Why Americans Need to Get Much Angrier About Donald Trump.

Over the months and years, I’ve watched America transition from a tolerant, bastion of free speech, to a divided nation where intolerance abounds and the only permitted political comments are those lauded towards their new Caesar, President Donald J. Trump. Looking back, it was an inevitable love affair. On the international scene, presidential indecision had, by 2017 left the US looking weaker than at any other time in history. America hasn’t won a major sustained war on its own since Word War 2, though there have been a few ‘successes’ if you include smaller interventions.

In 1983, the US swiftly invaded Grenada (with an estimated population, then 110,000) and overthrow the Marxist military government. Similarly, in 1990, in Operation Just Cause, they quickly ousted dictator Manuel Noriega and installed a democratically elected government. I do not include the Gulf War as this broadly successful conflict involved a 35-nation coalition, of which the US was only a part.

Prosperity on the Home Front

On the home front, US citizens were at their most affluent (if defined by how easily a single wage earner could buy a home, raise a family and buy a car) under Dwight  Eisenhower, while they were able to save the most under Nixon and Carter;

although, unemployment was high under Reagan and Ford, but healthcare arrangements were improved the most for the elderly and low-income populations under Lyndon B. Johnson, though I’m sure some readers would argue in providing cover to over 30 million Americans,  Obama’s Affordable Care Act deserves mention.

Against this, Trump has referred to his own presidency as a “very beautiful and romantic time”, and after his first term, “our country was thriving, we were just beating everyone,” but is this true?

International markers during both Trump eras show that, if we examine the Happy Planet Index (a tool created by the New Economic Foundation to measure national well-being, we see Costa Rica is top, the UK comes in at 34^th, while the US is way behind at 108^th. Equally, if we look at the Human Development Index, an UN-inspired economic tool to measure economic opportunity and capability, Norway is top, the US 13^th and the UK close behind at 14^th. Finally, using the OECDs Better Lives Index, a tool identifying 11 facets essential to well-being (housing, income, jobs, community, education, environment, civic engagement, health life satisfaction, safety and work-life balance), Norway, Finland and Denmark come top and the US is far behind in 15th place.

Similarly, if we explore the rate of inflation over the last twenty years, the U.S. has averaged roughly 2.5% to 3.0% annually, marked by a period of historic stability between 2006–2020, followed by a massive 40-year peak of 9.1% under Trump in 2022 due to pandemic-era factors, and more recently, we see a volatile run back up to 4.25% due to recent energy price shocks following the Iran war.

Given this why I fail to see anything beautiful or romantic about Trump’s two presidencies, especially when you remember unemployment went to its highest during his first term at 14.7%. Now you might accuse me of being unfair given this was during the Covid lockdown, but comparatively during the same era, Japan kept unemployment to between 2.8 and 3.3%, Germany averaged 3.8% and the UK averaged 4.9%. So clearly something went badly wrong with Trump’s economic policy.

Taking the honesty test

Although a very bitter pill to swallow, it might be possible to forgive him if he was honest, but what is widely known and has been proven beyond doubt is the level of his dishonesty resulting in a criminal grand jury indicting him on one count of making “false statements and representations”. This related  specifically to hiding subpoenaed classified documents from his attorney, who was trying to return them to the government. And let’s not forget his 34 felony counts for falsifying business records in the first degree.

By now, “true defenders” will argue Trump is frequently maligned and these prosecutions should never have happened because they were either errors or, at worst, business matters with no bearing on his political acumen or integrity.

These are by far from his only dishonest actions. There are plenty more – let’s look at just a few:

1.  “Already, I’ve secured a record-breaking $18 trillion of investment into the United States.” It would have been great if it were true, but it was false.

2.  “Our country was being invaded by an army of 25 million people.” Those numbers weren’t even close to being true.

3.  “I was elected in a landslide.” Untrue.

4.  “The price of a Thanksgiving turkey was down 33% compared to Biden last year.” It wasn’t true.

5.  Trump said the Republicans’ “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed this year included, among other things, “no tax on Social Security.” Sound nice, but it wasn’t actually part of the package.

6.  “When I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years, and some would say in the history of our country.” Trump says this all the time, but as I showed above, it was demonstrably false.

7.  “I’ve … settled eight wars in 10 months.” I get the sense he’s convinced himself this happened, but it hasn’t, no matter how many times he repeats the line.

8.  “Gasoline is now under $2.50 a gallon into much of the country. In some states, it, by the way, just hit $1.99 a gallon.” This is a weird thing to lie about, since consumers know better, but for the record, this obviously was not true.

9.  “The price of eggs is down 82% since March, and everything else is falling rapidly.” Trump would have been even more popular if this were true, but it was a lie.

1.  “I negotiated directly with the drug companies and foreign nations, which were taking advantage of our country for many decades, to slash prices on drugs and pharmaceuticals by as much as 400%, 500% and even 600%.” This whopper came  close to the top spot because of the sheer absurdity of the lie.

1  “Between 3 million and 5 million illegal votes caused me to lose the popular vote.” (There is no evidence of illegal voting.).

1  “Take a look at the Pew reports (which show voter fraud.)” (The report never mentioned voter fraud.)

1  “After being forced to apologize for its bad and inaccurate coverage of me after winning the election, the FAKE NEWS @nytimes is still lost!” (It never apologized.)

.  “I saved a lot of money on those jets, didn't I? Did I do a good job? More than $725 million on them.” (Many of the cost cuts were planned before Trump.)

I could go on, but rather than bore you, I will move on, as many journalists now argue there may be as many as 20,000 – 30,000 other lies I could have included. I am no great follower of either TV, or TV personalities, but I believe there is one celebrity called Judge Judith Sheindlin, who once said a teenager is likely lying simply if "their mouth is moving". It seems this is also true of President Trump.

Trump on the international stage

But it is on foreign policy he has failed the most. During his two terms, he has consistently miscalculated the strength or weakness of other parties, as well as often making promises he was obviously incapable of achieving. Take his much-touted promise to solve the ongoing conflict in Ukraine within 24-hours; a promise that ultimately fell completely flat. This failure, combined with repeated wavering commitments to ⁠NATO has discredited the United States as a dependable security provider and forced many European allies to reconsider their own defence postures. This became apparent when Trump called on NATO countries to support his action in Iran, only to find they all pretty much refused point blank. Or his operation to oust Venezuela's elected (albeit in a highly contentious election) ex-President Nicolas Maduro; a unilateral action to remove a national leader without any discussion with his allies.

It is unlikely they would have disagreed with the operation, but the fact he chose to move without consultation created a lot of global uncertainty, leading experts and senior diplomats to warn this unpredictable approach damaged diplomatic relations and emboldened other competitors. Essentially, his rogue action created an uncertainty where it became unclear where, or how, Trump might act in the future. Could he attack Guatemala, Cambodia or Turkey simply because their leaders came to power in unfair elections? The Maduro kidnap occurred because the US accused him of “narco-terrorism”, but could the same happen to other leaders in Ecuador, Colombis, or Mexico? Outrageous perhaps, but Trump’s foreign policy has lacked finesse and forethought leading many countries to distance themselves.

As for the relationship between the US and Russia, far from easing tensions, it has become a strained dynamic, because while Trump previously sought a close, transactional friendship with Putin to resolve global conflicts, it has shifted to frustration as Moscow’s aggressive actions in Ukraine continue and peace becomes increasingly elusive.

Equally, and just as in Ukraine, the once warm relationship between Trump and Netanyahu has deteriorated into name-calling and anger, but unlike Zelensky, Benjamin Netanyahu has no fear of an American withdrawal and appears to almost welcome to ‘go alone’ and destroy Hezbollah on his own, if necessary.

The Iran Deal

The recent agreement between the Trump administration and Iran has ripped the mask off the so-called “Best Friends Forever” relationship between Trump and Netanyahu. If we explore his history, we can see how Trump tends to favour alliances with political strongmen, often siding with them over traditional friends and allies, but only so long as they serve his personal purpose. However, the moment they outlive their usefulness, or become a personal liability, the friendship evaporates instantly.

For Netanyahu, the writing is now on the wall, and Trump has decided to fly solo while ignoring Netanyahu and the needs of the Israeli people; any fealty to Trump has run its course. The Iran deal is so profoundly detrimental to Israel that what was once a political asset - the bond with Trump—has become a liability.

As for the rest of the world, the Wall Street Journal defined it perfectly in their editorial when they argued: “President Trump is touting his latest ceasefire deal with Iran as peace in our time,” the Journal writes, “but the world is more likely to see it as a strategic retreat short of achieving his war aim.”

In fact, I must ask did he ever have any war aims, beyond destroying their nuclear capability? Sure, he told the Iranian people “help is on its way”, but it never really happened and anyway, it was primarily the Israeli Air Force who attacked and killed Ayatollah Khamenei and eliminated much of the IRGC hierarchy, while US forces concentrated on military and nuclear bases.

Much to Trump’s surprise, Iran did not capitulate – they stood their ground and fired back resulting in a financial cost (according to the Pentagon) of approximately $29 billion, though Sen. Chris Murphy argues the cost may be much higher and could be as much as $60 billion, along with the lives of 13 US military personnel.

With Republicans in Congress increasingly unhappy about the war and mid-terms due in November, Trump panicked and as we saw from the “Agreement”, pretty much capitulated on everything. Even his declaration of the terms of the agreement was hysterical, with him refusing to announce its content until the actual day of signing, while Tehran took the upper hand and were so cock-a-hoop they announced the full contents a full week earlier AND claimed victory in the war.

As Melanie Phillips the political commentator so eloquently stated in her blog:

“He has surrendered America to Iran.

He himself admitted that he stopped the war because of the threat of economic catastrophe if it continued. That was because of the oil shock caused by Iran seizing control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump was therefore signalling that America was powerless to defeat the regime. At a stroke, he turned the United States into a paper tiger, seen to be unwilling to do what it takes to fight a war until victory.

He thus ensured that Tehran would have the upper hand in everything that now follows in the negotiations for a final “deal.” It will be able to run rings round the Americans over the proposed “online blending” of the enriched uranium Trump once pledged to destroy, the destruction of centrifuges, disarmament verification, or anything else.”

After several military disasters over the last few years, the US needed a victory in Iran and with Trump’s “Make America Great Again” banners flying high, he looked to be the man to do it. He had everything in his favour: a strong ally with a highly trained and experienced well-equipped military, a region eager to see Iranian influence shut down, on the home front a nation angry with the Ayatollahs and eager to see justice for the Iranian people, and a powerful US military dedicated to defending democracy and freedom.

Trump should have been unbeatable – but somehow, he managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Political Comment

Unquestionably, the United States is full of people who pride themselves on their courage and loyalty; a people who are ever eager to defend the oppressed; and, to their eternal credit, a people who, quite simply, don’t like bullies. I’m not American but I can understand their pride and their patriotism – they have fought hard for it. Occasionally, there are people who superficially say all the right things, sound strong and upright, but beneath the bustle and bravado there is weakness. We have seen it in the UK – in 1939, Neville Chamberlain sucked up to Hitler so heavily, it was frightening and had Lord Halifax become prime minister instead of Winston Churchill, this post would have been written in German.

Despite the bravado and unusual delivery (albeit joyously funny, after all, his presidency will be remembered for his ability to create several new words to the language, including ‘bigly’,’ braggadocios’, ’hamburrderers’, ‘panican’, and my favourite ‘confide’). But despite the humour, let me be clear, Trump is weak and collapses when the conflict is tough. The international media have a nickname for him, calling him “TACO” Trump, an acronym standing for “Trump Always Chickens Out”. Sadly, in the last three months it’s a title he has earned:

21^st March – Trump issued a 48-hour deadline then extended it.

31^st March – He told Iran to make a deal, or US would obliterate energy plants.

1^st April – “We will bomb Iran into the Stone Age.”

5^th April – “open the f****n’ Straits, you crazy b******s or you will be living in hell”.

7^th April – “An entire civilisation will die tonight.”

21^st April – “I expect to be bombing.”

4 – 5^th May - Operation Project Freedom designed to escort ships through the Straits but lasted no more than a day when Iran fired on US military forces.

11^th June – “The US will hit very hard tonight” but cancelled the attack only hours later.

Was it any wonder Iran didn’t believe a single threat Trump made and felt justified in assuming they could go into negotiations with an upper hand.

Make no mistake, despite the “agreement” this war is not over, because Iran believe they are winning and while Trump may be too weak to continue, we all know Israel will not back down and if the US does not finish the job, Israel will do it for them.

The "Blame Game" - Why just blaming Muslims or Leftists for the rise in antisemitism is dangerous

A cursory glance at social media posts from pro-Jewish/ Israeli pages will soon reveal how contributors are understating or oversimplifying the root causes of modern day antisemitism. Many blame modern hate against Jews as being the fault of  "the Left", without ever clearly defining who they really mean. For some it refers to those on the hard left (Communists, anarchists etc), while for others it includes liberals, social democrats or those who associate their ideas with the Democratic Party.

But there is another sizable group joining the "Blame Game" and these are those who broadly support the Radical Right and point a grubby racist finger at Muslims, despite evidence showing most hate crime against Jews has led to the arrest of White British or American citizens. This is not to say that some Muslims are not antisemitic, or that a disturbing number of incidents have occurred where some Muslims have used various techniques to threaten or intimidate Jews, but, I would argue they are a minority amongst the larger Islamic population who wish to live peaceably. For those Muslims perpetrating threatening behaviour I would argue our judicial system is capable of inflicting harsh custodial sentencing and I would urge this to be put into action.

In the UK there are currently approximately 4m Muslims accounting for roughly 6.5% of the overall  population. Of these, it is believed about 200,000 could be described as 'radical', though not necessarily criminal. Unquestionably this is entirely unacceptable and no society can, or should accept rule by a minority desiring the implementation of Sharia Law. Indeed, this writer would argue if you do not like the rules of a country the solution is very simple - leave or we should help you. But all this is an entirely different argument and for another time.

In the UK last year there were roughly 4,000 reported hate crimes perpetrated against Jewish people and there are signs this may be on the increase, BUT there is no evidence Muslims are the key perpetrators, suggesting accusations of Muslim created antisemitic violence against Jews is both fallacious and dangerous.

As for arguing the fault lies with the "Left" this is also problematic. In the UK there is sound evidence of antisemitism in the history of the Labour party, the trade union movement, as well as other socialist movements. Indeed, it was Marx he myself, one of the founders of modern socialism who said: "What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money". He added, "The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew".

                                             Karl Marx

Now we do know in the last few years the Labour Party in the UK has had a significant problem with internal antisemitism. We also know the far Left have consistently pilloried Israel and pushed many lies to further the 'Palestinian' cause, arguing anti-Zionism is not antisemitism despite this they have  continually pushed a range of anti-Jewish tropes to justify their actions.

It is clear these opinion are not universal across the entire Left. In the UK there are number of sizeable Leftist groups and individuals who work hard to eliminate antisemitism (eg Stop the Hate, Runnymede Trust, Antisemitism Policy Trust), while in the US groups like Combat Against Antisemitism, Shine a Light, and the Philos Project do they part to eradicate hatred.

So while acknowledging there is evidence of Leftist Antisemitism, it would be wrong to argue this is universal, or that all left wing politicians are, by definition antisemitic.

On the opposite side of the political spectrum both the UK and US have long and deep roots in both fascism and Nazism. In the UK early signs were visible with the British Fascisti in the 1920's then, from this grew  the antisemitic British Union of Fascists under the leadership of Oswald Mosley who achieved an active membership of 50,000; statistics that obscure a far larger public support that could have taken the party to government had there not been a war and/or Defence Regulation 18b.

Similarly in the US, the violent and virulently antisemitic Ku Klux Klan attained an estimated 8m members and secured a strong influence within the US government. Admittedly, in both countries the membership of fascist groups declined but, this writer would argue their ideological roots have persisted and are fundamentally embedded in the culture and social mores of both countries.

                           .   Ku Klux Klan parade in Washington D.C., 1926.

Even postwar we can see evidence of active far-right antisemitic engagement in the political system of both nations (in the UK there is an early postwar lineage going back to Mosley's Union Movement moving through to the BNP and NF and more recent Patriotic Alternative, New British Union and Britain First; and similarly in the US we see the far right continuation of antisemitism within large sections of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, as well as countless far right groups present in every state. Add to that a more violent and dangerous type of antisemitic hate group in the terrorist organisation, Atomwaffen.Division).

Quite clearly, we see how postwar fascist or Nazi groups were forced out from the traditional political ingroup to a seemingly unwelcome outgroup - it became no longer politically acceptable to espouse race hate, but let us also never forget that previous members of these far right groups did not lose their sympathy for virulent antisemitism, they simply learned to remain silent, or find a way to sanitise it. Indeed, we have seen how a number of extremist far right politicians sanitised their past by later appearing moderate and mainstream.

The first action these 'hidden' fascists chose was to show how the US and Europe had learned from the Nazis and become civilised continents where hatred of Jews was in the past.

One effect of this pastification of antisemitism is that if people say that there is antisemitism in the air today or that they themselves are victims of antisemitism, they must either be mistaken, over-sensitive, delusionary or worst of all dishonest. Those who complain about antisemitism, or fight against antisemitism, or even wish peacefully to study antisemitism, cannot be right since it is already established that antisemitism no longer exists except on the fringes of right-wing extremism. The secret agenda some people see behind the ‘charge’ of antisemitism is that of defending Israel against its critics. We are told that the charge of antisemitism is abused in order to defend the indefensible. In this way, antisemitism appears as a ploy designed by Zionists to let Israel get away with murder. 

One dodgy presumption behind this argument is that Israel cannot be defended openly, so that its defenders have to resort to underhand tactics.  Another is that criticism of Israel is not ‘as such’ antisemitic or more strongly that no criticism of Israel can under any circumstance ever be antisemitic. A moment’s thought should disabuse us of this prejudice. It’s a bit like saying that no criticism of, say, India or Zimbabwe can ever be racist. If we criticise governments in India and Zimbabwe for being authoritarian or for abusing human rights, there might indeed be nothing racist about such criticism. But if we were to say that Indians and Africans are incapable of ruling themselves, we would be right back at ingrained notions of the superiority of the white race or of European civilisation.  

We must therefore come to the dangerous conclusion these 'hidden modern-day fascists', both left and right, have a vested interest in denying any existence of  antisemitism, for to do so would assume some kind of personal responsibility. When the data showed a rise in violence against Jews they were forced (as we saw being done by Leftist Jew-haters) to obscure their hate agenda by redefining antisemitism and their first port of call to achieve this is always Israel. They do it by arguing anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. Put quite simply, the circle is then complete and both Left and Right are united in their hate.

What makes this disturbing in my mind is how elements within "our side" (ie Jews and our supporters) water down, or use sophistry or obfuscation to identify the genuine causes of antisemitism to suit their own political ends - and so,  the "right" blame the "left", or the "left" blame the *right", while, racists can blame it all on Muslims, thus preventing anything being done, so nothing changes, scapegoats keep being found and, as has happened for two thousand Jews continue to live in fear waiting with heads bowed for the next pogrom.

Political comment

If anything has become clear in the last two thousand years it is that an understanding of the 'oldest hate' will not come from a single explanation. Social scientists have worked for many years to do that and without success beyond a final realisation - there are many possible reasons.

When dealing with such a critical issue as the hatred of the Jewish people, there can be nothing more dangerous, more cruel and more heartless than to encourage reductionism. It excuses some of the offenders and people who perpetrate this reductionism protects those who are guilty, ignored or remain unidentified. 

It was Aristotle who said: “Not being of the same tribe is a cause of strife until they “breathe in sync” for just as a state does not develop from an accidental mob, so too it does not come together at an accidental time.”

Transparently antisemitism is one of the biggest 'strifes' society  has ever seen compounded by reductionists refusing to see the big picture and taking a deeply flawed 'blame a single bad guy' approach. In doing so they excuse hatred and harm those who fight to end antisemitism - and to those reductionists both left and right, I can only say one thing - for obscuring, justifying and minimising the hatred of the Jewish people, a plague on all your houses.

Iran - is this the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning

A number of US and UK media outlets have argued the decision to go to war with Iran depended almost entirely on the assumption that a popular uprising by the people could lead to the elimination of the top leadership in Tehran.

From the information available here in the UK it would seem this assessment was provided by Israeli intelligence to Benjamin Netanyahu who then went on to convince President Trump their analysis was a certainty rather than a possible scenario. 

Based on this the Pentagon were advised by the President to prepare for war and military resources and personnel were advised to prepare for a brief military entanglement lasting only a few days rather than the prolonged campaign it has now become and with the Strait of Hormuz being closed leading to a dramatic increase. At the time of writing,  I am led to believe is priced for ordinary petrol (gas) in the US at about $4,10 (£3.10) a gallon while in the UK it is $9.35 (£7,05) anddiel being significantly more.

The core demise of this approach was that Israel assumed The Israeli judgement assumed the Iranian people, eager to be free of the Ayatollahs and  hopeful of then being able to enjoy Iran's riches would grab the chance presented by the assassination of Khamenei and the IRGC leadership.

It was a reasonable assumption based on earlier mass demonstrations by the Iranian people on the streets of Tehran, but what it ignored, or chose to dismiss was the large-scale crackdowns that followed and left thousands of protesters dead,  The hope from Israel and the US was that Iranians would continue taking  to the streets with greater confidence against the IRGC but instead they sheltered from dozens of devastating attacks on their cities..

The assumption made by US/ Israeli strategists was that, much as had happened in Syria under Assad, Hussein in Iraq, and Gaddafi in Libya, the remaining regime, facing a vacuum in decision-making, would have no option but to flee.

However, critics in NATO of the US/ Israeli approach are now arguing that while the majority of Iranians disagree with the regime on many issues, overall they do object a centralised and strict domestic form of governance, but do fear a national leaderless fragmentation of their country. External to Iran, many exiles have been drawn to the Shah of Iran/ Persia, Reza Pahlavi, but many within Iran see his family politically damaged because of his father's oppressive regime. What is more, is that without Pahlavi as a figure head there is no central figure to take over the 'political revolution' necessary to eradicate the Ayatollah leadership.

It also largely supports Iran’s regional policies, which provide it with influence, strengthen its international position, and enhance its negotiating leverage on nuclear, energy, and military matters. Persians also see themselves as the country’s true owners and are reluctant to share power or wealth with non-Persian groups in Iran.

Additionally. US and Israeli strategists assumed Kurds, Arabs, Baloch, Azeris, and Turkmen would view the regime’s weakness as a chance to replace it with a more liberal and open system that would allow them to secure rights through a new social contract and constitutional framework where they might gain equal participation in power and wealth.

However, the key failure in the US-Israeli plan is their determination to ignore historical evidence and, in particular how, in general minority groups in revolutions seldom try to overthrow ruling systems (admittedly there are tribal examples throughout Africa but, in broad terms most of these have produced short-term regimes that have themselves been overthrown. As a broad rule of thumb, minority ethnic grouos tend to view revolutions as the concern of the majority, so avoid  sacrificing their own members.

Of course, if the US/ Israeli coalition entered this war fuly cognisant of all the issues mentioned above then there can only be one conclusion and that is that both the US and Israel started this war with only one goal in mind - and that is the entire dismantling of the Iranian state. This would in many ways seem the most logical option and is consistent with the “Periphery Doctrine”, developed by David Ben-Gurion and advocates as its core principle the dividing of states and creating chaotic entities. Indeed it could be argued that, in some respects it would be the safest option for Israel as a divided and broken Iran would cease to be a future threat to the country and, from the US perspective a disjointed Iran would cease to be any kind of threat to the Strait of Hormuz.

Political comment

Jews are more predisposed to colorectal cancer but there is a shortfall in funding and a lack of desire to change

As someone who two years ago was diagnosed with colorectal cancer and who, by the grace of HaShem and an outstanding consultant and surgeon was cured, I feel an overwhelming moral responsibility to urge people to look out for symptoms of colon/ bowel cancer before it is too late. It is a vile disease and each year we lose far too many good people. Yes the treatment is unpleasant but the alternative is far worse. The reality is those who seek treatment early can recover, even if, like me you delay for a while before going to your doctor. A  diagnosis is not an automatic death sentence.

So, let's look at the facts:

Good news and bad

First, the good news, among Americans under the age of 50, the overall cancer mortality has plummeted by 44% over the last quarter of a century and better diagnostic tools, along with a sharp reduction in smoking, help to explain why deaths from leukaemia as well as lung, breast and brain cancer are falling so dramatically.

Unfortunately, but inevitably there is also bad news - cancer mortality rates in the UK for those under 50 show a concerning trend and while overall cancer deaths are falling, incidences in under-50s have risen by 24% since 1995. Approximately 6,000 younger adults die from cancer annually in the UK, with early-onset bowel cancer mortality projected to rise significantly. In addition, colorectal cancer has risen 1.1% annually since 2005  advancing it from the fifth most common cause of cancer death in the early 1990s to second place today, 

Of even more concern is the fact the data shows how Jews, in particular should be especially alarmed as the research has shown how people of Ashkenazi, or Eastern European Jewish descent are likely to be two or three times more likely to develop colorectal cancer than nearly any other ethnic grouping.

According to the Norton and Elaine Sarnoff Center for Jewish Genetics, "Individuals of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry have among the highest rates of colorectal cancer (CRC) of any ethnic group. In the general population, the lifetime risk of CRC is about five percent. In the Ashkenazi Jewish populations, this risk is two to three times greater than the general population.

About 10 percent of colorectal cancer is hereditary and within these two known cancer syndromes account for a significant proportion of hereditary colorectal cancer. However, having a cancer gene mutation does not mean a person will definitely have cancer, but it does increase their cancer risk. 

                   Alan Herman , National Executive Director of ICRF and a cancer survivor

According to  Alan Herman, the executive director of ICRF, which is the largest non-governmental funding resource for cancer research in Israel. “Colorectal cancer is rising at an alarming rate among young adults, challenging long-held assumptions about who is at risk ... These realities make research more urgent than ever.  By funding Israel’s most promising cancer scientists, the ICRF is driving discoveries that could lead to earlier detection, better treatments and ultimately save lives.”

Indeed, Israel has been very much at the heart of research into colorectal cancer. For example, Irit Ben-Aharon, is a medical oncologist specialising in gastrointestinal cancers and is Director of the Fishman Oncology Centre at Haifa’s Rambam Health Care Campus and also heads the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer task force for young-onset gastrointestinal cancer.

“There’s been an increase in the past three decades of early-onset colorectal cancer, and we don’t really know the reason,” she said. “Only 15% to 20% of these cases are hereditary; the rest came out of the blue.”

There has long been a belief that eating red meat and, in particular highly processed meats such as hot dogs and sausages is a major risk factor in early-onset colorectal cancer. However, Ben-Aharon remains unconvinced. "I don’t think it’s diet only — it’s multi-factorial,” she argues. “When you look at the data, if it would have been only diet, you’d not see the incidence of early-onset colorectal cancer rising all over the world. Diets are different in the U.S., Japan and Scandinavia, yet you see this increasing trend everywhere, and we probably would have seen a much higher incidence, as many people eat ultra-processed food and don’t develop colorectal cancer.”

Of major interest is her belief that bacteria may play a part in causing colorectal cancer., “Some toxins from specific bacteria have been shown to have increased levels in cases of early-onset colorectal cancer, implying these bacteria may induce cancer. Also, there is evidence linking increased risk due to exposure to specific pesticides.”

With regard to prevalence of colorectal cancer amongst Jews she has argued it is more common because Ashkenazi Jews are genetically predisposed to the disease, though not necessarily to the early-onset form of CRC.

“Environmental factors such as diet and other exposures like plastic and pesticides — and the combination with specific predisposition and host features such as microbiome and other pathways — may underlie this trend,” she said.

“Elucidating the interplay between environmental factors and unique features of patients predisposed to developing cancer at an early age would allow us to delineate the high-risk population,” she added. 

Irit Ben-Aharon is a medical oncologist specializing in gastrointestinal cancers. (Courtesy)

Hope for more effective and less toxic treatment

Drug discovery expert Professor Nir London works at Rehovot’s Weizmann Institute of Science as well as being the president of the Israel Chemical Society’s medicinal chemistry section.

                                                              Professor Nir London

“Many cancers are driven by specific mutations, which we call driver mutations. They tend to appear in the same types of cancers,” argues Professor London, “If a particular cell gains this mutation, it has a high propensity to transform into a cancerous cell. Such cancers get addicted to the mutation, so if you inhibit a protein with this mutation, you’ll have a way to mitigate the cancer’s growth. It’s a soft spot.”

“Not all colorectal cancers are the same,” London said. “We are focusing on developing drugs that are specific to a vulnerability found in about 13% of CRC patients. If successful, this could bring hope to hundreds of thousands of patients.”

In other research, Gilad Bachrach, who teaches at Hebrew University-Hadassah’s Institute of Dental Science in Jerusalem has focussed  on oncobacteriology — the study of bacteria as a treatment for cancer.

“Cancer has been treated by surgery and then by chemotherapy, radiotherapy and, most recently, immunotherapy. We believe bacteria therapy can be the next potential option in cancer treatment,” Bachrach said.

“We know bacteria are involved in cancer promotion, as well as anti-cancer activities,” he added. “Now the challenge is to harness bacteria for cancer detection and therapy.”

Ultimately, he said, “surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and immunotherapy are established cancer treatments. My hope is that using bacteria to identify and target cancer will become the next major breakthrough in the field.”

Now, I cannot speak for other people who have experienced treatment for cancer, so here I can only speak for myself. Chemotherapy felt like being hit by a bus and while after only six weeks my cancer was substantially reduced, the treatment process was debilitating and unpleasant with symptoms that, in my case included extreme exhaustion, loss of appetite, inabillity to stand cold weather, nausea and quite severe anaemia. In addition, as a diabetic, glucose levels that had once been previously stable suddenly went out of control resulting in an urgent trip to the A&E department.. 

So any new treatment offering a significant improvement to general wellness can only be of benefit to the patient.

Political constraints

While scientific discoveries like those shown above give us all hope, all is not well in the implementation of cancer healthcare delivery. In the USA, there are clear budget shortfalls, exacerbated by projected reductions in federal funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Cancer Institute (NCI), resulting in delays in colorectal cancer treatment and stalling research,  forcing clinical trial cuts across the USA. These fiscal constraints have resulted in treatment delays of four weeks or more for patients, allowing tumours to spread.

Furthermore, chemotherapy costs in the USA typically range from $1,000 to over $12,000 per month for drugs alone, with total annual treatment often exceeding $100,000. As a result total costs for the patient, including administration and supportive care, can lead (depending on insurance plans) to high out-of-pocket expenses of anything from $5,000 to $10,000+ annually) even with insurance. 

Meanwhile, in the UK, cancer cases are increasing, and cancer care could add £14.4bn to UK health spending annually by 2050, according to the latest OECD modelling. Add to this a lack of trained staff resulting in an NHS unable to deliver timely, high-quality care and diagnostic services. All these issues are further complicated by budgetary constraints that have led to the removal of some drugs from the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF), sparking concerns about access to innovative treatments., 

So while we have outstanding breakthroughs happening across the world and I have only concentrated today on Israeli innovation, we have neither the practical facilities or the budget to implement these developments and until there is a willingness to bring about significant change across health provision internationally people will die unnecessarily.

So, should we be concerned? Well clearly any illness affecting Jews more than the rest of the population and more needs to be done to protect us but I'm not calling for armed rebellion or revolution her. The solution is much simpler and in our own hands.

A commercial FITT test is available to buy through your pharmacy or you csn ask your doctor. They only cost £60 or so, making them.reasonably affordable

 In addition, my US readers have the additional benefit of being urged to have occasional colonoscopies that can detect this form of cancer.

The bottom line is don't sit by and do nothing - the price of peace is eternal vigilance.