A week ago I was stunned when a European friend asked me what I thought of adeclaration by 60 American intellectuals that was published in all the majorFrench, German, Italian and other continental papers but which did not appear inthe US at all, except on the Internet where few people took notice of it. Thisdeclaration took the form of a pompous sermon about the American war againstevil and terrorism being "just" and in keeping with American values,as defined by these self-appointed interpreters of our country. Paid for andsponsored by something called the Institute for American Values, whose main (andfinancially well- endowed) aim is to propagate ideas in favour of families,"fathering" and "mothering," and God, the declaration wassigned by Samuel Huntington, Francis Fukuyama, Daniel Patrick Moynihan amongmany others, but basically written by a conservative feminist academic, JeanBethke Elshtain. Its main arguments about a "just" war were inspiredby Professor Michael Walzer, a supposed socialist who is allied with thepro-Israel lobby in this country, and whose role is to justify everything Israeldoes by recourse to vaguely leftist principles. In signing this declaration,Walzer has given up all pretension to leftism and, like Sharon, allies himselfwith an interpretation (and a questionable one at that) of America as arighteous warrior against terror and evil, the more to make it appear thatIsrael and the US are similar countries with similar aims.