CHOMSKY: “If Corbyn had been elected, Britain would be pursuing a much more sane course”

The father of modern linguistics speaks exclusively to The London Economic about Donald Trump, Jeremy Corbyn and most pressingly: the climate crisis.

 by Adam Turner
April 24, 2021
in News



Noam Chomsky is among the world’s most eminent political rebels. For decades, his stark criticisms of the United States’ foreign policy have troubled presidents, both Republican and Democrat.

Just last year, the self-proclaimed anarchist called Donald Trump “the worst criminal in history” for his refusals to act on the climate crisis in a controversial interview with the socialist publication Jacobin Magazine.

Former president, Barack Obama, didn’t get off lightly either. He was in Chomsky’s bad books for waging a targeted “global assassination campaign” (Obama is estimated to have carried out 1,878 drone strikes over eight years) during his time as leader.


Even Joe Biden, who only took up office in January this year, was reprimanded early in his presidency for adopting Trump’s policy on Iran with “virtually no change”. Biden’s appointment of Richard Nephew – author of the book The Art of Sanctions – as Iran envoy particularly concerned to the renowned academic who believes the sanctions on Iran were “illegitimate in the first place”.

The father of modern linguistics

You’d think the 92-year-old would be tired of talking politics by now, but if YouTube is anything to go by, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The video sharing website’s recent pages are full of clips of him chatting with university students (he’s still a Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and Institute Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology or MIT), debating well-known journalists and looking bewildered as entrepreneurs ask questions about his beard.

After three years’ worth of emails, we sit down to chat on Zoom (his video calling preference). When he appears on the screen from his home in Tucson, Arizona, he looks, with his wispy grey hair and long and unkempt beard, like a modern-day Plato – sat in front of a packed bookshelf, displaying only one photo of him and his wife. Over the course of nearly an hour and a half, we discuss everything from activism and internationalism, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, to Jeremy Corbyn and Joe Biden, as well as nuclear war and perhaps the most pressing matter of all: the climate crisis.

Born in Philadelphia in 1928, to say the ‘father of modern linguistics’ – a name given to him for his revolutionary theories in the field – has lived a full life would be the understatement of the century. He was brought up by Jewish immigrant parents, William (Ze’ev) Chomsky and Elsie Simonofsky, during the Great Depression – his father fled the Russian Empire to escape conscription in 1913. He listened to Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies over the radio as WW2 unfolded when he was a boy and rose to prominence in his 20s and 30s during the Vietnam War for his anti-war activism, which almost landed him in prison. “I was an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal trial and on track to be the main target of the next.”

The veteran activist also featured on Richard Nixon’s opponents list – an extension of his enemies list derived from prominent public figures (actors, academics, politicians etc.) he thought could be a threat to his presidency. But it was way before all of this that the professor became political.

“When I was four or five years old, I was beginning to think about these things [politics], and it never changed. I grew up in the depression. My early childhood memories were things like miserable people coming to the door trying to sell rags, women’s strikers being attacked by security forces. I was surrounded by things like that.”
Anarchist libertarian

It wasn’t just gloomy lived experiences that influenced his early political beliefs. His family played a big part too. Although his mother and father were centre-left politically, his uncle was more radical and had “been through every political party”. At 12, a young Noam would stay with him and his wife at the weekend. During his visits, he’d go to his uncle’s newsstand and listen to radical activists, some of whom had fled the Spanish Civil War. He’d spend the rest of his time dipping between anarchist bookstores and devouring political literature passed around Union Square – a hive for radical politics at the time.

Since establishing his views as a child, they’ve rarely wavered. He’s an anarchist-libertarian (an anti-authoritarian wing of the socialist movement) and has been since he cares to remember. When I ask him how he’s managed to stave off conservatism or cynicism, he says:

“I didn’t see any reason to be [more conservative]. My early beliefs seemed to be only partially formed; of course, they developed much more afterwards, when I learned more, but they seemed to basically be on the right track.”

When I ask him personal questions such as this, he’s polite and respectful, but his answers are curt. It’s as if he knows that our time in every sense of the word – is limited, and he’d prefer to reserve his energy for important subjects. However, he flows freely from one long, cultivated soliloquy to another discussing things like democracy, activism and the planet’s future. I guess it’s to be expected of a world-renowned linguist that’s dedicated his life to academia.

Chomsky is an exceptional scholar. He went to the University of Pennsylvania at 16 and later became a leading professor in linguistics. The author has also given speeches at events around the world and continues to do so virtually.

More recently, he co-authored a book with economist Robert Pollin, ‘Climate Crisis and the Green New Deal’, examining how to save the world from the climate crisis by laying out practical economic, humanitarian and technical solutions. His position on the topic is both clear and candid.

“We have maybe 20 or 30 years to see if human civilisation can survive, and we’re not doing it now. If we fail, if this generation fails, it’s basically saying, ‘it was nice having humans around for a couple of 100,000 years, but it’s over.”
“Lunacy, outright lunacy”

He’s talking about reducing carbon emissions to prevent a hothouse earth scenario, which would see the world hit its highest global temperature of any time in the past 1.2million years, making it, in his words, “unliveable”. Climate crisis is why the Paris Climate Agreement was set up in 2015. The International Treaty, signed by nearly 200 countries, aims to reduce carbon emissions and keep global temperatures well below 2.0C. However, Chomsky insists, “we’re nowhere meeting the promises.”

I ask him for his thoughts on another topical issue: nuclear weapons. More specifically, Boris Johnson’s plans to lift the cap on Trident (Britain’s nuclear deterrence). If reports are correct, the Prime Minister plans to increase nuclear warheads by 40%, which could break international law. The UK is a signatory of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) – a commitment for the government to gradual nuclear disarmament.

Is it dangerous?

“I wouldn’t say it’s just dangerous; it’s lunacy, outright lunacy. I mean it’s ludicrous for Britain to have a nuclear force altogether. It doesn’t defend Britain. In fact, it makes it a target; it contributes nothing to security. It’s a prestige thing. And along with heating the climate, nuclear war is a comparable threat, it’s a serious threat, very little discussed, but anyone who’s anywhere near the arms control community knows very well this is an extremely serious and growing threat.” he says.

The nonagenarian doesn’t think Johnson’s move will lead to an escalation from other countries because, in his words, “Britain no longer has the global role it once did”. He says the UK is now a “junior partner to the United States” – something he thinks will be accelerated because of Brexit. As his eyes flicker – perhaps as a signal of irritation – he moves on to Trump.

“During the Trump years, one of his great contributions was to tear to shreds the arms control regime, which had been painstakingly built up over 60 years, going back to Eisenhower. Piece after piece was dismantled. Trump was a wrecker,”

Chomsky isn’t a fan of Trump, he says “the most serious crimes he committed is the destruction of the acceleration of the use of fossil fuels and the elimination of regulatory apparatus. There’s nothing in comparison to that fact. And to be honest, and frank, that’s the worst crime in the history of the human race.”

I ask if he thinks Boris Johnson is going down a similar route.

“It’s not identical, it varies, but it’s too similar for comfort. I think developing the nuclear facilities is a case in point.”
“If Corbyn had been elected, Britain would be pursuing a much more sane course”

While we’re on the subject of nuclear deterrence, I can’t help but ask about Jeremy Corbyn, who, depending on political leanings, was either the biggest threat to world peace or the saviour of humankind.

Would the world have been a safer place had Corbyn won the last general election in terms of nuclear threat?

“I think if Corbyn had been elected, Britain would be pursuing a much more sane course. I think his general positions were very reasonable. And I think that’s probably the reason for the extraordinary attack on him pretty much across the spectrum, with mostly fabricated charges of antisemitism. Anything that could be thrown at him was, it was a major assault. Again, pretty much across the spectrum, The Guardian, right-wing press, ‘we got to get rid of this guy’.

“I think that’s a sign, a reflection of the fact that he had very reasonable proposals. He was also doing something dangerous, he was trying to turn the Labour Party into an authentic political party, one that’s based on its constituents, not some bureaucracy somewhere that runs it and tells people how to vote. That’s scary. We don’t want to have authentic, popular based political parties around, they could be out of control.”

Although there is no doubt, the Labour Party has had serious problems with antisemitism. Last year, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) identified “serious failings in leadership and an inadequate process for handling antisemitism complaints across the Labour Party.” The 130-page report went on to conclude that “there were unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination for which the Labour Party is responsible.” The former Labour leader was embroiled in an antisemitism row of his own for appearing to support a graffiti artist whose antisemitic mural was removed from a wall – something he later apologised for.

I bring up the genuine concerns raised regarding the Labour Party’s and antisemitism, which some felt were dismissed by Corbyn.

“If you look at the facts, the Tory party has more antisemitism than the Labour Party. There’s something there, you know, you should deal with it. But it’s not even within shouting distance of the way the issue was presented. By now, there’s pretty careful analyses of it. And I think if you look at them, you find what we know in advance. Yes, there’s antisemitism in England. That’s a bad thing. We should deal with it. But it’s not in the Labour Party any more than anywhere else, probably less.

“But compared with, say, islamophobia, it doesn’t even come close. Okay, that’s acceptable. You’re allowed that. In fact, if you look at the famous international Holocaust Remembrance Association’s statement on antisemitism, which everybody’s supposed to accept, just take its provisions and think about them for a minute. It follows that almost everybody’s a hysterical islamophobe. The charges of what they call indications of antisemitism if you apply that to attitudes towards Islam and Muslims, it cuts a very wide swath.”

The current IHRA statement on antisemitism from its website reads:

‘Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.’

Chomsky, who has previously spoken of being subjected to antisemitism as a child, finishes with “antisemitism shouldn’t be vulgarised and politicised, turned into a weapon. It’s too serious for that.”
“Antisemitism shouldn’t be turned into a weapon”

Keir Starmer, the current Labour leader, declared that tackling antisemitism was his first priority as Labour leader. He followed through with his word when he sacked Rebecca Long-Bailey in summer 2020 for sharing an article that contained antisemitic conspiracy theories. Corbyn was later suspended himself for sharing a statement 30 minutes after the EHRC report claiming the scale of the antisemitism problem had been “overstated for political reasons”.

Starmer has since faced criticism from large swathes of dedicated Corbyn supporters, many of which feel the party is moving to more centre-ground and not acting as serious opposition to the current government. Those more sympathetic to the challenges he’s faced early in his premiership – namely a global pandemic – believe he’s adopting a similar strategy to Joe Biden by waiting until his opponent fails.

Wary that our time has run over by 36 minutes already, I ask if Starmer’s strategy is a good one.

“It’s a good strategy if you want to turn the Labour Party into a junior partner of the Tories. Pretty much like what Tony Blair did, it used to be called Thatcher light. If that’s what you want, fine. If you want a Labour Party that actually represents the working people of England, middle-class people of England, pursue their interests, it’s not the way to do it. It depends on what your goals are. It looks to me that Starmer’s is pretty much dismantling the activist Labour Party that the Corbyn people were trying to develop.”

It’s a statement that will thrill Corbynistas but probably won’t surprise Starmtroopers either. After all, Chomsky himself said he’d back Corbyn during the 2017 election campaign, and he’s hardly someone that’s tempted by moderate politics, although he did endorse Joe Biden.

Though he’s happy about the path he’s going down regarding the climate crisis, he’s not convinced it’s entirely original. “Biden’s programme is much better than any predecessor, not because of a religious conversion, because of very significant activist pressures, which have made a difference.”

After just over one hour 20 minutes, the interview draws to a close. He politely explains he has got to go, more appointments. I steal a second to ask one final question. Where does he see the world in 2050? His answer is unapologetically Chomsky-esque.

“Well, there’s one thing we can say, either we will have reached net-zero emissions by 2050, or we can pretty much say goodbye to each other.”

Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin’s book, ‘Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal’ is available here.

 

Hamas fires long-range missile at Ramon Airport (+VIDEOS)

TEHRAN, May 13 (MNA) – The spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades said the armed wing has for the first time fired a rocket towards Ramon Airport south of the country.

“The Ayyash 250 missile, with a range greater than 250km has been launched at Ramon Airport, about 220km from Gaza,” Abu Obeida said.

The rocket is named after Yahya Ayyash, one of Hamas’s leading operatives before he was assassinated by Israel regime in 1996.

Abu Obeida called the rocket launching part of the Al-Qassam Brigades’ response to the killing of its senior commanders.

Sirens go off warning of rocket attacks at Tel Aviv

The Zionist media reported sirens went off warning of rocket attacks following a large-scale rocket attack by Resistance forces on Tel Aviv. 

Al-Qassam Brigades said it had targeted Tel Aviv, Beersheba and Netivot, as well as Tel Nof and Nevatim airbases.

Israeli TV Channel 12 reports that in the new round of attacks by the Palestinian Resistance, more than 100 rockets were fired at the occupied territories.

It also reported that three people were injured in the town of Kiryat Gat.

Our weapons are for sake of our land, to defend our people: Hamas

The spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, warned Israel there are “no red lines if al-Aqsa is violated”.

Abu Obeida said the decision to bomb Dimona, Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities “is easier for us than drinking water”.

“We reassure our people that we have more rockets in our inventory, and our missile strikes have revealed the enemy’s fragility,” he said.

Abu Obedia said the Israeli army will sorely regret carrying out a ground invasion.

“Our weapons are for our land, for the defense of our people and victory for our sanctities,” the military spokesman said,

“What distinguishes this battle is the solidarity of the Palestinians across the country and their unanimous support for resistance.”

Gaza martyrs rise to 83 as Israeli air raids intensify

The number of Palestinians martyred in the Gaza Strip has now risen to 83, including 17 children, the local health ministry has said. 

Israeli fighters jet bomb high-rise buildings and other targets in Gaza while violence also spreads within the occupied territories, Al-Jazeera reported.

Since the Israeli offensive began late on Monday, Gaza’s health ministry says at least 83 people, including 17 children, have been martyred. More than 480 others have been wounded.

Israeli army vehicle hit by rocket

Palestinian news sources reported that a Kornet anti-tank missile hit a military vehicle of the Israeli army in southern Gaza.

Sources say several Zionist forces appear to have been killed in the attack. The exact number of casualties in this attack has not been reported yet.

Yesterday, the Resistance forces fired two Kornet missiles at the Israeli military vehicles, in which four Zionist forces were seriously wounded and one was killed.

Israeli army wounds 35 in occupied West Bank

At least 35 Palestinians were wounded in confrontations with the Israeli army in various locations in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reported.

According to Al-Jazeera's correspondent, the majority of people were hit by live ammunition and that most injuries occurred in the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

“It was an exceptionally high number of injuries by live fire which shows us that the situation could be escalating rapidly,” the correspondent added.

Zionists bomb high-rise buildings as Gaza marks Eid al-Fitr

Israeli fighter jets have attacked high-rise buildings and other targets in the Gaza Strip as Palestinians in the besieged enclave woke up on Thursday to mark Eid al-Fitr under relentless aerial bombardment.

At least six Zionists have also been killed. The Israeli army said hundreds of rockets have been fired from Gaza towards various locations in Israel and they have added reinforcements near the enclave’s eastern lands.

There have also been more violent confrontations between Israelis and Palestinian citizens in several cities inside the occupied lands.

Zionist regime shuts Ben Gurion Airport to incoming flights

The Zionist regime's air officials said Thursday that incoming passenger flights would be diverted from Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv to Ramon Airport outside Eilat in the south.

Following Palestinian Resistance rocket attacks on Tel Aviv, the Zionist regime shut Ben Gurion Airport to incoming flights and diverted them from Ben Gurion Airport to Ramon Airport outside Eilat in the south.

It said guidelines were in place for passenger planes to land at Ramon Airport near the southern resort city of Eilat from early on Thursday.

Israeli army says attacked 600 targets in Gaza in 3 days

The Israeli army says it has attacked more than 600 targets in Gaza since the start of the recent fighting against the Palestinians.

According to Al-Jazeera, the Israeli army claimed that 13 missiles were fired from Gaza at Israel from 9 pm last night until this morning, with the Iron Dome intercepting several missiles; But the regime did not release information on the number of missiles that hit the target.

On the other hand, the Joint Operations Room of the Palestinian Resistance Groups announced that on the second day of the clashes with the Zionist enemy, it fired 300 missiles and rockets towards the occupied territories.

Zionist attack on Gaza leaves 72 martyred, incl. 17 children

The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced on Thursday that the number of martyrs in the Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip increased to 72.

The Ministry of Health announced on Thursday morning that the number of martyrs in the brutal Zionist attacks on the Gaza Strip had reached 72, including 17 children and 6 women.

The number of injured has also increased to 390, including 115 children and 50 women.

Palestinian Resistance fires 1,500 rockets at occupied lands

The Israeli army estimates that the number of rockets and missiles fired by resistance groups from the Gaza Strip in the last three days has reached 1,500.

A statement issued by the Israeli army claimed that the regime's fighter jets, helicopters and artillery had targeted more than 600 positions in the Gaza Strip over the past three days.

The Zionist regime claims that these targets belonged to the Islamic Jihad Movements and the Palestinian Islamic Resistance (Hamas).

According to the Times of Israel, the regime's army acknowledged that more than 1,500 rockets and missiles had been fired from the Gaza Strip towards the occupied territories, adding that at least five Zionists had been killed and more than 100 injured.

Zionist regime intensifies attacks on various areas of Gaza

Stating that the Zionist regime's attacks are focused on important infrastructure and roads in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian media reported the regime intensified its attack of various areas of Gaza.

News sources in the Gaza Strip say that the Zionist regime has been carrying out heavy airstrikes and artillery attacks in the north, center and south of the Gaza Strip since the early hours of Thursday morning.

The Palestinian Shehab News Agency reported that the building of the Islamic National Bank and other financial institutions in the Gaza Strip have been targeted by Zionist attacks.

"Israeli enemy planes are targeting various areas in the Gaza Strip, including Jabalia and Sheikh Zayed," Shehab correspondent reported from the Gaza Strip.

"Israeli planes are targeting the main roads connecting the provinces of the Gaza Strip," the news agency said, adding that the Sheikh Zayed region alone has been targeted by Zionists more than 30 times in recent minutes.

The Palestinian Resistance movement Hamas had set a deadline for the Zionist military to leave Al-Aqsa Mosque by 6 o'clock local time Monday and free the Palestinians who have been arrested.

Clashes between the Palestinian resistance and the Zionist regime began on Monday after the deadline expired.

ZZ/FNA14000223000027

News Code 173391

The Delusions Driving Israeli Thinking Have Been Exposed as Never Before

Sooner or later, severe oppression rebounds against the perpetrator. In Israel, when that happens, the answer is always and inevitably to use more violence.


A Palestinian man walks past the remains of a tower building which was destroyed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza City, May 13, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Suhaib Salem

David Shulman

13/MAY/2021

Something important happened in Israel in May 2021. Not just the fact that Hamas in Gaza surprised the army and the intelligence services, not to mention the government, by its ability to take command of a volatile situation, to hit deep into Israel with precision rocketry, and to impose its agenda on an overwhelmingly more powerful enemy. Not only the fact that the government and police have lost control of much of the country, especially mixed Arab-Jewish cities such as Lod, Ramleh, Jaffa, Acre and east Jerusalem, where conditions close to civil war are now in evidence. Not only the acute failure of the Benjamin Netanyahu government to restore some semblance of normalcy, to say nothing of articulating a viable policy for the future.

All these are there for all to see. But the crucial point is that the deeper currents of life in Israel-Palestine, and above all the regnant delusions that have driven Israeli thinking for the past many decades, have been exposed as never before. What we will witness over the coming weeks is a desperate attempt to reestablish these self-destructive axioms as political norms, despite the disaster they have, unsurprisingly, brought about.

It is not difficult to trace the stages through which the current round of violence evolved. One particularly foolish move was the decision by the new police commissioner, Kobi Shabtai, to barricade the wide steps leading into the Damascus Gate of the Old City in Jerusalem. During Ramadan, these steps are a favourite place for families to celebrate the evening iftar meal. There was no apparent logic to closing them off apart from a wish to humiliate Muslim Palestinians at a particularly sensitive moment. Fiery protests erupted. Eventually, the police removed the barriers. By then other processes had been set in motion.

Also read: Palestine Is Witnessing the Daily Brutalities of an Occupying Power

In the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of east Jerusalem, the Israeli courts have recently declared the impending eviction of several Palestinian families from their homes to be legal. I know those families well. For many years Israeli human rights activists have accompanied their struggle to save their homes and their lives, and we have had some success in at least delaying the evictions, often for years. Parts of Sheikh Jarrah were once – before the State of Israel came into being – owned by Jews; Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war were settled there by the Jordanian government in the 1950s, and they have been living there ever since. But Israeli settlers from the extreme nationalist right have been trying to reclaim these lands for the Jews, and the courts have sadly, and cruelly, gone along with them. I won’t go into the legal niceties here. Let me just note that easily a third of the properties in Israeli west Jerusalem belong to Palestinian families who lived there before 1948; under Israeli law, Palestinians have no hope of recovering their lost homes.


With the evictions in Sheikh Jarrah, which affect some 300 people, about to happen – unless the Supreme Court steps in to stop them, an unlikely move – the protests in the neighbourhood came back to life. Young Palestinians, including some from Arab villages in the north of Israel, joined in. Wild-eyed Jewish settler thugs, who now have their own party in the Knesset since Netanyahu brought them back from the limbo to which they had been consigned by law in 1988, descended upon Sheikh Jarrah in order to terrorise the Palestinian residents. Night after night, the neighbourhood turned into a battle ground, the police often siding with and protecting the settlers, as I saw with my own eyes. As so often, the attempt to violently suppress peaceful protest has boomeranged. Sheikh Jarrah is now a rallying cry for Palestinians everywhere in Israel and the West Bank, also for the Arab world beyond Palestine.

The height of madness was reached in the Haram al-Sharif during the final days of Ramadan, when tens of thousands of worshippers come to the Al-Aqsa mosque. Some of them threw stones at the police, who responded with extraordinary brutality. Hundreds of Palestinians were wounded, along with some 20 policemen. The Al-Aqsa mosque, mentioned in the Qur’an, is sacred to over a billion Muslims. It takes truly unusual degrees of imbecility to send policemen throwing stun grenades and tear gas at worshippers inside the mosque during Ramadan. Moreover, since the very beginning of the conflict in the early 20th century, Palestinian Muslims have seen the Zionist enterprise as aimed, first and foremost, at destroying the Haram so the Jews could rebuild their temple there. For many Palestinians, the Israeli police have now, not for the first time, substantiated this false notion.


A Palestinian man runs for cover during an Israeli air strike near the ruins of a tower building which was destroyed in earlier strikes in Gaza City, May 13, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Suhaib Salem

There were other factors in play. Elections were supposed to take place in Palestine this spring; the Palestinian Authority cancelled them, fearing they would lose ground to Hamas. It’s a reasonable fear; the PA has failed miserably to deliver anything of lasting value to the Palestinian national movement. Hamas, furious at President Abu Mazen’s decision, eagerly took over the role of defending Jerusalem, the Haram, Sheikh Jarrah and the West Bank, the latter languishing for the last 74 years under a regime of state terror and institutionalised theft of Palestinian land for Israeli settlement.

And there is one more far from negligible element. It cannot be by chance that this crisis developed, to the point of war, just as the Israeli opposition parties seemed to be close to establishing a government in the wake of the last Israeli elections. Netanyahu, who has driven the country through four indecisive elections in the last two years for the sole purpose of evading the criminal charges pending against him in court, was likely to lose power. The new government-that-almost-was is now on hold, possibly ruled out. The reader can draw her own conclusions about Netanyahu’s role in running this politically useful catastrophe.

All of this story has been told by others. For most Israelis, the causal chain is either invisible or forgotten, as the war unfolds. And Hamas has its own lethal actions to account for. But the core of the matter lies in the axioms I mentioned in the opening paragraph. It isn’t possible to enslave forever a population of millions, to deny them all basic human rights, to steal their lands, to humiliate them in a thousand ways, to hurt them, even kill them, with impunity, to create a regime meant to ensure permanent supremacy of one population over another, and all this by the exercise of massive military force. In fact, “forever” is an overstatement. A tiny state like Israel can apparently get away with such a policy for some decades, using, actually mis-using, the memory of the Holocaust as its moral capital. Sooner or later, severe oppression rebounds against the perpetrator. In Israel, when that happens, the answer is always and inevitably to use more violence. Most of the country, and especially its elected leadership, suffers from a chronic learning disability.

Also read: Jerusalem Is Ablaze Again – and Israel’s Growing Settler Movement Was the Trigger

During these dark days and nights, one can hear a host of Israeli generals speaking, ad nauseam, about “deterrence,” the alleged goal of this war, a goal they think can be achieved by inflicting vast destruction on Hamas in Gaza. It is, I think, fair to say that this fantasy of deterrence has never worked. Only a nation haunted by a fundamental sense of impotence could cultivate such a delusion, even turning it into the cornerstone of its worldview and the guiding compass of its policies toward others, including the intimate Palestinian other who shares this land with the Jews.


In the midst of so much mindless destruction, one searches desperately for some tattered scraps of hope. I used to think I would live to see the change that must happen here – to see the elementary principle of equality for all, enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, begin to take root in Israeli minds; to see Israelis and Palestinians embrace the many ties that bind them. I’m no longer so sure I’ll get to see that day.

David Shulman is an Indologist and an authority on the languages of India. A Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he is an activist in Ta’ayush, Arab-Jewish Partnership.

How Hamas pierced Israel's famous Iron Dome shield
Campbell MacDiarmid and James Rothwell1

 May 13 2021

Death toll in Gaza and Israel mounts amid violence between Palestinian militants and Israel’s military

The international community is urging both sides to end the escalation.

Israel's military was facing questions on Wednesday (local time) as to whether its Iron Dome missile defence system needed an upgrade, after five Israeli civilians were killed by rocket strikes.

The system, which Israeli officials say has a 90 per cent interception rate, has already avoided heavy loss of life in Tel Aviv, Ashkelon and other cities which became a focal point for Hamas as it sought to overwhelm air defences.

But on Wednesday, Israeli analysts said that for some time intelligence sources had been warning that Hamas had significantly improved its weaponry, to the extent that it could “pierce the Iron Dome shield”.

In Gaza, the police headquarters has been destroyed by Israeli bombardments as the violence escalates and casualties rise on both sides

Bob stressed that this did not mean the Iron Dome was no longer effective.

“If Hamas has more of those longer-range rockets, this could impact Israel’s plans for this round of violence and especially the question of how long it wants it to last,” he added.

The scale of this week’s rocket barrages have been unprecedented, with about a thousand missiles fired at longer ranges to challenge the capabilities of the Iron Dome system.

“Ten per cent of the time, you have to take into consideration that it won’t do the job,” retired Israeli Brigadier General Amir Avivi said of the Iron Dome.

But Avivi, who founded a group of retired military officers called Habithonistim to advocate for Israel’s security, insisted it was operating as intended.

“The system was designed for much bigger events,” he said. “Iron Dome can cope with a huge volume of rockets.”

Introduced into service 10 years ago, the Iron Dome system was developed by two Israeli defence firms with financial and technical assistance from the United States.

Designed to intercept short-range rockets and mortars, the system uses radar to detect inbound threats and deploys interceptor rockets to detonate in the air to destroy incoming missiles.

ARIEL SCHALIT/AP
An Israeli soldier takes cover as an Iron Dome air defence system launches to intercept a rocket from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, southern Israel on May 11, 2021.

The Israeli military has deployed 10 batteries of the Iron Dome system across the country and credits the system with greatly reducing casualties from rocket attacks.

“The number of Israelis killed and wounded would be far higher were it not for the Israeli Iron Dome system, which has been a lifesaver,” Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus said on Wednesday, speaking on a call with reporters from outside a rocket-damaged home in Yehud, on the eastern outskirts of Tel Aviv.

The house, 64 kilometres north of Gaza where the rocket was fired, was one of about 20 sites struck by Hamas and other militant factions in Gaza.

The unprecedented intensity of the rocket fire, which in some cases was trained deliberately on individual towns and cities, marks a new tactic by Hamas and Islamic Jihad to try to overwhelm the Iron Dome system.

Since the last major conflict in 2014, the militants have been increasing both the size of their arsenal and the capabilities of their rockets. “According to our estimates we’re talking about between 20,000 and 30,000 rockets in Gaza today, rockets and mortars,” Conricus said.

“We’ve seen a constant expansion in terms of range and also in terms of the size of the warheads,” he said. “They have an advanced arsenal of rockets – I think it’s on par with the fire capabilities of a few small European countries.”

Produced using pipe and fertiliser with designs provided by Iranian military engineers, Israel has few options for disrupting the manufacture of rockets in Gaza, though weapons workshops are among several hundred sites the Israeli military says it has struck in densely populated Gaza this week.

“Israel’s aerial bombardment of Gaza – the sixth one in my adult life at least – is unlikely to produce a new outcome,” said Steven Wagner, a lecturer in international security at Brunel University London.

“Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence, while mesmerising, should also be a stark reminder of the asymmetry of this conflict,” he said. “Hamas ordnance is simple, cheap, and can still occasionally break through the multimillion-dollar defence system funded by the United States.”

ARIEL SCHALIT/AP
Israelis run to shelters as air attack sirens goes off during a Jerusalem Day march, in Jerusalem.

The sheer number of rockets in militant hands, produced at a cost of just a few hundred dollars each, could pose a costly threat for Iron Dome to address, with each interceptor rocket costing an estimated US$50,000 (NZ$69,800), according to Israeli military.

However, Israel says that its costly defence system is worth every penny. “The rockets are not outsmarting the Iron Dome – the Iron Dome is outstanding in its capacity to adapt to new techniques and to new methods by the enemies,” Conricus said.

And while the rockets have terrified Israeli civilians, Conricus said their destructive power was limited: “The rockets definitely terrorise but are they capable of causing significant military damage? Not quite.”


The Telegraph

1 Swiss, 1 American die on Everest in year's 1st fatalities

A Swiss climber and an American have died on Mount Everest in the season's first casualties on the world’s highest mountain

By BINAJ GURUBACHARYA 

Associated Press
13 May 2021,



KATHMANDU, Nepal -- A Swiss climber and an American have died on Mount Everest in the season's first casualties on the world's highest mountain, expedition organizers said Thursday.

The Swiss climber, Abdul Waraich, 41, reached the peak before having difficulties, said Chhang Dawa of the expedition organizer, Seven Summit Treks in Nepal.


“Abdul successfully reached the summit but began experiencing issues during his descent," he said. “We sent two additional Sherpas with oxygen and food. Unfortunately, the Sherpas couldn’t save him."

U.S. national Puwei Liu, 55, also died at the highest camp on the mountain at South Col. He had reached the climbing feature named the Hillary Step, located between South Col and the summit, but had to return because of snow blindness and exhaustion.

With the help of support team members and additional oxygen, he was brought back to the camp at South Col but died on Wednesday evening, the organizers said.

No other details were given on the dead climbers and when their bodies would be brought down. Bad weather conditions have forced climbers to descend to lower altitudes for now.

Carrying bodies down the icy and slippery slopes from the highest altitudes is a difficult task that takes lots of time, requires several Sherpa workers and is generally very costly.

Nepal and China both canceled climbing seasons last year on the 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) -high mountain, which is divided between them. China is allowing only Chinese climbers on the north side of the mountain this year.


Nepal allowed foreigners to return this year and the government issued permits to 408 climbers to attempt to scale the peak during the popular spring climbing season.

The month of May usually has the best weather for climbing Everest. Scores reached the summit this week and more are expected to make their attempts later this month once the weather improves.

Explainer: How Jerusalem tensions sparked heaviest Israel-Gaza fighting in years



Palestinian Israeli conflict
Explainer: How Jerusalem tensions sparked heaviest Israel-Gaza fighting in years
Reuters
Published: 12 May ,2021:

Weeks of violent clashes in East Jerusalem have ignited the heaviest fighting in years between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

At the core of the violence that has left dozens dead are tensions between Israelis and Palestinians over Jerusalem, which contains sites sacred to Judaism, Islam and Christianity.

As both sides appear to be digging in for more prolonged fighting, here are some of the factors that triggered the escalation.

For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
Ramadan protests, Jerusalem evictions

Since the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in mid-April, Palestinians have faced off nightly with Israeli police in East Jerusalem, who put up barriers to stop evening gatherings at the walled Old City’s Damascus Gate.

Palestinians saw the barriers as a restriction on their freedom to assemble. Police said they were there to maintain order.

Tensions have also been high over a long-running legal case that could see multiple Palestinian families evicted from their homes to make way for Israeli settlers who, backed by an Israeli court ruling, want to move in.

The violence quickly spread to the Old City compound containing Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest shrine in Islam and the most sensitive site in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hundreds of Palestinians have been injured in fighting with police in the compound and around the Old City in recent days.

Play Video ‘Red line’

Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas and other militant groups in the enclave repeatedly warned Israel that the fighting in Jerusalem was a “red line,” and vowed to fire rockets if Israeli police did not stop their raids on the Al-Aqsa compound.

As Israel commemorated its capture of East Jerusalem in a 1967 war with a march on Monday, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad militant group fired rocket barrages toward Jerusalem and its surrounding suburbs.

Israel had “ignited fire in Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa and the flames extended to Gaza, therefore, it is responsible for the consequences,” Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said.

Within hours, Israeli warplanes began bombing militant targets in Gaza, with the military saying that civilian casualties “cannot be ruled out” in the densely populated coastal territory.

The fighting has since escalated dramatically with militants firing hundreds of rockets toward Tel Aviv and Israel carrying out hundreds of air strikes in Gaza.

Violence has also broken out in mixed Arab-Jewish cities across Israel, with members of Israel’s 21 percent Arab minority angry over the Jerusalem evictions and Gaza violence.

An explosion caused by Israeli airstrikes is seen in Gaza City, early Thursday. (AP)
Hamas interests, Israeli politics

The most intensive aerial exchanges between Israel and Hamas since a 2014 war in Gaza have prompted international concern that the situation could spiral out of control.

But Hamas also appeared to see the escalation as an opportunity to marginalize Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and present itself as the guardian of Palestinians in Jerusalem.

Hamas has amassed some 7,000 rockets, as well as 300 anti-tank and 100 anti-aircraft missiles, since the 2014 war, an Israeli military commander said during a briefing in February. Islamic Jihad has amassed 6,000 rockets, the commander said. The groups have neither confirmed nor denied the Israeli estimates.

Some Israeli commentators said Hamas could also see the timing as opportune with Israel in political flux as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents try to form a government that would unseat him after an inconclusive March 23 election.

Other commentators have said that Netanyahu appeared to be distracted by his trial on corruption charges he denies, allowing tensions to surge in Jerusalem and spill over into Gaza.

Gaza has for years had limited access to the outside world because of a blockade led by Israel and supported by Egypt, who both cite security concerns over Hamas for the restrictions.

A Palestinian protester is detained by Israeli border policemen during clashes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of east Jerusalem May 4, 2021. (Reuters/Ammar Awad)
Jerusalem at core of conflict

Politics, history and religion all place Jerusalem at the center of the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

At the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City is the hill known to Jews across the world as Temple Mount - the holiest site in Judaism - and to Muslims internationally as The Noble Sanctuary. It was home to the Jewish temples of antiquity. Two Muslim holy places now stand there, the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Christians also revere the city as the place where they believe that Jesus preached, died and was resurrected.

Israel sees all of Jerusalem as its eternal and indivisible capital, while the Palestinians want the eastern section as a capital of a future state. Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem is unrecognized internationally.

Palestinians mark Eid in al-Aqsa days after Israeli forces attacked worshipers

Palestinians mark Eid in al-Aqsa days after Israeli forces attacked worshipers

Palestinian Israeli conflict

Muslims perform the morning Eid al-Fitr prayer, marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, outside the Dome of the Rock mosque in the al-Aqsa mosques compound in Jerusalem early on May 13, 2021. (AFP

AFP, Jerusalem
Published: 13 May ,2021

Palestinian Muslims performed the morning Eid al-Fitr prayer in the al-Aqsa mosque’s compound in Jerusalem on Thursday, marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, days after Israeli forces attacked worshipers in the compound.

For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.

Tensions have soared over Israel's planned eviction of Palestinians from a district in east Jerusalem, which Israel sees as part of its eternal capital but is considered occupied by the United Nations.

Several nights of clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police, particularly around the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, spiraled early this week into a barrage of Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza strip and rocket fire from Gaza.

Smoke billows from Israeli air strikes in Gaza City on May 11, 2021. (AFP)

The sharp escalation has killed at least 32 Palestinians in the blockaded Gaza Strip and three Israelis and wounded hundreds more.

Despite the confrontations and attacks, photos and videos showed an estimated 100,000 worshipers gathered at the holy site to perform the Eid prayers.

Muslims perform the morning Eid al-Fitr prayer, marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, outside the Dome of the Rock mosque in the al-Aqsa mosques compound in Old Jerusalem early on May 13, 2021. (AFP)




A Palestinian woman takes a selfie as the Dome of the Rock is seen in the background, during Eid al-Fitr prayers on May 13, 2021. (Reuters)

Muslim women blow up balloons as worshippers celebrated the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, after the morning prayer at the al-Aqsa mosques compound, with the Dome of the Rock mosque in the background, in Old Jerusalem early on May 13, 2021. (AFP)

Muslim children celebrate in front of the Dome of the Rock mosque after the morning Eid al-Fitr prayer at the al-Aqsa mosques compound in Old Jerusalem early on May 13, 2021. (AFP)

Muslim worshippers gather at the al-Aqsa mosques compound in Old Jerusalem for the morning Eid al-Fitr prayer early on May 13, 2021. (AFP)

Palestinian youths pose as a friend photographs them, while the Dome of the Rock is seen in the background, during Eid al-Fitr prayers, which mark the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, at the compound that houses al-Aqsa mosque on May 13, 2021. (Reuters)

People wave Palestinian flags during Eid al-Fitr prayers, which mark the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, at the compound that houses al-Aqsa mosque on May 13, 2021. (Reuters)

Greta Thunberg on her gap year climate change tour, Joe Biden, and turning 18
Teen Vogue speaks to the climate activist about what she's been up to — and what comes next.
May 13, 2021
by Marianne Dhenin, Teen Vogue

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, then 16, listens to speakers during a climate change demonstration outside the U.S. Supreme Court Sept. 18, 2019, in Washington. (CNS/Kevin Lamarque, Reuters)


Editor's note: This story originally appeared at Reuters and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.

On an overcast August morning, the world watched as Greta Thunberg set sail from a quaint port city in southwest England aboard a racing yacht en route to the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit in New York City. The voyage marked a year since the start of Greta's weekly school strikes. She had come a long way from sitting alone in her father's yellow rain jacket outside the Swedish Parliament to being invited to speak in front of the United Nations and galvanizing a global youth movement for climate action, now millions strong.

Covering Climate Now Logo [250].png

This article appears in the Covering Climate Now feature series. 

View the full series.

The transatlantic trip also marked the beginning of a gap year for Greta. Off from school, she planned to take her protest around the world (via a carbon-neutral racing yacht, electric cars, and Europe's vast rail network) and meet with leading climate scientists to learn more about the effects of global warming and the science that could save our planet. But the trip, which is the basis of a new, three-part documentary series premiering on PBS on Earth Day, Thursday, April 22, was disrupted in a way no one could have imagined when COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in March 2020.

"We decided very early on to cancel or postpone all of the planned strikes and protests because it was the right thing to do," Greta tells Teen Vogue, "so we've had to move online." She had planned to march with thousands of like-minded activists in cities around the world, but instead Greta found herself tweeting selfies from her couch in Stockholm with her now instantly recognizable black-and-white "SKOLSTREJK FÖR KLIMATET" sign.

At first, COVID-19 knocked the climate emergency out of international headlines. But it wasn't long before connections between the two crises began to crystallize. As life around the world slowed at the beginning of the pandemic, climate scientists reported a steep drop in planet-warming fossil fuel emissions. Viral photos showed wildlife exploring emptied cities, where urbanization had destroyed the animals' natural habitats. Experts began to warn that ongoing habitat destruction has created ideal environments for the emergence of zoonotic diseases, like the novel coronavirus, which could lead to more pandemics in the future. And suddenly, governments were mobilizing to find solutions — uniting behind the science, as Greta would say — to develop treatments and vaccines.

Amid the chaos, Greta turned 18. Now, on the brink of adulthood, she speaks to Teen Vogue via Zoom, reflecting on her gap year and what it will take to protect our uncertain future.

Editor's note: These responses have been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

Teen Vogue: You took a year off from school and traveled around the world to meet leading climate experts and witness the impact of global warming firsthand. What were some of the most striking moments you experienced on that journey?

20190919T1449-CLIMATE-CIDSE-MORAL-DUTY-596010 cc.jpg
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, testifies at before U.S. representatives at a hearing on "Voices Leading the Next Generation on the Global Climate Crisis" in Washington Sept.18, 2019. (CNS/Kevin Lamarque, Reuters)


Greta Thunberg: I don't think there were any specific striking moments, or interviews, or meetings. It's just the accumulated amount: When you take all of them together and read between the lines, connecting the dots between them, you realize that [the climate crisis] is something much bigger. There were still very powerful and very striking moments, but it's when you add it all together that you start to see the full picture, and that's the most powerful thing.

Your trip was interrupted after you spoke at the European Parliament's Environment Council in Brussels in March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic brought life around the world to a relative standstill. Do you think the pandemic has helped reveal anything about the climate crisis?

It has maybe put the climate crisis in a different perspective. We always say that we don't have the money, we can't act so quickly, we can't do these kinds of things. But then, when the pandemic came, we saw a completely different crisis response, and that puts [the climate crisis] in a different perspective. It really shows that we can treat an emergency like an emergency.

What do you think we have learned during the pandemic that we can take into the fight against climate change?

That it is not until we really start treating a crisis like a crisis that we can get real change and start addressing that crisis. It has shown us that without science, we wouldn't have made it very far. We are depending on science, both in the role of the solution and as an alarm — like a fire alarm or a warning. For example, we have shown how quickly we can develop a vaccine once we really put our resources into it. Of course, the climate crisis doesn't have a vaccine. But it really shows that once we put support and resources, whether it is financial or something else, into science, then we can start seeing some results.

President Trump was a disaster for the climate. His rollbacks of Obama-era climate policy have the potential to increase the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by 1.8 gigatons by 2035. His successor, Joe Biden, has promised to make climate action a priority of his administration. Many members of Congress were also elected on climate action platforms. What do you think young people in the U.S. can do to hold our elected officials accountable and help recover from Trump-era setbacks in climate policy?

The first thing that we need to keep in mind is that Trump may be gone, and that may be a positive thing for the climate, but we cannot relax just because of that. People seem to think of Joe Biden as a savior and now everything will be alright just because Trump is gone, but that's a very dangerous thing to do. We must not allow ourselves to relax. We must continue to push even harder and still call out Joe Biden because, of course, he's not good for the climate either. Just because he's a bit less bad doesn't mean that he's good for the climate.

We need to see through the speeches [politicians] make. Just because they say they care about the climate doesn't mean that they're actually going to do anything big.

And how do you think, practically speaking, young people can do that?

For example, school strikes or protests. I know that it's hard during pandemic times, but there are still ways that you can become an activist. Because we cannot vote as young people, among the most powerful things that we can do is raise our voices. We always have a voice, no matter how old we are. Another powerful thing that we can do is influence the adults around us — for example, our parents. That's the way I got started. Nothing is too small to begin with.
Related: Greta Thunberg, a prophet for Advent


You've been in international headlines for more than two years now, led dozens of marches in countries around the world, and spoken at some remarkably high-profile events — that's a lot of pressure. You also talk in the PBS documentary series about having Asperger's and how difficult it is to cope with overstimulation at crowded events. How do you manage all of that stress? Do you have a routine for self-care?

I guess I just try to distance myself from it as much as I can; that way it becomes much easier. When I'm on a march, I try to shut off all the inputs and just make my own little bubble in a way, which makes it easy to handle.

I do lots of things [at home]: being with my dogs, lots of jigsaw puzzles, and crafting, like embroidery and knitting. That's very relaxing.

Now that you've turned 18 and taken this trip around the world, what are you going to do next?

Well, I've just started high school. This is my first year, and then, when this term ends, I have two more years. So I'm doing that first, while at the same time doing activism. But after that, I have no idea what I want to do or what I'm up to. I guess I will have to see where I end up. But probably I will be where I can be the most useful — advocating for change in one way or another and being an activist in whatever shape that may take.

Physics of birds and bees – sincerely, Albert Einstein

A newly discovered letter reveals that Einstein predicted recent bee research seventy years ago.

13 May 2021 Ellen Phiddian




Extract from Einstein's letter to Davys. Credit: Dyer et al. 2021, J Comp Physiol A / The Hebrew University of Jerusalem


In 2019, a group of RMIT researchers were in the midst of publishing a series of grand discoveries about how bees use their brains, when they got an unexpected surprise from Albert Einstein.

Led by Scarlett Howard as part of her PhD, the team had shown that, despite their small size, bees could understand the concept of zero, and even perform simple arithmetic.

“We were actually able to show that they could discriminate numbers above 4, so they could do things like 4 versus 5, which is a very hard discrimination to make,” says Howard, now a postdoctoral research fellow at Deakin University.

The research caught the attention of the media and was shared worldwide. Shortly after, Howard’s supervisor, Adrian Dyer, received a message from a widow on the other side of the globe.

“A lady in the UK heard about it and wrote to me directly, because I was the corresponding author, and said ‘I have a very unusual letter in my possession, which was written by Albert Einstein to my late husband’,” says Dyer.

The lady – Judith Davys, wife of Glyn Davys, who lived from 1925 to 2011 – said that the letter discussed the same themes Dyer and Howard were now investigating. She asked Dyer if he’d like to examine it.

“Of course I was quite interested.”

Davys sent the letter over, and after verifying with the Albert Einstein Archives that it had actually come from Einstein, Dyer started to do some research on its genesis.

Written in October 1949 and fewer than 100 words, the letter is short but packed with meaning. It was a response to a letter Glyn Davys had sent to Einstein, the content of which is unknown but can be guessed at.
Einstein’s letter to Davys

Dear Sir,

I am well acquainted with Mr V. Frisch’s admirable investigations. But I cannot see a possibility to utilize those results in the investigation concerning the basis of physics. Such could only be the case if a new kind of sensory perception, resp. of their stimuli, would be revealed through the behaviour of the bees. It is thinkable that the investigation of the behaviour of migratory birds and carrier pigeons may some day lead to the understanding of some physical process which is not yet known.

Sincerely yours,

Albert Einstein.

“I am well acquainted with Mr. v. Frisch’s admirable investigations,” begins Einstein. By 1949, Karl von Frisch was becoming well-known for the research on bees that would end up winning him a Nobel Prize. He had recently shown that honeybees can use the polarisation of sunlight to navigate, and news on this research had made it into newspapers in the United Kingdom. Dyer and his collaborators believe that Davys, who had worked on radar as an engineer in the Royal Navy, had read about this research and written to Einstein asking if he was aware of it.

Einstein had, in fact, attended a lecture by von Frisch earlier that year and briefly met the man afterwards. So he knew that bees could distinguish the polarisation of light and navigate – an interesting physical concept, but with little application at the time.

This small letter excited the RMIT researchers, because it was exactly what their team had done with bees.

“His suggestion is [that] new behaviours might reveal new ways of looking at physics,” summarises Dyer.

“This is something that is an active field of research today,” says Andrew Greentree, a physicist at RMIT who has worked with Howard and Dyer.

“I’m attending conferences where people talk about the mechanisms for magneto-sensing in birds, and people are also interested in magneto-sensing in dogs and humans and insects.”

There’s still a lot to be proven in the field (particularly around magneto-sensing), but theoretical physicists are rapidly becoming interested in how animals navigate and communicate – hence Greentree’s involvement in the project. “Understanding how bees [navigate] with a tiny little brain using far less energy than we have in our standard mobile phones is a really important technological challenge,” he says.

Greentree has been working with Dyer’s team for six or seven years, but in Einstein’s time, it was unusual for physicists to spot applications from biology and zoology.

“For a physicist, that’s a really radical thing to be suggesting,” says Greentree.

How does it feel to have your work predicted by Einstein, 70 years prior? How might this bee research be viewed in 70 years’ time?

It’s hard to tell, but Dyer, Howard and Greentree all hope it encourages more interdisciplinary research.

Howard thinks there will be more interest in the growing field of insect cognition. “The honeybee is obviously a really great model, but we don’t know what other great models might also be out there at this stage, and I think in 70 years we’ll see a huge amount of research going into looking at how other insects can help us in our everyday lives as well as how they’re important in their own environments.”

“Every time I’ve worked with Andrew I’ve learned something new, and that goes both ways,” says Dyer.

“I think the fact that Einstein was potentially interested in this will probably capture the attention of some pretty senior physicists to maybe just read a few more papers on what insects and animals can do.”

Greentree agrees. “To have Einstein talking to von Frisch, who is a radically different kind of scientist […] That’s convincing me that I should be someone who’s reaching out more to people in other disciplines.”

He also adds that it “reminds me of our public service, the requirement on us to actually respond to the general public.”

“[Einstein] was a famously prolific writer,” he says. “He would write to essentially anyone. He would try to reply to everyone who wrote to him.”

“We have a responsibility to engage with people, at some level, and to assist wherever we can, to share knowledge.”

A paper analysing Einstein’s letter is published in the Journal of Comparative Physiology A.





Credit: Dyer et al. 2021, J Comp Physiol A 

UK

Tories unveil anti-woke manifesto
12 May 2021

Steerpike

The Queen’s Speech yesterday may have seen the government’s fairly dry vision for modern Britain but a group of Conservative backbench MPs and peers have now banded together to propose their own alternative. Cracking down on immigration, breaking up the BBC and taking aim at woke policing are all proposed in a new book by the Common Sense Group of around 50 Tory parliamentarians. Titled Conservative Thinking For a Post-Liberal Age, it takes aim at the Equality Act, Supreme Court, British broadcasters and Extinction Rebellion, proposing a much tougher line on the forces of 'wokeism' and its practitioners.

The group's chairman Sir John Hayes declares that 'the battle for Britain has begun, and guided by the common sense of the people, we must triumph for the common good'. For fellow member Gareth Bacon 'Britain is under attack' from a ‘woke ideology’ with 'no democratic mandate' but instead an 'intense hostility to western civilisation'. Policies to tackle this include 'definitive amendments to the 2010 Equality Act,' tax incentives to encourage marriage, curbs on direct action protests and a requirement for state-funded institutions to 'promote British values, traditions and history.'

Britain's top judges are lambasted by veteran Edward Leigh and new MP Sally-Ann Hart in a chapter on judicial activism undermining democracy. The pair describe the Supreme Court's ruling against Boris Johnson's prorogation of Parliament as 'a naked power grab, with no substantial legal or juridical justification'. Such 'a political act' was just a gamble 'in order to stop Brexit' — something 'the politicised justices lost' with 'legislative reform of the Supreme Court' needed to prevent a repeat again.

The section on media reform co-authored between James Sunderland MP and Express journalist David Maddox demands the break up of the BBC, the abolition of broadcast impartiality rules and that big tech companies like Facebook be treated as publishers. They claim the pandemic has 'been a salutary lesson' with existing broadcasters seeing it 'as their role to promote the pro-Lockdown message' with reform strengthening 'plurality of voices and freedom of speech' against a 'quasi-Marxist movement on the liberal left.'


The police are not spared either with Chris Loder and Tom Hunt calling for an end to the 'woke' culture of 'middle management' infecting forces across the country. Reforms include tackling the 'fear of conduct investigations' which means 'officers are wary of acting according to their instincts' with the Macpherson report being accused of undermining effective policing: 'the words "institutional racism" are so terrifying because they attack the very foundation of policing by consent.'

On immigration, red wall MP Nick Fletcher backs a cap of 100,000 people a year, arguing 'it must be made known to the ordinary working man and woman that their neighbourhoods and communities will not be treated as dumping grounds for anyone and everyone who wishes to come to the United Kingdom.'

Peers Lord Horam and Lord Hodgson propose that all jobs should only be advertised in the UK alongside a cap on the number of skilled workers allowed into the country and a suspension of the 'New Entrant' route which allows employers to bring in young workers from abroad earning over £20,480. An Office of Demographic Change — an independent body established along the lines of the Office for Budget Responsibility — is suggested to undertake a comprehensive transparent analysis of all aspects of demographic growth.

It was of course nine years ago that a similarly punchy book by newly elected members — Britannia Unchained — made the names of some of today’s leading Tory politicians. Four of the work’s co-authors — Priti Patel, Dominic Raab, Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng — now sit around the cabinet table having all co-founded the Free Enterprise Group together. Will similar success greet the co-authors of the Common Sense book too?

WRITTEN BY Steerpike
Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk.