These two stories, taken together, are interesting. They may turn out to have no salience, but they are both certainly possible:

First this, from Haaretz:

The Israel Defense Forces indicated yesterday that it might not have been responsible for the deaths of at least 54 Lebanese, including 37 children , when a building bombed in an Israeli air strike in the village of Qana collapsed yesterday - but was unable to offer an alternative explanation.

There is an unexplained gap of about seven hours between the one Israeli air strike that hit the Qana building housing the civilians, which took place around 1 A.M. Sunday, and the first report that the building had collapsed, said the chief of staff of the Israel Air Force, Brigadier General Amir Eshel. Speaking at a press conference at the Kirya military complex in Tel Aviv last night, Eshel said that of three Israeli air strikes on Qana early Sunday, only the first strike hit the building in which the civilians were staying. The other two hit areas at least 400 meters away.

"I can't say whether the house collapsed at 12 A.M. or at 8 A.M.," said Eshel. "According to foreign press reports, and this is one of the reports we are relying on, the house collapsed at 8 A.M. We do not have testimony regarding the time of the collapse. If the house collapsed at 12 A.M., it is difficult for me to believe that they waited eight hours to evacuate it."

Then there is this, too:

This morning, I posted some speculation that the 30-foot banner of Secretary of State Rice that miraculously showed up in Qana yesterday was probably prepared in advance, leading to questions whether the entire event was staged. Tonight, reader Postermaker made the following comments about that blog post:

Since I do banners like this for a living, I can tell you it take more than a few hours depending on the equipment. A banner that large can be done one of two ways. With a grant format printer. It would probably take about 3-4 hours to print, then hours more to sew and grommet so it could hung. It would have to be Made of heavy duty material or one that was reinforced or the sheer weight would rip it apart.

The other way it to use a smaller series of machines all color calibrated and produce sections. At that point they would have to be stretch the length of the banner ( read large facility) and sewn together. Additional support would go on the tops and bottoms.

In short if it was related Qana and went up within two hours- four hours, it was done prior to the bomb hitting. No other way. Just putting an image together that large on a computer with Type would take a few hours.

Then color tests, proofs and finally printing. That would be an all day affair for most print houses even with a grand format printer. The cost would be in the thousands.

Then you would have to transport it.

As I say, both may - indeed, probably will - be red herrings. But given Hezbollah's media savvy, and their contempt for human life, it's far from impossible that they staged the entire thing.

(via The Corner.)

(4)

Christopher Hitchens has a fabulous piece on Mel Gibson at Slate. (What I'd give to be able to write a tenth as well as he can!)

(1)

I wonder if the IDF could do this to the BBC, too:

IDF intelligence unit manages to hack al-Manar broadcast, plant caricature of Hizbullah's leader with caption: 'Your days are numbered'

(2)

Here's the man who is supposedly caught in the middle of Hezbollah and Israel has to say:

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said that Hizbullah's victory was a victory of the entire Lebanese nation. He warned that the Lebanese army "would join the battle" if Israel launches a large-scale invasion of Lebanon.

Lahoud stressed that Hizbullah cannot be disarmed since the Lebanese army was not as strong as the IDF. He objected to the deployment of a new international force in southern Lebanon but noted that Lebanon would support the strengthening of the existing UNIFIL force.

(1)

UPDATE: I have taken down a post which was here before, with pictures such as these:

I've taken down the post because it was based on their being from the recent Religion of Peace demo, and I have it on good authority that these were taken at the 6th Feb rally. So even though the basic point still stands - these militant Islamists are the enemy of freedom and civilisation - it's a point that was already made at the time.

(3)

Here's what the Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, who is supposedly unable rather than unwilling to disarm Hezbollah, had to say when asked about a call from Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah to take advantage of Hezbollah's s fight against Israel:

We are in a strong position and I thank the Sayyed for his efforts. I also thank all those who sacrifice their lives for the independence and sovereignty of Lebanon.

Find me the reference to disarming Hezbollah, or the call for it to stop bombing Israel, in that.

(1)

Here's a perfect example if inappropriate BBC 'reporting':

Previous eruptions of violence that began in a roughly similar manner, such as the 1996 Grapes of Wrath bombardment, were curtailed at a much lower level than the current paroxysm.

One major difference this time is that Israel enjoys an indulgence from Washington far beyond anything previous, essentially giving it a free hand.

While previous administrations, despite commitment to the strategic alliance with Israel, kept at least some distance in earlier crises, the US under George W Bush immediately adopted Israel's primary war aim.

...If the current course continues - and there is no sign of an imminent turnaround - there is no predicting how far and how fast the flames may spread, as Israel plunges deeper into open-ended warfare with forces challenging the very foundations of its existence.

There is an alternative, favoured by most of the international community apart from the US and Israel: an immediate ceasefire, followed by negotiations to address the underlying issues and stabilise the truce.

Hezbollah itself is willing to agree on an immediate ceasefire and an exchange of prisoners that would see the two captured Israeli soldiers return home.

Other issues would then be on the table, such as the disarming of Hezbollah or the merger of its forces into the Lebanese Army - a step that was already under active discussion before the current crisis blew up.

This is not reporting or even impartial, analysis. It's an opinion piece, which would be perfectly proper in a paper such as the Guardian or Independent, but which in being presented in the BBC's site as supposedly impartial analysis, is entirely inappropriate. But given the BBC's imprimateur, there will be people who take it as gospel.

(1)

This is fascinating. I posted below the link to Mel Gibson's antisemitic rant. Visit any report on the incident in which he was arrested and you will see the quotes.

Correction. Visit almost any reports and you will see them. I am indebted to commenters on the original post who have shown that the BBC and the Guardian have reported his arrest, but have left out any reference to the remarks.

The BBC report is surreal. It refers to his apology for saying 'despicable' things but makes no reference to their nature. One could understand if the BBC decided it was inappropriate to repeat the remarks themselves, but not to refer to the fact that they were a torrent of antisemitism? At best that is bizarrely confuysing for the reader. At worst - and given the BBC's behaviour, perhaps the more likely explanantion - something far more disturbing.

UPDATE: One of my commenters makes a good point, that it is not just the BBC. Reuters and Sky have also left out the most salient fact in the story.

BTW, the argument that at the moment these are merely 'alleged' comments doesn't wash. Gibson has apologied for making them. If even the man himself admits making them, there is nothing 'alleged' about them.

(9)

I wonder if Mel Gibson and David Tredinnick are by any chance related?

http://www.tmz.com/2006/07/28/gibsons-anti-semitic-tirade-alleged-cover-up/

(I'm on a train as I post this so forgive me for the rough and readiness of it!)

(5)

My loathing of Sir Menzies Campbell gets greater by the day. His interview this morning on the Today programme was a classic of its kind.

His comments on the Middle East were bad enough. First, he praised the BBC for its “eloquent” coverage of the conflict. To a died in the wool Israel-hater that's no doubt true.

Next he argued that Israel couldn't win because all Hezbollah needs to do is “resist” to win Arab support. Ah yes, the voice of the liberal indeed. Kidnapping soldiers and bombing Israel is “resistance” in Sor Menzies' mind.

Then he argued that, in effect, Israel should be defenceless. He doesn't think America should be allowed to use Britiish airports to help it transport weapons to Israel.

Fine. At least he can't deny now where he really stands, given his objection to Israel having the wepons to defend itself from attack.

But what fair took my breath away was his reaction to the conviction of Michael Brown, the man who has given £2.4 million to the LibDems. Asked if he was embarrassed, Sir Menzies replied that "these are matters which are sub judice" and then huffed that they "are not matters which are anything to do with the LibDems".

No, of course not. It's nothing at all to do with the Lib Dems that one of their main donors is a crook, and they have no intention of returning the money.

As I have pointed out before, the LibDem's website says this:

Unlike the other main parties, the Liberal Democrats do not receive funding from big business or trade unions.

But fraudsters are just fine.

I don't understand why people say Sir Menzies isn't fit to be LibDem leader. He's a hypocrite in charge of a hypocritical party. Seems like a perfect fit to me.

(3)

Not all of the European establishment are misguided. Some people get it; this is Joschka Fischer, the former German foreign minister:

The current war in Lebanon is not a war by the Arab world against Israel; rather, it is a war orchestrated by the region's radical forces - Hamas and Islamic Jihad among the Palestinians, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Syria and Iran - which fundamentally reject any settlement with Israel.

Conflict was sought for three reasons: first to ease pressure on Hamas from within the Palestinian community to recognize Israel; second to undermine democratization in Lebanon, which was marginalizing Syria; and third to lift attention from the emerging dispute over the Iranian nuclear program and demonstrate to the West the "tools" at its disposal in the case of a conflict.

Moderate Arab governments understand full well the issue at stake in this war: It is about regional hegemony in the case of Syria with Lebanon and Palestine and, on a wider level, Iran's hegemonic claim to the entire Middle East. Yet the war in Lebanon and Gaza could prove to be a miscalculation for the radicals. By firing missiles on Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, a boundary has been crossed. From now on, the issue is no longer primarily one of territory, restitution or occupation. Instead, the main issue is the strategic threat to Israel's existence.

(4)

Charles Krauthammer has a superb piece in the Jewish World Review:

What other country, when attacked in an unprovoked aggression across a recognized international frontier, is then put on a countdown clock by the world, given a limited time window in which to fight back, regardless of whether it has restored its own security?

What other country sustains 1,500 indiscriminate rocket attacks into its cities — every one designed to kill, maim and terrorize civilians — and is then vilified by the world when it tries to destroy the enemy's infrastructure and strongholds with precision-guided munitions that sometimes have the unintended but unavoidable consequence of collateral civilian death and suffering?

Hearing the world pass judgment on the Israel-Hezbollah war as it unfolds is to live in an Orwellian moral universe. With a few significant exceptions (the leadership of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and a very few others), the world — governments, the media, U.N. bureaucrats — has completely lost its moral bearings.

Read it all.

(1)

Sharia law in action.

The truth of Charles H Spurgeon's aphorism that “A lie travels round the world, while Truth is putting on her boots” is shown daily by the credulous reporting from the Hezbollah propaganda machine.

But the truth will out. Just as the supposed Jenin 'massacre' was first shown to be no such thing by a map which showed the affected areas, so too Israel's current actions are not the destruction of Beirut which the BBC would have us believe, but a carefully targeted action against the key terror points. Have a look at this map, which shows the affected area in grey, and tell me how it shows that most of Beirut has been attacked.

UPDATE: The source of the above map has made clear that it is now out of date, but that although it now has innacuracies, "the general idea of a small part of the city being affected is accurate".

(6)

According to Paul Reynolds, the BBC's world affairs correspondent:

Israel will not exchange them [the 'missing', as Reynolds puts it, Israeli soldiers] for the prisoner Hezbollah wants most, Samir Qantar, who attacked a block of flats in Nahariha in 1979, killing a father and his daughter.

That's one way of describing what he did, as if he was going about his normal business of blowing up Israeli flats and the father and his daughter just got in the way.

Another would be to point out that Qantar murdered the 'Zionist' baby girl by smashing her head against the wall.

UPDATE: After an email from Pete_London, one of the regular commenters here, Paul Reynolds has changed the page to include reference to how the girl was murdered. Well done.

(3)

Oh dear. When I wrote in my post below that David Treddinnick MP is a moronic tit, I was inaccurate. What I should have written is that he is a corrupt moronic tit.

How could I have forgotten his involvement in the cash for questions scandal?

There's been - understandably - a lot of coverage of the Israeli bombing of a UN observer post. But what's less understandable is that there has not been any coverage, as far as I can see, of Hezbollah's attacks on the UN.

Here's what today's latest UNIFIL bulletin has to report:

Another UN position of the Ghanaian battalion in the area of Marwahin in the western sector was also directly hit by one mortar round from the Hezbollah side last night. The round did not explode, and there were no casualties or material damage. Another 5 incidents of firing close to UN positions from the Israeli side were reported yesterday. It was also reported that Hezbollah fired from the vicinity of four UN positions at Alma ash Shab, Tibnin, Brashit, and At Tiri. All UNIFIL positions remain occupied and maintained by the troops.

The Israelis deny their bombing was deliberate. But what about Hezbollah's bombings? Perhaps they were also an accident. Perhaps they weren't. But isn't it indicative of the bias in reporting that when Israel issues a denial, there is near universal treatment of that denial as a lie. When Hezbollah bombs the UN, the incident isn't even reported.

(1)

Harry's Place has a transcript of an interview with CNN's Nic Robertson on Hezbollah's restrictions on media coverage in Lebanon. It's well worth a read as an example of how perceptions of reality are being affected by their slick media operation:

ROBERTSON: Well, Howard, there's no doubt about it: Hezbollah has a very, very sophisticated and slick media operations. In fact, beyond that, it has very, very good control over its areas in the south of Beirut. They deny journalists access into those areas. They can turn on and off access to hospitals in those areas. They have a lot of power and influence. You don't get in there without their permission.

...And absolutely, when you hear their claims they have to come with -- with a -- more than a grain of salt, that you have to put in some journalistic integrity. That you have to point out to the audience and let them know that this was a guided tour by Hezbollah press officials along with security, that it was a very rushed affair.

KURTZ: Right.

ROBERTSON: That there wasn't time to go and look through those buildings. The audience has to know the conditions of that tour. But again, if we didn't get all -- or we could not get access to those areas without Hezbollah compliance, they control those areas.

KURTZ: Right.

ROBERTSON: And I think to bring the audience the full picture of what's happening in Beirut, you have to go into those southern suburbs.

KURTZ: All right.

ROBERTSON: Because that's where the vast majority of bombs were falling.

KURTZ: I understand.

ROBERTSON: Again, they come with a health warning that we cannot vouch for everything that Hezbollah is saying. And I think the audience is sophisticated enough to appreciate that, Howard.

I wonder how Jeremy Bowen holding a teddy bear in a bombed building fits in with his last two sentences.

As a friend with close connections to many of those involved emailed me this morning:

This whole news coverage reminds me a lot of defensive shield - when the dust settles people will realise that a tiny bit of Beirut has been targetted and that, as per normal, the media have completely over-reacted. Last night on the 10 they followed the Israel story with the 4m dead in the congo civil war....shows they've got their priorities right.

(3)

I now have the facility to notify you when I post a new entry here. If you would like to get an email telling you there's a new post, write your email address where it says 'be notified when new posts are added' on the left side of the page and press 'submit query'.

It looks like the NHS, but this is the first privately run GP's surgery in Britain.

That was the headline on tonight's 6pm news on BBC1. And it is, it goes without saying, wrong. I have had a private GP for years who has no connection with the NHS. I pay £55 for each consultation And even those GPs who treat patients within the NHS are, overwhelmingly, private contractors with the NHS.

What the BBC means is that there's a new form of contract for the provision of some GP services from some new outside groups.

Not, of course, that one should expect the BBC to get anything so boring as the facts right.

Further to my post below about Sir Peter Tapsell, one of his Tory colleagues, David Tredinnick, a man who has a reputation of being seriously thick, confirms his stupidy with this contribution to yesterday's Adjournment Debate:

Why are we in such a mess? I have referred to the Foreign Secretary, but let me talk for a while about the Prime Minister's special envoy to the middle east, the noble Lord Levy. He has not visited a single Arab country—I have looked it up—but he has made copious visits to Israel, of which he is clearly a strong supporter, with a business and relations there. He is supposed to be impartial. Why did the Prime Minister not choose someone who is an old Arab hand and really knows his way around the middle east? If we go to the Spinwatch website, we find that apparently, when the noble Lord took on his other role to raise large sums of money for the Labour party, it was on the "tacit understanding that Labour would never again, while Blair was leader, be anti-Israel".

I have done a rough check on Library figures, and about a quarter to a third of all the money raised in loans for the Labour party since the noble Lord has been involved has come from pro-Israeli supporters. When we have thousands of our troops in Arab countries, is it possible that there is a link between the Labour party being short of money and British foreign policy in support of the Israeli position? Is it possible that the Government are conveniently ignoring our interests in the wider Arab world because of Labour's domestic difficulties? I hope that someone will investigate this important matter.

I hold no brief for Lord Levy, as anyone who has read my pieces in the Mail will know. But clearly Mr Treddinick is either a liar or an idiot, since he says he has looked up his claim that Lord Levy has not visited a single Arab country.

Yeah, right. In two seconds flat I found this parliamentary answer from 2000:

Mr. Maude: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he held discussions with Lord Levy about Lord Levy's visits to the Middle East dated (a) 9 to 10 April 1999, visit to Syria, (b) 5 to 7 June 1999, visit to Jordan, (c) 7 to 10 June 1999, visit to Syria, (d) 8 October 1999, visit to Egypt, (e) 9 to 11 October 1999, visit to Oman, (f) 11 and 12 October 1999, visit to Qatar, (g) 12 to 14 October 1999, visit to Bahrain, (h) 29 November to 1 December 1999, visit to Syria, (i) 2 and 3 February, visit to Syria, (j) 3 February, visit to Lebanon and (k) 3 February, visit to Egypt. [113877]

Mr. Hain [holding answer 7 March 2000]: Lord Levy's visits are reported to the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, in person by Lord Levy and by telegram from the Ambassador in the country concerned.

Or maybe there's a third explanation. As well as being a liar, or stupid, David Tredinnick is so rabid an antisemite that he doesn't even see the truth when it's out there in front of him. The prima facie evidence is there, when he talks about 'pro-Israeli supporters'. He can't possibly know the personal political views of Labour donors wooed by Lord Levy...unless, that is, by 'pro-Israeli supporters' he means what it's blindingly obvious he means: JEWS. He's looked up the proportion with Jewish names, hasn't he?

And he's saying that those bloody Jews have bought foreign policy with their lucre. Here we go again. I wonder if his pair used to be Tam Dalyell.

Actually I think it's much simpler than any of the above. He's a moronic tit.

(There. Personal abuse isn't that clever. But sometimes it just feels right.)

(2)

The BBC appears to have pre-empted its desire to see Israel wiped off the map completely. Have a look this BBC weather site. Look through the various regions - starting, one might think obviously, with the Middle East - and try to find any reference to the weather in Israel.

(2)

One of the regular commenters on this site, James, has taken the plunge and started his own blog. You can find it here. Good luck, James, and enjoy the ride.

(1)

Yes, I know comments are down. There's some sort of problem with the server which is out of my hands. All I know is that sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. I'm told it is being dealt with but could take some time. Sorry.

This is a huge oversimplification, but it used to be that, on the whole, Labour politicians were supportive of Israel and Conservatives tended to be Arabists. Why that switched is worthy of a whole book. But there remains a foul grouping within the Conservative Party, and its existence is brought home by this disgusting comment from Sir Peter Tapsell, one of those old-school Tory MPs who has long left a nasty stain on his party:

Sir Peter Tapsell, a Tory MP, said Tuesday that British Prime Minister Tony Blair was "colluding" with U.S. President George W. Bush in giving Israel the okay to wage "unlimited war" in Lebanon - a war crime he claimed was "gravely reminiscent of the Nazi atrocity on the Jewish quarter of Warsaw."

(1)

Two Arabs boarded a flight out of London. One took a window seat and the other sat next to him in the middle seat.

Just before takeoff, an American sat down in the aisle seat. After takeoff, the American kicked his shoes off, wiggled his toes and was settling in when the Arab in the window seat said, "I need to get up and get a coke."

"Don't get up," said the American, "I'm in the aisle seat, I'll get it for you."

As soon as he left, one of the Arabs picked up the American's shoe and spat in it.

When the American returned with the coke, the other Arab said, "That looks good, I'd really like one, too."

Again, the American obligingly went to fetch it.

While he was gone the other Arab picked up the American's other shoe and spat in it.

When the American returned, they all sat back and enjoyed the flight.

As the plane was landing, the American slipped his feet into his shoes and knew immediately what had happened.

"Why does it have to be this way?" he asked. "How long must this go on? This fighting between our nations? This hatred? This animosity? This spitting in shoes and pissing in cokes."

(7)

...not, of course, that the Lebanese government has been in any way complicit in what's been going on with Hezbollah. Oh no. Unless, that is, we believe Nasrallah, who said this in an interview yesterday:

I told them [the Lebanese government] on more than one occasion that we are taking the issue of the prisoners seriously, and that abducting Israeli soldiers is the only way to resolve it. Of course, I said this in a low-key tone. I did not declare in the dialogue: 'In July I will abduct Israeli soldiers.' This is impossible."

Interviewer: "Did you inform them that you were about to abduct Israeli soldiers?"

Hassan Nasrallah: "I told them that we must resolve the issue of the prisoners, and that the only way to resolve it is by abducting Israeli soldiers."

Interviewer: "Did you say this clearly?"

Hassan Nasrallah: "Yes, and nobody said to me: 'No, you are not allowed to abduct Israeli soldiers.' Even if they had told me not to... I'm not defending myself here. I said that we would abduct Israeli soldiers, in meetings with some of the main political leaders in the country. I don't want to mention names now, but when the time comes to settle accounts, I will.

It feels rather odd knowing that Canadians are now stronger in their support for a nation's right to stand up to terror than Brits.

Today's Guardian poll shows that

...only 22% of voters believe Israel has reacted proportionately to the kidnapping of soldiers and other attacks from militant groups in southern Lebanon.

A similar poll in Canada, on the other hand, finds that

...64% of Canadians believed Israel's action is either somewhat or completely justified.

(Although who would have predicted that, in the French speaking part of Canada, only 57 per cent of Quebecers would have said that the Israeli response is "not at all justified".)

That 22% finding in Britain is profoundly disturbing. Is it really the case that, were a terror group based in France to be murdering Brits in the UK using weapons supplied by Germany, with the French government refusing to take any action, and the group proudly declaring its intention of wiping Britain off the face of the map, a mere 22% of the country would want the British government to take action in response? Because that is, in effect, what happened in the Second World War.

So what explains the fact that only one in five are in favour today? Could it, perhaps, have something to do with the daily diet of poison fed by the BBC?

UPDATE: Oh dear, I ignored a fundamental rule: irony doesn't work in print. I was joking when I wrote: who would have predicted that, in the French speaking part of Canada, only 57 per cent of Quebecers would have said that the Israeli response is "not at all justified? The word 'French' is the giveaway.

(6)

Incitement to treason? Glorifying terrorism? Or just Sir Simon Jenkins in the Guardian?

Of course something must be done about the agonies suffered by the people of the Middle East. Humanity demands it. I would sail the first Red Cross ship into Beirut harbour. But I would sink the first aircraft carrier.

Given his all round genius and knowledge of everything, Sir Simon is surely aware that a number of British citizens have been given passage out of Beirut on HMS Illustrious.

(2)

Oh dear. Much as it pains me to say this about a fan of the Tottenham Hotspur Feeder And Retirement XI (sometimes known as West Ham), I think Iain Dale may be right (other than with the floating apostrophe!):

This is Tottenham Hostpur's new away strip. Bring's a whole new relevance to the chant:

YOU'RE SH*T, AND YOU KNOW YOU ARE

Spurs say it's chocolate and gold. Hmmm...

Here's a perfect example of BBC bias by ommission. On Sunday, every bulletin and every report contained the claim by Jan Egeland, the UN emergency relief co-ordinator, that - well, here's how the BBC site reported it:

He says the large scale of the destruction, and its indiscriminate nature, renders it a violation of humanitarian law.

And that's it. No follow up, no context, no room for doubt.

But as Matt d'Ancona noticed:

As he was swept away by his minders, however, one could hear Egeland musing to himself that one could not tell what or who might have been standing between the residential buildings at the time of the Israeli attack. This, a hugely important qualification to his legal judgment, made no headlines. But it is of the essence in the argument about Israel’s bombardment of southern Lebanon. Was it not possible, as even Egeland seemed to be conceding, that Hezbollah had deliberately placed men or munitions in a civilian area to ensure precisely the television images that the UN so obligingly delivered?

Indeed, yesterday Mr Egeland was far more explicit:

The UN's aid chief Jan Egeland has accused Israel of using excessive force, but on Monday he accused Hezbollah of contributing to the problem by what he called "cowardly blending in among women and children".

"I heard there was a statement they were proud they had lost very few fighters, and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don't think you want to be proud of having many more children and women than armed men [killed]," Mr Egeland said, speaking in Beirut.

Yes, I found that on a BBC site. But having spent most of yesterday and this morning watching and listening to BBC coverage, I heard not one reference to that critical point being made. What a contrast with Sunday's coverage, in which a partial report of what Mr Egeland said was splashed everywhere across the BBC.

And where is it on the BBC site - as far as I can tell, the sole reference to it anywhere on the BBC, radio, TV or internet?

In the 21st and 22nd paragraphs of a 24 paragraph report.

So in the BBC's view, when a UN official says blame is attached to both sides, the only balanced report is one which says he blames only one side. And when that official goes out of his way to point out he blames both sides, just bung in a cursory reference at the fag end of an internet page.

(1)

We know that Osama is a Gooner, so this headline should come as no surprise:

Hezbollah's Arsenal

Newt Gingrich's latest email roundrobin contains this horrifying map showing the arc of terrorist attacks from Islamists and regimes which are seeking WMDs. Here's his commentary on it:

It begins in North Korea on our Independence Day, when an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the Western Coast of the United States was fired -- with Iranian observers present for the launch. It moves on through Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand, where there have been several terrorist operations, to India, where seven bombs exploded two weeks ago.

The pattern of global Islamic terrorist threats and attacks picks up again in the war in Afghanistan and into the Middle East, where the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas alliance is not only waging war against Israel but also operating in Iraq, killing our troops as well as innocent Iraqi civilians, in an attempt to destroy any chance that a free Iraqi government will succeed.

The arc continues through Britain, where two more Islamic organizations were banned as terrorist groups just last week. Then it crosses the Atlantic to Canada, where, according to a remarkable article in Investor's Business Daily (IBD), the Canadian Council on American Islamic Relations is urging Muslims not to cooperate in terrorism investigations.

And finally, the global threat comes to the United States, where, according to the article in IBD, the Department of Homeland Security is investigating a pipebomb found in Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans as part of a plot to shut down commerce on a critical waterway. Experts also say that the recent plot to blow up New York City tunnels had a "good chance of success."

(7)

This is what the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Betty Williams, has to say for herself:

I have a very hard time with this word 'non-violence', because I don't believe that I am non-violent. Right now, I would love to kill George Bush.

(2)

Matt d'Ancona has a superb piece today on the Spectator's website:

“It’s very, very difficult to understand the kind of military tactics that have been used,” he [Kim Howells] said in Beirut on Saturday. “You know, if they’re chasing Hezbollah, then go for Hezbollah. You don’t go for the entire Lebanese nation.”

In a single outburst, the minister embarrassed Number Ten, which has been treading a delicate path through this immensely sensitive terrain, and bought into the two myths about the Israeli bombardment: first, that it is “disproportionate” (what, precisely, is the proportionate response to Hezbollah’s abduction of soldiers and deployment of Katyusha rockets?); and, second, that the Israeli strikes amount to “collective punishment” of the Lebanese people.

It is no surprise that so many have resorted to lazy attacks on Israel in this frightening crisis. Old-fashioned rhetoric and thinking are comfort blankets when the shock of the new is so sharp. But they merely postpone the moment of intellectual and strategic reckoning. Egeland, Howells and many like them are reaching for the old anti-Israeli playbook, as if the Jewish state was facing another Intifada.

In fact, 21st Century Hezbollah is one of the best-armed, best-co-ordinated guerrilla armies in the world. In addition to the Katyusha rockets supplied by Tehran via Damascus, the group has deployed a cruise missile known as the C-802 – an Iranian-made variant of the Chinese silkworm – and a Syrian-made 220mm rocket. This is asymmetric warfare only in the sense that a nation state is fighting what Philip Bobbitt would call a “virtual state”: a highly sophisticated terrorist organisation. This confrontation is as far removed as possible from the stand-offs between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian youths of the Intifada era.

In truth, the world is already at war, though not in any conventional sense. In Iraq, the Islamists attack the elected Government and the Coalition. In European and American cities, silent cells plot horrors greater even than the Madrid and London bombings. Iran, a theocracy determined to acquire nuclear weapons, fights against Israel via the murderous agency of Hezbollah. The West, for now, allows Israel to fight back. But for how long? How much easier to focus on the bloody leaves of Lebanon and avert our gaze from the horrors of the global wood.

(2)

Further to my Times piece below, a BBC News staffer emailed me with this (I have deleted certain things to make sure anonymity is protected):

Stephen, you do well to pinpoint your frustration in today's Times on just one programme. As a Jew (aargh) and a (whisper it) Zionist, I'm torn asunder by the way the BBC has done this. (And remember they've spent months addressing the accusations of bias, trying to get us all to do an online course which claims to be impartial but merely tries to impart the BBC's take on Israel's history.)

Note how Sky does much of its work from Haifa and the BBC does it all from Beirut. Note how every piece done by the BBC's Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, questions whether or not Israel has carried out war crimes. The correspondents in Israel itself haven't done a bad job. Matthew Price and James Reynolds have acquitted themselves pretty well. But they've sent out Fergal Keane and Jeremy Bowen whose clear agenda is to expose the human tragedy in Lebanon and tell us Israel is a bastard state.

There is no intelligence here, no in-depth questioning of why this conflict has erupted. No discussion of Syria, Iran and Middle East geopolitics. It's a hammer with which to whack Israel.

(5)

Who'd ever have thought that Canada - Canada! - would have so sensible a Prime Minister and Foreign Minister?!

Israeli ceasefire no solution to peace in Lebanon, MacKay says

OTTAWA (CP) - It's time to start working diplomatically toward peace in Lebanon - but that doesn't mean a unilateral ceasefire by Israel, says Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay.

Speaking Sunday on television, MacKay refused to join other countries who have called on the Israelis to rein in their military offensive in the region.

Before hostilities can end, he said, both sides will have to agree on a solution that will ensure Israel doesn't come under attack again from Hezbollah guerrillas using Lebanon as their base of operations.

"A ceasefire and a return to the status quo is a victory for Hezbollah," MacKay warned. "Let's not forget that this was an unprovoked attack by a terrorist organization . . . . The discussions have to focus on the long-term end of violence in the region."

MacKay's comments were in keeping with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's insistence, since the start of the crisis, that Hezbollah was to blame for sparking the violence and a unilateral Israeli pull-back would not solve the problem.

(6)

If you watched yesterday’s Andrew Marr programme on BBC1, you would have seen a British TV landmark. To judge from its contents, the programme was the first to have been edited by the leader of Hezbollah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.

Most of it was, rightly, given over to the events in the Middle East. But of the four guests interviewed, not one had anything but bile to pour over Israel. Up first was Glenys Kinnock MEP, remarking how “heartening” it is that the Middle East minister, Kim Howells, has begun “a shifting of ground away from defence of Israel”. Alongside her was Matthew Parris, who repeated the hostile views he has already made clear to Times readers. A Lebanese minister followed. Then Sir Menzies Campbell, a man whose entire career has been spent attacking Israeli policy, whatever it happens to be.

All were treated with deference by Andrew Marr, as he invited them to honour us with their sagacity.

It is entirely proper for the BBC to give a platform to such views. But it is entirely improper that not one second should be allowed on what the BBC’s website calls its “flagship political programme” for the view of anyone who thinks there just might be some justification for the Israeli action.

Not that we should be surprised. The BBC’s coverage has been overwhelmingly one-sided, with presenters and reporters editorialising against what they universally refer to as “Israeli attacks on Lebanon”.

Right at the beginning it was clear how the BBC would cover the operation, when a film on Newsnight concluded with the reporter, Peter Marshall, remarking across a picture of a blown-up bridge: “All this destruction. And still more threatened” — as if the Israelis are on some kind of wilful destruction spree, dropping bombs for the sheer hell of it, rather than taking action to destroy Hezbollah’s capacity to murder any more Israelis.

On Saturday the BBC’s website helpfully carried full details of the assembly points for that day’s anti-Israel march. Nowhere did it give the same detail for yesterday’s rally in support of Israel.

We are forced to pay for such propaganda. The only option is to take action ourselves. BBC News’s annual budget is £350 million — 8.75 per cent of the corporation’s entire budget. From now on, let’s pay only £120 of the £131.50 licence fee.

(7)

I can't imagine that the BBC has ever broadcast a more poisonous or vile programme than this morning's Andrew Marr show. It devoted - quite properly - the first half to the events in the Lebanon. But what was completely improper was that every guest - every guest - was simply nodded into the studio and handed air time to pour out as much anti-Israel bile as they could manage in their allotted slot. And there was not one slot allocated to anyone who thoiught that Israel might have even the basis of a case.

First off was Glenys Kinnock, a woman whose political career has been devoted to attacking Israel, twinned with Matthew Parris, to 'review' the papers. Mrs Kinnock could only rejoice at how 'heartening' it is that Kim Howells has begun ‘a shifting of ground away from defence of Israel'. And Matthew Parris trotted out the usual 'neocons around David Cameron' meme', including a woefully misguided and gratuitous attack on his Times colleague Michael Gove's 'nutty' foreign policy views - standing up to militant Islam.

The came a Lebanese minister, followed by Menzies Campbell, whose loathing of Israel is apparent in his every public utterance on the subject. And guess what - he attacked Israel.

Not a single word indicating that there might be some people who think Israel is right to try to destroy terrorists who murder its citizens.

The BBC site calls Sunday AM the 'BBC flagship political programme'. Doesn't its grotesque bias, with not the slightest attempt to give a voice to the side whose very existence is put at stake by terror, say all that needs to be said about the BBC today?

Truly shameful.

(15)

It's only a small gesture, but via this site you can send pizzas to the brave IDF soldiers fighting to combat terror.

Today's Times has a succinct letter shredding Matthew Parris' silly piece:

Sir, Matthew Parris states that “the past 40 years have been a catastrophe . . . for world Jewry”.

In analysing the period 1967-2006, Jews have regained control over the holiest place in their religion, Jerusalem, have established more Jewish educational schools, colleges and seminaries worldwide than at any other time in our history, created more Nobel prize winners, been at the forefront of research and invention in the fields of science, medicine, IT and music, have outlived the Soviet labour camps and seen the release of the refuseniks, rejoined Ethiopian Jewry with its brethren, enjoyed relative economic stability and relative political freedom.

In 1927-67, there was the Holocaust, postwar pogroms in Poland and the attempts by Britiain to return refugees to Germany or imprison them in Cypriot prisons. In 1887-1927, there was the persecution of Jews and pogroms in Tsarist and then Bolshevik Russia, the displacement of millions of Jews from Eastern Europe, the Dreyfus affair in France and Jewish poverty in the UK and the US.

The past 40 years have been a golden period for world Jewry. But many of us now believe the clouds are back.

ANDREW BESSER
London EC2

There's also another version of the voice of the British foreign policy establishment, this time from Lord Howell and Baroness Symons. You don't have to read it to know what it will say:

Israel has now set itself not just against Hezbollah but against the entire Lebanese people and the Lebanese State. Incredibly, the Lebanese Government, Israel’s neighbour and the only other democracy in the region, has been declared Israel’s foe. Its very attempts to bring Hezbollah representatives into the process of government have been depicted not merely as tolerance of, but actual collaboration with, terror, giving credibility to those militants and killers for which Israel holds Lebanon responsible. The state of Lebanon must therefore now be punished. From the Israeli military the word seems to have gone out: Lebanon delenda est.

Blah, blah, blah.

(Mind you, this bit is downright hilarious:

The impact will go further. America’s reputation in the region is already at zero, with the conviction, almost universal, even if only half-true, that Israel is the proxy of the United States and relies on its technological weapons superiority (although that may now be eroding). But Britain, which always had a reputation for greater wisdom in the region, can still be the friend of small nations, the friends of the resurgent Lebanon and the friend of moderation and restraint.

Here's the thing, Dave and Liz. There's one encouraging thought attached to your piece. It will have precisely zero impact. Zilch. Sweet Fanny Adam. And you know why? Because there are few voices less qualified to give instructions to Israel in how to defend its citizens than the authentic inheritors of the British foreign policy tradition.

(6)

There was a superb piece by Amos Oz - hardly a hawk, he - in Wednesday's LA Times:

Many times in the past, the Israeli peace movement has criticized Israeli military operations. Not this time. This time, the battle is not over Israeli expansion and colonization. There is no Lebanese territory occupied by Israel. There are no territorial claims from either side.

...The Israeli peace movement objects to the occupation and colonization of the West Bank. It objected to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 because the invasion was aimed at distracting world attention from the Palestinian problem. This time, Israel is not invading Lebanon. It is defending itself from daily harassment and bombardment of dozens of our towns and villages by attempting to smash Hezbollah wherever it lurks.

...The real battle raging these days is not at all between Beirut and Haifa but between a coalition of peace-seeking nations — Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia on the one hand — and fanatic Islam, fueled by Iran and Syria, on the other.

If, as we all hope — Israeli hawks and doves alike — Hezbollah is going to be defeated soon, Israel and Lebanon will be the winners. Moreover, a defeat of a militant Islamist terror organization may dramatically enhance the chances for peace in the region.

(2)

Oliver Kamm has an excellent post about the military action in Lebanon (even though he has a strange blind spot over the BBC's bias).

He is particularly strong in pointing out the fundamental flaw in my Times colleague Mary Anne Sieghart's strange and deeply misguided piece today:

The kicker is in Mrs Sieghart's conclusion:

Mr Blair has moved too swiftly from defending Israel’s right to exist to supporting Israel right or wrong. It is bad for the Middle East and it is dangerous for Britain. He ought to know better.

This is a false dichotomy of extraordinary blatancy. I would be concerned, as any liberal or progressive ought to be, if the PM's stance were one of "defending Israel's right to exist". Israel has a right to sovereignty and independence; in order to exercise sovereignty it needs to protect its civilians from rocket attacks from a private army backed by a theocratic tyranny. When I assert the need for an eventual settlement (I do not see it happening any time soon) encompassing two states, I do not write of Palestine's "right to exist"; I wish to see a sovereign and independent Palestinian state. As I understand the PM's position - and I believe I understand it perfectly, because it's stated clearly - the PM does not "support Israel right or wrong": he defends Israel's ability to act as a democratic and sovereign state must. He is right.

Blimey.

Rod Liddle has a terrific piece in the Spectator on the British evacuees from Beirut:

...Were they grateful and full of humility? For the most part, were they hellers. Everyone was to blame for the uncomfortable time they’d endured in the previous seven days — the British embassy, America, Israel and so on — but not themselves. And not Hezbollah either, who were exonerated by all and sundry either by omission or quite explicitly.

There was, for example, the breathtakingly cretinous girl who explained that she’d just come to Beirut to ‘do some deejaying, like’ and was appalled that the British embassy hadn’t got its act together and flown her home when the first bombs landed. I have the feeling we will see her again soon enough, looking bemused standing with her rucksack by a landing strip in Quetta or Khandahar, other places where her ‘deejaying’ sojourn runs into a spot of bother. There were people angry that their ‘beach holiday’ hadn’t turned out as they’d expected, what with the heavy ordnance and everything. Now, I don’t wish to be callous, but don’t phrases like ‘on your head be it’ and ‘you made your bed’ etc., spring to mind here? A beach holiday, in Beirut? Didn’t they wonder why it was so cheap? Might they not have guessed that Beirut would be a little different from Biarritz?

There then followed, from the embassy coach on to the Royal Navy ship, a grim procession of implacably Arabist hags who spewed forth a tirade of anti-Israeli, anti-British and anti-American propaganda, during which the phrase ‘Israeli war crimes’ cropped up with remarkable regularity. The British embassy was not merely negligent, they averred, but sort of complicit in the Israeli action; it had conspired to hide from the world these Israeli ‘atrocities’ (clearly they weren’t aware that, far from being hidden, we’d watched it all unfold every night on our news programmes). There was not the slightest gratitude to the embassy, or the navy, or the British government, that we’d hauled them out of a pit they had dug for themselves. They wanted the rights which are traditionally afforded British citizens — the right to be removed from the presence of excitable, swarthy foreigners as soon as the first gunshot is heard — but also the right to pledge their political allegiance to the country from which they were determinedly fleeing. Horribly, unforgivably, John Betjeman’s nasty little phrase ‘Come friendly bombs’ drifted through my mind as I watched them walk up the gangplank to HMS Gloucester where they were to be served, according to the starchy navy spokesbabe, ‘a tasty meal prepared by our chef’. Let them eat hummus, for the rest of their lives.

...People who expect the rest of the world to treat them rather as they are treated in Wilmslow or Wokingham and somehow find it possible to blame the British government when they are treated somewhat differently. For many of the British citizens fleeing Lebanon, there was nothing in the way of a mumbled admission that perhaps, all things considered, Magaluf might have been a better bet this year. Nor, from those domiciled in Beirut, the careless shrug, a heigh-ho and ‘well, that’s what you expect if you live in a country which allows extremists to shell its closest neighbour’. Instead, just a fugue of concerted whining and spite directed, bizarrely, at the very people who were helping them. Travel may have got them nearly killed, but it certainly didn’t broaden their minds.

(5)

This notice was photgraphed outside the entrance to the BBC 10 O'Clock News.

It explains everything.

(2)

The Guardian provides a helpful clarification today of Martin Rowson's cartoon:

Yesterday's cartoon on page 29 (Comment) portrayed Israeli military action in Lebanon in the form of a mailed fist with Stars of David as knuckle-dusters. By failing to identify them in a specifically Israeli form - such as in the colours of the flag - the point the cartoon was making might have been interpreted as implicating Judaism rather than the Israeli government in the present conflict. That was not the intention, and we are sorry if anyone saw it that way.

Phew, what a relief to know that, in the Guardian's view, it's perfectly ok to use images which look antisemitic, and which many people take to be antisemitic, so long as you only meant to attack Israel than Jews generally.

So when I say that Guardian is a loathsome paper which is not fit to be used as toilet paper, whose reporting of the Middle East inflames hatred of Jews and which is staffed by raving antisemites masquerading as liberals, it's fine, because it's certainly not my intention to cause any offense by such a statement.

(12)

Here's how you know you're old. It's not when the coppers look young. It's not even when Cabinet ministers are younger than you are. It's when you read this headline

Sheringham signs for Crystal Palace

and realise that it's not Teddy to which the headline refers, but his son, Charlie:

The son of former Spurs striker Teddy Sheringham has signed a two year deal with Crystal Palace.

18 year old striker, Charlie was released by Ipswich Town at the end of last season but has impressed Palace during the club's pre-season tour to the USA.

Commenting on the new contract, Dad said:

"I hope I can play against him. We're similar so I can see what he is trying to do.

"He's certainly got no better advisor."

Neal Lawson, the self-appointed representative on earth of Gordon Brown, suggests in this paen of praise to the state that the model society is either the Third Reich or the Soviet Union:

We should make it impossible to separate society from state.

At least I assume that's what he means. I can't think of any other fusion of society and the state.

UPDATE: Great minds, and all that.

Today's Times has a letter from Lord Balfour, with sentiments entirely typical of the British establishment:

If Israel is to help put an end to this and soften attitudes towards it, perhaps it should put up with some pain without always fighting back instantly. This would allow a better background for forceful diplomacy involving Tehran, Damascus and others in the region. Israel is not going to disappear and nor is Arabia. They had better train their peoples to live with the fact.

Ah yes, best to let a few yids snuff it than upset diplomacy.

The new Canadian PM doesn't think Israeli lives are expendable in the face of terror:

We all want to encourage not just a ceasefire, but a resolution. And a resolution will only be achieved when everyone gets to the table and everyone admits that recognition of each other...But I have to say this. I read in some papers somewhere that someone involved in this said, ‘Well, Hezbollah will protect, Hezbollah will take care of us’. Hezbollah’s objective is violence. Hezbollah believes that through violence it can create, it can bring about the destruction of Israel. Violence will not bring about the destruction of Israel ... and inevitably the result of the violence will be the deaths primarily of innocent people.

(1)

A nice start to the BBC's oh-so-objective coverage of the IDF's action in Lebanon. Asked by Sarah Montague on the Today programme this morning how the action is going down in Israel, correspondent Paul Adams put it this way:

It may sound bizarre to you, but this war has overwhelming public support here in Israel.

Now Mr Adams could of course have been making a dig at Ms Montague and other BBC coverage, but somehow I doubt it. More likely, surely, is that he was adopting the same slant himself - that it is somehow 'bizarre' for the Israeli government to take action to protect Israeli citizens from terror.

UPDATE: I have it on good authority that I am wrong, and have been unfair on Mr Adams. As my corresondent puts it: "Explaining that there is such a thing as an Israeli street has long been his lonely duty". In which case, Mr Adams deserves praise, not censure, for his remark.

(2)

I'm not going to label Martin Rowson's despicable cartoon today as antisemitic. It's up to those who have seen it to judge for themselves. I know what I think.

Whatever you think, do let Rowson know at his email address.

But its portrayal of the Star of David as vicious knuckle dusters, in a giant fist smashing a tiny, irritating little wasp shows at the very least that Rowson has not the slightest idea - or if he does, he is ignoring what he knows - about the reality of the existential threat faced by Israel and the constant, daily terror attacks which have prompted the current defensive action.

But then what else could one expect from a cartoon in the Guardian?

(2)

Flatteringly, Iain Dale has made this site his blog of the week on his Channel Four News podcast. You can hear it via Iain's site here.

Comments should now be working. But from now on, you'll have to register in order to leave a comment. The comment window links to Typekey to facilitate this.

This seems to be the most effective way of making sure there's no spam. I know it's a bit of a pain, but registering is a one-off process and after that you can post away ad infinitum.

(5)

In his latest Mideast Disptatch, the indefatigable Tom Gross has this wonderful quote from Robert Fisk:

I travel the roads of southern Lebanon every two weeks and there are no such [Hizbullah] missiles, as the UN force there will confirm… Hizbollah resistance … missiles are a myth.

(The Independent, April 15, 2003)

(1)

It's a sign of how low one's expectations are now of TV that even a programme such as this seems more of a yawn than an outrage:

More tossers on TV

Leigh Holmwood
Tuesday July 18, 2006
MediaGuardian.co.uk

Channel 4 is to bring mass public masturbation to the small screen.

The broadcaster - once led by Michael Grade, dubbed "pornographer in chief" by the Daily Mail - has commissioned a documentary about the UK's first "masturbate-a-thon" as part of a series of programmes dubbed "Wank week", MediaGuardian.co.uk can reveal.

In what must surely be one of the summer's more bizarre events, hundreds of people are expected to gather in a hall in central London on August 5 to pleasure themselves in aid of charity.

And this is truly inspired:

July 17, 2006 -- Hans Peter Niesward, from the Department of Gravitationsphysik at the ISA in Munich, says we can stop global warming in one fell swoop — or, more accurately, in one big jump.

The slightly disheveled professor states his case on WorldJumpDay.org, an Internet site created to recruit 600,000,000 people to jump simultaneously on July 20 at 11:39:13 GMT in an effort to shift Earth's position.

Niesward claims that on this day "Earth occupies one of the most fragile positions in its orbits for the last 100 years." According to the site, the shift in orbit will "stop global warming, extend daytime hours and create a more homogeneous climate."

The Man Who Wasn't There

Niesward's theory has at least one major flaw: Niesward doesn't really exist. He is a character created by Torsten Lauschmann, a German-born artist living in Scotland. Lauschmann — a live performer, filmmaker, DJ and photographer — may be best known for his work "Misshapen Pearl," described as a "phenomenological investigation of the streetlamp's function in our consumer society."

How can you not want to buy from this store?

I've now upgraded this site to MT 3.3 and am installing comment authentication to deal with the spam problem. Comments aren't functioning at the moment, so please bear with me. As soon as they are working again I will let you know.

What has happened to Con Coughlin? His writing always used to be rather good, but his recent outpourings are full of mistaken premises and plain errors of fact. Take his piece in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph, which argues that the real problem is that the Israelis are led by Olmert:

Unlike some of the more flamboyant characters who have occupied the Prime Minister's office - the devious Moshe Dayan...

There's a small problem with that contrast between Olmert and Dayan as PM. Dayan was never Prime Minister.

Then this:

It is not just that Mr Olmert's military career was limited to occasional stints as a reporter for the Israeli army's in-house magazine.

Eh? Coughlin seems to have developed an uneasy relationship with facts which don't suit his argument. No one is ever going to argue that Olmert's military career was especially distinguished, in the style of Sharon or Rabin. But writing that it was "occasional stints as a reporter" is plain wrong:

"Olmert served with the Israel Defense Forces in the Golani combat brigade. While in service he was injured and temporarily released. He underwent many treatments. Later he completed his military duties as a journalist for the IDF magazine BaMahane. During the Yom Kippur war he joined the headquarters of Ariel Sharon as a military correspondent. Already a Knesset member, he decided to go through an Officer's course, at the age of 35, in 1980."

(6)

Those who cross the line of acceptable behaviour must always be brought to account, so it is quite proper that the news agenda is dominated by suspicions concerning Lord Levy, the policemen who shot Jean Charles de Menezes, and the NatWest Three.

Yet there has been barely a whisper since the revelation last week that civil servants at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office have been supporting the activities of Islamists dedicated to the destruction of Western society.

Last week the journalist Martin Bright published an exposé of the FCO’s behaviour (http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/images/libimages/176.pdf) and showed that the FCO is actively promoting engagement with the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood and its associated groups.

Mockbul Ali, the FCO’s Islamic issues adviser, pressed for the granting of entry visas to Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, which exists to promote the establishment of an Islamic state brought about by jihad.

Mr Ali has also championed entry for Delwar Hossain Sayeedi a Bangladeshi MP who demands further terror against the West because the UK and the US “deserve all that is coming to them” for overthrowing the Taleban in Afghanistan. His previous visits have been accompanied reportedly by violence. To Mockbul Ali, all this marks Sayeedi as a “mainstream” figure.

Mr Ali’s views, based on the supposed merits of “engagement”, are now mainstream within the FCO. His colleague Angus McKee has even proposed direct funding of groups dedicated to wiping out Western civilisation: “Given that Islamist groups are often less corrupt than the generality of the societies in which they operate, consideration might be given to channelling aid resources through them, so long as sufficient transparency is achievable.”

None of this should come as a surprise. Deluded engagement with those whose existence is dedicated to destroying our society is par for the FCO course. As Halifax wrote to Eden in 1937: “I went to see the PM. He was very strong that I ought to manage to see Hitler . . . He truly observed that we might as well get all the contact we could.” Did we not learn in the 1930s the consequences of such contact with those who seek to destroy us?

(2)

Here's President Chirac on how France would repond to terrorism against French citizens:

Chirac: Nuclear Response to Terrorism Is Possible

By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, January 20, 2006; Page A12

PARIS, Jan. 19 -- President Jacques Chirac said Thursday that France was prepared to launch a nuclear strike against any country that sponsors a terrorist attack against French interests. He said his country's nuclear arsenal had been reconfigured to include the ability to make a tactical strike in retaliation for terrorism.

"The leaders of states who would use terrorist means against us, as well as those who would envision using . . . weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and fitting response on our part," Chirac said during a visit to a nuclear submarine base in Brittany. "This response could be a conventional one. It could also be of a different kind."

And here's President Chirac on Israel's response to terrorism against its citizens:

Chirac: Israel has gone too far

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

French President Jacques Chirac castigated Israel for its military offensive in Lebanon on Friday, calling it "totally disproportionate," while he and other European leaders expressed fears of a widening Middle East conflict that could spiral out of control.

Here's what the former French Ambassador to the Court of St James called Israel:

"That shitty little country"

And here's what happened to Captain Alfred Dreyfus.

It's a total mystery to me why Michael Melchior denounced France as the most antisemitic country in the West.

UPDATE: As a commenter points out, this post is remarkably similar to this one. We were both pointed in the same direction by the same correspondent. If I'd seen that it had already been used by Adloyada, I would of course either have credited her or not posted at all. Apologies.

(6)

I could fill the entire site with examples of the BBC's distortion of Israel's military actions in the past few days. But watching Newsnight tonight, it was - of course - Peter Marshall who typified the attitude of the BBC.

Across a picture of a blown up bridge, he remarked: "All this destruction. And still more threatened". As if the IDF was on some kind of wilful destruction spree, just for the hell of it. How about the reason why the bridge had been destroyed? Because Israel has been continually attacked by Hezbollah, and the IDF has to take action to prevent further such attacks.

What an obscenity that we have to fund this stuff, under threat of serving a prison sentence if we don't cough up.

(13)

How lovely to be able to write once more about my old friend Peter Marshall.

I've just seen his quite astonishingly one sided report on the NatWest 3. It's available here (the second item, after the Lord Levy reports). In a full report on the extradition, the only references defending either the treaty or their extradition were tiny clips from Tony Blair at PMQs and the US Ambassador.

Every 'expert' interview conducted for the report was with opponents of the treaty, such as with not one but two extradition barristers who oppose the treaty. All the clips shown and the arguments put by Mr Marshall were against the treaty. And the viewer was told that the whole shebang has only come about because Britain does the US' bidding.

I pay my licence fee for this crap.

(20)

You have to admire the sheer cheek of Michael Grade in managing to say this with a straight face:

BBC pledges rebate if licence fee not spent wisely

Owen Gibson, media correspondent
Wednesday July 12, 2006
The Guardian

The BBC chairman, Michael Grade, has promised to hand licence fee payers a rebate if executives fail to come up with satisfactory ways of spending their money.
Appearing before the culture, media and sport select committee yesterday, Mr Grade said the BBC Trust that will replace the existing board of governors from next year would have "no hesitation" in returning a portion of the £3.1bn raised by the licence fee to viewers.

Two words spring to mind:

Yeah, right.

(5)

I recommend The British Moment - the case for democratic geopolitics in the twenty-first century, which has just been published by the Social Affairs Unit on behalf of the Henry Jackson Society

I'm proud to have been one of the original signatories to the statement of principles. I should point out, however, that where my name appears as such at the back of the book, I am described as 'Columnist, The Times, Personal Advisor to the PM for Defence and Security, 1984-91'.

Whilst the first part of that is correct, I had not yet gone to university in 1984, and I'm not sure Baroness Thatcher would have been excercising her usual sound judgement had she made me her Defence and Security Adviser at the age of 19.

(1)

Well I never. It seems that Canon Paul Oestreicher has converted back to Judaism.

He must have done. Why else would he have signed this:

WHAT IS ISRAEL DOING? A Call By Jews In Britain

(8)

If this site suddenly becomes unavailable, don't worry, it will be back. I am upgrading to MT 3.3, and there are bound to be some hiccups along the way. But fingers crossed I will be rid of the bloody spammers...

(1)

Sometimes only Peter Briffa will do.

(2)

Just to let you know, the comments facility should now be working again. I am hopefully going to be dealing with spam problem, too, asap.

(2)

I've always been under the impression that United States was the world’s freest society, with an unparalleled record for defending freedom around the world, with a finely developed legal system, constitutional protections that put most other democracies to shame and a law enforcement policy that has seen crime rates plunge.

What an idiot! To read the reaction to the extradition of the NatWest Three, it seems that the US is a hell-hole, with a justice system akin to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and with a penchant for seizing random people from around the world and imprisoning them on a whim. Even more shamefully, they don’t just take terror suspects but nice middle-class professional Brits with families.

I have no idea if the Nat West Three are fraudsters or entirely innocent. None of us does. Certainly not Dominic Grieve, the Shadow Attorney General, who has written to his counterpart to demand that he halt the three men’s extradition.

The US authorities, however, think that they are guilty of a massive fraud that is directly linked to the collapse of Enron — and so they want to try them. Not to sentence them peremptorily, not to hang them, not to lock them up without trial for 30 years, but . . . to put them on trial.

And, er, that’s it. That’s the huge injustice that they are facing. A trial, where the evidence will be weighed, and a jury will decide. When a trial takes place here we call it justice. When it takes place in the US we call it an outrage.

The British authorities don’t want to try them, the cry has gone out, so they should be left alone. Well, maybe, just maybe, that’s because the US is far tougher on white-collar crime than we are.

But they’ll await trial alongside murderers and rapists! Indeed. That’s what happens when you’re locked up. It’s not meant to be pleasant.

Most stupidly of all, we are told that we shouldn’t extradite them to the US because they didn’t extradite IRA suspects to us. Genius. Explain, please, how the best response is allowing other indicted defendants to escape trial, too?

None of the fuss has anything to do with justice. It’s merely the latest manifestation of the British establishment’s default mode: sneering superiority towards those awful hick Americans. And it’s as nauseating as usual.

(15)

This NPR chat about Yiddish is great fun. Especially the discussion on the difference between a Putz and a Schmuck

(via Norm.)

Yes, I know the comments aren't working. Sorry. I am hoping it will right itself since I don't have a clue what's wrong. Given that I was thinking of disabling them anyway to get rid of the spam, maybe it's for the best.

News to brighten a dull Sunday:

ID cards doomed, say officials

TONY BLAIR’S flagship identity cards scheme is set to fail and may not be introduced for a generation, according to leaked Whitehall e-mails from the senior officials responsible for the multi-billion-pound project.
The problems are so serious that ministers have been forced to draw up plans for a scaled-down “face-saving” version to meet their pledge of phasing in the cards from 2008.

However, civil servants say there is no evidence that even this compromise is “remotely feasible” and accuse ministers of “ignoring reality” by pressing ahead.

(2)

Anyone else who loves US politics as much as I do will love this ad from 1960, in which Jackie Kennedy sells the merits of her husband to Hispanic voters.

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson has died at the age of 52. In my view she was the greatest singer of the age, a woman who could convey more emotion in one note than most singers managed in an entire work. The last time I heard her live she sang two Bach cantatas in a Peter Sellars staging. Her recordings are good, but don't come close to hearing her live. I can't believe that'll never happen again.

Posting will be very light for the rest of the week.

(1)

(The Leonard Cheshire charity, which has an income of £135 million a year and helps 21,000 disabled people in the UK, has decided to change its name because, according to its director-general, Bryan Dutton: “It’s important that the young generation know who we are and what we do.” To that end, it has suggested eQual UK, Equability UK or A-BL UK as possibilities. The charity has assured Lord Cheshire’s relatives that his name will be incorporated “ within” the new name.)

Forgive my using the pages of The Times for a personal announcement, but from now on I’d like to be known not as Stephen Pollard but as Rite4DoughSP.

I’ve realised that the words Stephen and Pollard are anachronistic. They are — sorry Mummy and Daddy — the product of a mind-set from an age long gone, and aren’t remotely hip enough to convey just what a swinging, urban, wicked and beating man I really am.

Rite4DoughSP, on the other hand, says what I am about, has my branding within it, and is dead witty — doesn’t the deliberate misspelling just crack you up?!

So hats off to the board of Leonard Cheshire, too. What a beating group they are. They’ve realised that the name of their founder is just so, well, old. Who wants to be known by the name of some dead war hero, when instead there are such cracking alternatives as eQual UK, Equability UK and A-BL UK? Only the frigid would point out that the possible new names sound more like an exam board, a club for the mild-mannered and the first three letters of the dyslexic alphabet.

And only the terminally unhip would care that incorporating the name of a war hero in a piece of marketing zing is an insult to his memory. What do they think a charity should be for if it’s not being down and dirty with street culture? As for sticking just with the name of its war hero founder: war is just so not cool. And charity is really cool. So how can a charity have a war hero’s name? Duh.

Yeah, it’s groovy. The street’s where it’s at. The yoof’s where it’s at.

(Oh, and as far as I know, until now there’s been no such street-word as “beating”, but as Rite4DoughSP, me is so cool that me only has to think something’s happening and it is. So it’s beating. Yeah.)

(27)

July 4th is not just Independence Day. It is also the anniversary of the worst post-war pogrom, which occurred 60 years ago in the Polish city of Kielce.

On July 4, 1946, 42 Jews were murdered in what those who took part described as a 'festival' of Jew-murder. The victims were Holocaust survivors who had returned home, only to discover that the oldest hatred would not disappear with the murder of 6 million Jews. Kielce showed why the case for a Jewish homeland was as important in supposedly 'peaceful' times as it was when the Nazis were in power.

There's an excellent piece in the Jerusalem Post today by the estimable Robert Wistrich on this:

Today, anti-Semitism is once more on the rise in Poland. A far-right Catholic party known for its anti-Jewish positions is in the coalition government and its leader, Roman Giertych, is minister of education. The staunchly Catholic Radio Maryja, which has several million listeners and periodically broadcasts anti-Semitic propaganda, is another disturbing symptom of the current climate in Poland.

Moreover, only last month, Poland's Chief Rabbi Michael Schuldrich was insulted and sprayed with tear gas on a street in Warsaw just before the pope's visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau. But contemporary Polish anti-Semitism is less violent than in France and Germany. Moreover, it is vigorously opposed by the authorities and treated as a serious crime by the police.

Despite the racism that still exists in Poland, there is nothing remotely comparable to the savage anti-Semitism that prevailed in Kielce six decades ago. Nevertheless, the seeds of intolerance are clearly present and require a firm response to prevent any relapse into the horrors of the past.

Why does Israel exist? Kielce is just one reason.

(11)

I think this is what's known as unfortunate timing.

3.25:

Tame Murray beaten by Baghdatis By Caroline Cheese BBC Sport at Wimbledon

Andy Murray's Wimbledon run came to a disappointing end with a 6-3 6-4 7-6 (7-2) defeat to Marcos Baghdatis.

Murray sees internet search boom Mark Sweney Monday July 3, 2006

Teenage tennis sensation Andy Murray is set to overtake Wayne Rooney in online search requests over the next few days...

(3)

Astonishing. I've just heard the BBC's Wyre Davies in Jerusalem say on News 24 that Cpl Shalit was 'abducted', and then refer to his 'kidnapping'. Is this the first time a BBC journalist has not said 'captured'? Whatever next? Calling terrorists terrorists?

(15)

One of the commenters says "this site is overun by unintelligible spam and no one seems to care".

It is, and I'm sorry. I care. But I am at a loss to know what to do. I don't have the time to delete the hundreds of spam comments. I don't want to turn off comments, but so long as I keep them on, it seems there has to be spam, so I think I am going to have to disable them.

I am a total technical ignoramus so I have no idea how other sites with comments avoid spam. If anyone can enlighten me - but only if the solution is something somone whose understanding barely extends beyond 'press the enter key' can comprehend - I'd be grateful.

(7)

I've just read Michael Gove's new book, Celsius 7/7. All I can really do is urge you to buy it. It's a truly marvellous book about the refusal of so many in the West to acknowlege the reality and scale of the Islamist threat to civilisation. It ought to be compulsory reading for anyone who has ever bought a copy of the Guardian out of choice, every BBC journalist, every MP who voted against 90 days detention and everyone who thought Adam Curtis' The Power of Nightmares was anything other than a piece of terrorist propaganda.

It's so well written that it's impossible to put down. Gove ranges across the history of Islamism, the reality of today's terror, the real role of Israel and the response of Western liberals. It's a book that needed to be written.

Buy it here. You won't regret it.

(11)

I watched the England game in a bar in Rome. Coming back yesterday was instructive - a real lesson in the partiality which dominates coverage here.

When Rooney was sent off, there was not one person in the bar who thought the incident anything other than a straight red card. How can stamping on a player's groin not be? Rooney is lucky that he merely had to leave a football pitch. I can think of no good reason why he is not behind bars in a German prison - his violent conduct is at least as bad as that of many of the fans who were arrested.

Blow me down, now that I'm home it's not Rooney who is being pilloried but Ronaldo, who did nothing more than say something like 'that's a red, ref'. Yes, he should have kept his mouth shut, but I'd be grateful if someone could tell me why pointing out the severity of a foul is a worse offence than committing the foul.

The truth of the matter is that England did not deserve to be alongside France, Italy and Germany. We were, to use the technical term. crap. We have some good players - Rooney, when he keeps his cool, Gerrard and Owen when he is fit and - Come On You Spur! - Lennon. But most are typical English plodders given a veneer of something better because we usually see them play in Premiership teams alongside far better players. England are a second rank football team. Just as the league table doesn't lie, nor does the fact that we now always go out in the quarter finals. That's because the quater finals is the level of our ability.

Berate Sven for getting £24 million for doing bugger all all you like - and I rejoice that we're shot of him - but it's not Sven who was the real problem. It's the players. Big Phil, Wenger, Lippi. Jurgen, whoeever; none would have made any real difference. If the players aren't good enough, they're just not good enough.

(14)