A useful idiot

There are times when the off-switch on the radio seems insufficient and a more adequate solution to hearing some utter garbage being spouted would be to throw the wireless through the window. Such a moment nearly came to pass when I listened to, I must say, an intellectually challenged Rt. Hon Theresa Villiers MP parroting the Israeli line on recent events on the West Bank. Villiers is a long standing member of Conservative Friends of Israel, so nothing in what she said should come as a surprise, but the evident complete absence of critical thinking was. When asked  (on the BBC PM programme) about the rights and wrongs of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, all she could muster up was ‘it’s a complex issue’ and apparently some disputes had been through the Israeli courts, so all’s fair and square. Then, despite having told us that stealing Palestinian land is a complex issue, she announced that Jews had lived there for millennia and therefore had (a literally) pre-ordained right to live there. That of course is simply untrue. The much vaunted ‘two state solution’ was trotted out to demonstrate her commitment to a long term peace—but then she claimed Israel had no real negotiating interlocutors—forgetting there being plenty of evidence that Israel has operated a divide and rule policy towards the Palestinians since day one. Israel has absolutely no intention of negotiating away any of their effective control of the West Bank. In Villiers’ defence, I can only proffer the thought that she is as thick as two short planks. God knows how she ever got to be a Cabinet minister. But she is clearly a useful idiot.