Shlomo Sand is a “historian” whose name you are likely to be hearing a lot more of. Following in the footsteps of Ilan Pappe, he is a far-Left, “non-Zionist”, Israeli ideologue who has just published a book –The Invention of the Jewish People — seeking to delegitimise the historical foundations of the State of Israel.

But Sand’s technique is not merely to delegitimise the Israel that was established in 1948, though he refers to that as having been accomplished by the “rape” of the Palestinian people. It is to assert that the notion of the Jewish people as a “nation-race” that was exiled from its historic homeland is pure fabrication. There is no Jewish people in the sense of having a bloodline that can be traced back to Biblical times and, therefore, there is no Jewish homeland for the current imposters to return to.

Needless to say, he has instantly acquired the status in Britain of a hero of the Israel-hating mainstream. This week on BBC Radio Four’s flagship “Start the Week” programme, star presenter Andrew Marr hosted Sand in the most one-sided, uncritical eulogy to an anti-Israeli commentator that I for one have ever heard broadcast on the BBC.

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For anyone who believes that the average Brit has even the faintest idea of what is going on in the Middle East they might like to know that the winner of today’s general knowledge quiz show “The Weakest Link”, which runs weekdays on the BBC, had an interesting take on Israeli intelligence matters.

I just happened to be watching the last few minutes of the show which precedes the 6 o clock news when the final two contestants were fighting it out in a head to head. The contestant, Rob, was asked to name Israel’s most prominent secret intelligence service. With a shrug of his shoulders, he ventured his answer: “Al Qaeda”?

Even the notoriously severe Anne Robinson, who hosts the show, could not repress a despairing smile. The hapless Rob went on to win the show. God bless Britain’s finest…

If you thought there were some standards too low even for the Guardian newspaper group you might well have missed the latest eulogy to one of post-war Europe’s most cruel and repressive dictatorships. That’s right, as the civilised among us this week celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall — one of modern history’s most momentous and uplifting expressions of the human spirit’s yearning for freedom and dignity — the Guardian has pulled from its voluminous list of apologists for totalitarianism to grace us with a piece of fulsome praise for the workers paradise that was communist East Germany.

One would have thought that fresh from its attempted whitewash of the massacre at Fort Hood last week (see previous entry) and after the post-Gaza hate campaign against a state which (by complete coincidence we are asked to believe) happens to be populated by Jews, the moral and civilisation cess pit that is the Guardian no longer has the power to surprise us.

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A Muslim, Palestinian-American soldier massacres 12 fellow soldiers and a civilian at the Fort Hood military base in Texas. Evidence is already available that the perpetrator, Major Nidal Hasan, a military psychiatrist, was incensed at the prospect of being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan and that he had compared suicide bombing to the bravery of soldiers in combat who might fall on a grenade to protect the lives of their comrades.

It is also clear that he is a very devout Muslim who opposes the wars he feared being sent to fight in. According to the testimony of a former colleague, Col. Terry Lee: “He said maybe the Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor…At first we thought he was talking about how Muslims should stand up and help the armed forces in Iraq and in Afghanistan, but apparently that wasn’t the case.”

So clearly, there are good grounds for suspecting that this might at least have something to do with the kind of Islamist agenda which has provoked massacres from Bali to Tel Aviv, from London to New York and from Madrid to Mumbai. Note that all I am suggesting here is that there are “good grounds for suspecting”. In other words, I am arguing that any open minded and intelligent analyst would want to take that possibility into consideration.

Well, not if you write for the Guardian which raced out two op-eds with the aim not of expressing sympathy for the victims but of starkly warning that red neck, Islamophobic loons were about to have a field day. But if its loons you’re after you rarely have to search further than the Guardian’s editorial page.

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So, the results are in from yesterday’s vote at the United Nations General Assembly on the Goldstone Report. And here’s the breaking news: Britain and France turned up to vote! No messing around this time. None of the dog-ate-my-homework excuses which accompanied the decision to be absent at the Human Rights Council vote on October 16. They came, they saw — sound the trumpets and roll the drums — they abstained.

Sad, weak, pathetic. There’s nothing more to be said.

But at least they didn’t vote in favour — a badge of shame now worn in the developed and democratic parts of Europe by Ireland, Switzerland, Malta, Cyprus and Slovenia.

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