The irrepressible Melanie Phillips highlights today yet another searing indictment of the Islamist extremists who run Gaza, and their UN apologists who with mindblowing intransigence refuse to recognise the real root cause of what is going on there. It transpires that Hamas has yet again torched a UN run children’s summer camp to prevent the heinous crime against Islam of little boys and girls playing together and having fun.

To all sane and reasoned individuals — ie. not the British foreign office, not the Obama administration and most certainly not the United Nations — this would come as yet another piece of evidence of the vile, extremist nature of the people who run Gaza and remain intent on holding it in a state of backwardness and religious-ideological conformism.

So here is John Ging, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, on the BBC:

“”This is another example of the growing levels of extremism in Gaza and further evidence, if that were needed, of the urgency to change the circumstances on the ground.” In other words, it’s Israel’s fault.

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Silvio Berlusconi, prime minister of Italy, is an unconventional politician and he is difficult to predict. But even Berlusconi is surely too well versed in the customs of international diplomacy to make predictions about Israel attacking Iran without very good grounds for doing so. On the sidelines of the G8* summit in Canada on Saturday he said the following:

“Iran is not guaranteeing a peaceful production of nuclear power [so] the members of the G-8 are worried and believe absolutely that Israel will probably react pre-emptively.” (My italics)

Unless Berlusconi is being completely irresponsible, this sounds like a warning that something may be imminent. It is also worth noting that Berlusconi’s remarks came the day before CIA director Leon Panetta said Iran probably has enough uranium to build two nuclear weapons within the next two years.

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Sweden’s English language newspaper, The Local, is reporting that Swedish dockers launched a blockade of Israeli ships and cargo at ports across the country on Wednesday. The blockade, which will last until June 29, was initiated by The Swedish Dock Workers Union in protest at the Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara in the Mediterranean during which nine people died after Israeli commandos were attacked by Islamists seeking “martyrdom”.

The blockade is clearly anti-Semitic according to European Union guidelines (the EUMC definition) which state that it is racist to hold Israel to different standards from other democracies. Since the dockers union has not launched blockades of countries involved in the war in Afghanistan, for example, where thousands of civilians have died, it is clear that Israel is indeed being held to different standards.

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If there’s one thing that you should never forget when writing a review of someone’s book it is this: what you write will reflect just as much on you as on the book you are reviewing. Go over the top in praise of something that’s actually pretty run of the mill and it will make you look shallow. Start slamming something that’s a work of art and you’ll look like a philistine who couldn’t get the measure of a much greater mind. Start ranting and you’ll make an ass of yourself. Get personal and you look like a weirdo.

Enter John Crace, feature writer for the Guardian, who earlier this week reviewed
Melanie Phillips’ new book, The World Turned Upside Down. If you read the review you’ll learn nothing about Melanie’s book. But you will learn a lot about John Crace.

Here’s how he starts out, mockingly using the first person singular as if it were Melanie Phillips talking about her own reasons for writing her book:

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If you want an illustration of the parallel universe inhabited by our friends in the Islamist community — the people that my country’s foreign ministry, Barack Obama, the EU and company think it is possible to have a rational conversation with — check this out from Somalia:

“Somali militants threaten World Cup TV viewers”

That’s the headline on a story from the BBC, hence the word “militants” to describe what the rest of us know to be bloodthirsty Islamist terrorists. But let’s give the BBC a pass on that this time round. The story is a gem and tells you a lot more about the mindset of Islamism than many bien pensants would like you to know:

“Somali militants have threatened football fans they will be publicly flogged - or worse - if they are caught watching the World Cup on TV,” the BBC reports.

“Gangs of Islamists are reported to be patrolling the areas they control looking for people watching games. Dedicated fans are watching matches in secret, or in the few areas controlled by government forces. On Saturday militants killed two people as they attacked a house where people were watching a game.”

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