IN the late 19th century German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck brusquely remarked that the Balkans, always a rough neighbourhood, ‘were not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.” Every national leader grapples with difficult decisions as to the best application of limited resources to unlimited foreign ambitions. So how many Western lives is Iraq worth?

In the grand scheme of what passes for strategic thinking inside the Bush administration, a few hundred — even a few thousand — sacrificed servicemen are a trifle compared to the ecstasies of toppling Saddam, seizing control of Iraqi energy and rigging the Middle East game board to favour Israeli right wing zealots.

The looming threat for Bush and Blair today is not Al Qaeda marauders but the fact that their own citizenries do not value gains and losses in the same way as the elites do. That is why policy makers conceal the seamy purposes of their actions, or coat them in sticky moral rhetoric. What irks Bush today is that he never before was forced to face a genuinely difficult choice. Instead of displaying shrewd guidance, he resorted after 9/11 to crowd-pleasing jingoistic gestures, which are not working anymore. Bush followed to the letter a megalomaniacal programme devised in the ultra-right think tank, Project for a New American Century, to achieve “full spectrum dominance” for generations to come.

The PNAC scheme anticipated that in the wake of a Pearl Harbour style attack, which Al Qaeda so obligingly provided, that frightened Americans would pony up recruits and money for a perpetual Orwellian military campaigns against any imagined foe. However, the American public is awakening to the cold fact that they were deceived as to the motives for a bloody and costly occupation. The British public, with a broader range of political sources available, was always way ahead of the media-manipulated Americans.

In London, while Bush was curtsying to a perfectly polite Queen, several hundred thousand marchers assembled in Trafalgar Square for the largest working day demonstration in British history. (Police estimated over 100,000 while organizers claimed 350 thousand; splitting the difference is usually close to the truth.) Stressing the anti-Bush, rather than Anti-American, sentiment animating the massive protest, Vietnam veteran and anti-war activist Ron Kovic, whose gripping life story was told in Oliver Stone’s 1989 movie Born on The Fourth of July, was wheeled out to assure the multitudes that “you are the ones who really care about my country” and that “millions of Americans are standing with you today.” The tiresome charge of anti-Americanism always figures as a convenient mantra for pro-war commentators anxious to discredit the case against the invasion and the occupation.

Kovic counted down as a huge garish Bush statue, resembling a wrinkled Oscar statuette with a tiny mandolin in its hands (supposedly a missile), was ceremonially toppled below Nelson’s column. Jeremy Corbyn, a rebel Labour MP, told the crowd that Blair was as much a target as Bush. Both had to go. Yet the Trafalgar protesters taunted men who probably heard and heeded nothing of what they had to say.

A speaker impishly claimed “We have [Bush] under house arrest in Buckingham palace,” which would be true had Bush shown an inclination to depart from his highly protective schedule. Bush was whisked from one posh spot to another in a gleaming black bulletproof limo.

Another speaker delightedly informed the Trafalgar crowd that Bush’s planned stop at a village Church the next day was cancelled because the bulletproof car was too damned heavy to cross a local bridge. So the whole stage-managed spectacle of Bush’s state visit conjured Vietnam war days when the only public venues Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon could visit without fear of vehement protests were military academies and Christian fundamentalist colleges (in effect, American madressahs). Bush saw what he chose to see, and, if that pattern continues, it will be his downfall. Leaders are elected to face reality, not be shielded from it.

When a Machiavellian investment of blood and treasure becomes distressingly disproportionate to what one hopes to gain, the best thing is to fold your cards, cut and run, or seek, in the notorious Nixon “peace with honour.”

The true believers in Bush’s administration (Wolfowitz, Perle, Bolton, Cheney and other) won’t concede their original plans of conquest easily but there are signs that Bush is prowling around for a palatable compromise to extract US troops.

The solution is somehow to install an administration of local dignitaries who covertly will do Yank bidding. But the independent images such a governing body needs to be credible may really put it beyond American control. Still, the spectre of bloody body bags is haunting Bush. The phony tale that the Pentagon dreamed up about the “rescue of Jessica Lynch” is exposed as an embarrassment. The ballyhooed economic recovery under way in the US is generating far fewer jobs than expected. Bush has cause to be nervous.

The London visit was a boon to the anti-war/occupation movement, but Bush (and to some extent, Blair) can rely on favourable depictions in a self-censoring pseudo-patriotic press — for what is patriotic about a media that relay lies without any challenge? Television reports even in Britain downplayed the Trafalgar rally. The preferred media images are those crafted to show Blair and Bush side by side standing tall — with Britain treated thrillingly as a major power, if only as a matter of courtesy.

Yet Bush is grateful for the legitimacy that Tony Blair’s approval conferred on the Iraq war, which is not to say the US would not have gone to war anyway.

The American military reportedly were puzzled at the time about what to do with what they viewed as surplus British forces. (And anyone who believes the tales of British soldiers’ superior manners in Iraq really ought to have a chat with a Catholic in Northern Ireland sometime.)

America, once a colony itself, drove out the British in 1783 (with indispensable French aid) and established a republic. In the 20th century the British desperately sought American aid in two world wars. America helped, but in a cunning way that suited its own geopolitical interests. US diplomats behaved as ruthlessly as the British would if positions had been reversed. Presidents Woodrow Wilson and, later, Franklin Delano Roosevelt knew very well the US stood to be the chief beneficiary of the demise of the teetering European Empires.

After the Second World War Churchill, leader of a worn-out nation, reluctantly requested in his famous speech at Fulton, Missouri that the US assume leadership of the so-called free world. Since then British played the faithful side-kick role, even if forever chafing at it or grumbling about it. Margaret Thatcher showed undeniable spirit when she denounced the US invasion of tiny Grenada despite Ronald Reagan helping her in the Falklands conflict. (The British upper crust never ever lost the consoling conceit that they are intellectually superior to their rough-hewn American cousins.)

Labour Party prime minister Harold Wilson supported Americans during the Vietnam War, but withheld the British regiment that LBJ badly wanted in Vietnam to justify that ghastly venture. Wilson declined the obsequious role that Blair has filled with alacrity since 9/11.

Blair misled the parliament and public, and harassed the press to support every whim of an incorrigibly unilateralist American administration. Blair, who justified himself as a moderating influence on Bush, got nothing visible in exchange for his dogged support. Can public protests gain concessions that Blair was unable or unwilling to gain? Hard-pressed politicians always pretend to ignore mass popular protests.

In part, they hope to discourage dissenters by making them feel futile, but in private they usually take heed of strong public feelings. Bush desperately wants to be re-elected, and not repeat his father’s ignominious end as a one-term president. Bush may yet find a formula in Iraq to satisfy his own fanatical acolytes while at the same time extricating the US sufficiently from harm’s way to reassure voters. But don’t bet on it.

Does this royal visit matter in the US as a selling point in an election year? Do Americans really care if the British legitimize Bush? One suspects that the kudos Bush hoped to gain from the visit are overrated. And he certainly learned nothing during his London trek.

The dreadful Istanbul bombing, instead of stirring reappraisal of the ill-thought Iraq invasion, was an occasion for the same sad refrain of pursuing wicked terrorists relentlessly, no matter how many more terrorist recruits are generated in doing so.

The official British visit, in fact, was redolent of haughty privilege, of snooty distance from the unsightly masses. The only genuine surprise was that the Bush and Blair entourages weren’t toting snuff boxes and wearing powdered wigs.

“We inherited from the British era a well-established administration, running with a smoothness, almost approaching perfection.” These words were uttered on December 11, 1985, by the then chief justice of Pakistan, Mr Alvin Robert Cornelius — a respected member of the Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP), a distinguished jurist and a known critic of the Civil Service of Pakistan to which he belonged — in his address at the Pakistan Administrative Staff College, Lahore.

The administration which Mr Cornelius so fondly talked about was created and sustained by the British on a carefully-conceived three-tier package of “salary, status and security”. In our post-independence euphoria, we derided everything associated with the Anglo-Saxons as colonial.

We condemned the Anglo-Saxon parliamentary form of democracy and tried, for years, the “basic” and the not-so-basic forms of democracy till we finally discovered that it was the Anglo-Saxon model which suited us the most and which we were experimenting half-heartedly till yesterday. We condemned the Anglo-Saxon concept of justice and their legal codes and procedures and experimented with the other substantive and procedural laws with results which are before us.

We eulogized what we called the development model of administration and condemned the Anglo-Saxon model of the law and order administration with such force, ferocity and frequency that our administration is today almost on the verge of collapse in our most prestigious and populous urban centres as well as in towns and hamlets.

We have belatedly realized that there can be no development without an order based on civilized law. In the same fury against the Anglo-Saxon legacy, we stripped the government service of its well-established service traditions as well as working conditions. Of the “three-tier package”, we first chipped off the salaries; then reduced the status; and finally did away with the security of the service of the public servants.

The results, as expected, were: low morale and pitiable efficiency.

A government employee in a Third World country has been, is, and will continue to remain a rare commodity in the economic sense. He is also an expensive commodity because the state and society spend their extremely scarce resources on his education, training and experience. This expenditure is not in thousands but in millions of rupees.

If a government servant happens to be professionally sound, fearless and upright, he becomes a rare commodity. Both his cost and his value to society are very high. It may not be in the interests of a government to retain him in service; but it is certainly in the interests of the state and society not only to retain him but also to honour him and to make optimal use of his services, if only for purely economic reasons.

The governments change but the state endures. The interests of a government may not always coincide with the interests of the state. A government servant should, therefore, have the constitutional protection to act not only as a servant of a government but also as the servant of the state.

The orders given by a government to its employee, specially in the Third World countries, may not always be in accordance with the letter and spirit of the law and/or of the subordinate legislation. Such illegal orders may even be on record. Again the same question arises. Should a government servant carry out all orders which are given to him in writing, just because these orders are on record? Is it ethical? Is it even legal?

We have, on the international plane, the well-known example of the Nuremberg trials and, on the domestic scene, of the trial of the Nawab Muhammad Khan murder case. In both cases, the public servants took the plea of acting on the orders of their superiors. In both cases, their pleas were rejected rightly by the highest judicial authorities. In both the cases, these public servants were ordered to be hanged.

It is, therefore, a settled principle of both national and international law that the plea of the compliance of orders of his superiors taken by a public servant in his defence is an insufficient defence for him in the eyes of national and international law, and the public servant may even have to pay for it with his life.

The dilemma: what should a government servant do in such cases?

A government servant has, at least, three options in such cases. Firstly, he may continue to serve submissively and nervously. This is the fate to which most are condemned. Secondly, he may call it a day and quit quietly. This option is the lot of a few. Thirdly, he may put up a fight valiantly. This is the privilege of very few only. The easiest option is to continue to serve. It is easier to continue to serve, albeit, nervously than to quit quietly; and it is far easier to quit than to fight.

To die for a cause may confer glory on the martyr but may not necessarily promote the cause. It may even damage the cause. To live for a just cause may not necessarily confer glory on the survivor but may achieve the desired results. Government service is not meant to wage fights against one’s superiors in service. It is indeed against the very ethos of the government service to take up arms against one’s superiors. When a government servant chooses to put up a fight, even though the fight may be against the acts of corruption or against the patent wrongdoings or the unethical orders of his erring superiors, or against the injustices of the faceless system of which he is but a small part.

He is a condemned outcast, a rebel who has dared wage a war against his king and is, therefore, doomed. He is lucky if he survives. He is extremely lucky if he is able to quit with honour.

However, in the 21st century, a society which wants honourable men and women to enter into, and continue in, public service must provide a legal framework, fortified by constitutional safeguards, where such persons — very few, though they were, are, and will always be — are enabled to put up, at least, a modest legal fight against the illegal directives or immoral actions of their superiors, before such mavericks finally fade away from the government service.

A state which denies basic respect, basic amenities and basic legal safeguards to its employees ultimately sees the degeneration of the public service and the public services to a state which many of us are witnessing around us today — helplessly.

Executive is one of the main pillars of a modern state, and the government servants are its arms, feet, eyes and ears.the This pillar has been badly shaken deep down to its very foundations by a series of severe earthquakes which have measured more than 10 on the Richter scale. A lot has to be done by everyone of us who cares for this country to repair this damage, before the damage gets beyond repair.

The easiest, the cheapest, the quickest and the most effective line of action is crystal clear. Paradoxical though it may seem and sound, the only way to advance on this front is to retreat. In order to progress, we must regress in time. If we cannot go forward, let us, at least, go back to where we stood, over half a century ago, on that glorious morning of August 14, 1947.

The writer is a former additional secretary of Pakistan.

“MAKING the global economy work for all” is the goal of the IMF according to its annual report for 2003. And “making the services work for poor people” is the goal of the World Bank, according to its World Development Report — 2004. These are very appealing slogans of these international financial institutions, but making them a reality is an altogether different challenge.

Globally these international institutions have a limited role to play in the world economy, but even if they are earnest and can sweep off the road blocks that stand in their way, the willingness of the aid-receiving countries to pursue such lofty goals is a major issue.

Meeting the demands of the privileged and powerful in such countries has a far higher priority. After meeting their demands, which may include accommodating too many ministers in the federal and provincial cabinets, too little of a country’s resources may be left for the poor.

In the developing countries even if the poor are large in number, and they may each have a vote, and the presence of women in the assemblies is large, the problems of the poor have a low priority. In such a context making the global economy work for all or the services work for the poor is too tough a task. Achieving more for the poor in reality demands a prolonged and arduous struggle. Yet that struggle has to be waged not only to get more of the resources of the state allocated for the poor but also to ensure that the financial allocation and the facilities earmarked for them are properly and fully utilized.

Proful C. Patel, vice-president of the World Bank for South Asia, says “service reforms that put the poor people at the centre will quicken progress towards the UN millennium development goals. Among the millennial goals, the first is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, and halving the proportion of people living on less than one dollar a day by 2015 and halving the proportion of people suffering from hunger by 2015 and achieving universal primary education. Another major goal is to promote gender equality and empower women.”

These goals cannot be achieved without tremendous global effort and active cooperation of the major groups within each country. But while the awareness of the need for such cooperation is gradually increasing, there is no determined movement in that direction, if judged by the manner the women are treated in Pakistan or for that matter in the subcontinent, excluding the privileged.

The world is now preoccupied with issues relating to globalization. In each country, a major concern is privatization; what to privatize and what not, and how to privatize and make the privatized institutions serve the people? Is privatizing the services good for the poor in the countries where the demands of the rich have top priority, and the needs of the people are usually neglected and where corruption and misgovernance are too common, along with crimes to achieve the purpose of the rich and the powerful?

Mr Patel says: “The services are failing the poor people because poor people have little say in how the key services are provided. As patients in clinics, students in schools, travellers in buses, and consumers of water, poor people are clients. They have a relationship with school teachers, doctors, bus drivers and water companies who are their frontline providers.

“Poor people have a relationship when they buy something in the market. In a market transaction they get the service because they pay the provider directly. If they are unhappy they can refuse to do business with him or her again.” That is not the case with services like education or health service when you do not pay cash.

The World Bank now has expanded the list of key services to include water, sanitation, energy, transport, health care and education. It is an ever expanding list with new services and facilities coming into the market. The question is: how does the poor consumer who pays for what he gets or does not get a fair deal? How does he get the water for which he pays or the electricity for which he is billed heavily? How does he prevent the steady deterioration of the bus service or public hospitals?

The World Bank says making the various services work, deliver and satisfy the people is the responsibility of the government. It may not directly manage all these institutions but regulate them. But it must make sure such institutions work properly and fulfil their purpose.

In the chapter on why the government should make the services work, the Bank says economic growth, though essential, is not enough. More public spending alone is not enough, Technical adjustments without changes in incentives are not enough. Far more important is understanding what works, and why to improve the services. The report holds Kerala in India as a success story and the Uttar Pradesh as a failure. Kerala succeeded primarily because of its literacy rate which rose above 90 per cent from 50 per cent in the 1950s and the political agitation for the betterment of the common man.

Clearly, the World Bank has brought a pragmatic approach to the problem of making the services work for the people, particularly the poor, not a uniform or doctrinaire approach. It wants each government to know what works and why, and adapt it to the local needs.

The bank has come up with several examples of how the rich in the developing countries have grabbed the share of the poor for their comfort. It talks of Uganda in the early 1990s when only 13 per cent of the non-salary spending on primary education actually reached the primary schools. The rest was diverted or stolen. In such instance even increasing the education budget is not enough. More of that will go to serve the wrong people. In Guinea 48 per cent of the health budget goes to the rich and only eight per cent to the poor.

Outraged Ugandan newspapers protested against the nominal spending on primary education and demanded that the school budget be pasted on the front gate of each school with the staff enrolled listed. That raised the share of the non-salary budget going to primary schools to 80 per cent. I once went into a school in Hala built in 1926 with large granite blocks. It had five classes and five teachers. But three of the teachers — the senior ones — were absent and were said to be in Karachi. The students of class one and two were in the same class and the students of the third, fourth and fifth classes were in the second class. The third room of the school had old broken furniture unfit for use. What kind of education could be imparted in such a school in which the students of three classes are accommodated in one class and three teachers are absent?

When it comes to the services for the people in Pakistan the poor have Hobson’s choice. The government-run schools have invariably poor standards. And private schools are very expensive and seldom located in rural areas. Buses run by the government have very poor standard while those managed by private owners are too expensive and rashly driven. When it comes to public hospitals the doctors are seldom present and medicines are scarcely available there, and private clinics are expensive.

How do we create a healthy society with such schools, hospitals and public transport when there is competition in education, health services or public transport? The competition which has done good to the people is in the telephones and in cable TV. That has made the telephone services cheap and given us a variety of TV channels instead of confining us to PTV with its inhibitions.

Now in a country marked for its high commercial profits and capitalism without real competition because of the tendency to form cartels or mutual price-fixing, how do we have privatization without excessive greed? And how do we have state monopolies without excessive corruption, incompetence and misgovernance for which the public sector has become notorious?

Some say that devolution and vigilance in public institutions at the grassroots level may be a solution of misgovernance and corruption. But devolution has not proved to be a success in these areas so far. In a society in which the top people want to show off their power and wealth regardless of how they were obtained, others too will follow them and exhibit their wealth and success. If the top people have too many plots of land those below them will do likewise and claim their wealth as a symbol of their success.

When there is shortage of water those in office get that first. Others with money buy it quickly. And the poor have to struggle for their bucketful of water or fight for it. When there is shortage of power, it is not cut off during load-shedding readily in areas where the senior officials reside. And the government provides senior officials with powerful generators.

The drainage functions better in the localities where the officials live and sanitary conditions in that area are far better than in others. In theory if the people use their votes better and select the right people the problems of the poor can be taken care of. In practice those who are elected tend to look after themselves and their party leaders. Service to the voters is done more through lip service than in practical terms as we have seen in Karachi.

Where the feudal lords and tribal chiefs rule, the options for the masses are fewer as they do not have a choice of leaders. And in an over-populated country with extensive poverty the ability of the leaders to meet the needs of the people is even smaller. There is too little to give and there are too many to claim.

BRITAIN’s Guardian newspaper recently featured an article about the so-called ‘new anti-Semitism’. The headline asked: ‘Is Europe in the grip of worst bout of hatred since the Holocaust?’ The article went on to describe of the fears of European Jews that the continent could be in the middle of a new and virulent wave of anti-Semitism, the worst since World War II.

Plenty of evidence was cited to back their claims. Desecration of Jewish cemeteries in England and Germany; an arson attack on a Jewish school in Paris and the ransacking of a synagogue at Saint-Denis; an attempted bomb attack on a synagogue in Belgium; vandalism of wreaths at a Jewish German memorial; the beating up of a rabbi in Austria. Fresh in the mind is the latest and bloodiest attack: the suicide bombing of two synagogues in Istanbul.

These physical, violent manifestations were backed by examples of verbal assaults. Claims by a German MP that the Jews had played a role in the atrocities of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution; the endorsement of those claims by Germany’s head of Special Forces; comments by a Greek composer that the Jews are at the root of all evil. Then there was the shock result of a survey of the Europeans asking them who they saw as the greatest threat to world peace? The majority answer was ‘Israel’.

Israeli Jews have joined the Jewish groups in Europe in condemning what they see as this new wave of anti-Semitism. While some ascribe it to Europe’s latent and ‘fundamental’ hatred of the Jews, others blame the Muslims in Europe for inciting these feelings. Ariel Sharon told a European interviewer: ‘Of course, the sheer fact that there are a huge amount of Muslims, approximately 70 million in the EU, this issue has also turned into a political matter.’

The Israelis go further and attribute criticism of their state and its policies towards the Palestinians to anti-Semitism. Ariel Sharon again: ‘These days to conduct an anti-Semite policy is not a popular thing, so the anti-Semites bundle their policies in with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.’ The Jewish academics echo their prime minister, arguing that the banner of human rights used by the critics of Israel is simply a front from behind which the Jews can be attacked.

The controversy raging in Europe over anti-Jewish attacks is more complex than it first appears. For it encompasses many other quite distinct issues: the Holocaust, contemporary German feelings about the war; Israel, its policies and its position in the international community; Muslims’ attitudes towards their Jewish brethren, and so on. What the controversy in Europe most highlights is the desperate need for proper perspective on these issues.

Start with the Holocaust. The first point to make is that the Jews suffered terribly in this. Historians can disagree about the precise number of concentration camp victims, but no one can dispute the fact that the total runs into millions. The Holocaust was motivated by the worst form of anti-Semitism: the desire to systematically exterminate the Jewish race. As such, the Jewish people deserve our sympathy.

But there are many other sides to the Holocaust story. One, that it does not belong to the Jews alone. Gypsies, Poles, Czechs and many others died alongside the Jews in Nazi concentration camps. They have as much right to ‘Holocaust sympathy’ as the Jews. Two, that suffering in the Holocaust does not give the Jews (or anyone else) carte blanche to do as they like — a point expanded on below. Three, that the Germans (and Europeans) should acknowledge their history and express remorse — acknowledgement and remorse being the key to preventing repetition. But the German people should not have to bear a constant burden of guilt. Two generations on from the war, they should be allowed to move on.

The recent attacks on the Jewish targets in Europe can in part be explained by a revered place given to the Holocaust in European history, and by the consequent paranoia that surrounds any criticism of the Jews — especially in Germany. Just as denial of democracy in many Muslim countries pushes people into the arms of extremist preachers, so the denial of the right to say anything about the Jews, or to shake off the Holocaust label, is more likely to push the Germans into the arms of the extreme right-wingers. The Germans need to be given the freedom to express their views, to talk frankly about their past, about the Jews, contemporary German identity and so on. Such freedom will promote moderation and tolerance.

Like the Germans, the international community should never forget the Holocaust. But nor should they hold it up as the ultimate and worst example of man inflicting suffering on man. Both before and after the Holocaust there have (sadly) been numerous other examples of man’s extreme cruelty towards his fellow man. Think of the trench warfare in the First World War, think of the communal bloodbath that accompanied Partition, think of Rwanda, think of the former Yugoslavia, think of Gujarat, think of the Aids epidemic in Africa. The Holocaust needs to be seen in perspective: it was awful, but there are many other awful events in history.

One of the awful events that is still going on is Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel owes its creation to Holocaust sympathy among the victorious powers; to the terrorism of groups like Irgun; and to the determined settlement of Palestinian land by large numbers of the Jewish diaspora. [One could also add the failure of Arab states to stop the Zionists.]

Once established, Israel has sought to promote its security by suppressing Arab — especially Palestinian — opposition. This has entailed the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza; denial of human rights to the Palestinians; use of armed forces against civilian areas; a policy of targeted assassinations; and now the construction of a giant, illegal ‘security fence’.

What is happening in Israel is wrong. Nothing can justify the forced capture of Palestinian land and the violent suppression of the Palestinian people. Certainly not the Holocaust. It is part of history; something that cannot be reversed or undone. Allowing Jews to commit wrongs of their own can neither make it ‘right’ nor compensate for it. Indeed, if anything, the Jews should be in a better position than most to appreciate the suffering of the Palestinian people. That many of them do not is a sad reflection of the failure to learn the real lessons of the Holocaust.

Capturing Palestinian land and suppressing the Palestinian people is bad enough. But to answer criticism of this with charges of anti-Semitism is a cynical ploy: a blatant attempt to evoke Holocaust sympathy and the Holocaust-induced paranoia about speaking out against the Jews. Criticism of Israel, Ariel Sharon and his policies is not motivated by anti-Semitism but by concern for human rights, justice, freedom and democracy — a totally legitimate concern that has to be expressed and pursued.

But, criticism of Israel and Zionists is not the same as criticism of the Jews per se. This is where the Muslims (and others) fall down. Too many Muslims express their anger and frustration at Zionism in terms that are overtly anti-Jewish. They attribute the success of the Israeli state to a Jewish conspiracy.

Outgoing Malaysian prime minister Mahathir accused the Jews of ruling the world by proxy — a charge endorsed by millions of Muslims. Such views are immature in the extreme. Criticize Israel, criticize Zionism, criticize Ariel Sharon, but do not criticize the Jews for being Jews. For there is nothing inherently bad about being Jewish: the badness lies in what some Jews do. By mixing the two, the Muslims detract from the moral strength of their pro-Palestinian cause.

Why are the Jews so successful? Because they work hard. Why does Israel enjoy such virtually unquestioning support in Washington? Because the Zionists are organized, committed and united. They occupy powerful positions in the West in business, academia, politics, and the media, which they use to lobby effectively for Israel. Instead of berating Jews for that, the Muslims should ask themselves why — given their much greater numbers and their oil wealth — they don’t enjoy the same influence? The bitter truth is that if the Muslims had half the qualities of the Jews — unity, commitment, organization — they would not be in the miserable position they are in today.

Which brings us to the final rejoinder to the accusations of anti-Semitism. Even if it is on the rise in Europe, the Jews can at least comfort themselves with the thought that it is far outweighed by Islamophobia. Looking at things in this kind of proper perspective will help them — and us.