24/11/2012 Dateline London

television history. I will be back with a full news

bulletin at 1 o'clock. Now it is time for Dateline London with Gavin

Hello and welcome to Dateline London. No agreement on the

European Union budget and no surprise either. A ceasefire

between Israel and the Palestinians, but for how long? And the Czech

headed by a woman where women cannot become bishops. My guests

are Michael Goldfarb from global post .com, Polly Toynbee from the

Guardian, Abdel Bari Atwan from Fajr-5 and -- All-Quds and Saul

Zadka it from a London. Does the failure of this week's

European budget summit get to the core of the failure of the you,

that despite the talk of European solidarity, every country Act's in

its own national self interest? think it will get resolved in the

end but it has to go through some more painful phases. A good thing

is it looks like Britain is not isolated. It looked like Cameron

was marching off to Europe to be the only one but he was rescued by

Angela Merkel who owes us nothing, owes Cameron nothing, but she

reached out and hand to him because she was determined that Britain

should not be isolated at this stage. It was highly diplomatic and

a very generous move on her part. She does not want Britain to leave.

I fear we are heading for the exit and she wants Britain to hold on

which was very magnanimous. could say it was Germany's wide

interests to keep Britain in because Germany is a party in tune

with the kind of thinking. David Cameron went to Brussels with a big

gun in his hand, the idea that Britain may vote for quitting the

European Union altogether and it looked more serious than it was

before. Everybody was worried that if they could not reach a

compromise with Britain, the British people will leave the union.

It should be emphasised that a new front line has been established

within the European Union, not just that Britain is not alone, Germany

is somewhere in the middle but tends to agree with the British

approach of keeping austerity and keeping the budget. The French are

more isolated than ever before. They have lost their reliance. They

tended to form what I call a Club Med of countries like Italy and

Spain. Eventually I think we will be heading through a few necessary

motions as it happened seven years ago. They reached an agreement on

the budget after only three meetings. Eventually they reached

an agreement in which Britain would be able to keep the rebate and the

French would be happy as well. There would be a compromise in

which $20 billion or Euros would be slashed out of the Budget.

would you see this? There are some people who think this is all a bit

of a sideshow. Economically, the big picture is Spain is in trouble,

Spain continues to be in trouble, what do you do about Greece, and

the budget, although it sounds like a lot of money, it is small change?

Definitely. A trillion Euro-budget is a huge budget. A problem is

Greece needs a lot if inside reforms -- the EU needs a lot of

inside reforms to distribute this money. For example, you distribute

40 % of the money to the agricultural sector which produces

only 2% of the GDP and employs only 5% of the population. That is a

disaster. The same thing, this continuation between East Europe

and West Europe. The 1 Hector of land in Belgium or the Netherlands

earns three or four times compared to a heck tear in Latvia, for

example. In order to keep the European Union together, you have

to reform it. When these legalisation laws were introduced,

there were only 15 countries. Now there are 27 countries. There are

newcomers, new challenges, as you mention, new economic problems. Now

there are 25 million unemployed. The budget is not distributed in a

way to create jobs for those people. This is the real challenge facing

the European Union. Michael? I took aside from this the narrative going

in from the British press was once again, lonely in the trenches, the

Brits were going to strike a blow for Fiscal decency. Just Fiscal

decency and honour. But I was thinking, they will work this out.

We had three bites of the cherry last time. But really, does it

compare to what is going on in America? We are driving towards a

fiscal cliff. If the US cannot settle its budget, one single

nation, if it cannot settle its budget by the end of the year, it

will destroy the world economy. is at least two nations, isn't it?

This is a very serious point. Their arguments in Britain constantly

about a federal system and we do not want any part of it. Look at

the United States. There are many reasons for individual nations, big

individual nations to come apart at the scenes. It is a bit of a

sideshow but it speaks to the disunity in America that there are

now these petitions for a cessation and petitioners are being backed by

one of the candidates for the Republican Party. It is the same

dispute going on in America, the dispute between the posteriors and

the Keynesians. That is where France stands. -- austerity.

Francois Hollande is standing very firm on the idea that Europe should

be expansionary. Europe should be investigated -- should be investing

and dealing with the huge crisis of unemployment so cutting back at

this time is not the right time. allows the people in favour of

austerity to command the whole debate. It is much more bloated in

Brussels than it is in the US where you have bureaucracy at the

national and state level. That gets over emphasised. It is very visible

when you go to Brussels. It is the Eurocrat I fear. That is a very

small part of it. It is easy to say, why are they building a big new

museum? It is a tiny part of what it is about. The fat cats of the

so-called European bureaucracy, 40,000 people. When it is money

from the police budget, it is difficult for Cameron to argue.

think Cameron would support the assault on Brussels.

The next move on. Two views in caricature in the Middle East,

Israel must guarantee the security of its people. No, Israel's

settlement building has left an entire people desperate with little

hope. Whichever side you take, is there any way of bonding -- moving

beyond a ceasefire to real peace negotiations or are we moving into

the next round of one unsolvable bloody conflict. Give us the

Israeli view at the moment? It has frozen by the ceasefire. How do

Israelis see it right now? I think they see it as an unsatisfactory

agreement, flimsy, open to interpretations, certainly not

something that people who live close to the border with Gaza were

wishing for. They think eventually, within the next two or three years,

we will be sitting round this table and discussing the same problem

again. There will definitely be another outburst of hostilities.

What is worse, it was all predictable. Simply people saw it

as something which was inevitable. However, because there was not a

decisive victory on either side, people came to the conclusion that

eventually both sides would have to come to another shoulder. Does

everybody see it will happen again in a couple of years unless

something? Is there something? There are two options. One is an

agreement between Israel and Hamas, but this will force Hamas took

recognise Israel's right to exist, the notorious charter which

stipulates the eradication of Israel altogether. The other

alternative is there will be another assault by the Israelis

that will dismantle the entire regime from Gaza altogether. Both

options are not likely. What is the Palestinian view? The Palestinian

view is clear. 165 people were killed in the last bombardment.

1,000 were injured. We were told this war has two options. The first

one is for Netanyahu to enhance his chances on the coming election in

January so it means he, in every election, the election campaign on

the West at least, where Israel belongs, kissing children in order

to raise popularity, Netanyahu sending warplanes to kill children

and raised his popularity and gain more seats in the Knesset. The

other thing we are told is Israel did this bombardment detest the

Iranian missiles on the position of Hamas. Again, Netanyahu, the

Israeli government, using Gaza as guinea pigs and its children as

guinea pigs. And using this two- Test the Iranian missile. Honestly,

I am surprised the Israeli who bought 300 nuclear warheads and

thousands of war planes saying they are doing this for self-defence.

People who impose a blockade on Gaza for ten years and occupy and

Palestinian dance, this is self- defence? They do not deserve self-

defence. Two things. The first thing is it is no longer possible

to talk about this without mentioning the constant din, even

if they do not kill anybody, the constant din from rockets from

Hamas and Islamic Jihad. But how many people were killed? I said

there were two things. Her 165 people were killed, women and

children. That is not what we were talking about. We were talking

about what led up to this. The second thing is, you bring up the

idea that this is a test for the Iranian... That is what we were

told by the New York Times. It came out of Washington, it quoted the

usual suspects, Dennis Ross, I would not quote that article too

much. I do not think that was the intention. It was without doubt a

test but that was not why Israel had this particular military action.

You have got to look back at what has been happening, particularly

over the last three or four more -- for months, and the intensity of

rocket attacks increased and that some point, there has got to be a

response. The response to kill 165 people. 1,000 were injured. Houses

were destroyed. A nobody would doubt this was disproportionate,

baptistry. Nobody would doubt that the Palestinians started it. For

those of us who stand back who are not there, we look at it and say,

there will never be peace and will both sides decide they want it,

until both sides get hired enough or have sensible enough leaders or

the Israelis stop killing Hamas leaders who are the most

experienced and the ones they have talked to in the past. We look at

South Africa and you say, how can it be? You look at the torture

endured by black South Africans and they ended up making peace. They

ended up finding a way to do that. You look at the bitterness for

generations in Northern Ireland and they managed to do it. That comes a

time, you hope, and every impossible to speak where both

sides can just about see that it is enough in their interests. But it

also needs an outside person to step in and help and we have not

The story is simple for everybody to see. Rockets were launched from

within residential neighbourhoods in Gaza, into Israel, for the last

few years. Thousands of rockets. And Iranian made missiles were

heading into similar populations. Can you see the point? Israel can

kill their areas leaders of Hamas, but it has not done anything but

leave the organisation without a particular figurehead. You don't

solve problems by creating more enemies.

To end man with a Hannah, every problem looks like a nail. -- to a

man with a hammer. To his well, this is how it looks. The answer

Just one second... If the intent of Hamas was to cause

as many Israeli casualties and fatalities as possible, we have to

allow Israel to create another Iron Dome? You can't compare fatalities.

The intent of Hamas was to kill thousands more. They want to kill

the entire country of Israel. What if something went wrong? No, no,

you made a false accusation. In order to improve their chance in an

election... Let me answer you! Gentleman! We

are a civilised programme. You are saying that we should talk.

You mentioned the example of South Africa, which I respect. I hope we

can have this example applied to our case. But, the PLO has been in

talks with Israel for 20 years. It wants to concede 18% of historic

Palestine. What more can you do? More killing? It is humiliating. He

is saying that Hamas is putting missiles aside the population. Gaza

is 150 square miles. It is populated by 2 million. Let be

complete. -- let me complete. You can't find any space, empty space,

to put missiles in. That is the problem.

Why are this smuggling thousands of rockets? OK, OK. A final word,

Michael. Who, outside, asked to... It is

always the US. Until Hillary Clinton cut short her trip, nothing

was going to happen. Question. His Mohamed Morsi capable of being the

new power-broker here? For 24 hours, he was the big hero in the world.

Now he seizing dictatorial powers, it seems, in Egypt.

We don't have time to talk about that, although it is interesting.

The head of the Church of England is a woman, the Queen. Some of the

most admired figures are also women. In between, no women bishops or

archbishops. To those of us who are not part of the Church, do we have

a right to comment on this? I know there's no Church of England, to

hear. And I know you are a humanist. I am president of the British

humanist Association. It goes back to the Middle East. We look at all

of these religions that have always been defined by being anti-women.

Whether it is Muslims, Christians, keeping women out has been the name

of the game. This is the last remnant of the Church of England's

agents are routes -- ancient roots, and make it be up rooted soon. As a

non-believer, it comes out of feminism.

There are female rabbis. Do you think... An interesting thing is

that surely members of an organisation have got, to a degree,

a right to choose how their organisation is run. If they choose

not to have women doing something, the rest of us who are not in it,

do we have any axe to grind? Only a tiny minority in the Church

of England voted against women bishops. In many ways, a vocal,

Conservative minority imposed its will. It means something is faulty

in the system in which such decisions are being past. I can't

understand why they had to wait until 2015 to debate the matter

again. Bacon debated again next week if they want to! -- they can.

Brings us to the question of whether to separate the church and

state in this country. -- this brings. Maybe it is time to

understand that the decision last week has been really a blow to the

Church of England, which suffers from a diminishing number of

worshippers anyway. They have to do something about it.

I have spoken to some clergy in the Church of England. Some of them are

so fed up of this issue, year after year. They wanted to be sold.

I'm happy because we, as Muslims, we are backward just like the

Church of England! We don't have bishops. We are equal for the first

time. That is fantastic! You don't have any women in MAM's?

-- in MAM. --imams? Inter-war religion, he has to lead

the prayer. -- in at our religion. You can't have a woman in the front

leading the prayer. It is a different culture. It is a

different prayer. And it all comes from the wicked

heart of Jerusalem. Michael. One of the things about this is,

yes, everybody has a right because it is an established church and

reflects on the nation as a whole. Second, there has to be more

political nous at the top of a political organisation, which the

Church of England is. It came into being, belittle at its root. --

political. Why does the Church of England have

to have the privilege of being the established Church?

We are the only democracy, so- called, but is actually a theocracy,

where we have, as part of our constitution, a religious person

making our law. Have you been to Iran?!

The Prince of Wales has already said that he wants to defend the

faith. He takes that into account. Women are calling for a right to

drive in some parts of the Muslim world. We don't have a movement for

them to be part of the religion. I would rather drive!

Convert to Islam and I will guarantee it for you!

There will be somebody who discovers that Mohammed allows

women to be part of Islam. The point is there are people who

are so irritated, that it might come back quickly. So you point

about why put it of the 2015, it looks like that might not happen.

-- put it off until 2015. Some people are saying they have

been born into the controversy. They have got other controversies,

too. There is gay marriage. It is always backwards.