive for several reasons: First, because it is indicative of the extent to which nationalism and national feeling has declined – there is simply little understanding of why a state would seek so dramatically to protect its own. Second, because it illustrates the European mindset on Islamism – that it is indestructible, and by implication, that its agents cannot be repelled or thwarted. Third, because it lets us know, again, that the Europeans do not see Israel as one of its own – even though, in the cultural and historical sense, it is – and that they blame Israel in a manner reminiscent of those who would blame a provocatively-dressed woman for her rape.

Last April the EU foreign ministers instituted a visa ban on more than thirty Belarusian officials who were believed to be involved in rigging the elections, suppressing freedom of speech and undermining democracy and freedom in Belarus. However, three months after the ban, it is clear that the latter is not really effective: Belarusian officials continue to travel around the continent. The EU bigwigs do not seem to notice.

Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must be regarded as the first of their political institutions; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious belief. I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion – for who can search the human heart? – but I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society.

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Book I, Ch. XVII
 
Americans like to pretend – those who think of it – that the national character is still fundamentally that described by de Tocqueville. It is a flattering portrait, on the whole; but it would not have endured, as a current observation rather than a historical curiosity, were it not a broadly accurate one. Still, we must admit that this accuracy is on the wane, partly through the ordinary passage of time – and partly through the left’s willful breaks with the past, in the arrogant assumption that history, tradition, and mores are inferior to the overriding power of human reason in all spheres. When Hayek named the “fatal conceit,” he had in mind the material market: but there is a market in culture and ideas too, and the smashing of its conventions by force and fiat is an endeavor as doomed as any command economy. Two outcomes are possible: either the effort fails, or the whole market crashes down by reason of its weakened structure.

German police officers get a discount of 7 euros when they buy Femi-X, a herbal aphrodisiac for women which is sometimes refered to as the female equivalent of viagra. When the police officers buy a packet of 15 Femi-X pills they pay only 32 euros instead of 39. In addition they receive a free DVD with sex tips. Andreas Schuster, the police chief in Brandenburg, the province surrounding Berlin, told Bild Zeitung that Germany needs more children and the police want to set a good example. “We all want more children. The Brandenburg Police is prepared to do its duty. Perhaps this pill will be helpful in this regard.”

Human lifespans in developed countries have been increasing 15 seconds every minute for the past 125 years, and they are increasing even faster in the developing countries – on average about 20 seconds every minute. This means that in Europe and America lifespans increase about one year over every four-year period. Why has this happened? In one word – chemistry.

Today, Vladimir Putin is hosting the summit of the “G8” nations (U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada and Russia) in St Petersburg. History is playing cruel tricks. Though some optimistic and freedom-loving people (Ronald Reagan for example) may not have been surprised if they had been told in 1986 that by 2006 Russia would be hosting the summit of the G8, which is supposed to be a club of democracies, no-one could have imagined that the KGB would be doing so.

We have seen videos on TV of Muslim Jihadis beheading infidel hostages. Less attention has been paid to the fact that Muslims are beheading entire nation states. Although this is happening in slow motion, it is no less dramatic. Historically, the major cities have constituted a country’s “head,” the seat of most of its political institutions and the largest concentration of its cultural brainpower. What happens when this “head” is cut off from the rest of the body?

The Israeli re-invasion of Lebanon in the past 24 hours demonstrates as starkly as anything the failures of the “peace process” paradigms of the past 15 years. There were two of them – one counseling engagement, and the other disengagement. Having failed to coexist with their existential enemies, and having failed to escape them, the options for Israel are now resolved to endless war or elimination.