Dispatches

The Big Cheese

The wild, top-hat-and-jeans-clad compére jumped onto the stage to announce the 20 semi-finalists of the second annual New York Cheesemonger Invitational. The crowd roared approval at those über-mongers who could detect age, nationality, name and bloom. For this, the third of four rounds, each contestant was to cut two 1/4 pound chunks of cheese and wrap each in cheese paper in under a minute. To mad applause, the first woman cheesemonger took to the stage. The clock began to tick. She estimated and sliced cheese amounts, posed triumphantly for the audience when her scale read 0.27lbs and began to wrap vigorously.

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Delegitimising the Delegitimisers

I first recall hearing the term ‘delegitimisation’ applied to Israel six or seven years ago at a rather turgid conference in Brussels, when Nathan Sharansky presented it as part of his 3D test for unfair criticism of Israel. The way you could detect this ‘new antisemitism’, he said, was if the critic was applying double standards to Israel, demonising the state, or delegitimising its very existence. Cute and tricksy, I thought at the time. But it seems to be a concept which has now come into its own. Delegitimisation has become the catchword of defenders of Israel, a new battle-cry in the fight to defend the Jewish state — and, if some are to be believed, one which presents an existential threat to its existence. Read more