It's always instructive to go by what people say, rather than the perception of them that mainstream opinion holds. So here's a question to those who say that Hamas is moderating in office - that the reality of authority is leading to greater promise for peace: have you actually read what they say? Do you listen to their words?

Sheik Ahmad Bahr is the acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council. And here's what he said on Friday:

Ahmad Bahr began: "You will be victorious" on the face of this planet. You are the masters of the world on the face of this planet. Yes, [the Koran says that] "you will be victorious," but only "if you are believers." Allah willing, "you will be victorious," while America and Israel will be annihilated. I guarantee you that the power of belief and faith is greater than the power of America and Israel. They are cowards, who are eager for life, while we are eager for death for the sake of Allah. That is why America's nose was rubbed in the mud in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Somalia, and everywhere.

Bahr continued and said that America will be annihilated, while Islam will remain. The Muslims "will be victorious, if you are believers." Oh Muslims, I guarantee you that the power of Allah is greater than America, by whom many are blinded today. Some people are blinded by the power of America. We say to them that with the might of Allah, with the might of His Messenger, and with the power of Allah, we are stronger than America and Israel.

The Hamas spokesperson concluded with a prayer, saying: "Oh Allah, vanquish the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them all, down to the very last one. Oh Allah, show them a day of darkness. Oh Allah, who sent down His Book, the mover of the clouds, who defeated the enemies of the Prophet defeat the Jews and the Americans, and bring us victory over them."

The voice of peace: Oh Allah, vanquish the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them all, down to the very last one.

(5)

So frequent, and so rabid, is the antisemitism which the Guardian allows on its Comment Is Free site that it often passes without further ado. But it shouldn't. The Guardian's comments section has become a shockingly blatant bulletin board of antisemitism.

Some of the comments after this piece are entirely unambiguous antisemitic rantings, and the Guardian hasn't lifted a finger to deal with them, despite being alterted to them hours ago. I'm going to print a lengthy sample just to show how relentless it is, and how incredible it is that the Guardian is allowing this sort of thing to be published under its auspices. It can't, as it has before, claim that the odd comment has snuck through. The entire comments section after this piece is suffused with it:

'Mr Cockburn, you are a courageous and an excellent writer who is absolutely spot on. Is it pure coincidence that both Perle and Wolfowitz plus others of their neocon cronies are Jews, some of them with Israeli passports? Could they have been doing Israel's bidding, diverting and corrupting US policy to suit Israel's murderous agenda? Perhaps acting to influence the simpletons Bush and Rumsfield and then turning against them as Perle did, when his mission was accomplished. Talk about rats abandoning ship! How has the same Jewish/Zionist manipulation through Lord Levy and his money raising efforts in the Jewish community influenced British policy? Is that why Blair and Brown always attend the Friends of Israel annual rally where they drink the Toast to the President of Israel? Can we now have another article Mr. Cockburn, on the Israeli/Jewish malign influence on British politics through the Jewish fifth columnists in the UK?'

'Wolfowitz is Jewish isn't he? Are you saying just because he is Jewish Andrew Cockburn shouldn't be allowed to write an article about him? I take it you belong to that camp who think anybody who is remotely critical of Israel or indeed any jewish person has to be a Jew hater.If you are really so distressed about the Guardian blogs perhaps you should start reading the Jewish chronicle, I'm sure the journalist on that newspaper will be able to confirm all your paranoid prejudices.'

'SarahLeah asks:
- "Is anyone else tired of all this Guardian obsession with Israel/Palestine and alleged Jewish power?"
No. It's THE key issue to be resolved in the world today and is a factor in what's happening in Iraq, Iran and internally in the US.
There are people who would like the rest of us to turn our attention away but we won't fall for the old ploy that it's boring and that we should all move on to something else.'

'Why can't we take it as a settled matter that Zionists had a huge hand in planning the Iraq War? Maybe the US would've attacked even if there were no Israel Lobby, no Wolfowitz at the number 2 spot at the Pentagon. Maybe it's pure coincidence that the US is so obsessed with the Middle East and the Arabs, JUST like Israel is. Maybe if Wolfowitz weren't there some non-Jew with no ties to Israel would've been up to the same mischief. But all these "maybes" are pure speculations (and, in my opinion, poor ones). The simple, unavoidable fact of the matter is that whether the US could've done without them or not, the Zionists were there with their hands on the levers of power.'

'The most interesting point in this first-rate piece is the link made between the military-industrial-congressional complex and the Israeli Lobby/Likuddists, especially the neocons. The pattern of imitation/cooperation is striking:
1. preemptive war
2. torture
3. walls
4. refusal to negotiate
5. demonizing enemy
6. exaggerated threats and responses
7. manipulation of public opinion
8. etc,etc,etc'

'Wolfowitz only answers to Israel. The point of the attack on Iraq was to eliminate one of Israels enemies and the Americans were useful idiots to do that. I am glad that they are beginning to see that and protest against it.'

'As heinous as Wolfowitz obviously is, he wasn't alone in plotting his pre-meditated crimes of state. He was part of a tightknit, sinister cabal of Likudniks who wormed their way into positions of power in Washington in order to further Israeli interests. The nefarious Richard Perle was a ruthless ringleader but their exacrable numbers include others past and present such as Doug Feith, Eliot Abrams, Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk, Mark Grossman, et. al. that overlaps administrations but is united by their common fealty to Israel first. Not at all surprising that these cunning schemers should now try and "bite the hand that fed them" by using the hapless Rumsfeld to take the heat for the disastrous consequences of their insidious policies, while they scurry for cover. These sniveling little cowards have wreaked havoc with American foreign policy for years - and aren't done yet.'

'SarahLeah asks:
- "Is anyone else tired of all this Guardian obsession with Israel/Palestine and alleged Jewish power?"This 77 year old man as been waiting a long time for some one to stand up for the shmuckes of this world, As that is what we are to the rich Zionist doners who drive their foreign policy. Zionists have hijacked conservative christian opinion in both US and UK. being called an anti-semite, racist, is a big part of their head game, Keep repeating a lie over and over, And we all get a gilt trip ,we have the Jewish genocide constantly shoved down our throats and other genocides ignored, eg holocaust also should not be used as a cover for every human rights violation by the Israeli government. When the media and the US Congress begin to recognize that Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians aren't acceptable, we may have a chance for stability in the Mideast, Having said that, You can call me an anti-semite, That puts me in good company,
So to all you anti-semite out they ,keep the good work up, Remember The power and extent of the Israeli Money Lobby is all pervasive. This giant must be slain, And thank's Guardian ,Please don't let Murdoch by you out.'

(9)

Engage has an article on the entirely predictable use put by the Iranian state news agency to the NUJ boycott of Israel and that by "JBIG" (Jews for boycotting Israeli Goods).

The Iranian headline is: "British Jews welcome journalists joining Israeli boycott".

Here's what Engage reports:

The official Iranian news agency reports in glowing terms a letter which "JBIG" (Jews for boycotting Israeli Goods" had published in the guardian on Wednesday. The letter is signed by Deborah Fink, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, Mike Cushman, Sylvia Finzi, Tony Greenstein, Ruth Tenne, Deborah Maccoby, Prof Moshe Machover, Mike Marqusee.

All but one of these JBIG signatories are also signatories of "Independent Jewish Voices", a group which says that it is in favour of social justice and universal human rights.

Deborah Fink, who seems to speak for "JBIG" says that their aim is to kosherize the boycotting of Israeli goods. She has also described Israel as a "satanic state".

JBIG? IJV? More like Jews for the succour of murderers.

(2)

Oliver Kamm had an interesting piece on Saturday about Kurt Vonnegut. Knowing nothing about him, and never having read a word of his (to my shame), I have no view about Oliver's assertions about Vonnegut and his work.

There is, however, a typically disgusting afterthought to Oliver's piece from the holocaust denying liar and antisemite, David Irving. I've pondered at some length whether to provide a link to his site, and have concluded that it is necessary and that no normal person who looks at it would be other than disgusted by it. So...

Irving's assertions about Oliver's piece are of no interest. What is of interest, however, is the clear illustration of the way the man thinks.

Oliver's piece includes this reference to Irving:

Deadeye Dick (1982) depicts the accidental destruction of an Ohio town by a neutron bomb — a US one, so it was no big news story as it did not start WWIII.

The novel’s closing words are: “You want to know something? We are still in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages — they haven’t ended yet.” To coin a Vonnegut-ism: so it goes. But ultimately the simplicity is not deceptive. Vonnegut’s philosophy and history are simplistic. Dresden was hellish — but there were not 135,000 deaths. The true figure was probably no more than a fifth of that. Vonnegut’s number came directly from the now discredited work of the Holocaust denier David Irving. (In Slaughterhouse-Five, Irving is cited by name, and a long passage, by a retired air marshal, from the foreword to Irving’s book The Destruction of Dresden is reproduced.)

Irving comments on this on his site. He introduces his comments thus:

Evidently yesterday the Board of Deputies of British Jews sent a literary fire-engine rushing down Pennington Street to the newspaper building, bell clanging and bile spewing.

In Irving's mind, any piece which takes issue with him must have been the result of an instruction from Jews. He goes on:

Kamm (like Coren) is Jewish and obsessively concerned with Jewish interests.

And there's more:

Oliver Kamm: I am informed that Kamm has a history of obsession with Noam Chomsky whom he believes to be a closet denier too, and he habitually defends the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was made a Times columnist by Comment editor Daniel Finkelstein. Need we say more?

Irving is beyond parody in his peddling every antisemitic trope going. I wouldn't be surprised if he believes Jews drink the blood of Christian and Muslim babies. Not that one should be surprised that someone who habitually fakes source material makes entirely false assertions on his site, but Oliver Kamm is not Jewish. Not that it would make the slightest difference to his argument or his right to make whatever argument he chose, of course, if he was, but it's a fascinating glimpse into the mindset of a rabid Jew-hater such as Irving.

UPDATE: A couple of commenters make entirely valid criticisms of my decision to provide the link. I'm still not sure if I have done the right thing. But it has to be said that I have in the past provided a number of links to another writer whose views are, in my mind, similarly beyond the pale in their support of a genocidal murderer.

FURTHER UPDATE: Oliver Kamm has his own post on this here.

(4)

I don't usually publish correspondence about my pieces - especially when they disagree with me! - but I received this email about my Telegraph piece and I thought it made a numver of valid points and deserved an airing (my correspondemt was happy to let me publish it):

I've been reading your blog for several years and I basically agree with most of what you say.

But I'd like to make a comment about your article in the Telegraph on the Israel/England game.

I realise that anti-semitism is a problem, and that we have an obligation to identify and speak out against it wherever it arises. I realise also that sometimes people ask seemingly innocent questions which, consciously or not, betray deep-seated prejudices about Jews and their place in society.

Sometimes, though, those prejudices are not without foundation, and it is important to recognise that too.

I am a British Jew, a staunch supporter of the England football team and a long-standing West Ham season ticket holder.

But being Jewish does make me different - from other England fans, and indeed from other West Ham fans.

I've had a season ticket at West Ham for 15 years, but when the fans at Upton Park make hissing noises at Tottenham games and sing "Hitler was a Cockney", I actually want Spurs to win. Serves the neo-Nazi b*stards right, if you ask me.

And yes, when England plays Israel - a country created from the ashes of the Holocaust, a country which provides hope and the right of return to Jews across the world, a country whose existence would have prevented the deaths of millions of European Jews in the 1940s - I want Israel to win.

It's not because I'm not loyal to England - I am. I love this country and would not choose to live anywhere else.

But I'm loyal to Israel too, and I feel it needs my support more. Perhaps because I see it as more vulnerable, more isolated, less respected, less loved.

So back to the question you ask in your article ... why should anyone be in doubt as to which team you want to win?

Because of people like me, I guess. Because people realise that some groups, including British Jews, often have loyalties to two different countries.

That might cause anger among right-wing nationalists, and among unreconstructed Conservatives like Norman Tebbit, but let them be angry.
Let them rail against those who fail the "cricket test". Let them call me disloyal. I don't really care. Do you really think I should?

(3)

It's not just the Guardian which gets delightful comments on its site. These two are from the Telegraph today, in reaction to my article:

So where do you come from? ...No, no, I mean, where are you REALLY from? Ahem... Yes, that's nice but Where Are Your Parents From?
Posted by The Vulgarian on March 23, 2007 6:08 AM
Report this comment

Aww, poor Stephen! Poor hyper-sensitive little thing! He ought to get down on his knees and thank God he lives in Britain and that Britain had the spine to stand up to Nazism because if it hadn't where would he be now? Or rather what would he be now? A bar of soap?
Posted by Barry Ward on March 23, 2007 5:55 AM
Report this comment

(11)

Melanie Phillips has a superb post, wrapping up two examples of what passes today for BBC analysis (by Ed Stourton and - him again - Jeremy Bowen) and a vile piece in yesterday's Guardian by Geoffrey Wheatcroft:

Stourton assumed that Israel’s attempt to defend itself against that aggression was illegitimate — and that no reasonable person could disagree. He asked the former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, why the Americans and the British had not supported the international calls for an immediate cease-fire.

...ES: Your former UN colleague the Syrian ambassador said to us that America was deliberately frustrating diplomatic attempts during those last two weeks of July precisely so Israel could have its head. From what you have just said, that’s a fair analysis of what was happening.

JB: I was damn proud of what we did.

Bolton was reacting to this line of questioning just as any normal person with a sense of justice would react. Faced with the proposition that a country had finally attempted to defend itself against an enemy which had constantly waged war against it, and that it did so by trying to destroy that enemy, he asked: ‘What was wrong with that?’ And of course, to a normal person there’s not only nothing wrong with it but it is the right and moral thing to do, to protect one’s country against further attack by attempting to destroy the enemy.

But in the twisted world of BBC values, it appears, Israel has no right to defend itself. Because when Stourton says the US and UK refused to call for a ceasefire, that’s not quite correct. They actually called upon Hezbollah from the start to stop its aggression. What Stourton — and the UK media and Labour party — found so unacceptable was that Bush and Blair didn’t insist that Israel should stop defending itself. In other words, that they did not insist that Israel surrender. And surrender, what’s more, to an army of Iran which has declared not only its intention to wipe Israel off the map but also to destroy the west and conquer the Arab world too.

Which is why Stourton goes on to report — in apparent amazement — that the Arab world was secretly hoping that Israel would indeed crush Hezbollah. Because the Arab world has every interest in Iran being defeated —as does the west, as do Bush and Blair and as do all sane and sentient people. That’s why it was in everyone’s interests for Israel to be allowed to defend itself by destroying its Iranian enemy before that enemy destroyed it. That’s why the US and the Arab world were so put out when Israel failed to destroy it.

But astoundingly, the BBC and the British left and a considerable proportion of the rest of Britain thinks the real problem was not Iranian aggression but that Israel might actually have defeated the army of Iran. They find it simply unconscionable that Israel was not required to surrender. According to Stourton, it is apparently a scandal that the US supported Israel in its self-defence; indeed, he represents this as some kind of sinister conspiracy that he has now unearthed through his amazing journalistic acumen. Democratic allies supporting each other in the great fight against fascism! What an outrage!

As for Wheatcroft's rant: let's just say it trots out pretty much every classic antisemitic theme going. As Melanie puts it:

Wheatcroft’s final charge, that British foreign policy is based on the interest of ‘another country’ —by which he presumably meant Israel — is simply contemptible. Once again, it is astonishing that this kind of sub-Protocols of the Elders of Zion racial libel about the Jews being a sinister conspiracy to subvert the foreign policy of Britain against the national interest is published in a mainstream British newspaper.

Indeed, it more or less proves my point in my Telegpraph piece below, prompting comments such as this on the Guardian site:

Jews in the UK are not normal people, they are Anglo-Jewish, and their loyalty to the UK is in question. No matter how many generations or centuries they have been in England, they are still outsiders.

Do read Melanie's full piece.

(6)

The following piece of mine appears in today's Times:

Now I’ve heard everything. Richard Toye, a lecturer at Homerton College, Cambridge, claims to have unearthed an article written for Winston Churchill in 1937 (but not published) in which he — one of the men responsible for the creation of Israel — describes Jews as “Hebrew bloodsucker” moneylenders, says that they are “partly responsible for the antagonism for which they suffer” and argues that that “the Jew is different. He looks different. He thinks differently . . . He refuses to be absorbed.”

Mr Toye is careful not to label Churchill an antisemite, but he does everything bar that. There’s just one problem with the story of Mr Toye’s “discovery” — Sir Martin Gilbert, Churchill’s biographer, referred to the article in a book more than 20 years ago, pointing out that it was ghosted by a member of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. Churchill took one look at it and refused to have it published because he disagreed with it. One wonders why Mr Toye failed to consult Sir Martin’s book, in which the historian clearly refers to the article.

This silly story is of little intrinsic interest. But it illustrates a wider issue about claims of antisemitism, neatly following days after a full-blown such accusation. On Newsnight last week the rabbi of Lord Levy’s synagogue, Yitzchak Schochet, was interviewed about his congregant’s involvement in the cash-for-honours affair. Quite rightly, the rabbi condemned the antisemitic tone of some of the coverage, such as the reports which have mentioned — nudge, nudge — that Lord Levy’s middle name is Abraham.

So far so sensible. But then, preposterously, Rabbi Schochet went on to argue that the very basis of the investigation into Lord Levy was antisemitic; as if he was somehow the victim of a plot against him by the gentile establishment because he is a Jew.

None of us has a clue if Lord Levy is a paragon of virtue or a crook. But the notion that the arrest of a Jew is ipso facto evidence of antisemitism is not merely risible, it is dangerous.

Antisemitism is real and is on the rise. The President of Iran has said proudly that he wants to wipe Israel off the map. Here in the UK, the Community Security Trust has recorded a 31 per cent rise (from 455 to 594) in anti-Semitic race hate incidents between 2005 and 2006 — the highest total since such reports began in 1984.

When the shout of “antisemitism” goes up every time a Jew is in trouble, it plays into the hands of the real antisemites. In classic cry-wolf fashion, people such as Rabbi Schochet make it all the more difficult to persuade people of the very real threat.

(3)

Ive just spent 10 wasted minutes composing a post about the comments on the BBC last night by Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet, who alleged that antisemitism is behind the treatment of Lord Levy. Wasted, because Daniel Finkelstein has said exactly what I want to say.

I screamed 'shut up' when I heard the Rabbi. Yes, there have been some traces of antisemitism in some of the coverage. But as for the idea that the underlying foundation of the whole affair is antisemitism - purrrleaze. The basis of the affair is (alleged) corruption and (alleged) interference with the investigation into that corruption. It happens that one of the people arrested is Jewish. If the Rabbi thinks Lord Levy would not have been arrested if he was an Anglican, or was only arrested because he is Jewish, then he is living in a parrallel universe.

As Daniel says, there's enough real antisemitism around to worry about, without gormless, unwarranted and totally self-defeating accusations of it. Believe me, I am in the front of the queue when it comes to identifying the real antisemites. But when people start thowing the label around without any basis in fact they play into the hands of those real antisemites.

UPDATE: On the other hand...!

(5)

Twentyfirst century France:

Jews in Nice who want to buy an apartment have to pay an added fee of €900-€7,000...The proprietary edict from the Vichy government stating that Jews are not allowed to own, or have joint ownership of, property is still embedded in the current legal system employed by the city council of Nice, situated on the French Riviera.

(5)

This week's Jewish Chronicle has this story about a new think tank, the European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, with which I am involved. We are still in the process of dotting 'i's and crossing 't's, but when we are up and running - very soon I hope - I'll post details.

Oliver Kamm has a blistering post on Asghar Bukhari of the MPAC, who has been revealed as a funder and supporter of David Irving.

Like that comes as a shock.

(1)

Here's a sobering piece by David Gutmann on "The Anglo-Jewish Wars":

Robert Wistrich also examines the history of modern anti-Semitism in Britain, pointing out that "Great Britain is today second only to France in serious anti-Semitic incidents reported among European countries." Wistrich documents the persistence and wide reach of anti-Jewish mainstream prejudice, particularly among the media and the upper echelons of British society - "the same group that supported Hitler in the 1930s." Thus, the Muslim promotion of anti-Semitism in England has been very successful, perhaps because it has been able to graft onto longstanding, well-established British anti-Semitism. Most disturbing, "anti-Semitic sentiment is a part of mainstream discourse, continually resurfacing among the academic, political, and media elites," often taking the form of unsubstantiated, unreasoning criticism of Israel, while Arab terror is condoned or excused.

(9)

I'm listening to a rather good Five Live phone-in on whether Borat is offensive. I was lucky enough to go to the premiere last night and I have to say it is one of the funniest films I have ever seen. It doesn't just go near the edge - it goes way over it. But I barely stopped laughing from the first frame to the end, 81 minutes later.

As for the idea that some have put around, that it is in some way antisemitic: utter nonsense. Yes, the running theme of the film is that the Jews are nasty money-thieving killers who secretly rule the world - and it begins with the supposed annual Kazhak festival, the Running of the Jew, when a Jewish icon is chased and beaten by a crowd. But anyone who can't differentiate satire from propaganda has a serious comprehension problem.

A chap has just rung in to say it's like Nazi antisemitic propaganda. Regular readers of this blog know that I am hardly soft on antisemitism, but really. What rot.

It has nothing to do with the fact that Sacha Baron-Cohen is Jewish and so it's somehow ok for him to make such jokes; a Jew can certainly be antisemitic. It has every intention to do with the fact that the film is a clear satire on antisemitic attitudes, and I defy anyone with the ability to understand English to see the film and not to realise that.

But imagine if it had been a satire on Islam. There’d be outrage and all sorts of threats. We don’t need to imagine it, because the Danish cartoons row shows what happens, as did the Rushdie fatwah.

Free speech almost demands now that such a satire is produced, if we are to demonstrate that such illiberal attitudes do not set our cultural agenda. Or do they?

(2)

The Guardian has a report about President Ahmadinejad, who has again called for the end of Israel, and has threatened the UK because its support for Israel:

Ahmadinejad pokes fun at Zionist lobby

Yes, what a hoot he is with his wacky japes!

Astonishing.

(1)

Oliver Kamm has spent a lot of time on the case of Gilad Atzmon. He has, of course, written only about Atzmon's political beliefs (if political is the right word). Today, however, the Jerusalem Post reports that:

A popular and well known pizzeria and jazz music venue is hosting an alleged racist and anti-Semite musician which will be filmed by Al Jazeera.

I think we can do away with the 'alleged'. He is a racist and antisemite, and one who makes others of his ilk seem positively moderate.

From Wednesday, and for four nights, the Pizza on the Park in Knightsbridge, part of the Pizza Express restaurant chain, is hosting Jerusalem-born Gilad Atzmon, who is accused of racist and anti-Semitic statements and Holocaust denial.

A spokesperson for Pizza on the Park said, "Gilad Atzmon has been hired for his musical talents as an internationally recognized, respected and award-winning saxophonist and composer and who has performed to audiences all over the world, as well as London's premiere jazz venues. His performances at Pizza on the Park have attracted great interest."

Here's the reality. If Atzmon was indeed simply demonstrating his musical talents there might, perhaps, be a case for hiring him.

But he will not be.

Here's what Atzmon himself says (in the guise of one Artie Fishel) about the album he will be promoting:

I have now formed a Jewish band, the new home for Jewish music. It is called Artie Fishel and the Promised Band. You can all buy our album and merchandise (iBagel, T-shirts, Artie's Kugel) in every kosher deli around the world. You can judge for yourself. Our music is no doubt the best Jazz around. Our music is all about resistance. We resist civil rights.

The 'interview' goes on in much the same way.

The album has as deeply political a purpose as any of his writings or speeches. It just takes a different form, as one of Atzmon's supporters, Mary Rizzo, makes clear on the Al-Jazeerah site:

...[I]t is terribly entertaining, communicates an important message without being "overtly political" and it is different from anything most of us have seen up to now.

...There are very few truly political artistic projects around, and barely any that fearlessly fight the zionist brainwashing that we are subject to, so I think that efforts like this need the push they can get from those in activism, because the rest of the mass media does nothing whatsoever to point out the dissent that exists.

This is not just a concert. It is a political event, to be used by Atzmon for his own repugnant ends.

By way of service to Pizza Express, I'm happy to offer them a new marketing slogan which they might want to use:

PIZZA EXPRESS: happy to give a platform to a "truly political artistic project" to "fearlessly fight the zionist brainwashing".

(Oops - I orginally had written Pizza Hut in that last slogan by mistake.)

(3)

For your delectation, I reprint this correspondence (from Media Guardian):

On October 15, India Knight wrote in her column in the Sunday Times headline "Muslims are the new Jews" where she attacked the negative views of Jack Straw and feminists towards the Muslim veil. This email exchange followed shortly after:

To: letters@sunday-times.co.uk
From: Julie Burchill

Dear India Knight,
I dare you to walk into any mosque - after covering your filthy female head in the Islamist fashion, of course - and spread your glad tidings that "Muslims are the new Jews."
You'll be lucky if you get out alive.
Yours sincerely,
JB
PS: I see that your new book is a compilation of 'dirty bits' from novels. I'd love to know how this fits in with your new found love of feminine modesty and discretion.

To: Julie Burchill
From: India Knight

Oh, for fuck's sake. I don't have a "newfound love of modesty and discretion" - I just don't despise people on the basis of what they wear.
Regards,
IK

To: India Knight
From: Julie Burchill

What, not even the working class slags in crop tops you're forever slagging off, you hypocritical snob?

To: Julie Burchill
From: India Knight

I do NOT slag off working class people in crop tops, you fucking loon. Where? When? Why would I slag them off? I am many things but I am not a snob. God, you're driving me mad. Go away.

To: India Knight
From: Julie Burchill

I wrote to the letters page, not YOU, you stalking cretin. Why dont you fuck off and turn yet another of your husbands gay?

The more I think about India Knight's piece, the more I come to the conclusion that, even if she doesn't hate Jews, she has developed a remarkably good impression of someone who does.

(5)

Daniel Finkelstein links to a piece explaining the Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir's theory of why people think there is genocide in Darfur.

As Daniel puts it:

I thought it was because tragic, outrageous mass murder was happening every day.

But no. Apparently the whole thing was a lie spread by?

You've guessed it.

I cant see what the problem is with this story:

Metropolitan Police chief Sir Ian Blair has ordered an inquiry after a Muslim constable was excused from guarding the Israeli embassy in London.

Sir Ian says he wants an "urgent review of the situation and a full report".

...The officer, who has been named as Pc Alexander Omar Basha, is attached to the Scotland Yard's Diplomatic Protection Group.

He has a Syrian father and a Lebanese wife.

During the summer, when Israel was involved in a month-long conflict with Lebanese militants, the Association of Muslim Police Officers said Pc Basha had asked to be excused from his duties because he felt "uncomfortable and unsafe".

Of course the police should be able to pick and choose where they work and which cases they investigate. How could anyone reasonably expect a racist policeman to work on a crime against a black victim? Why should a Labour voting PC be forced to provide security at the Conservative Party conference? Why should misogynist policemen be forced to investigate sexual assaults on women? And why should Israeli-hating police officers be forced to prevent crimes against Israelis?

Policemen and women have rights. And it's surely every Muslim police officer's right to stand back and allow the murder of Jews.

Or have I perhaps missed something?

(4)

This is truly hilarious. It's a comment left on the ridiculous Lenin's Tomb blog.

Lenin

I support Hezbollah, of course.

However, I do not know whether I should be supporting Hamas or Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the civil war.

Both of them are liberation movements and we have always been supporters of liberation movements and both have been involved in actions of resistance against the occupiers (Israel). Fatah obviously used to be the best one because it had Yasser Arafat and he was the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Now he has died it is difficult to chose and I suppose it should be Hamas because they won the election.

Perhaps, as a socialist, I should support the one which is most socialist. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are quite socialist, but Hamas seems to be more socialist because it is more religious, and I have read in the Socialist Review that in the early days of the USSR Lenin was a very strong supporter of religion and was often cheered by Mullah's when he went to the more muslim parts of Russia.

I am quite happy to support either the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades or Hamas, or both of them. Or alternatively I could wait to see who wins. But I do not want to tell people that I am backing Hamas and then find out that they were the wrong ones and then have to tell my friends I made a mistake.

What do readers think?

The poor chap. What a dilemma. Which bunch of Jew killers should he suppport? I wish I could help him out, but I'm stumped. Choices, choices...

(thanks to Malachi)

(4)

The LibDem's fragrant antisemite peer, Baroness Tonge, had this to say yesterday:

The pro-Israeli lobby has got its grips on the western world, its financial grips. I think they have probably got a certain grip on our party.

Explain please the difference between her remark and anything contained within The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. (And explain also how a party led by one of the most anti-Israel MPs in recent years is in the 'grip' of 'the pro-Israel lobby'.)

The then plain Jenny Tonge was sacked from the LibDem front bench and then rewarded for her comment that if she was a Palestinian, she would consider becoming a suicide bomber, by being elevated by Charles Kennedy to a lifetime role as a legislator in the Lords.

At the time, she explained her comment thus:

I could understand and was trying to understand where [suicide bombers] were coming from.

Much as I would condemn anyone who decided to scream Antisemitic Bitch at her, I could understand and would try to understand where they were coming from.

(6)

Denis Leary is clearly a huge fan of Mel Gibson.

(4)

Engage has an excellent article by David Hirsh on what he calls 'The new conservatives':

The fire of 1968 has become a yearning to conform to those sections of the intelligentsia that understand Israel, and the Jews that ‘support’ it, as constituting a unique evil in the world and the greatest obstacle to world peace. It is a milieu that is increasingly ambivalent about the ‘legitimacy’ of Israel.

...When academics seek to blacklist Israeli colleagues, the new conservatives go silent. When a political test is proposed to weed out supporters of ‘Israel’s apartheid policies’ they sympathise. When Republican professors claim that ‘The Lobby’ forces America to go to war for Israel, they call for a serious discussion about Zionist influence over governments and the media. When the EU tries to find ways of funnelling aid to Palestine that by-pass Hamas, they claim this is undemocratic. When the straight-arm Jew-haters of Hezbollah pepper Israel with Iranian missiles they blame Olmert for provoking them. When the Independent prints the US flag with stars of David, when it portrays Sharon eating babies, when the Guardian pictures a pustuled Jewish fist smashing a child’s face or a huge Magen David dominating Europe, when the New Statesman talks about ‘Kosher conspiracy’, when Tam Dalyell blames Jewish influence for Tony Blair’s wrongs, when Jenny Tonge defends suicide bombing, when George Galloway glorifies Hassan Nasrallah, when Ken Livingstone fetes an antisemitic cleric, the new conservatives have nothing to say. Except to accuse Jews of paranoia and of faking concern over antisemitism in order to hide the crimes of Israel. They reply sagely, criticising Israeli policy is not antisemitic. As if anyone thought that it was. The pose is one of mature, measured and detached wisdom; they have themselves adopted the very pose that so embarrassed them in their own fathers.

The central message of the new conservatives is that if people are hostile to Jews, it is because they have good reason to be. If intellectuals stumble into antisemitism then it is an understandable over-reaction to their righteous hatred of Israel. If students, in the name of socialism or of jihad, come to loathe ‘Zionists’, who can blame them? It is Israel that claims to speak and act for all Jews, they say, so holding Jews collectively responsible for its ‘crimes against humanity’ is not unreasonable.

This is is a thoughtful piece by Janet Ellen Levy on the signal lack of outrage at increasing antisemitism.which takes the form of 'political' arguments.

(1)

The UN, don't you just love it?

(1)

Julie Birchill has a romp in Haaretz at the expense of the antisemtic British media:

...[M]ore than one night has seen me screaming at the TV/my husband "You don't understand! None of you English bastards understands!" before running into the bedroom, slamming the door and collapsing in a tearful heap with only Bibi to comfort me.

One of the most grotesque examples of the almost brainwashed level of bias can be seen on the official BBC Religions Web site, where that "peace be upon him" eyewash is going on like crazy, while other religions are coolly commented on in a strictly "objective" way.

The conflict has sent this tendency into overdrive, with not just the usual Masochist Hacks For Mohammed such as Robert Fisk (beaten up by Islamists, says they were right to do it) and Yvonne Ridley (kidnapped by Islamists, then became one) getting their chadors in a twist about big swarthy men with tea-towels on their heads treating the West mean and keeping it - in their case at least - keen.

(7)

Scott Burgess has a terrific post about the background and real beliefs of some of the organisers of Saturday's 'Let The Jews Die' march (which apparently went under the label of 'Ceasefire Now').

(2)

There are some vile pictures of the 'Let The Jews Die' demo which took place in London on Saturday at the awful Lenin's Tomb site.

But what stands out is the total lack self-awareness or hold on reality of whoever writes the site.

At one point he writes this, of the policemen at the march:

What, I had to wonder a few times, was the point of bullet-proof jackets? In the blazing heat, the same heat that turned my face, neck and arms into lobster shells, these morons were charging about, fully kitted up as if they confidently expected us to - I dunno - start pulling out guns or something. Their loss.

He also writes this, matter of factly, alongside obscene pictures of people wielding 'We Are All Hizbullah' placards:

Here are some Hezbollah members:

Well, yes. Have a think, Lenin. Given Hezbollah's love of murder and suicide bombings and the fact that, as you yourself write, the demo was stuffed with their supporters (even worse, as you put it, 'members') is it any wonder there were police in bullet proof vests?

(1)

...and here's Nick Cohen's take:

I can't help but feel sorry for Mel Gibson. If only he had joined the Muslim Brotherhood or Hezbollah rather than an ultra-reactionary Catholic sect, his views on a world Jewish conspiracy would have done him no harm. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah declared that it if Jews 'all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide,' yet Channel 4 News bends over backwards to make excuses for him. Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, has a constitution which might have been written by Adolph Hitler, yet the Foreign Office gives the Brotherhood public money and the allegedly "left-wing" Ken Livingstone hugs its spiritual leader.

You picked the wrong type of fascism, Mel. If only you'd been cannier, there would be pieces in the Independent denouncing your critics as Islamophobes.

(via Norm.)

(2)

Mark Steyn:

The standard defense is that it’s not anti-Semitic to criticize Israeli policies, but, as Miss Campbell’s letter suggests, what’s being questioned is not Israel’s policies but the right of Israel to have policies, especially on national security.

If, say, some fellows in Mexico had kidnapped California State Troopers and were lobbing rockets randomly into residential areas of San Diego and Los Angeles, even La-La-Land libs would be demanding the US respond. It’s only the Israelis the world wishes to deny the conventional rights of sovereignty.

In other words, it’s the legitimacy of the state that’s at issue. In effect, Israel has become the geopolitical version of the European Jew who’s allowed to operate a store in the town but not to exercise full ownership rights: in the old days, Jews faced property restrictions; now they face sovereignty restrictions.

(2)

I've just been alerted this this piece of blatant antisemitism by Richard Stott in the Sunday Mirror last weekend:

The Jewish people have suffered many horrors. They have also given a great deal to the world in every area of human endeavour, the arts, sciences and everything in between.

Yet somehow when they are transformed into Israeli politicians and military men, they become something terrible. Blinkered, barbaric killers with little regard for the suffering of innocents who happen to be on the other side of the border.

So in Stott's mind, the people who defend their country and endanger their own safety by taking as much care as possible not to harm civilians are "Blinkered, barbaric killers with little regard for the suffering of innocents who happen to be on the other side of the border." Yet the Hezbollah killers, who target Israeli civilians and attempt to kill as many as possible - and who hide amongst Lebanese civilians - are...well, what? They don't even get nod of criticism.

Stott is either an antisemite or a moron. And possibly both.

(2)

The Mel Gibson story is interesting now only because of the reaction to his behaviour. But here's a further thought.

The following is from the Hamas charter:

There was no war that broke out anywhere without their fingerprints on it.

You'd have to be a BBC or Guardian reporter to think "the enemies" does not refer specifically to Jews.

I wonder if Mr Gibson's bedtime reading extended recently beyond film scripts.

A correspondent has made an interesting point to me:

What is the reason for referring to "Israelis" rather than to "Israel"? Imagine the following headlines: "Britons Renew Efforts to Control Southern Iraq"; "Russians Pound Chechnya"; "Frenchmen Invade Ivory Coast"; etc.

I suspect it is one or both of two possible reasons. The first is that, in avoiding reference to Israel as such, it a small but symbolic gesture of solidarity with those who refuse to accept and recognise the legitimacy of the State of Israel. The second is that it does away with the distinction between a state and its citizens, thus making all Israelis as Individuals responsible (and, of course, in the eyes of the press, guilty).

Given that this practice is, as far as I know, only used for reports about Israel, there is a basis (inconsistency, and thus lack of fairness) for making an issue of this.

It's a good point. Have a look at random headlines and you'll see many, if not most, are indeed along the lines of this one, from AP:

Israelis renew air strikes in Lebanon

By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer

(2)

Melanie Phillips is brilliant in her destruction of Andrew O'Jew Hater's column:

O’Hagan’s argument here is the classic argument of the Jew-hater. Insult the Jews by alleging — falsely — that they have the insufferable arrogance to claim that as the chosen people they exist ‘above the common miseries of man’, and then when they cry foul say that this proves that they claim that as the chosen people they exist above the common miseries of man.

Lebanese civilians are warned to leave their homes because the IDF cannot guarantee that they will be protected from attacks on Hezbollah. They ignore these warnings, are accidentally killed, and Israel is blamed.

Israeli civilians are given absolutely no warning by Hezbollah of attacks, the aim of which is to kill as many innocent Israelis as possible. They leave their homes and go to bomb shelters to protect themselves, and so relatively few die.

But because they are not dying in the same numbers as Lebanese it is Israel that is accused of war crimes and disproportionate attacks.

Go figure, as they say.

(1)

Here's a worrying sign of things to come, from the Edinburgh International Film Festival, which has returned sponsorship of an Israeli film for no other reason than that the money comes from Israel - indeed, despite the film in question lambasting the Israeli government:

The money provided by the Israeli Embassy comes from their Department of Culture. It is simply to facilitate cultural exchange - in this case, the visit of a filmmaker whose view of his own country, happens to be nuanced, non-partisan and documentary.

The funding is, in this sense, no different from the travel bursaries provided by Unifrance, for French filmmakers, or the Goethe Institute, for German ones. It is not in the strict sense "sponsorship" (we are no more "sponsored" by the government of Israel, than we are "sponsored" by the French, the Germans, et al), though I understand that it may appear as such to outsiders.

However, this funding was secured some three months ago, well before the commencement of current hostilities in Lebanon. Of course we acknowledge that the situation has altered dramatically since then, and with this in mind, took the decision early yesterday to decline any funding from the Israelis.

Should the Israeli director choose to attend the festival, then the festival shall pay for his visit out of its own budget. But regardless of whether he attends or not, the film screening will go ahead as planned. Please allow us to explain why:

The film in question, Five Days, is made by one Yoav Shamir - a filmmaker who has been a trenchant critic of his government's policies. His previous film, Checkpoint, screened at the festival in 2003, and was in fact an explicitly pro-Palestinian work: an observation of various intimidations and harassments suffered by ordinary Palestinian citizens at the hands of Israeli soldiers overseeing border checkpoints.

Indeed, a glance back at the programming of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, over the past decade, reveals that the vast majority of filmmaking from Israel has been from filmmakers opposed to their government's policies - and many of the films, indeed, have been Israel-Palestine co-productions.

We don't believe that is in the public interest to ban these films, just because they happen to be from a state with whose official policies one might not agree. Indeed, we do not believe in banning work from any country - particularly work which takes a critical or interrogatory stance on its government. This path leads only to censorship - for who is to say, that if we accede to the notion of Israel as a "rogue state" and refuse henceforth to show any Israeli films, that other such demands will not follow?

The Americans, for example, might declare the nation of Iran beyond the pale, an "axis of evil" (events certainly seem to be heading that way), and demand that we should ban all Iranian cinema. Would they be right? We would argue not. Or, conversely, if we considered America to be an evil imperialist empire, and chose to show no American films, what about a Michael Moore documentary? Or a Noam Chomsky portrait? What of the dissidents, the protesters, the public intellectuals? We would no more prevent a film from Israel from screening here, than we would agree to an Israeli demand to withdraw any Palestinian or Lebanese films from our programme.

The Edinburgh International Film Festival is dedicated at all times to the notion of an exchange of ideas, and to freedom of speech for all filmmakers. While we emphatically do not condone the recent actions of Israel, to reject the opportunity to allow this director to present his work to an audience, also rejects the possibility of dialogue between Israelis and the rest of the world - something the present situation would seem very much to require. No one learns anything from banning films, any more than we might from censoring books; it only cultivates ignorance and prejudice. When, on the contrary, what is needed is enlightenment and education.

The main argument is all well and good. Which makes it all the more lamentable that Mr Danielsen should see fit to return funding for the film's screening from the Israeli Embassy because Israeli money is tainted money, because Israel has chosen to defend the right of Jews to live free from terror attacks in Israel.

But then, as this piece argues eloquently, criticism of Israel's actions seems to based on the the fact that there are too few dead Jews.

(Hat tip: Malachi)

(3)

Vile piece on Mel Gibson and antisemitism in the Telegraph by Andrew O'Hagan:

Dangerously worded as it was, Gibson's drunken comment was, it could reasonably be argued, a statement against the arrogance of the Israeli military: "They started all the wars in the world." Isn't it that which is making America call for his head?

Of course it isn't even remotely true that Jews are behind most wars, but it is true that they are behind most movies, and pundits are saying that Gibson may never work again in Hollywood. But their response is overbearing and slightly hysterical: if black or Hispanic or Asian people sought action every time a ludicrous remark was made against them by a drunkard, the world would fall to pieces.

If Mr O'Hagan really thinks that if a well established actor was to start ranting about how ni**ers weren't fit to vote and the KKK had the right idea, there wouldn't then be a fuss, and that said actor wouldn't see his career collapse - all quite rightly - then he is as moronic as Mel Gibson.

Given the message of rest of his piece - we should all be able to have a bash at the Jews - it seems that he has something else in common with Mel Gibson. And it ain't acting ability.

(I'm now waiting for the first email from someone to say that my categorising this piece as antisemtitic proves his point.)

(7)

Mel Gibson asks for help from Jewish community

I'm happy to help him. With what is technically referred to as a kick in his kishkas.

(2)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

And there I was thinking the sight of John Pantsil waving his Israeli flag was cheery.

(5)

Our friend Chris McGreal (the Guardian's Israel correspondent - see here, here, here , here, and here) is at it again.

This week's New Statesman has his entry in its

Heroes of our time - the top 50

24. Mordechai Vanunu - Israeli whistle-blower
Persecuted for exposing his country's nuclear weapons programme

Mordechai Vanunu served 18 years in prison, 11 of them in solitary confinement, for revealing to the Sunday Times the truth about Israel's atomic weapons. Heralded abroad as a prisoner of conscience and a courageous voice for peace, he is still widely regarded as a traitor at home in Israel.

...After Vanunu's release in 2004, the Israeli authorities made public the recordings of him being interrogated. "I am neither a traitor nor a spy," he said. "I only wanted the world to know what was happening. We don't need a Jewish state. There needs to be a Palestinian state. Jews can, and have, lived anywhere, so a Jewish state is not necessary."
Chris McGreal

It's no wonder that McGreal should be so fulsome in his praise of a man "widely regarded as a traitor at home in Israel". Perhaps he is regarded thus because, well, er...he is a traitor to his country.

The final quote from Vanunu is a denial of Jewish history; of Jewish religious rite and heritage; of anti-Semitism; of the Holocaust; of the primary motivation for a Jewish state; of the primary goal of securing Israel’s existence; and of the importance of security in the Israeli (and Zionist) psyche.

Not, of course, that in choosing to cite as a hero such a man and to use such a quote from him, McGreal reveals anything about his own beliefs. Oh no. Not at all.

(13)

23.35. It's still up. That's 13 and a half hours since the first complaint.

UPDATE: 7.53 and it's still there. Over 22 and a half hours.

UPDATE: 10.57 and, wonder of wonders, it's gone. It only took 24 hours.

(7)

Here we go again. The Guardian's Comment Is Free site is once again back to its default state - allowing anti-semites a platform for their views.

It's one thing to have anti-semites posting. We all suffer their posts. I delete mine when I see them. It's even understandable, perhaps, that on a site as large as the Guardian's, some will slip through the net.

The Guardian, however, appears happy to allow anti-semtic rants to remain on its site, even when it is told that they are there, and how offensive they are.

The administrators were informed at 10am today that this comment has been on its site since 09.12:

There is no "global outcry" because the global media is controlled by International Jewry...Jewish money has seen to it that the Israeli point of view is the dominant one...The Jews by their own grasping, cantankerous, uncompromising, dishonest nature will be the reason for their own destruction in Palestine.

I write this at 8pm. 10 hours later, the comment is still there, in all its 'glory'. (I know of 3 other people who have complained, so the site's editor cannot claim ignorance.)

The Guardian's reporting is bad enough. Allowing such filth to remain on its pages says all that needs to be said about the paper's real attitude.

(7)

I've not posted on the disgusting article by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in the current London Review of Books, mainly because others have taken it apart so damningly that I didn't have anything to add (here, for instance).

But there's a piece in The Observer today which prompts a couple of thoughts.

First, no one should be surprised that it appears in the LRB, the house magazine of the unthiniking knee jerk liberal left. And no one should be surprised that it appears under the editorship of Mary-Kay Wilmers, who has form. Four years ago I exposed her censorship of David Marquand, a man whose full stops she is not fit to edit:

In his LRB review [of James Naughtie's book, The Rivals]... he [Prof Marquand] turned to Blair's response to 11th September, which he summarised thus: "Blair's handling of the post-11th September crisis was impeccable."

He filed his piece in 17 January. The following day, he received the following response from Ms.Wilmers: "There's a problem. I can't square it with my conscience to praise so wholeheartedly Blair's conduct since September 11. I feel quite strongly that the US response, and ipso facto ours, has been at the very least questionable. I hope you won't think I'm being doctrinaire - or incomprehensibly convoluted".

She was, in other words, refusing to print his piece because she didn't agree with it. As Prof Marquand put it in reply to Ms Wilmers: "Frankly, I find your message outrageous. I have never before had a piece rejected on the grounds that it departed from the party line of the publication. I'm utterly shocked that the LRB should apply what amounts to censorship to its contributors...You wouldn't have been praising Blair; the praise would have come from me. If you feel really strongly that my opinions are shocking or wrong-headed, you could perfectly well publish them with an appropriate editorial disclaimer. What you are really saying, camouflaged by this talk of conscience, is that the contents of your paper have to conform to your personal prejudices, and that dissident voices need not apply. For a journal that purports to be one of opinion and debate, that is monstrous."

It's the same every week - ranting lefty drivel dressed up in long words by supposedly intelligent writers to give it a veneer of intelligence and thought. What a con. In reality it's a truly dire rag wirth nothing to commend it. What a contrast with Prospect, which manages to have a broad left-liberal outlook but which is well written, challengingly edited and always makes one think, rather than repeating one's prejudices.

But there's a second, more worrying point. The LRB is funded to the tune of £20,000 a year by you and me, through the Arts Council. So we have paid our money to allow Ms Wilmers to print her Der Sturmer-like prejudices.

If the LRB was a free standing operation which stood or fell by sales, it would of course be fully entitled to print such offensive lies. Our job would be to expose it for what it is. That is the point of free speech.

But it can't make itself pay, and relies for a significant part of its income instead on taxpayers' money. And that is where different rules should operate. Tax funding should not be placed in an organisation which propagandises for one political view - quite apart from the even more grotesque use of taxpayers' money in funding the publication of lies and smears.

There's an excellent post on the Engage site by Mark Gardner, which links together the comments on the Guardian's Comment is free site, David Clark's earlier piece in the paper version of the paper, and the whole 'I'm not anti-semitic but anti-Zionist' line. Well worth a read.

Guess what? IT'S DOWN. About time.

12.45 Who'd have believed it? It's still up.

I know of 17 people who have emailed the Guardian this morning pointing out that, having said the post would be removed yesterday afternoon, it is still up.

What are they playing at? Have they changed their minds, and now think it is reasonable? It's difficult to think of any other plausible explanation.

Guess what?
11am: It's still up.

John Mann MP has a good piece in the Guardian today (yes, it does happen sometimes) on the reaction of the left to the all-party inquiry into anti-Semitism:

When I commissioned this inquiry, one MP commented with surprise: "I didn't realise you were Jewish." Neither did I. Anti-semitism is like all other racism: unacceptable without qualification.

8.34: It's still up.

Well, the proof of the pudding, as I said in the post below, is in the eating. At 1.23pm I was told, as you can read in the email which I posted (at the writer's request), that the offensive comment would be taken down.

And I gave them credit for doing so: "[T]hey can't do more than take down such offensive remarks".

It turns out that they haven't even done that. It's now gone midnight, and it's still there, plain for all to see. Maybe it's a techincal problem. Maybe overnight it will vanish. But if the best the Guardian can do, even when it agrees that a comment on its site is offensive, is...nothing, it does not augur well for the future.

Unless, that is, you're a racist, an anti-Semite or a bigot looking for a platform for your views.

I've had a response from Tom Happold, the deputy editor of the Guardian's new "Comment is free!" site:

Hi Stephen,

The Guardian is not happy to allow its new Comment is free site to be "used as a free for all for all the world's racists, bigots and assorted Jew-haters", we are however keen to give our readers an opportunity to disagree with, and debate, our regular commentators and columnists.

We go to great lengths to moderate our comments according to a policy that prohibits all racist, sexist and homophobic remarks. We also encourage our readers to report anything offensive and unsuitable. The comments you quote has therefore been taken down, and its author banned from the site - we require registration before people can post on Comment is free.

As an admirer of you and your blog, I find it disappointing that you seem to suggest that our coverage and content somehow encourages anti-semites to post comments on our site. Hundreds of thousands of people have already visited Comment is free in the three days it has been online, and the vast majority of comments have been passionate and decent.

Best wishes,
Tom Happold
Deputy editor, Comment is free

I think that's a very fair reponse. Naturally, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating as to whether other such comments are posted, but they can't do more than take down such offensive remarks when it's pointed out that they've made a mistake.

If only the print paper had a similar policy on its pages...

Not content with using its comment pages to push the views of terrorists, advocates of a European Caliphate and those who glorify terrorism, the Guardian has now come up with a new means of giving space to the truly sick.

The comments on its 'Comment is Free' blog are, apparently, moderated - which makes all the more shocking the views which it allows to be published. Take this from - appropriately enough, perhaps - the comments on a posting by George Galloway:

Comparing Zionism and Nazism is not anti-Semitic, it is accurate. The founding principle of Zionism is the same as the founding principle of Nazism - that the Jews and the Gentiles should not, can not, live in the same country. One cannot reject that statement without rejecting both Nazism and Zionism. There are other valid comparisons too. One of the (very many) proofs that Nazi Germany was anti-Semitic was the 1935 Nuremberg Race Laws that prevented Jews and Gentiles to marry. It didn't matter if you loved a person, the state FORBADE you to marry. Guess which country has that exact same law TODAY? Germany? No. Britain? No. Israel? You betcha. But perhaps you want even more valid comparisons, well, the Nazis invaded Poland. Zionists invaded Lebanon. Nazis exterminated refugees, including women and children, in systematic death-camps. Zionists also exterminated refugees, including women and children, in systematic death-camps, at Sabra and Shatila.

In fact the question shouldn't be "how are Zionism and Nazism similar" but "how are they different", and aside from there belligerents there is no measurable difference, from any reasonable moral perspective you can't fart a tissue between the two.

The Guardian, it seems, is happy to allow its new site to be used as a free for all by the world's racists, bigots and aasorted Jew-haters - who happen, surprisingly enough, to be Guardian readers. Can it sink any lower?

There's a stunningly good piece on Irving by Daniel Finkelstein in The Times today. Read the whole thing.

It's not just the French authorities who are blind to the possible (probable?) anti-semitism behind the murder of Ilan Halimi.

The Observer doesn't even see fit to mention that the victim was Jewish.

Then again, it's not alone. The BBC reports an 'anti-US' film sweeping all before it in Turkey:

Even the doctor - played by Gary Busey - is evil, removing human organs from Iraqi prisoners to send to patients in the US, Israel and Britain.

Well, it's hardly a surprise that an anti-US film is doing so well there (not least given that the US has been instrumental in liberating the Kurds from Saddam). But the anti-US slant of the film is if anything an afterthought. The real message of the film, however, is clearly so passe as not even to be worth a mention from dear old Auntie:

The whacked out former star of failed, dumb reality show "I'm with Busey" repeats the age-old anti-Semitic blood libel, that Jews steal others' organs, blood, etc. for some ill purpose--in this case by playing an evil Jewish doctor. We have a suggestion for all Jewish-American doctors: Since Gary Busey defamed you, refuse him as a patient.

"I'm with Anti-Semites": Washed-up Actor Gary Busey Plays Evil Jewish Doctor
In a new Turkish movie, "Kurtlar vadisi - Irak" ("Valley of the Wolves--Iraq") U.S. soldiers are portrayed as brutal murderers who "kill dozens of innocent people with random machine gun fire, shoot the groom in the head, and drag those left alive to Abu Ghraib prison - where a Jewish doctor cuts out their organs, which he sells to rich people in New York, London and Tel Aviv," according to AP. Gary Busey plays the Jewish-American doctor.

Peter Hitchens in today's Mail on Sunday:

Sould Ariel Sharon die, I trust the 'balanced' BBC has a correspondent on hand primed to burst into tears, as the Corporation's Barbara Plett wept when Yasser Araft passed away.

If you're stuck for a Christmas present, here's a suggestion. Buy anything produced by the Estee Lauder Corporation (the parent company of Clinique, Prescriptives, Mac, Bobbie Brown, La Mer, Jo Malone, Origins, Aramis,Aveda and Bumble and Bumble).

I am not on commission; there is an even better reason to ensure its sales boom. Estee Lauder is the subject of a boycott by many Arabs and Muslims because Estee Lauder's president, Ron Lauder, is a supporter of Israel and is active in various pro-Israel organisations.

There could be few better reasons to buy Estee Lauder goods.

UPDATE Some useful perspective from a correspondent

I wouldn't be so sure about the veracity of this boycott. I mean it may well have been announced but I don't see any visible signs of its effectiveness. It didn't seem to have got through to the waves of Arab girls I saw taking advantage of the xmas offers on the Estee Lauder counter in Selfridges yesterday evening.

These same Arabs also don't seem to be paying much attention to the Marks & Spencer boycott that pro-Palestinian groups are engaged in. On Sunday, Marks was packed full and to my eyes there were hundreds of Arabs and other Muslims (my Pakistani wife included) eagerly parting with cash. It's with glee that I notice the vocal anti-Israel protest outside Marks & Spencer on Oxford Street every Thursday barely numbers more than about 5 hardliners. And this is all on the edge of Edgware Road, one of London's Arab heartlands.

A shorter version of my paper 'Israel, America, the Jews and the EU' is in today's Jewish Chronicle (sub only online).

Nick Cohen has a must-read piece on left anti-semitism - including this gem:

The moment when bewilderment settled into a steady scorn, however, was when the Guardian ran a web debate entitled: “David Aaronovitch and Nick Cohen are enough to make a good man anti-Semitic”. Gorgeously, one vigilant reader complained that the title was prejudiced - the debate should be headlined: “David Aaronovitch and Nick Cohen are enough to make a good man, or woman, anti-Semitic.”

As Cohen concludes:

In 1878, George Eliot wrote that it was “difficult to find a form of bad reasoning about [Jews] which had not been heard in conversation or been admitted to the dignity of print”. So it is again today. Outside the movies of Mel Gibson, Jews aren’t Christ killers any longer, but they can’t relax, because now they are Nazis, blood-soaked imperialists, the secret movers of neoconservatism, the root cause of every atrocity from 9/11 to 7/7.

I have written a rather lengthy paper for the Institute for Jewish Policy Research on 'Israel, America, the Jews and the European Union'.

You can read it here (the link is on the right hand side of the page).

If you haven't come across it already, Engage is well worth a look. As the blurb puts it:

Engage challenges left and liberal antisemitism in the labour movement, in our universities and in public life more generally. Antisemitism here, manifests itself mainly as anti-Zionism.

We are a resource for the monitoring and the critique of left and liberal antisemitism.

It is, unfortunately, an all too necessary resource.

If you fancy a good old dollop of anti-semitism, you could do worse than pop along to the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh between 22-28 August:

Prayer Room by Shan Khan

Performed in English

World Premiere

BIRMINGHAM REPERTORY THEATRE COMPANY

In co-production with the Edinburgh International Festival

Director Angus Jackson
Designer Lucy Osbourne
Composer Alex Gallafent
Lighting Neil Austin

A witty and provocative new play about multicultural life, commissioned by the Festival from the Scottish playwright Shan Khan.

There was a place, where The Christians and The Muslims existed in relative peace. Everyone was more or less happy, except for The Jews - who were few and had to be thankful to their Christian Overlords, for the little space they were accorded.

Then one day more Jews came, and it soon became apparent to them that they'd need their own space. So they got their own space - but at The Muslims' expense. The Muslims of course are fuming. The Jews feel they're perfectly within their rights. And The Christians are trying to take a back-seat and let the other two share the blame. This place is a multi-faith Prayer Room in a British college.

Yes, it really does say that:

The Christians and The Muslims existed in relative peace. Everyone was more or less happy, except for The Jews...Then one day more Jews came, and it soon became apparent to them that they'd need their own space. So they got their own space - but at The Muslims' expense.

I assume there's a discount for block bookings. Perhaps the Vatican or Entz Manager for Hizb ut-Tahrir might organise a trip.

A truly disgusting statement from the Vatican, in defence of the Pope's refusal to condemn the recent suicide murder in Israel:

It has not always been possible to follow every attack against Israel with a public declaration of condemnation.

Why not? Because the victims are Jews? Not that far fetched a possibility, given the Vatican's behaviour during World War Two.

But it's more nuanced than that. It's because, according to the Vatican, Israel defends itself against terror (not, of course, that the Vatican would dream of calling such murders 'terror'; pehaps the Pope is also running the BBC). And Israelis should sit back and take whatever the terrorists decide to do:

[T]he attacks on Israel were sometimes followed by immediate Israeli reactions not always compatible with the norms of international law ... It would thus be impossible to condemn the [terrorist operations] and pass over the [Israeli retaliation] in silence.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are often cited as conduits for terror. Now we have to add the Vatican to that list, for the succour it explicitly wishes to give to the murderers of Jews by refusing to condemn their acts.

Maybe the Pope's membership of Hitler Youth wasn't as irrelevant as the Vatican likes to claim after all.

It's freebie time.

Remember the first claim of responsibility for the murders on 7/7? It came from a group calling itself The Secret Cell of al-Qaida of Jihad in Europe (Jamaat al-Tanzim al-Sirri, Tanzim Qaaidat al-Jihad fi Urupa). They claimed that the murders were revenge for the behaviour of "the British Zionist Crusader government".

I thought it only fair that we BZCs identify ourselves, so I've had a small number of these T-shirts made up:

I'm going to give them away. All you have to do if you want one is to email me and tell me why you should have one (and what size). I'll let those I've chosen know. And my decision is final, as they say.

Henry Grunwald, President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, has written an excellent letter to Ken Livingstone. His reply is eagerly awaited.

I feel sick to my stomach when I think I was stupid enough to support this odious man's re-election - on the basis of the congestion charge. The congestion charge!

Idiotically, I thought leopards can change their spots. He certainly can't. He is not fit to be a Labour Party branch chairman, let alone Mayor of one of the greatest cities in the world.

The UN's special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, has compared Israelis to Nazis and called the Gaza Strip an immense concentration camp:

Gaza is an immense concentration camp. That the guards are today preparing to leave is a good thing.

Now tell me: is anyone in the least bit surprised that such a comment should from a UN official, and that he has remained in post despite making it?

Either the majority of members of the Guardian's NUJ Chapel are so stupid that they don't realise the inconsistency in their votes, or they think it wrong that the paper has decided to sack an anti-semite:

Yesterday the Guardian's NUJ chapel held a special meeting to discuss the Aslam case, at which Aslam was present. Part of his defence was his surprise at the outrage to which his article had been subject.

He said that Milne had worked closely with him on it, and had even himself suggested certain phrases.

He was asked pointed questions about the anti-semitism of Hizb'ut Tahrir, to which he did not give satisfactory answers. However many staff expressed the view that it was important for the paper to have representative voices from ethnic communities.

A vote to condemn his sacking was passed by a narrow majority. A senior editor added an amendment which passed, which noted that he had not satisfactorily answered the questions raised about anti-semitism.

So let's get this clear. On the one hand, a majority voted to condemn his sacking; on the other hand, a majority also believed that he had provided am unsatisfactory defence against the accusation of anti-semitism.

Which is it, do you think: stupid or anti-semitic?

There's a very good piece by Tom Baldwin today in The Times arguing in favour of the Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill. It's well worth a read, because it makes an - almost - convincing case for it.

There is, however, one fundamental flaw with the bill. Should it be enacted, one of the first actions ought, on the face of it, to be brought against the Koran.

The Koran is damning in its view of Jews. It accuses Jews of “falsehood" (Sura 3:71) and “distortion” (Sura 4:46). It says they have been cursed by Allah, as well as by David and Jesus (Sura 2:61/58, Sura 5:78/82). And it says that Allah was so disgusted with Jews that he transformed them into apes and pigs, "despised and rejected". (Sura 5:60/65, 2:65 and 7:166).

Such quotes have lead directly to the murder of Jews. As Hamas puts it, in justifying its murder of Jews:

"Allah did not mete out the punishment of transformation on any nation except the Jews. The significance of it is actual change in the appearance of the Jew and perfect transformation from human to bestial condition... from human appearance to the form of genuine apes, pigs, mice, and lizards..." (Falastin Al-Muslima, September 1996, series of articles by Ibrahim Al-'Ali, pp. 54-55.)

"The Jews...are the brothers of monkeys and pigs...Allah has warned us against their evil and their arrogance, and has said: 'You will find that the most brazen among mankind, with hatred towards the believers, are the Jews and the Idolaters.' [Koran, 81,5]...The Jews are Jews, and we are forbidden to forget their character traits even for a moment, even for a blink of an eye. O Servants of Allah! The Jews are those who tried to murder your Prophet in order to expunge the call (to Islam)....Prayer and blessing to the Imam of the Jihad fighters, Mohammed, who waged a Jihad against the Jews...The Jews...are Idolaters, heretics, whose faith is false."

Maybe supporters of the bill do indeed think that the Koran should be banned. I find such anti-semitism disgusting, but I cannot imagine a more provocative and counter-productive - and plain stupid - act than prosecuting distributors of the Koran for inciting religious hatred. Yet if the bill is to mean anything at all, that is what should happen.

Such anti-semitic words can, of course, be dealt with by the existing racial hatred laws. All of which merely goes to show how confused the existing regime is; it certainly doesn't mean that we should add another complication to an already ill-thought through situation.

Yet another reason why this bill is plain wrong.

Michael Gove points out that George Galloway is clearly not anti-semitic:

Listening to Any Questions the other day, I was intrigued to hear one of the panellists refer to a fascinating website run by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), an organisation that translates news reports and speeches from the Arab world. MEMRI has provided a valuable insight into developments in Arab politics and religion, including illuminating translations of sermons, whose reliability no one has seriously contested.

But on Friday night’s show George Galloway kept interrupting his fellow-panellist to point out that people working for MEMRI were Israelis. A section of the audience laughed and applauded, as though this exposed MEMRI’s work as unworthy of further attention.

There is a word for the belief that you should judge something more harshly when you discover that it is produced by Jewish people. It’s simple anti-Semitism. I’m sure George will want to denounce it the next time he hears it.

Amidst her usual 'we need to understand' succour for terrorists, Jenny Tonge tried out a variation on her favourite 'it's Israel's fault' trope this morning on the ITV News Channel. It's not just Israel's fault; it's the fault of People Who Call Ant-Semitic Those Of Us Who Merely Acknowledge The Reality That It's The Jews Fault, Even Though We're Not Anti-Semitic:

As soon as anyone says anything that is mildly sympathetic to the Palestinians, they are accused of anti-Semitism.

There speaks the true voice of someone who is not in any way anti-semitic. Her proposition is simply ludicrous. Most Israelis have symapthy for the Palestinians - hence the original 'peace process', which only collapsed when Arafat and the terrorists refused to reach a deal. But in putting forward such a view, she reveals all we need to know about the way her mind works.

When is Charles Kennedy going to remove the LibDem whip from this woman? Mind you, since he is happy to have Menzies Campbell (who funds his office with a variety of donations from Arab anti-Israeli sources) as his foreign affairs spokesman, the probablity is that Baroness Tongue merely speaks what Mr Kennedy thinks.

Hats off to Christian Hate, a new blog which is keeping check on Christian Aid.

I've written before about the dangerous delusions of its economics campaigns. But it's one thing to be wrong about aid and trade. Christian Aid is hardly alone in that (just see the Make Poverty Permanent campaign at the moment).

It's quite another, however, to be the sort of organisation which Christian Aid has now become - a campaigning organisation which is not merely anti-Israel, but plain anti-Semitic.

Since I pointed out the echoes of Der Sturmer in its advertising, I've been alerted to the anti-Semitism which seems to lie at the heart of this organisation. It's good that Christian Hate looks set to provide an ongoing check on this nasty grouping, with which no decent person should have any dealings.

Christian charity at work.

Mary Ann Sieghart reports an example of the run of the mill anti-semitism of Middle England.

A term has returned to the lexicon of political debate in recent months; a term for which, in a decent world, we should have no need. That term is “anti-Semitism”.

In January, Labour produced two posters. One depicted Michael Howard as a Shylock or Fagin caricature. The other pasted the faces of Mr Howard and Oliver Letwin on to pigs’ bodies. In February, figures showed that anti-Semitic attacks rose to record levels in 2004 — 42 per cent higher than in 2003. Add to this Ken Livingstone’s comparison of a Jewish reporter to a concentration camp guard, and the odour of anti-Semitism is clearly with us once more.

But there is a more astonishing incident which has yet to receive any coverage.

Lord Ahmed, who has been a Labour life peer since 1998, is the first Muslim to have been so honoured. His presence in the House of Lords is symbolically important. His behaviour matters, both in the message it sends to his fellow Muslims and in what it represents to the rest of us.

In May, Lord Ahmed called — at considerable personal risk — for Islamic militants such as Abu Hamza and Omar Bakri to be deported. The risk was real: a fatwa was immediately issued against him.

But his behaviour has not always been so admirable.

On February 23, Lord Ahmed hosted a book launch in the House of Lords for a man going by the name of Israel Shamir. “Israel Shamir” is, in fact, a Swedish-domiciled anti-Semite also known as Jöran Jermas.

The gist of Shamir/Jermas’s speech at the meeting can be gleaned from its title, “Jews and the Empire”. It included observations such as: “All the (political) parties are Zionist-infiltrated.” “Your newspapers belong to Zionists . . . Jews indeed own, control and edit a big share of mass media, this mainstay of Imperial thinking.” “In the Middle East we have just one reason for wars, terror and trouble — and that is Jewish supremacy drive . . . in Iraq, the US and its British dependency continue the same old fight for ensuring Jewish supremacy in the Middle East.” “The Jews like an Empire . . . This love of Empire explains the easiness Jews change their allegiance . . . Simple minds call it ‘treacherous behaviour’, but it is actually love of Empire per se.” “Now, there is a large and thriving Muslim community in England . . . they are now on the side of freedom, against the Empire, and they are not afraid of enforcers of Judaic values, Jewish or Gentile. This community is very important in order to turn the tide.”

Why would Lord Ahmed have hosted such a man in the Lords? It is, of course, possible that Lord Ahmed had no idea that Shamir/Jermas was a rabid anti-Semite. Yet it takes only a quick Google to discover his views and background. He has worked for Zavtra, Russia’s most anti-Semitic publication, and is allied with the Vanguard News Network, set up by an American, Alex Linder — a man so extreme that he was even ostracised by the US neo-Nazi National Alliance.

Indeed, Shamir/Jermas’s own website proudly reprints his views: “Jews asked God to kill, destroy, humiliate, exterminate, defame, starve, impale Christians, to usher in Divine Vengeance and to cover God’s mantle with blood of goyim . . . ” “The Ashkenazi Jews believed that spilled Jewish blood has a magic effect of calling down Divine Vengeance on the heads of the Gentiles . . . The picture of Jews slaughtering children for cultic reasons exerted huge impact on the Christian peoples of Europe.” On and on it goes.

Other figures at the forefront of campaigns against Israel are wise to Shamir/Jermas’s toxic anti-Semitism; Ali Abunimah, for example, who writes for the Electronic Intifada website and Hussein Ibish, press spokesman of the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee, gave warning in 2001 that Shamir/Jermas was not anti-Israeli but anti-Semitic. It is surely not unreasonable to expect Lord Ahmed to have exercised a cursory check on his guest.

If, however, Lord Ahmed does feel that he made a mistake in inviting him, he has yet to demonstrate it. Shamir/Jermas’s speech was made nearly two months ago. On learning of its contents, I wrote to Lord Ahmed, asking him two questions. Did he consider the invitation to have been a mistake? Did he condemn the remarks? He did not reply.

Yesterday, I phoned him. When I told him that I planned to write a piece drawing attention to his actions in hosting Shamir/Jermas and that I wanted to give him every opportunity to respond, he replied: “I am not even going to speak with you.” He then put the phone down.

Lord Ahmed’s refusal to condemn the remarks seems to indicate that he sees nothing wrong with inviting such a man to speak, or with the words Shamir/Jermas used.

There is an instructive parallel. Howard Flight was stripped of the Conservative whip for expressing a mild opinion about spending cuts. Lord Ahmed invited a known anti-Semite to speak in the House of Lords, has not uttered a word of criticism since and remains a Labour peer. Before hearing from Lord Ahmed, I also wrote to Lord Grocott, the Labour Chief Whip in the Lords. I asked him if, given Lord Ahmed’s apparent lack of contrition, Lord Grocott considered it appropriate that Lord Ahmed should still hold the Labour whip? No reply.

All Lord Ahmed need do to destroy the notion that he supports Shamir/Jermas’s views is to admit that he made a mistake in inviting him, and to condemn his words.

I'd be interested in what Lord Ahmed, a Labour Peer, has to say about a speech which was delivered, at his invitation, in a room in the House of Lords last month.

'Israel Shamir' (in fact a Swedish-domiciled anti-semite now named Joran Jermas) was asked to speak by Lord Ahmed, and delivered a noxious rant, of which these are some 'highlights':

“your newspapers belong to Zionists”

“in Iraq, the US and its British dependency continue the same old fight for ensuring Jewish supremacy in the Middle East…in the Middle East we have just one reason for wars, terror and trouble - and that is Jewish supremacy drive”

“…the Jewish media-lords in the US and elsewhere. Jews indeed own, control and edit a big share of mass media, this mainstay of Imperial thinking; just last month a Rothschild bought the French daily Liberacion…”

“The Jews like an Empire…This love of Empire explains the easiness Jews change their allegiance…Simple minds call it ‘treacherous behaviour’, but it is actually love of Empire per se…”

“Now, there is a large and thriving Muslim community in England…they are now on the side of freedom, against the Empire, and they are not afraid of enforcers of Judaic values, Jewish or Gentile. This community is very important in order to turn the tide.”

“all the [political] parties are Zionist-infiltrated.”

His writings are similarly choice:

“Jews asked God to kill, destroy, humiliate, exterminate, defame, starve, impale Christians, to usher in Divine Vengeance and to cover God’s mantle with blood of goyim…”

“The murder was performed as ritual slaughter followed by victim’s blood libation, for the Ashkenazi Jews believed that spilled Jewish blood has a magic effect of calling down Divine Vengeance on the heads of the Gentiles…The picture of Jews slaughtering children for cultic reasons exterted huge impact on the Christian peoples of Europe.”

It is, I suppose, possible that Lord Ahmed made a terrible mistake and had no idea that the man he invited was a rabid anti-semite - despite the fact that his views are freely available on his website.

But the absence of an apology for such a mistake, or a condemnation of the views expressed by Jermas, seems to indicate that Lord Ahmed sees nothing wrong with the views expressed in Jeremas' speech, and might even support the views outlined on his site, since he chose to invite him to speak. In which case, does the Labour Chief Whip in the Lords feel it appropriate that Lord Ahmed should still hold the Labour whip? And if so, why?

And they said I had nothing in common with Leonardo.

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Harry has an interesting post on the all-too-typical reaction of an SWP blogger to the disturbing evidence of a rise in anti-Semitic attacks.

The atmosphere isn't helped when the Mayor of London reveals his true colours.

I freely admit that I was wrong to support his reelection. In the first election, I voted tactically (for Steve Norris) to stop Livingstone. By the time of his second contest, I had placed my personal loathing of the man beneath my support for the congestion charge and through gritted teeth decided that he had behaved relatively reasonably as Mayor; and so, in what was effectively a referendum on the policy, I would have to vote for him.

I was wrong. Sometimes there are things which are more important than policy divides - and having so vile a man, with his support for anti-Semitic, anti-female monsters such as al Qaradawi, as the elected representative of the greatest city in the world (after New York City, perhaps!) is too high a price.

If only we had a recall mechanism as in California. But since we don't, it is incumbent on anyone who despises anti-Semitism, or who believes that the Mayor of London should not act as a sponsor to those who support wife-beating, to do everything we can to ensure that this odious man is never elected to anything again.

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Hmmm. This makes quite a good point about the pig poster.

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‘The trouble with you Jews’, I was once told, ‘is that you are far too sensitive’. My correspondent (who went on to inform me that the fact of my presence in the pages of a national newspaper was, of itself, evidence that Jews run the media) was upbraiding me after a piece in which I pointed out that, whilst criticism of Israel is certainly not evidence of anti-Semitism, there are times when the two are indeed one and the same thing.

There is now little doubt that the oldest hatred is on the march once more. On the streets, where anti-Semitic incidents are rising to new levels, Jews are physically attacked for the mere fact of being Jews. It is easy – and proper – for liberals to condemn such behaviour. But there is a far more insidious, and far more dangerous, form of anti-Semitism which is now taking hold across large parts of the culture, which uses implicit attacks on ‘the Jews’ to make political capital. When there is evidence of such behaviour it needs to be highlighted, condemned and punished. The consequence of not doing that was commemorated last Thursday, on Holocaust Memorial Day.

But it is critical that the accusation of anti-Semitism is used only in the clearest cut cases. Bandying it around when the evidence is weak is dangerously counter-productive. As the boy who cried wolf discovered, when it really matters, no one will listen.

That is why the latest contretemps over a supposedly anti-Semitic Labour Party poster is so dispiriting. The poster consists of the heads of two Conservative politicians, grafted on to the bodies of two pigs with wings, with the phrase ‘The day the Tory sums add up’. That’s when pigs will fly; get it?

It’s a pretty silly poster. But apparently it’s not just silly; it’s also anti-Semitic. The reason? The two politicians are Michael Howard and Oliver Letwin, who are both Jewish.

The story arose when a Tory candidate said that the poster is “tasteless” because there is nothing more distasteful for a Jew than being associated with a pig. I won’t name the accuser since his publicity stunt was contemptible and should not be rewarded. He appears to have thought that if he made an accusation of anti-Semitism it would somehow endear him to his Jewish would-be constituents.

Let’s leave aside his fatuous statement about pigs and Jews and concentrate on the matter in hand. Being beaten up by anti-Semites is, after all, ever so slightly more distasteful.

The phrase ‘when pigs fly’ is in common parlance. Suggesting the Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Chancellor’s sums don’t add up is fair comment - and has nothing whatsoever to do with their being Jewish.

There are, however, real examples which do merit concern. Another Labour poster, which has Michael Howard mocked up as a Fagin or Shylock-style money grabber is genuinely worrying, since it seems to have no intent other than to promote the association between Michael Howard and Jewish caricatures.

And take a recent piece by the Energy Minister, Mike O’Brien in Muslim News: “Ask yourself what will Michael Howard do for British Muslims? Will his foreign policy aim to help Palestine? Will he promote legislation to protect you from religious hatred and discrimination? Will he give you the choice of sending your children to a faith school? Will he stand up for the right of Muslim women to wear the hijab? Will he really fight for Turkey, a Muslim country, to join the EU?”

Fair comment, you might think. But all bar one of those items are Tory party policy. So the only construction that can be put on Mike O'Brien's words is that Mr Howard will not do what his party has pledged to do, such as aiming "to help Palestine" or "really fight for Turkey, a Muslim country, to join the EU". And why might Mr Howard – the Jew – not do that?

Mr O’Brien also chose to attack another MP, this time a LibDem, in the same piece. The man he alighted upon just happened to be Evan Harris. Not Charles Kennedy. Not any other LibDem. Just Mr Harris - the only Jewish LibDem MP, who is not even a front bencher.

His remarks – genuinely playing the anti-Semitic card to a Muslim audience – are as foul in their own way as anything emanating from the BNP.

Or there’s Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, who condemned the Muslim Council of Britain's boycott of the Auschwitz liberation commemoration: “I’m proud to be a Muslim. But if people are boycotting this, then I think it’s a mistake. People who were exterminated in the Holocaust were not just Jews. There were Romany Gypsies as well.”

It wasn’t ‘just Jews’ who died. It was decent people, worth commemorating, too.

Probably the most widespread current anti-Semitic trope is the use of the phrase ‘neo-con’. Few of its users have the slightest idea what it means and employ it instead as a politically acceptable euphemism for ‘imperialist Jews’.
Given time, and the ever greater use of genuinely anti-Semitic political tactics, the need for such euphemisms will disappear. Attacks on ‘the Jews’ will not need to be couched.

Stemming that tide is vital – and it is not helped when baseless accusations muddy the water.

Stephen Pollard’s essay on ‘anti-Semitism and the EU’ will be published shortly in The New European Extremism (Institute for Jewish Policy Research)

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Oh for goodness sake. According to today's Evening Standard, Labour is

today embroiled in an anti-Semitism row over posters depicting Michael Howard and Oliver Letwin as pigs.

Really? The story - if it even merits that label - is that the Tory candidate for Finchley and Golders Green has said that the poster is 'tasteless' because there is nothing more distasteful for a Jew than being associated with a pig.

I have no idea if this man is Jewish, but he certainly has a rather strange idea about what is and is not offensive to Jews. In the week of the Holocaust remembrance, when the consequences of real anti-Semitism were brought home to us all, this is cheap political opportunism of the worst kind.

The phrase 'pigs might fly' is in common parlance. Mr Howard and Mr Letwin are fair game for political insults, and suggesting their sums don't up is indeed fair comment - and has nothing whatsoever to do with their being Jewish.

I cannot imagine a single Jew being genuinely 'offended' by this. I certainly am not, and think that trying to whip up a baseless story about anti-Semitism at a time when genuine anti-Semitism is indeed on the rise, with real consequences, is contemptible on Mr Mennear's part.

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Daniel Finkelstein lambasts, quite rightly, the Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, Khalid Mahmood. Mr Mahmood says he condemns the Muslim Council of Britain's boycott of the Auschwitz liberation commemoration:

But the reason he gave was outrageous: “I’m proud to be a Muslim,” he said. “But if people are boycotting this, then I think it’s a mistake. People who were exterminated in the Holocaust were not just Jews. There were Romany Gypsies as well.”

Oh, I see. Well, so long as it wasn’t “just Jews” who died, perhaps the Muslim Council should attend after all.

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I've been out of action for a few days, so I've only now caught up with Mike O'Brien's article in Muslim News.

Melanie Phillips has a splendid post on it; but there's a further aspect to it (to which she has also drawn attention). Here's what O'Brien writes:

Ask yourself what will Michael Howard do for British Muslims? Will his foreign policy aim to help Palestine? Will he promote legislation to protect you from religious hatred and discrimination? Will he give you the choice of sending your children to a faith school? Will he stand up for the right of Muslim women to wear the hijab? Will he really fight for Turkey, a Muslim country, to join the EU? These are not academic questions. Remember, the last thing we want is to vote in anger and repent at leisure as Michael Howard, with a big smile on his face, walks through the door of no 10.

Try as I might, I cannot read into those words any other idea than that, because Howard is a Jew, Muslims would be wise not to vote for him to be PM.

If I am right - and perhaps commenters will, by suggesting an alternative credible meaning, show that I am not - then his remarks are simply foul, and represent a playing of the anti-Semitic card which is, if anything, more open and strident than anything emanating from the BNP.

If I am wrong, and I have missed their real meaning, then I apologise to Mr O'Brien. But if I am right - and I don't see how to read them in any other way - then, far from leading Labour's targetting of the Muslim vote, he should be sacked as a minister, have the Labour whip withdrawn, and treated as a political pariah.

Fat chance.

UPDATE: A commenter asks what is the problem? I should have written that all bar one of those items are Tory party policy. So the only construction that can be put on Mike O'Brien's words is that somehow Mr Howard will not do what his party has pledged to do, such as aiming "to help Palestine" or "really fight for Turkey, a Muslim country, to join the EU". And why might that be?

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Just when I think I cannot possibly be any more in awe of Oliver Kamm's astonishing breadth of knowledge, along comes another post to prove me wrong.

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Ok, I've linked to a piece about road pricing and I maintain that Ken Livingstone deserves praise for his implementation of road pricing in London.

But I have to admit that I was wrong to support his re-election as mayor. Steve Norris' programme and his behaviour as Conservative candidate ruled him out in my mind, and the fact that there were was no other serious candidate blinded me to the realities of Livingstone. I did my level best to stop his election in 2000, but considered that he had learnt his lesson and had (some) policies for London worth supporting.

However, Livingstone's unrepentant welcome to Yusuf al-Qaradawi shows him to be a keen fellow traveller of a man who could be described with some precision as evil, given the succour, not to say support, which he gives to murderers. al-Qaradawi is man deserving not of a welcoming handshake but a deportation order, and any politician who voices support for him is as contemptible.

There are more important things than road pricing, and my failure to recognise what others were telling me day after day - that Livingstone had not changed his spots - is pretty inexcusable.

I feel sick that I put a cross by his name and urged others to support his re-election. Whatever Norris' many failings, he would not shame his city.

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Brilliant piece by Anthony Browne on Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi, guest of honour at a conference to support the Islamic veil next Monday in London.

As Browne puts it:

"...The British Left, long the champion of anti-racism and gay rights, is forging deepening bonds with anti-Semitic homophobes. If these were old-style anti-Semitic homophobes the Left would be campaigning to have them locked up. But instead they are Muslim extremists.

What is most unsettling is that the Government, suffering from excessive cultural relativism, is also pandering to Islamic anti-Semitism.

...The sheikh has used his influential sermons to promote suicide bombing by Palestinians in Israel...According to BBC Monitoring, Dr al-Qaradawi said last year: “Oh God, destroy the usurper Jews, the vile crusaders and infidels.” He said the killing of the American telecoms engineer Nick Berg by Islamic militants in Iraq, had to be seen “in the right context”, although he has condemned decapitations and the twin towers attacks and suicide bombings outside Israel.

You can get more idea of his views on www.islamonline.net, whose contents are overseen by an editorial co-operative led by Dr al-Qaradawi. Islamonline declares that homosexuality is a “sexual perversion”, for which the penalty should be death. The only question is whether gays should be killed by being thrown off a high cliff, or flogged to death.

...The Home Office is even lending government credibility. Fiona Mactaggart, the Race and Community Cohesion Minister, was also due to share a platform with him, until challenged by a Sunday newspaper. Instead she is just sending a video message of support to the event.

It isn’t the first time that Ms Mactaggart has lent tacit government support to Islamic anti-Semites. Last month, at the opening of the London Islamic Centre, she shared a platform with Sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Sudais, one of the imams of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the most holy mosque in Islam, who has used his sermons to call for Jews to be killed. According to the CIA, he has said: “Yesterday’s Jews are bad predecessors and today’s Jews are worse successors. They are killers of prophets and scum of the earth. God hurled his indignation on them and made them monkeys and pigs and worshippers of tyrants.”

Do read the whole piece.

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An outstanding post by Melanie Phillips on a truly vile, warped piece by Simon Jenkins.

According to Jenkins:

[...A] small group of neoconservatives contrived to take the greatest nation on Earth to war and kill thousands of people.

They did that (but of course) because of their support for Israel. And the reason we Jews were so keen to hoodwink you lot into murdering your fellow non-believers was, Jenkins writes, outlined in a new book, 'America Alone' by Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke:

Their Iraq war is not about oil but about the agenda of a small group of Washington ideologues, whom they hold as traitors to the American conservative tradition. This group’s seizure of Washington (and London) after 9/11 makes a fascinating study in power. Known colloquially as the Vulcans, they embraced Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and the Pentagon architect of the Iraq occupation, Douglas Feith. Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush were their front men. Their first commitment was to the defence of Israel. The neocons were prominent advisers to the right-wing Israeli Binyamin Netanyahu, and opposed all Middle East “peace processes”. Having distrusted Nixon as soft on communism they distrusted Reagan as soft on Israel.

As regular readers of this blog will know, there are few commentators I consider to be more profoundly wrong than Jenkins (Yasmin A-B might be one, but then Jenkins - for all his bizarre views - is intelligent; I sometimes think it cruel to dissect Mrs A-B, given her clearly limited intellect). But in the pantheon of grotesque Jenkins pieces, this latest stands alone: an example of Judaeophobia so vile and caricatured that it takes the breath away. I had not realised, until reading his piece, that Jenkins was fully signed up to the idea the world is now run by a Jewish conspiracy.

As Melanie Phillips puts it:

The idea that such a fragment of the US administration could somehow have reprogrammed the minds of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and all the rest belongs to the wilder shores of paranoid fantasyland. The idea that, almost overnight, these neocons vanquished the vast interests of big oil and that lobby's myriad connections with the US administration is jaw-droppingly asinine. The idea that they could have persuaded Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al to act in the interests of Israel and against the interests of America is simply bizarre.

It also ignores various contrary facts. Like the fact that Israel actually regarded the Iraq war as a diversion from what it sees as the number one threat, Iran. Or like the fact that Rumsfeld and Cheney themselves believed straight after 9/11 that Iraq had been involved in those attacks, and that whether they were right or wrong this and this alone is why Iraq was in their sights. No other explanation is necesary, certainly not a demented conspiracy theory which would do credit to the ravings of Saudi Arabia about the Zionist hand behind terrorism in that country.

But alas, actual facts are irrelevant here. For what we are seeing is a vicious prejudice which is simply impervious to reason. It is the resurrection of the vile and disgusting belief -- which we can now see has never gone away, however we in Britain and America may have deluded ourselves about our 'civilised' society -- that the Jews possess extraordinary and sinister power which they exercise in a covert way to advance their own interests and harm the rest of mankind. Thus, as in the passage above, the Jews have 'seized' Washington, are 'traitors' to the conservative tradition (hello, neocons have their roots in the liberal tradition) and by implication to America itself, 'disdain' law and diplomacy because they are crazed by power-lust and the desire to kill people, and so 'deftly' provided a new threat to terrify the world after communism -- a threat which doubtless is a figment of their war-crazed imagination and nothing whatever to do with the fact that an Islamist death-cult, financed, trained and supported by a network of rogue states and which has now fanned out across the globe, has declared war on the west and is busy pursuing that murderous objective.

Note also the sneer by Jenkins at the idea that there is antisemitism at work here. What else are we supposed to call an attitude which irrationally singles out a tiny group of Jews for exercising superhuman powers they patently do not possess, to influence people with real power who did not need to be influenced, to support a country which did not seek this kind of support but thought it might be a distraction from more urgent considerations, and in a way that makes them deeply disloyal and traitorous to their own country because they actually display a higher loyalty to another?

I assume Jenkins' next piece will recommend his readers have a look at The Protocols of the Elders of Zion for its insight into the way the world works.

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Melanie Phillips highlights a typical example of chattering class anti-Semitism from Anthony Sampson, an archetypal low-rent intellectual:

'It was the victory of the Pentagon over the State Department which determnined American policy in the Middle East, reinforced by the powerful influence of the neo-conservative cabal and the Israeli government'.
Note that word 'cabal' -- the Jewish conspiracy from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion brought up to date once again. Moreover, so important did Sampson clearly think this sinister Jewish influence was over the war, he actually returned to the theme to finger the hapless Paul Bremer as yet another tool of the Jews, even though -- as he conceded -- Bremer was actually a State Department appointee:

'But Bremer soon showed himself closely aligned to the generals, as well as to the neo-cons in Washington and their allies in Jerusalem'.
'Their allies in Jerusalem'? In Sampson's view, the war in Iraq was a Jewish plot stretching across the world. Wherever does it come from, this demented fantasy that Israel was pulling the White House strings over Iraq? Certainly not from Woodward's book, in which Israel barely figures at all and the neo-con influence is relegated to a relatively minor factor. In his account, the main drivers behind the Iraq war were Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and George W Bush himself. Not a neo-con between them.

Her conclusion is all too true:

This article demonstrates once again that those who imagine anti-Jewish feeling is a preserve of the far-right are utterly misguided. These disgusting attitudes now course openly through the British liberal intelligentsia and establishment, from where they influence countless thousands of people because of the respect with which such influential voices are heard. Well, it's time to strip away such pretence. This is raw, ignorant, bigoted Jew-hatred, no less shocking because it uses an educated voice rather than a knuckle-duster. The world Jewish conspiracy is a disgusting smear rooted in medieval prejudice. When applied to the war in Iraq, as to everything else, it is a lie. But in Britain, alas, it is a lie which has burrowed appallingly deeply into the consciousness of the nation, with potentially alarming consequences both for the war on terror and for the Jewish people.

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This piece by Max Hastings in the Grauniad is headlined:

A grotesque choice

Grotesque indeed. I worked under Sir Max as a leader writer on the Standard. He is a fine editor, and I learned how to write as a journalist from him, so I owe him a lot - he gave me a break when I had no background as a hack.

But really. I can barely remember reading such unutterable bilge as his effort today. I don't think for a second that he is anti-Semitic. But his argument is the classic Jew-hater's argument, dressed up with a series of illustrations of how much he loves and respects Jews.

According to Sir Max, anti-Semitism is the responsibility of Jews who aren't sufficiently critical of Ariel Sharon:

If Israel persists with its current policies, and Jewish lobbies around the world continue to express solidarity with repression of the Palestinians, then genuine anti-semitism is bound to increase.

Well that's clear then. It's my fault that anti-Semitism is on the rise. and that Jews are being attacked simply for being Jews.

Purlease.

(And, as if that wasn't bilge enough, the 'they only do it because they've got no choice' line gets a run out, too:

The Israeli government's behaviour to the Palestinians breeds a despair that finds its only outlet in terrorism.

Just like ETA, Osama, and the rest of the murderers, I suppose. They ain't got no choice but to murder.)

I suppose he thinks he'e being 'brave' writing such a piece; in fact, he simply reveals his stupidity and wrong-headedness. It's hardly surprising that it appears in The Grauniad.

Sir Max should be ashamed of himself.

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Sometimes the loudest sound of all is the sound of silence. The reaction – or rather, non-reaction – to the description last weekend by Ian McCartney of Oliver Letwin as Fagin speaks volumes about how the Left views anti-Semitism.

The Labour Party Chairman described the Shadow Chancellor as “No Oliver Twist, this man, more of a Fagin”. Fagin, let me remind you, is not merely avaricious, deceitful, grubby and a thief. He is painted as those things specifically as a Jewish caricature. That anyone with even a modicum of sense would choose to compare a Jewish politician who hopes to take charge of the public finances with, of all possible fictional characters, Fagin, is so jaw-droppingly offensive that it almost defies belief.

Almost. Given that Mr McCartney was reportedly unaware that either Mr Letwin or Fagin are Jewish, he does not seem to be blessed with the sharpest mental faculties. So it is indeed possible that he had no idea he was being so foul. Some of Mr McCartney’s best friends may be Jews; he may be a raging anti-Semite; he may have devoted his life to countering it: it doesn’t really matter. What goes on in his mind – precious little, the evidence would suggest – is of little interest. What is of interest, however, is that he has suffered barely a whisper of criticism from the left wing media or political classes.

We have, of course, been here before. When, last May, Tam Dalyell remarked that Tony Blair is “being unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers”, his words prompted a similarly deafening silence of criticism.

Imagine, however, if Mr Letwin was a Muslim, and that Mr McCartney had accused him of behaving like Ali Baba, stealing from the forty thieves. There would, be sure, have been the mother and father of all rows. Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, would doubtless have called for Mr McCartney’s resignation. His fellow lefties would have disowned him. The Guardian leader columns would have condemned him. He would be in disgrace.

The penalty for describing a Jew as a thieving hook nosed monster is, however…nothing.

If the political boot had been on the other foot, and a Conservative politician had described Peter Mandelson as Fagin, the Left would have reacted with fury.

So it’s not quite true to say that anti-Semitic jibes can be thrown around with impunity. The truth is that they can be thrown by the Left but not by the Right. When the Left sits in judgement, it starts from the premise that the mere fact of being on the Left is, of itself, proof of good faith and decency.

There is a further complication to this already distorted mix. The Left excuses and ignores anti-Semitism because it thinks of racism as discrimination against the powerless. And we all know how much power those people and their country, Israel, wield!

So it’s not racist, but almost a duty, to point out that power. Hence the description by The Guardian’s Peter Preston, one of the most respected left-wing journalists, of Joe Lieberman as “the senator for Tel Aviv South” – a none too subtle attempt to avoid calling him “the Jew Senator”. If he had chosen to call Paul Boateng “the MP for Brixton”, all hell would have broken loose. But as a Jew, Lieberman needs to be taken to task.

The reaction to Mr McCartney’s words betrayed the hidden truth: on the Left, attacking a Jew for being a Jew is perfectly fine. And attacking a Conservative Jew for being a Conservative Jew is merely doing one’s duty to society.

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Christopher Hitchens likes The Passion. Not.

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It’s difficult thinking of Robert Kilroy-Silk as a victim. Perma-tanned, rich and as smooth as they come, he is about as far from defenceless as it is possible to imagine.

But he has moved beyond mere victimhood. The reaction to his now infamous newspaper column, in which he attacked “loathsome” Arabs for being “suicide bombers, limb-amputators, (and) women repressors”, has turned Mr Kilroy-Silk into something far more significant than a newspaper columnist who used some ill-judged phraseology and incurred the wrath of the BBC in the process.

His treatment has instead become a symbol of the hypocrisy which infects our liberal establishment, and of the double standards which govern the way it operates.

There are some countries and people one can condemn with impunity. But lay into others and you should prepare to be visited by the vengeance of polite society.

Attack America as a genocidal empire bent on world domination and you will be lauded for your sagacity. Argue that Americans as a nation are ignorant and brutal and you will merely be demonstrating your civilised values.

And if you have a truly rounded understanding of the way the world works, you will know that terrorists only resort to terror because they have no alternative. They have no alternative because they are oppressed. And they are oppressed by… aha! The true villain. Not the terrorist, who is merely a product of his environment, but those who cause him to act as he does. And we know who that is. It is, as ninety nine times out of a hundred it always has been, the Jews. It’s the Jews’ fault.

Don’t, of course, say it’s ‘the Jews’. That would be anti-Semitic, and that’s deplorable. Play, instead, the get out of jail free card: it’s the Israelis’ fault. Put it like that and you’ve free rein to rant away. Heh presto! You’re not a raving anti-Semitic bigot but a caring, compassionate liberal, speaking up for victims of Jewish – oops, I meant Israeli – oppression. It’s not the terrorists’ fault they murdered 20 Israelis. They had no choice. And anyway, some of your best friends are Jews.

When the poet Tom Paulin remarked in an interview with an Egyptian newspaper that Jewish settlers in the occupied territories "should be shot dead. I think they are Nazis, racists, I feel nothing but hatred for them”, the reaction – or, rather, lack if it – illustrated perfectly the double standards at work. (He has since claimed that his views have been taken out of context and thus distorted, but he does not deny using those words.) Mr Paulin remains a favoured guest of the BBC and a panellist on the Newsnight Review, just has he did after the publication of his poem, Killed in Crossfire, in which he suggested that the Israeli army deliberately gunned down "little Palestinian boys" and likened it to a "Zionist SS".

Clearly the BBC, acting like reservoir of the liberal establishment it is, has no problem when one of its best known cultural commentators calls for Jews to be shot. Pointing out, however, as Mr Kilroy Silk has, that that there is another side to the story is a grotesque offence against a decent world view and grounds for instant action.

When the Labour MP, and Father of the House, Tam Dalyell, said in May last year that Tony Blair is "being unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers" (Jack Straw, Peter Mandelson and Lord Levy), the response was fascinating. If Mr. Dalyell had condemned a group of Asian or West Indian advisers for "unduly" influencing domestic policy, he would have become a pariah. Indeed, that is exactly - quite rightly - what happened to the former Conservative MP John Townend when he said that the British were becoming a "mongrel" race. Since, however, it was only Jews whom Mr Dalyell attacked (although only one of the three he cited was even Jewish), he remains the doyen of many on the Left.

Not that anyone should expect the Left to object to such crude anti-Semitism. Indeed, its house magazine, the New Statesman, could see no objection to a cover which showed a gold (gold, Jews, money – get it?) Star of David stabbing a Union flag under the headline, ‘A Kosher Conspiracy?’.

I do not recall the Commission for Racial Equality reporting either Mr Dalyell or Mr Paulin – or the New Statesman, for that matter - to the police, as it has Mr Kilroy Silk. Trevor Phillips, its Chairman, has been noisily muscling in on the affair. Given his position, Mr Phillips’ behaviour is especially reprehensible. One might hope that the Chairman of such an organisation would have an appreciation of the issues involved. One might hope for that; but one would never expect it. With Mr Phillips’ impeccable liberal credentials and the history of his organisation’s behaviour, it is hardly surprising that they should have behaved so hypocritically.

Mr Kilroy-Silk certainly used some injudicious words. The relationship between Jews and Arabs is fraught enough without an extra layer of complications being added. But just because the liberal establishment chooses to relish any criticism of Israel and America, and to condemn any of the Arabs, it does not cause the underlying facts to change. Last year, the United Nations Development Programme published a report into Arab culture and politics which says, albeit in far more measured tones, many of the same things as Mr Kilroy-Silk: Arab countries, it finds, are intellectually barren, politically backward and educationally underdeveloped. There is, it adds, a growing knowledge gap with the West. The report was written in its entirety by a group of distinguished Arab scholars. Will Trevor Philips report them, and the UN, to the police?

Whatever one thinks of the language Mr Kilroy-Silk chose to use, has exposed the hypocrisy and cant which surrounds this most sensitive of issues.

UPDATE: For the sake of accuracy, I should point out that the last paragraph has changed from a version up here earlier. I put up the wrong draft, and this is now the one which appears in the Standard.

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When she's on form, there really is only one Julie Burchill:

I can't help noticing that, over the years, a disproportionate number of attractive, kind, clever people are drawn to Jews; those who express hostility to them, however, from Hitler to Hamza, are often as not repulsive freaks.

Think of famous anti-Zionist windbags - Redgrave, Highsmith, Galloway - and what dreary, dysfunctional, po-faced vanity confronts us. When we consider famous Jew-lovers, on the other hand - Marilyn, Ava, Liz, Felicity Kendal, me - what a sumptuous banquet of radiant humanity we look upon! How fitting that it was Richard Ingrams - Victor Meldrew without the animal magnetism - who this summer proclaimed in the Observer that he refuses to read letters from Jews about the Middle East, and that Jewish journalists should declare their racial origins when writing on this subject. Replying in another newspaper, Johann Hari suggested sarcastically that their bylines might be marked with a yellow star, and asked why Ingrams didn't want to know whether those writing on international conflicts were Muslim, Christian, Sikh or Hindu. The answer is obvious to me: poor Ingrams is a miserable, bitter, hypocritical cuckold, whose much younger girlfriend has written at length in the public arena of the boredom, misery and alcoholism to which living with him has led her, and whose trademark has long been a loathing for anyone who appears to get a kick out of life: the young, the prole, independent women. The Jews are in good company.

Judeophobia: where the political is personal, and the personal pretends to be political, and those swarthy/pallid/swotty/philistine/aggressive/ cowardly/comically bourgeois/filthy rich/delete-as-mood-takes-you bastards always get the girl. I'll return to this dirty little secret masquerading as a moral stance next week and, rest assured, it'll get much nastier. As the darling Jews them-selves would say (annoyingly, but then, nobody's perfect), enjoy!

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