Daily Archives: October 3, 2021

Personnel choices made by Fumio Kishida, the newly elected head of the Liberal Democratic Party, left even ruling party lawmakers scratching their heads after promises of a complete revamp to giveit a fresh image to voters.

Kishida will be voted in as prime minister in the extraordinary Diet session to convene on Oct. 4.

On Oct. 1, Kishida announced his lineup of LDP executives that included Akira Amari in the powerful post of secretary-general, the party's No. 2 spot.

At the subsequent news conference for the LDP executives, Amari was peppered with questions about a past scandal in 2016 when he served as state minister in charge of economic revitalization. At that time, suspicions were raised about money he and his aides received from a company engaged in compensation negotiations with the Urban Renaissance Agency. While Amari resigned from his ministerial post, prosecutors were unable to dig up evidence to warrant an indictment against either him or his aides.

During the Oct. 1 news conference, Amari said he was never told by his aides that they had been in contact with the agency.

Yuko Obuchi, who was named to head the LDPs Party Organization and Campaign Headquarters, has also been embroiled in scandal, having falsified political fund reports in 2014 when she was economy minister, which prompted her resignation after questions were raised.

A younger LDP lawmaker said Kishidas personnel choices would only play into the hands of the opposition parties as they prepare for a crucial Lower House election that must be held this autumn. They fear the focus being placed on money scandals among LDP politicians will put the party at a major disadvantage.

One such scandal forced Katsuyuki Kawai, a former justice minister, and his wife, Anri, to resign from their respective Lower and Upper House seats earlier this year in a vote-buying case.

A veteran LDP lawmaker speculated that Kishida may not last long in power since his personnel choices give the opposition camp so many ways to stop Diet deliberations.

The opposition is already demanding that Amari appear before the Diet to clear up the past scandal.

Jun Azumi, the chairman of the Diet Affairs Committee for the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, noted that Amari and Sanae Takaichi, the new LDP policy chief, were close allies of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

With such choices, Abe should have been made prime minister again, Azumi said. This will be nothing but an Abe Cabinet that has Kishida as the main face.

Tomoko Tamura, the policy chief of the Japanese Communist Party, pointed out that five years agoAmariboldly stated he would face the music concerning the money scandal once he had a handle on the situation.

But Tamura accused Amari of not keeping his promise to respond to Diet questioning, noting that he stopped coming to the Diet immediately afterward, citing a sleep disorder.

The opposition parties are gleefully painting the Kishida administration as nothing but a continuation of the path set by Abe and his successor, outgoing Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.

Their strategy now is to go after Kishida in reference to past scandals under Abe such as the dubious sale of state-owned land to the Moritomo Gakuen educational institution and questionable funding of a dinner reception in connection with a cherry blossom viewing event hosted annually by the prime minister.

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Some in LDP fear past scandals will haunt Kishida regime | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis - Asahi Shimbun

Democracy will be strong only when voters and leaders get their priorities right and turn them into issues.

This week, I got a call from a journalist friend from Cologne. He wanted to know the status of the Assembly elections in states like Uttar Pradesh and Punjab and whether these would affect the Lok Sabha elections of 2024. My answer was: In India, there is a continuous election festival. In Germany, elections were held on a Sunday, and after 16 years, there is a possibility of change. On what issues have peoples minds and votes changed? My curiosity was high because I had gone to Germany as an editor at Radio Vice of Germany for three years and have gone on to cover the German elections since then. Then in recent years, relations between India and Germany have become stronger on economic and many international matters. The German journalist said with some sarcasm that elections are not held in Germany on the issues of caste-religion and similar equations like in India. This time, the voting was done on the issues of environment-climate change, digitization and modernization. The environmentalist Green Party has not been able to get a majority to be its Chancellor, but without it, perhaps no party-coalition government will be formed.

After that, we had a long talk. But his sarcasm on Indias elections really stung me. We take pride in the fact that we are the worlds largest democracy and voters are exercising their franchise from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, from remote Mizoram to the inaccessible villages of Arunachal Pradesh. But the electoral gimmicks have corrupted the entire election. As far as ideologies are concerned, to a large extent, due to economic liberalism in India, Europe, America, there is no significant difference in the policies of most of the parties. Therefore, in a country like Germany, the Christian Democratic Party, which is considered to be right-wing, becomes ready for compromise and alliance with the liberal socialist Social Democratic Party (SPD) or even with the environmentalist Green Party. Similarly, the SPD has agreed to an alliance with the right-wing Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Greens. For this reason, there will be manipulations for weeks to get their Chancellor (Prime Minister) to form the government.

But there is no situation that gives rise to buying and selling legislators. The real problem are the priorities, that is, the main issues. It is a pleasant democratic situation that voters have given utmost importance to environmental protection and have given the Green Party an important role in forming the government of the country. Another funny thing was seen in this election that the two candidates for the post of Chancellor also made preferences for vegetarian and non-vegetarian a part of their campaign. The self-reliance of the nation has been a big issue for everyone. People are also unhappy there due to red tape. Thats why parties and leaders promised to do away with it. The eastern part of Germany has been under communist rule for a long time. But after unification, the presence of the communists has become negligible today. Communists are in power in some countries like China and Russia or Cuba, but Russias economic policies have become liberal in world competition.

In India, there is respect for nature; sun, moon, mountains, river-air, water are worshiped as gods, but natural wrathfloods, landslides, pollutionmeans the environment and the red tape of the babus running from the British Raj policing issues are not made the top priority to replace outdated laws. Most of the political parties give importance to the selection of candidates and their influence on the basis of caste and religion. In the manifestos, the ideological promises are big, but many candidates do not even remember their full manifesto and in the next election, these are repeated with some modifications. The emphasis is on giving. It is definitely necessary to provide water, electricity, food grains, house, education, health free of cost to the poor, but in some years it is more necessary to make them fit for the right job and self-dependent.

After Independence, there was some benefit of the influence of socialist ideas, but instead of the poor, the middle class and even the privileged took more advantage of the governments freebies or concessions. They want domestic gas or electricity at rates available to the poor people, petrol and gas at the same price as provided to those who drive scooters and those who drive state-of-the-art cars worth Rs 5 crore, including Mercedes.

We need government hospital facility. But this educated class does not give any preference to make environment an issue. Similarly, political parties or other organizations talk about economic progress, industries and employment, but fiercely oppose the giving of land for setting up roads, bridges, factories. In many places, the work keeps hanging for years. In modernization, if industrial and business companies start becoming influential in the country and abroad, then people start questioning governments about their benefits. After all, how many jobs can the government itself provide? If employment becomes an issue, then why is voice not raised in the local elections for skill development? If agricultural laws were to be reformed to compete with Europe, a class stood in opposition. However, not only Germany, Japan and countries of Europe and America are investing in and will invest capital in India on a large scale. At least thats what the stock market is indicating. Keep the elections going, democracy will be strong only when voters and leaders will also have the right priorities, turn them into issues and achieve success.

Alok Mehta is Editorial Director of ITV Network-India News and Dainik Aaj Samaj.

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Lessons to be learnt from Germany on real election issues - The Sunday Guardian Live - The Sunday Guardian

Ernst van Zyl says Venezuela and Zimbabwe show how populist policies deliver short-term gains but long-term decline

Redistributive populism or strengthening property rights? Lessons from the South

29 September 2021

The policy of expropriation without compensation, which was brought before the South African parliament in 2018, ignited a fiery national policy debate which still takes centre stage in the nations political discourse in 2021. In South Africa, and the Western world in general, the liberal democratic paradigm is progressively coming under scrutiny. Many of these challenges originated in a new wave of populism, of both the left and right-wing variety, gaining momentum in the West and the global South. I therefore did my Masters thesis on the topic of redistributive populism, a strand of left-wing populism, as well as private property rights. In this piece I will be providing a brief overview of my findings.

Redistributive populism

Expropriation without compensation is a policy rooted in redistributive populism, which unites the people around the central goal of resource redistribution. This approach to populism, which transcends orthodox dividers and unifiers, builds electoral support around issues such as resource redistribution, poverty and inequality. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in South Africa is an example of such a redistributive populist party.

Studying the implementation of redistributive populist policies and their outcomes provides us with a better understanding of what motivates politicians to repeatedly adopt these policies and what outcomes they tend to produce. The key question is: Who will in the end be better served by these policies: the people, or the politicians?

Redistributive populism versus protecting property rights

My thesis addressed the following question: Is redistributive populism a sustainable long-term policy path for economic growth, poverty and inequality reduction, and for democratic consolidation, or is protecting and enforcing property rights a better alternative to achieve these aims? In order to find an answer, I compared four case studies: Venezuela and Zimbabwe, as examples of redistributive populist regimes under which property rights were substantially eroded; and Uruguay and Botswana, as examples where property rights were protected and enforced.

Catherine Boones workon this topic, describes the phenomenon of populist politicians in sub-Saharan Africa frequently utilising land as a powerful electioneering tool, as land-centred electoral populism. Strong state control over land rights and land allocation is used by governments to project their authority and to subjugate local authorities to the central state. This phenomenon appeared in Kenya and Cte dIvoire in the 1990s and in Zimbabwe since 2000.

How redistributive populism destroyed Zimbabwe and Venezuela

In Venezuela and Zimbabwe a decline in support for the incumbent party was the catalyst for increasingly radical redistributive populist platforms. Notably, the same pattern can be observed with the ANC in South Africa. The redistributive populist regimes of Venezuela and Zimbabwe initially, after they came into power, achieved improvements in poverty reduction, specifically through better access to healthcare and education, but these improvements proved to be short-lived as the trends soon stagnated and eventually regressed as a result of the fundamental populist priority of focussing on quick solutions for urgent problems, which prioritise short-term impact.

These radical redistributive populist policies paths entailed a significant erosion of property rights, increased state nationalisation, expropriation, overregulation of the economy, mismanagement and corruption. This created high-risk environments for domestic and foreign investors and produced extended periods of substantial economic contraction, capital flight, dire food and foreign exchange shortages and astronomical hyperinflation.

In Zimbabwe, redistributive populist policies caused the total collapse of a once robust agricultural sector, thereby depriving the economy of its primary source of foreign exchange, significantly increasing unemployment and sending shockwaves through multiple economic sectors.

When the Chvez and Maduro regimes in Venezuela, and the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe, failed to deliver on their populist promises and their economies faltered, their support dwindled further, resulting in a vicious cycle of increased radicalisation of redistributive policies and suppression of the opposition in order to retain power. The cumulative result was deconsolidation of democracy in both countries in the form of a significant decline in support for democracy among the population and the erosion or elimination of liberal democratic institutions.

Protecting property rights bears fruit in Botswana and Uruguay

Uruguay and Botswana, where property rights were protected and enforced, in stark contrast achieved impressive declines in poverty levels with relatively high levels of sustained economic growth. Uruguay boasts the lowest poverty levels in Latin America and a near absence of extreme poverty on a continent plagued by both.

Botswana was one of the worlds most impoverished countries when it gained independence in 1966 and one of the most unlikely to succeed in the coming years. At the time, Botswana only had 12 kilometres of paved roads, no electricity system, no university, two secondary schools offering 5-year courses, 100 people with secondary education, and only 22 Tswana-speaking graduates from South African universities. Against these odds, Botswana became one of Africa and the modern worlds great economic growth and development success stories, boasting one of the highest sustained economic growth rates of all African countries since independence. For context, from 1965 to 2003, the average growth rate of sub-Saharan Africa was negative.

The protection of property rights in Botswana and Uruguay contributed significantly to investor-friendly economies, attracting large amounts of foreign direct investment. Venezuela and Botswana were both rich in a major commodity, but in contrast to Venezuela, where the regime nationalised the oil industry, Botswana negotiated a mutually beneficial deal with the diamond industry on the basis of respecting property rights. The diamond industry thus became the engine of their economy, with the government re-investing the split revenues to the countrys benefit. Uruguay and Botswana created a revenue stream from sustainable economic growth which their governments spent on improving infrastructure, education and healthcare, contributing to a steady decline in poverty.

Uruguay and Botswana are internationally recognised for their strong liberal democratic institutions and stable democratic records, while support for democracy in both is significantly high, as they maintain and even build their level of democratic consolidation. Both countries also demonstrate how the economic growth and consequent poverty reduction which accompany protected property rights, with the vital check on government power it provides, play a key role in nullifying the temptation for redistributive populism.

Conclusion

The cases of Venezuela and Zimbabwe illustrate how populist policies may produce short-term gains but long-term decline in economic growth, poverty reduction and democratic consolidation. Zimbabwes economy, democratic consolidation, poverty and healthcare became worse off than at independence in 1980, while neighbouring Botswana achieved opposite outcomes. Zimbabwe, once globally referred to as the breadbasket of Africa, has transformed into a basket case country by destroying its economy and democracy with redistributive populist policies of power politics.

Uruguay and Botswana demonstrated how protecting and enforcing property rights produce sustainable, long-term economic growth, poverty reduction and democratic stability.

Hopefully these insights can be of value in practical politics, when choices have to be made between these policies to achieve certain goals. In South Africa, where the ruling party is experiencing dwindling support and is proposing redistributive populist policies on property rights, the findings of this thesis can be of great value to caution against going down such a destructive path.

My full thesis,Redistributive Populism Versus Strengthening Property Rights: A Comparative Study Of Venezuela And Zimbabwe, and Uruguay and Botswana, is available athere.

Ernst van Zyl is a Campaign Officer at AfriForum for strategy and content. He co-presents the Podlitiek podcast, hosts the Afrikaans In alle Ernst podcast, and hosts a political commentary and interviewchannel on YouTube. Ernst usually posts on Twitter and YouTube under his pseudonym Conscious Caracal (follow him at@ConCaracal).

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Redistributive populism or strengthening property rights? - OPINION - Politicsweb

Grade-Ruan Parish sits right on the tip of the Lizard peninsula.

Its a stunning place, as remote west Cornwall tends to be, with dead-silent beaches and just a smattering of small villages in its borders.

Like the rest of Cornwall, however, those who are born in this beautiful area are unable to stay there, pushed out by low wages and high house prices.

Read: Cornish housing developer 'moved' by housing crisis says he can solve it with tiny wheeled homes

The lack of social and genuinely affordable housing in Cornwall isnt reaching breaking point - its arguably already there.

Thousands of people are stuck on seemingly endless waiting lists for a home, which get longer each week.

The Covid pandemic continues to make the housing situation in the county worse, locals dont have a lot of options - with house prices and rents rising far higher than any average wage.

As the situation begins to look more and more desperate, solutions ranging from tiny houses mounted on caravan trailers to moving out of Cornwall have been offered.

Decades ago, social housing was seen as the solution to any comparable housing crisis, with thousands upon thousands of homes built after the Second World War ravaged peoples places of residence.

These traditional council houses, owned by a local authority, protected from the open market and rented to those in need, are all but gone now, with housing stocks stripped away by right to buy schemes.

However, several groups - land trusts - have begun to try and recreate the legacy of the council house, and hope to stymie the tide of a rapidly worsening housing situation.

Cornwall Community Land Trust, based in Penzance, at first glance seems simply like a housing association.

However, Andrew George, former Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives and current Cornwall Councillor for Ludgvan, Madron, Gulval and Heamoor, says the trust is the countys best chance at genuinely tackling the housing crisis.

The trust, Cllr Andrew explained, is approached by villages, or towns, who explain what their needs are.

Once a suitable piece of land is found, builders, labourers and all the legal people are summoned and paid for by the council and grant-funded trust.

The houses are built, after which the trust does something council and housing association homes do not always do.

All land trust homes are, by law, protected in perpetuity, Andrew said, They are locked.

The rentals are let for an amount which can be afforded by housing allowance, and the bought houses go for a fraction of market price.

The aim is 30-33 per cent of the houses market value. But, as Andrew explained, market value is leaping up far quicker than the cost of building a house.

Crucially, the sold houses then cannot be sold on the open market. Unlike traditional council houses which, once bought, can then be resold in any way the occupant likes.

A legal covenant means these houses remain social after they are taken on by a local family in need.

And the people who live in the houses must show their local claim and their need, he added.

The professionals are paid properly, but the developers arent filling their boots. Some people make some rather eye watering profits, where locals are struggling.

Back to Grade-Ruan - the most recent recipient of help from Cornwall Community Land Trust - the need was rented homes.

Grade-Ruan wanted rented houses, Andrew said, So we have supplied them with six 2-3 bedroom rented homes.

We supplied them with two-three bedroom rented homes. To get around bedroom tax, theyre sort of 1.5 bedrooms, it keeps the price down for the people there.

Andrew, during his time in office as an MP, was a staunch opponent of bedroom tax.

He continued: Theres also a study room, which allows flexibility.

All of the homes adhere to the space standard which the council has adopted for homes.

The trust has been most potent in areas like Grade-Ruan, Rock, and the Roseland.

If we can get any additional subsidy to bring the cost down we will, Andrew said.

Fundamentally, its set on what the salaries on the area can afford, not on what the market price is.

Our project up at Rock, you can imagine the house prices up there at the moment.

Its areas like Rock, where second home owners demolish cottages and turn them into mansions, which need this.

Another recent one, near St Mawes, saw locals buy heavily discounted houses, in stark contrast to the almost exclusively more than 500,000 homes on the market in that area.

Andrew admitted that he was cynical of the land trust model at first, and assumed they were just like any other scheme - and worried it wouldnt work.

He said: Im converted to it, I wouldnt do this job if I didnt think it was worthwhile.

Im really blessed to have a fantastic team of committed and professional people. The Ruan Minor scheme - were deliriously happy about it.

Six happy families who are much more happily housed than in the caravans or insecure places they were living before.

Were trying to scale up, and have planning applications in for more of the schemes.

Because of the housing emergency, more people are coming to us and asking for help.

Land trusts, then, arent a quick fix - but theyre potentially a step in the direction of bringing reviving an almost non-existent tradition of proper social housing, in a county which is in dire need of it.

You can stay up-to-date on the top news near you with CornwallLive's FREE newsletters find out more about our range of daily and weekly bulletins and sign up here or enter your email address at the top of the page.

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Group promises new Cornwall homes for locals in need for third of their value - Cornwall Live

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 2,166, October 3, 2021

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Jerusalem Declaration onAntisemitism (JDA), presented in March 2021, was created to replace the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism, which had been adopted by 35 countries by 2020. The writers of the JDA wished to clarify the IHRA, which they feel is insufficiently obsequious to the Palestinians. Their real object is to use the fight against antisemitism as another weapon with which to vilify Israel.

The Jerusalem Declaration of Antisemitism (JDA) is the productof a group of international scholars of antisemitism and related fields who have been meeting since June 2020 in a series of online workshops convened by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. Essentially, the new document charges the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism with blurring the difference between antisemitic speech and legitimate criticism of Israel and Zionism. As a result, the IHRA definition delegitimiz[es] the voices of Palestinians and others, including Jews, who hold views that are sharply critical of Israel and Zionism.

The JDA was purportedly written as a resource for strengthening the fight against antisemitism, because there is a widely felt need for clarity on the limits of legitimate political speech and action concerning Zionism, Israel, and Palestine. The JDA is presented as the alternative, a corrective to overcome the shortcomings of the IHRA definition.

Nowhere in the IHRA definition are Palestinians mentioned; nor does it mention BDS. There are, however, three clauses that can be construed as applying to the actions of Palestinians and pro-Palestinian activists. These are:

Pro-Palestinian activists and anti-Israel groups have long complained about the IHRA definition because, in the grip of their fixation on Israel as fundamentally illegitimate and their flat denial of the Jews right to self-determination, they reject the premise that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.

It should be noted that some of the authors of the new document are radical academic activists, including Israelis and non-Israeli Jews. Among them are Richard Falk, Neve Gordon, Anat Matar, David Feldman, Chaim Gans, Snait Gissis, Amos Goldberg, Avishai Margalit, Hagar Kotef, David Shulman, Dmitry Shumsky, Yair Wallach, Moshe Zimmermann, Moshe Zuckermann, Gadi Algazi, Seth Anziska, Bernard Avishai, Peter Beinart, Louise Bethlehem, Daniel Blatman, Daniel Boyarin, Jose Brunner, Naomi Chazan, Alon Confino, Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, and David Enoch.Some of them have also called for the boycott of Israel. Recruiting Israelis and Jews to deflect accusations of antisemitism is a longstanding practice in anti-Israel and antisemitic circles.

As for its content, the JDA is essentially a wholesale denunciation of the IHRA definition. Some points stand out. The declaration accuses the IHRA definition of malpractice because it considers criticism of Israel antisemitic. However, the IHRA definition clearly states, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic. The JDA suggests that Institutions that have already adopted the IHRA Definition can use our text as a tool for interpreting it. It doesnt explain why an institution that had adopted the IHRA definition should wish to adopt the JDA version, which opposes it.

The JDA makes its political agenda clear by declaring its support for the Palestinian demand for justice and the full grant of their political, national, civil and human rights, as encapsulated in international law. Similarly, the JDA wishes to support arrangements that accord full equality to all inhabitants between the river and the sea, whether in two states, a binational state, unitary democratic state, federal state, or in whatever form.

What the JDA fails to mention is that in Palestinian parlance, the demand for justice and the full grant of their political, national, civil and human rights is a euphemism for the destruction of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state on its ruins. Similarly, the Palestinian demand for a binational state or a unitary democratic state has been used by the PLO since the late 1960s as code for the transformation of Israel into an Arab state in which Jews are reduced to a permanent minority living on the sufferance of the Muslim majority, a status known in Islamic history as Dhimmis. In the words of Edward Said: [T]he Jews are a minority everywhere. A Jewish minority can survive [in Arab Palestine] the way other minorities in the Arab world survived.

As for dismantling the occupation, this was effectively ended in January 1996 when Israel relinquished control of 95% of the West Banks Palestinian population in line with the Oslo Accords (control of Gazas Palestinian population had been transferred to the newlyestablished Palestinian Authority (PA) in May 1994).

The key problem with the JDA is the claim that Criticizing or opposing Zionism as a form of nationalism is not antisemitic. It betrays its bias by failing to reject any form of nationalism other than the Jewish one. Needless to say, such a discriminatory denial of this basic right to only one nation (and one of the few that can trace its corporate identity and territorial attachment to antiquity) while allowing it to all other groups and communities, however new and tenuous their claim to nationhood, is pure and unadulterated racism.

No less disingenuous is the JDAs claim that it is not antisemitic to compare Israel with other historical cases, including settler-colonialism or apartheidanother attempt to discredit Israels right to exist on account of its alleged dispossession of the (supposedly) indigenous population. Apart from failing to indict any other manifestation of settler-colonialism (from the US, Canada, Australia, to most of Latin America, to earlier manifestations of this phenomenon in Europe and the Middle East), this claim ignores the fundamental fact that the Jews are not colonial settlers but rather the indigenous inhabitants of the Land of Israel (renamed Syria Palaestina by the Roman occupiers). This millenarian attachment was specifically emphasized by the 1922 League of Nations mandate, which tasked Britain with establishing a Jewish national home in Palestine.

If anything, it is the long string of Muslim occupiers of the Land of Israel (or parts of it)from the 7thcentury Arab invaders, to the Seljuk Turks, to the Mamluks, to the Ottoman Turks, to the Egyptians, Jordanians, and newlyformed Palestiniansthat can be defined as colonial settlers.

As with the settler colonist slander, the apartheid canard is not only false but the complete inverse of the truth. Whether in its South African form or elsewhere, such as the US South until the late 1960s, apartheid was a comprehensive and discriminatory system of racial segregation, on the basis of ethnicity, comprising all walks of lifefrom schooling, to public transportation, to social activities and services, to medical care. None of this has ever been applied in Israel, where the Arab minority has enjoyed full equality before the law and has been endowed with the full spectrum of democratic rightsincluding the right to vote for and serve in all state institutions. (From the first, Arabs have been members of the Knesset.) From the designation of Arabic as an official language, to the recognition of non-Jewish religious holidays as legal rest days for their respective communities, to the granting of educational, cultural, judicial, and religious autonomy, Arabs in Israel may well enjoy more formal prerogatives than ethnic minorities anywhere in the democratic world. This is at a time when apartheid has been an integral part of the Middle East for over a millennium, and its Arab and Muslim nations continue to legally, politically, and socially enforce this discriminatory practice against their own minorities.

The JDA argues that calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions are commonplace, non-violent forms of political protest against states. In the Israeli case they are not, in and of themselves, antisemitic, but it does not call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against any other nation except Israel. Quite clearly, the document is intended to legitimize the anti-Zionist boycott movement against Israel.

Ironically, after the JDAs writers bent over backward to appease the Palestinians, a leading Palestinian group rejected the JDA. According to the Palestinian BDS National Committee, the highest authority on BDS, there are inherent flawsin the document, such as the following:

Aljazeera, the Qatari media outlet, which favors the Palestinians, published a negative article about the JDA, calling it an orientalist text. Mark Muhannad Ayyash, an associate professor of sociology at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Canada, authored the piece. He says the core problem with both the IHRA and the JDA definitions of antisemitism is their failure to address the silencing and erasure of Palestine and Palestinians. He argues that by proclaiming that the Jews have a right to their own state, it obscures the fact that this state was established on a land that was already inhabited by Palestinians.

Ayyash goes on to say that like the IHRA definition, the JDA sets out to determine which kinds of anti-Zionist critiques and views constitute antisemitism, and which do not. But like all liberal documents that have been produced in the thick of a colonial or settler-colonial moment, this document keeps intact the colonial contract whereby the colonial masters retain the position of privilege and supremacy in voice and status over the colonized. Ayyash calls the JDA an orientalist text because it does not oppose the core problem of the IHRA definition: the silencing and erasure of Palestine and Palestinians.

Ayyash considers the JDA an example of covert orientalism because hostility to Israel could be an expression of an antisemitic animus, or it could be a reaction to a human rights violation, or it could bethe emotionthat a Palestinian person feels on account oftheir experience at the hands of the State. Therefore, the JDA, in supposed opposition to the IHRA definitions anti-Zionism is antisemitism premise, tells its audiencethe Euro-American worldthat even the Palestinians, whom Ayyash apparently believes should be absolved of such attentions, should be policed for possible antisemitism.Because the Palestinians are so reactionary, emotional, and hostile, they are a source of statements and campaigns that Euro-Americans should tolerate but also remain vigilant against.

According to Ayyash, the JDA dares to question the reasonableness and lack thereof of Palestinians, and that very assessment is presumptuous and Orientalist. His concern is that according to the JDA, any Palestinian who question[s] the validity of the idea of a Jewish State for a Jewish majority could be characterized as at best unreasonable and at worst antisemitic. This is Orientalism at its best, Ayyash concludes.

The JDA tried to appease the Palestinians by asserting that anti-Zionism is not antisemitic. But for the Palestinians, this is splitting hairs. In their view, both the IHRA and the JDA are inherently flawed because they accept the basic premise that Jews have a right to a Jewish State. The Palestinians flatly reject the Jewish right to self-determination in any form. No matter how the pro-Palestinian writers of the JDA might want to spin it, that view is fundamentally antisemitic.

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Dr. Dana Barnett is a Research Associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

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The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism Is Itself Antisemitic - besacenter.org

If Scott Morrison doesn't go to the Glasgow climate conference, "his absence will send a pretty strong message about his priorities", Malcolm Turnbull said during his general excoriation of the Prime Minister this week.

Absolutely it will. And Morrison's priorities are clear. At the top of the list is political survival at next year's election. Whether his political career lives or dies at that election will depend, in good part, on how he manages the issues of COVID and climate in the coming weeks and months.

The course of COVID from now on is unpredictable. Despite general excitement at the prospect of restrictions lifting or easing in NSW and Victoria, what happens then is highly uncertain, at least for the short term.

A fresh complication has come in the form of Friday's shock resignation of NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, amid an ICAC investigation arising from her relationship with disgraced former MP Daryl Maguire.

Morrison might be PM, but COVID management is always only partly in his hands (except the vaccine rollout, and we know the story there). The premiers will continue to flex their muscles.

Nor is climate policy, even at the federal level, under Morrison's full control. He is determined to land that 2050 net zero target for Glasgow, but can't do it without the Nationals signing up.

We're being reminded how differently the Nationals operate from Morrison's preferred way of doing things. The PM likes secrecy, strict adherence to talking points, then everything being put in place before the curtain is pulled aside to reveal an outcome trumpeted as ground-breaking. When it comes, the climate package will have plenty of tinsel.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison addresses the UN General Assembly via prerecorded video on September 24. Picture: Getty Images

In contrast, the Nationals, as the minor partner in the Coalition, reckon they have to play loud and rough to get what they want. Also, these days the party has a fair sprinkling of bomb-throwers in its ranks who do what they like.

McKenzie wrote: "It is easy for the member for Kooyong [Frydenberg] or the member for Wentworth [Dave Sharma] to publicly embrace net zero before the government has a position, because there would be next to zero real impact on the way of life of their affluent constituents."

It is said by insiders that McKenzie was helping Joyce by making it clear the Nats can't be taken for granted, although the impression to the casual observer was she added to the chaos.

The mood of Morrison, locked in The Lodge in quarantine, must be mixed. He's buoyed by his US trip, with its AUKUS agreement and the promise of nuclear-powered submarines, even if by their delivery time he'll be in his 70s (perhaps critiquing his successors, as has become the ex-prime ministerial fashion). But he must also be frustrated that the policy and political difficulties of reaching a climate agreement within the Coalition make the road to AUKUS start to look like a walk in the park.

Nevertheless, Liberal backbenchers who'd sought a virtual meeting with Morrison to put their views ahead of Glasgow were reassured by his feedback, including his indication he'd found his discussions with Joyce constructive.

It's not just Glasgow and pressure from Joe Biden and Boris Johnson that's making it imperative for Morrison to secure agreement on 2050. A number of Liberals in safe seats will face well-organised and cashed-up challenges from independent candidates campaigning on climate change. Climate 200's Simon Holmes Court says there's already more than $1.5 million in the kitty.

The independents will also be preoccupied with another issue that's a weak point for Morrison - integrity. The rorting (sports grants, car parks) is a touchy point with voters, tapping into their distrust of politicians, and the government still has not set up an integrity commission (it has promised to introduce legislation before Christmas).

It's very hard for independents to win seats in the House of Representatives, given the electoral system. Recently their chances have been best where the incumbent has been weakened (this helped deliver victories in Indi, Mayo and Warringah), or has departed (Wentworth after Turnbull resigned, although the seat is now back in Liberal hands).

So no one should anticipate an influx of new independents next year. But the possibility of even one managing to get through, adding to the several expected to be re-elected, would concern Morrison. Especially if the election happened to produce a hung parliament.

Whatever Morrison announces on climate is unlikely to be enough because, even with a firm 2050 target and something for the medium term, the government can expect to be widely criticised for failing to have sufficient medium-term ambition.

Morrison raised the prospect of not attending the Glasgow summit in an interview with The West Australian while he was abroad, saying he hadn't finally decided: "It's another trip overseas ... and I've spent a lot of time in quarantine."

While there would be much criticism of his failure to be at Glasgow, the hard-headed counterargument would be that leaving the country during a time of high COVID uncertainty could backfire.

Unlike the US trip, Morrison would get no plaudits at Glasgow. He'd be seen, as best, as the underperformer who, facing enormous pressure, had lifted his game to a greater or lesser degree.

Morrison's absence from Glasgow would give his opponents, and those independent candidates, ammunition. The more substantial issue, however, is the quality of the policy he unveils on home soil before the summit.

Beyond that, whether he travels can reasonably be left to a judgment on how the COVID situation is looking, although one cynic suggests he might have been wiser to stay silent on the possibility of cancelling until a decision had to be finalised.

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To go or not to go: Morrison grapples with Glasgow - Northern Beaches Review