But because he is rejecting compromise any compromise that leaves Israel standing

But because he is rejecting compromise, any compromise that leaves Israel standing.For all the skewed reporting, and the misdirected international criticism, Israel will survive. He knows how untrue that is, even if the na? journalists and governments do not. Again, not because Israel is intransigently rejecting compromise. Using his tightly controlled media to broadcast on TV the Friday sermons of radical preachers urging the killing of Jews “everywhere” Exhorting his own people to “martyrdom”. Signing off on payments to murderers like Raed Karmi, the self-acknowledged killer of two Israelis whose crime was to sit down and eat at a Tulkarm restaurant. Financing the Karine A shipment of Iranian arms, captured by Israel in January. But Mr Arafat was not prepared even to do this.He has reverted utterly to type.

At an address on Sunday night in Washington, Mr Peres sighed with utter despair as he recounted that the US Secretary of State Colin Powell had merely asked Mr Arafat to pick up a microphone and denounce terrorism, and make a phone call to the heads of the 30,000 or more men he still has under arms to tell them to start clamping down on the bombers. In a world turned upside-down, Israel is now pressured by the international community to “act with restraint” when the bombers blow up its civilians in restaurants and buses and wedding halls – and branded the aggressor when, betrayed by Mr Arafat, it attempts to thwart the bombers itself.The extent of Israeli disillusionment with Mr Arafat is such that even Mr Peres, his fellow Nobel Peace laureate, can no longer find words for his defence. It just needs a Palestinian partner, unlike Mr Arafat, who doesn’t seek to end Israel.Slick Palestinian spokesmen assert daily, from the platforms granted to them by the deferential news channels, that Ariel Sharon’s aggression is the cause of the current Middle East malaise – trusting interviewers and viewers alike to overlook the fact that the intifada was hatched under Mr Barak’s watch. It is an astounding testament to Israelis’ desire for peace that even now, after the month of March saw 126 of its people killed in acts of terrorism stoked by Mr Arafat, a majority are telling pollsters that they support the Saudi peace initiative – which envisages “normal ties” between Arab states and Israel after a complete Israeli withdrawal from territory it captured in the 1967 war Israel is desperate to end the occupation. Today, in a world turned upside-down, Israel stands accused by the international diplomatic and journalistic community of war crimes; the European Parliament votes for trade sanctions against it; and purported humanitarians call for Yitzhak Rabin’s fellow peace trailblazer – not Yasser Arafat, but the Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres – to be stripped of his Nobel prize. Compared with Madame Nijinsky, Mrs Jones is a bunny rabbit.Women were not designed to be old, Madame once told me Look at me, she said And I did and she was right..

It was her vitriolic tongue which bad-mouthed everyone she’d ever met from Pavlova to Balanchine to Diaghilev to Stravinsky and not least to the waitress who was bringing us tea. Please God don’t let me grow old like Madame Nijinsky.It’s nothing to do with the bright red wig she wore at the age of 80 or the thick white mask of makeup. Not once did he say an unkind word about any of his wives, even the one who ran off with his best friend who was still, incidentally, his best friend.Tommy was quite simply a gent, the antithesis in every way to Madame Romola Nijinsky, widow of the legendary Russian dancer, who is, or rather was, quite simply the most poisonous old woman I’ve ever met. He was 90 when he died and I miss him because he was quite simply the best company ever.We would sit on a bench in the sun and he would tell me swashbuckling stories about surviving the battle of Mons and even more swashbuckling stories about his four marriages. When you’re mellow you have no time for malice.My role model for a perfect old age, is or rather was, Tommy the Chelsea Pensioner I used to visit at the Royal Hospital down the road. “The fact is I just didn’t recognise you.” If only women could mellow into old age like men they’d be a lot happier. “You told me categorically that I was going to live 87 years, seven months and 16 days I’m only 32 what happened?”God shuffled his feet nervously “It was a mistake, I’m terribly sorry,” he said.