Alan Mendoza

Tuesday

Alan Mendoza

Netanyahu reaps the benefits of treating Trump with respect, rather than contempt

Not many world leaders can claim to be on friendly personal terms with Donald Trump. There are fewer still who would regard a visit to this particular president’s White House as a crowning achievement, and one which would increase their popularity at home rather than being seen as a moral failing. So the lesson of Benjamin Netanyahu’s triumphant meeting with the US president deserves particular scrutiny for having jumped all these hurdles. Admittedly, it helps to be a right wing Israeli Prime Minister at a time of Republican ascendancy. Netanyahu’s relationship with Barack Obama was famously abrasive. Any successor was bound to be an improvement, even if the strong US-Israel relationship goes far deeper than the Presidential level.

Friday

Alan Mendoza

It is easy to say there’s nothing we can do to prevent lone-wolf attacks. It is also wrong

For the third time in the last 18 months – twice in Paris and now in Nice – France has been left reeling from the effects of a mass casualty terrorist attack on its soil. With pictures of the dead and injured circulating freely on social media, an understandable reaction is to express solidarity with those who have suffered through well-meaning slogans like #JeSuisNice. But solidarity is no longer enough for it has not delivered security. We must face the fact that terrorists respect actions not words. If we do not rise to the challenge being brought to our shores in Europe, then the result can only be further death and destruction within our societies. The terrorist threat is evolving.