While Jerusalem remains adamantly opposed to the French diplomatic initiative, enshrining Palestinian recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people would be an important step, Foreign Ministry director-general Dore Gold told The Jerusalem Post.

“There are many problems with the French initiative, one of them is the lack of recognition of a Jewish state,” Gold said Thursday. “But even if that were changed, it wouldn’t alter many fundamental problems with the French initiative.” Gold voiced anger at France’s vote last month at the UNESCO executive board meeting in favor of a resolution on Jerusalem that expunged any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount.

“When French diplomats vote for a resolution at UNESCO that rejects the historic Jewish connection to Jerusalem, it should not come as a surprise that Israel rejects the French initiative and the political horizon it aspires to ultimately expose,” he said.

Indeed you wouldn’t, except that in the case of Mr Cameron’s EU referendum, checking under the bonnet or commissioning a full structural survey of the implications of a Brexit vote is impossible - and designedly so. The uncertainty that underpins the EU referendum and Cameron's strategy for winning the vote on June 23, is also its greatest flaw. If the UK plumps for the exit door, we find ourselves in correspondingly much, much deeper trouble.

If the trick works - and the UK votes to remain - then Mr Cameron will congratulate himself on an unfair fight, well won. But if it doesn’t… well, that as the Prime Minister knows, that is where the serious problems begin.

In the event of a Brexit, we genuinely don't know what happens, and nor do the financiers and bureaucrats responsible for keeping the world spinning on its axis. We don’t even know the basics, such as who stays on as PM, or whether Article 50 would be instantly triggered, or how Germany and France would react, or what would happen to Sterling... there are simply too many variables to make sound predictions on these questions.

Which means that during this dispiritingly one-eyed campaign we also don’t know – can’t know – who is telling us the truth. Perhaps that’s the real reason why, as the polls tighten, as surveys show businesses warming to the idea of Brexit and the BBC 10 O'clock news implicitly ridicules the prime minister’s warnings of World War III with footage of Spitfires dog-fighting over the Channel, that Mr Cameron could be seen at his lectern, visibly starting to sweat.

The latest poll yesterday was a shock to her and her advisers in Berlin - coming on a day when new figures on asylum seeker arrivals show they have dwindled to a fraction of what they were at their height. The survey conducted by INSA for Germany's Cicero magazine asked respondents if Mrs Merkel should run for a fourth term. A staggering 64 percent said she should not.

Other results showed Germany's two main political parties - her conservative CDU and the centre-left SPD - would get just 50 percent of the vote between them. This represents a staggering 17 percent drop from the general election.

Mrs Merkel has squandered her vast reserves of political capital on a policy towards the refugees that has torn the social fabric of Germany and pushed tens of thousands of voters into the embrace of the hard-right.

More than 1.2 million migrants have arrived in the country in the last 17 months. The scenes in Cologne on New Year's Eve - when mobs of migrant men sexually molested and robbed hundreds of women - irrevocably turned the public attitude against them.

According to reports and its own propaganda material, the EU “Gendarmerie,” as the force is known, will apparently be charged with putting down protests and civil unrest, raiding illegal political meetings, propping up foreign governments, and even confiscating weapons. Police and troops from numerous African and Middle Eastern nations were also involved in the controversial EU force's latest EU-funded training exercises. Critics are fighting back, though, warning of the dangers of such a force and of the EU itself.

The EU's military-police force is merely one component of the broader transnational police-state apparatus being quietly imposed on the formerly sovereign peoples of Europe. It includes everything from transnational police and transnational army units to EU air and naval operations. Virtually all of it has grown up in the shadows.

But in recent weeks, a controversial training operation, which took place in Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia last month, has sparked concern and alarm across Europe and beyond as media outlets shone a light on the troubling developments. The story was first reported by Breitbart's UK operation before being picked up by British newspapers and alternative media outlets around the world.

The European Commission plans to unveil long-delayed ‘ecodesign’ restrictions on small household appliances in the autumn. They are expected to ban the most energy-inefficient devices from sale in order to cut carbon emissions. The plans have been ready for many months, but were shelved for fear of undermining the referendum campaign if they were perceived as an assault on the British staples of tea and toast.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Vote Leave campaign said: "The EU now interferes with so many aspect of our lives, from our breakfast to our borders. If we vote remain we will be powerless to prevent an avalanche of EU regulation that Brussels is delaying until after the referendum."

Today he has announced plans to stop the flow of dirty money through the London property market. He said overseas firms will have to sign up to a new public register if they own or buy property or if they want to bid for central government contracts. The conference will have three main sessions, including one chaired by the Prime Minister which will also include on the panel the president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani.

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari is scheduled to deliver a keynote address entitled: "Why We Must Tackle Corruption Together". Participants will include US Secretary of State John Kerry, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Fifa has not been invited, despite wrong-doing in sport being a key focus of the event.

Also not represented at the major London gathering will be countries like Panama, and UK overseas territories like the British Virgin Islands (BVI), which have been at the centre of recent controversy.

It will happen ahead of a May 30 meeting which France is organizing for ministers from 20 countries to try and relaunch the Israel-Palestinian peace process. That proposed meeting has been welcomed by the Palestinians, who have suspended a planned UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements to focus on the bid.

But Israel has consistently argued that peace can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the two sides, rather than international forums. French Foreign Minister Marc Ayrault has said the aim of the meeting is to prepare an international summit in the second half of 2016, which would include the Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Valls will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on May 23.

And an EU army would undermine deterrence and cripple Nato, weakening European defences when we face increasing threats from Russia, the Middle East and radical Islam. A centralised army is an indispensable component of the superstate to which the EU is openly committed. It would also provide an excuse for struggling economies to slash defence budgets. Few nations take defence seriously enough to spend even the 2 per cent of GDP required by Nato, a shortcoming criticised by President Obama in Germany last month.

An EU army will see these nations cut back even further, cynically pretending that defences are strengthened even as forces and capabilities are merged and downsized. It is increasingly clear that the leaders of all main parties believe staying inside the EU is the only way for Britain to prosper. If the benefits of economic, political and legal union are so great, then it must follow, to politicians who argue that Britain can never again fight alone, that military union has the same advantages.

It will be denied that our forces will be handed over to the Brussels high command. But remember it was never explained to the British people that our Parliament would be subordinated to a union that today hands down over half our laws, regulates our day-to-day activities, and can override the highest courts in the land.

Coming on top of Brussels ignoring a 61% referendum result in the Netherlands in early April, the Irish, French and others also having had referendum results overturned by being told to ‘vote until you give the correct answer’, Greek and Italian elected representatives with anti EU opinions being replaced by those who are ‘more in tune with the European Project’ and many other examples you don’t need to be a political ‘anorak’ to see which way the European Union leaders are heading; how clear does the message have to be before some understand it?

Voting ‘In’ on June 23 is voting to surrender democracy as we know it to be replaced by a decidedly non democratic European Union version which is remarkably close to ‘dictatorship’ and for a United States of Europe where our British pound will disappear. We have the European Union President’s word on it.

Sadgrove wrote the letter in response to an article by Giles Fraser, co-chairman of Christians for Britain, who said the Protestant reformation provided the "intellectual roots of Euroscepticism".

Fraser wrote in the Guardian: "The EU still feels a little like some semi-secular echo of the Holy Roman empire, a bureaucratic monster that, through the imposition of canon law, swallows up difference and seeks after doctrinal uniformity." He added: "There are those of us who protest against our laws being crafted by some foreign power, beyond the control of our domestic parliament. Brexit perfectly recycles this defiant spirit of the Reformation. It's important to see that this debate is not just about economics but about European identity. The question of European identity has been discussed for hundreds of years," he said. "It would be mad to think the reformation was not a contributor to European identity as was the centuries of influence by the Catholic Church."

Last week it was Chancellor Merkel’s turn, along with other institutional leaders of the European Union including Schulz, Juncker, Tusk and Draghi. A real audience of kings is taking place in the Vatican’s Sala Regia, where royals — including the King of Spain — are paying their respects to the Pope, who has received the award of clear political significance.

The Pope has been awarded the 2016 Charlemagne Prize. Francis is the first leader from the “global South” and only the fourth non-European to be awarded the prestigious prize. The prize was awarded to Pope Francis following several months of international ecumenical events of political importance: A trip to Central Africa, and the development of a relationship with the Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow (who first met with the Pope in Cuba last February), and with Bartholomew the Patriarch of Constantinople (who accompanied the Pope to Lesbos last month to visit the refugees on the island). His travels, particularly to places on the “outskirts of Europe” such as Lampedusa, Sarajevo and Albania that have been marred by violence in recent history reflect both political and spiritual missions.

Francis’s dream is of “a new European humanism” in which the church plays its role in the religious community, but also promotes dialogue among Christians and people of different faiths. Francis spoke of a “Europe that is worn out, but still full of energy.” The theological foundation of his speech is clear: “God desires to live amongst men” and he is able to do so in a world that has been prepared by his gospels. In a Europe that is incapable of managing humanitarian crises and that is seeing the resurgence of nationalism, the Vatican continues to play an important role on the global scene.