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.

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I doubt there is anyone on the planet who hasn't, at some point in their life, said something of which they are later ashamed. As for journalists, I'm sure we've all written something. I certainly have. So saying or writing something awful does not, of itself, make one an awful person.

I hope - and think - that's the case with Quentin Letts, who on reflection will surely think that his insult directed against David Miliband's special adviser, Sarah Schaefer, was disgusting. If Letts is a decent man, he will apologise to her.

Letts wrote:

Mr Miliband then stomped off, accompanied by a macintoshed gauleiter of a special adviser, name of Schaefer, who was shouting into a mobile telephone. This, England, is the politics of 2007.

What is so bad about Letts' remark is that it demeans Letts, insults all Germans and cheapens the horrific events of the Third Reich. But it is, unfortunately, all too typical of a strand in British society which still thinks that anything German is nasty. And that is not just insulting to modern Germany; it reveals a bigotry which still holds sway in certain sections of British society.

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David T has an interesting post about the notion of giving Nick Griffin a piece in the Guardian. It's thought provoking stuff. My instinctive reaction is to recoil at the idea, but David T makes some persuasive points in support of his argument. I especially like his response to one argument:

So, what is the objection to running a Comment piece by Nick Griffin in the Guardian.

...It cannot be that the Guardian would not publish a piece by a supporter of totalitarian politics, as it regularly hosts pieces by the Communist Party of Britain's Kate Hudson and Andrew Murray. Andrew Murray, you remember, is the man who stressed his Party's "basic position of solidarity with Peoples Korea". I assume that the Communist Party of Britain is still in favour of revolution, followed by the establishing of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

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Via Clive Davis, Dave Hill poses an interesting question:

If I object to the government allowing publicly-funded Catholic adoption agencies to discriminate against same-sex couples (which I would) should I not also object to my local authority allowing Orthodox Jews to have the municipal swimming pool to themselves during Sunday afternoons (which I don't)?

The obvious answer (which some of his commenters give) is 'yes', given that the pool is a municipal pool. But the obvious answer is wrong. The discriminatory act would be making the pool available to everyone, all of the time, given that there are many groups - not just Orthodox Jews, but Muslim women and some women of no religion who are merely modest in their behaviour - who would not be able to utilise the facility for which they have paid their taxes. Allocating a small amount of time to those women is not discriminatory; it is the opposite.

It's a similar argument to that over faith schools. Within the state system, then provided that they stick to certain rules about what they teach - and that is critical - then it's discriminatory not to allow faith-based schools.

UPDATE: About 5 minutes after posting this, I see that Adloyada has said the same thing, only better:

It isn't restricted to orthodox Jews. It's a single sex swimming time. So it offers opportunities to various groups, who also pay for the facilities through their council taxes, who would otherwise be excluded by mixed swimming only setups. These could include strictly observant Muslims, radical feminists and others who feel for a variety of reasons that they cannot be in a mixed sex swimming environment. The majority who enjoy mixed sex facilities get those for the great majority of the time they are open.

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I was in my sick bed as the debate raged over Cormac Murphy O'Connor's stance on the Equality Act and gay adoptions.

My own take is that there is one crucial inconsistency on the part of those who say Catholics should be allowed to discrimnate against homosexuals. And that inconsistency exposes the flaws in their argument.

It is hypocritical to argue on the one hand, as do many of those protesting for the right of Catholics to be able to discriminate, that Muslims must conform to the law, or even just the cultural norms, of the land, and then to argue at the same time that it’s perfectly fine for Catholics to put their private morality ahead of the law of the land. If as a society we reject bigotry and discrimination then that has to apply to all of us, Catholic, Muslim, Jew or Anglican.

So those who say make an exception for Catholics must also be saying that we should let Muslims run their own affairs, too. Yay to Sharia Law!

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This quote from Gerald Howarth is an almost perfect example of how bigotry can be telegraphed but not made explicit by the careful use of words. The context is this story:

The Royal Air Force has called in a gay pressure group to help solve its recruitment crisis. The Service will take advice from Stonewall on how to make itself more attractive to homosexual and bisexual men and women, and is aiming to spend tens of thousands of pounds on advertising in the "pink" media.

And here's what Howarth has to say:

Gerald Howarth, the shadow Tory defence minister with responsibility for the RAF, said that he thought that "taxpayers would be aghast" that public money was being used to support a pressure group. "This is an extraordinary exercise in political correctness," he said. "The idea that the homosexual community is not already aware of the opportunities in the Armed Forces is ridiculous, and to go out and specifically recruit on the grounds of a person's sexuality seems to defeat the whole purpose of anti-discrimination legislation."

Mr Howarth can reply, when accused of bigotry, that nothing he has said is in any way biogted. And in one respect he's correct. The actual meaning of the words he uses, and the specifics of his compaint, are not bigoted.

But what lies underneath the words, and his complaint, is very different. It's clear what he intends to signal - that the services should not be recruiting gays.

Given that there is now no bar on homosexuality in the armed forces, it is plain common sense that they should seek to recruit from the ranks of gay men and women, just as they should from ethnic minorities, Northerners, Southerners, Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

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