Just a quick note to wish you all a Happy New Year. This website has grown very rapidly since its first, tentative beginnings in May. I would like to thank everyone for their help and support in promoting it.

As soon as is practicable I intend to upgrade the website to give it a more professional look and to improve its features and functionality.

In terms of content, I have been asked by many people to widen the scope of the site to engage more broadly in the battle of ideas of which the fight for reason and decency over the State of Israel is merely a part.

That would seem to make sense, especially given the thrust of my book — A State Beyond the Pale — which sees the neo-anti-Semitic resurgence in Europe in civilisational rather than single-issue terms. This does not mean that I would do less on Israel, it would just mean that I would do more on other issues.

Perhaps readers would be kind enough to make comments and suggestions both on the matter of revamping the technical and presentational side of the website and on the kind of content they would like to see more (or less) of. Please leave comments below or drop me an email.

Once again, Happy New Year!

The suffering of the Palestinians is a constant refrain in most of the Western media these days except, that is, when their suffering cannot be blamed on the Israelis. At this time of celebration and festivity for Christians around the world, therefore, you can be sure that the picture presented of the plight of the Palestinian Christians by the BBC and company will not be quite the same as the one presented in an illuminating and timely piece of writing in the Wall Street Journal today by editorial page writer Daniel Schwammenthal.

“In 2007, one year after the Hamas takeover, the owner of Gaza’s only Christian bookstore was abducted and murdered. Christian shops and schools have been firebombed,” he tells us.

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It is time for a boycott after all. At the end of this piece you will find the names of 16 charities including Amnesty International UK and Oxfam International that have clubbed together to produce a report today about the situation in Gaza which would be laughable if it wasn’t so appalling. Go to their websites, write to their directors and, where appropriate, contact relevant government offices asking to have their charitable status removed. Really. Do it. Here are five reasons why:

1) The report calls for the Middle East Quartet (EU, UN, Russia, United States) to “begin political dialogue with all Palestinian parties”, ending what it calls “the failed policy of non-engagement”.

Sorry, but who do these charities think they are in saying that refusing to legitimise vile anti-Semitic, anti-Western terror groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad has “failed”? It has certainly failed Hamas and Islamic Jihad who are now more or less contained and lack international legitimacy. I think that’s a good thing. If the charities do not, they should explain themselves.

2) In similar vein, they should be asked to explain why, despite a few pro-forma references to Israel’s security and other references to rockets, their 18 page report failed to mention the words “terrorism”, “terror” or “terrorist” one single time, thus eradicating the context of Israel’s entire Gaza policy. Was this a product of ignorance, bigotry or both?

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If I have said it once, I have said it a hundred times on this website: there is a price to be paid for indulging anti-Zionist bigotry and it is a price which may be paid by some of the most treasured institutions of one’s own society.

British newspapers are reporting today that the anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying terror group Hamas (no they don’t describe Hamas that way on the BBC, but it happens to be accurate) played a key role in building the case which led to an arrest warrant being issued against former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni by a court in London 10 days ago.

The Times, in a report whose substance was repeated by the Daily Telegraph, quoted Hamas operative Diya al-Din Madhoun, who runs the terror group’s coordinating committee on such matters, as saying:

“We have provided a group of independent lawyers in Britain with documents, information and evidence concerning war crimes committed by Israeli political and military leaders, including Ms Livni.”

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Note to readers: This issue was first brought to light by HonestReporting. The link to their report is in the second comment below)

When the Guardian’s assistant editor slithers his way on to the BBC, there’s a good bet that something noxious is soon going to be coming across the airwaves. But, in its brazen and flagrant dishonesty, Monday’s contribution to BBC Radio London’s Breakfast Show by Michael White is something to behold.

In a discussion on security for political leaders pegging off the assault on Silvio Berlusconi the other day, White talked meanderingly about previous attacks on political leaders and, understandably for a British discussion show, brought in the case of Northern Ireland where Unionists and Nationalists in the main desisted from assassinating each others leaders. And then, like a flash of lightening out of a clear blue sky, this:

“In Israel they murder each other a great deal. The Israeli Defense Forces murder people because they don’t like their political style and what they’ve got to say and it only means that people more extreme come in and take their place.”

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