I listened to the speech by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the Davos World Economic Forum. He predictably spoke of the need for a massive aid programme to rebuild the country. But then he mentioned, almost in passing – a slip of the tongue moment – Israel as the model of a nation which is surrounded by enemies and which therefore needs to be massively armed and supported by the West.  At that point an alarm bell rang. Is this what is in store for Ukraine, that it becomes the Israel of Europe, including having an ethnic minority composed of ‘the enemy’ and conflict over spiritual homes? Is it proposed that Russian oil and gas supplies are unlocked via regime change and further dissolution which results in a patchwork of Middle Eastern style oligarchies sycophantically attached to the West. Is it that Putin has made Nasser’s mistake of reacting to Western provocation and then losing?

The alarm bell continued to ring stridently as the above narrative assumed a chilling logic.