Take, for instance, Sir William Patey, head of the Foreign Office Middle East department, graduate of Dundee University, knighted in the New Year honours list and there on the witness stand for us all to form an impression of. He seems an affable enough pear-shaped man with a bald pate to match his name. But this guise is paper-thin when we realise that he was probably Britain’s chief negotiator in scuppering the corruption investigation into the £43bn Saudi Arabian Al Yamamah arms sales contract with BAe Systems, Britain’s largest export contract.

We can judge him now, at last, speaking Arabic on YouTube. We can remember his former associates, the amorous buffoon Craig Murray and the prosecuted anti-semite Rowan Laxton. We can now assess for ourselves whether he and his predecessors are the ones responsible for the catastrophe that is British foreign policy in the Middle East from thw War and the Suez crisis in 1956 onwards.

But please let’s all do this before we vote at the next general election, for the Chilcot Inquiry report will not be published until afterwards, whereupon it will be quietly shelved like all reports before it and the phenomenal bill sent to you and me the taxpayers. Sir William, meanwhile, not having been democratically elected, will still be in a job and looking forward to his pension.

What we have here is a clutch of nasty old clichés, still clung to by those who carry great titles and honours – and a few very stubborn prejudices.”

The vile Richard Ingrams is right on cue in today’s Independent. Look at the comments too… indistinguishable from Stormfront:

“There is much dispute concerning Murdoch’s antecedents, particularly his mother Elizabeth Green. One thing is for certain though and that is Murdoch is an out and out Zionist and he makes sure that the Times, for example, constantly beats the war drum over Iran.
Only this week a Times reporter, Hannah Strange, asserted as a fact that Hezbullah had bombed a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in 1984. This is no more than a Zionist allegation.

And talking of antecedents, Blair’s entry on wikipedia includes the interesting cliam that his maternal grandmother was an Ashkenazim Jew. If true, this would of course make Blair Jewish under Judaic religious law which would explain a lot.

Finally, I salute Richard Ingrams, one of the very few journalists with the guts to tell the truth about the scandalous stitch in appointing two Zionist Jews to the Iraq war enquiry panel.”

By the way there is evidence - which I will produce - that Israel wanted the US to attack Iran, not Iraq.

Greenstock features in CiFWatch

“Hamas, which in fact has no deep-rooted argument with the west or Christianity, no political alliance with Tehran or Hezbollah, no respect for al-Qaida and no “charter” for the destruction of Israel in its political programme, just wants the Israeli occupation to end.”

Greenstock pushes the “fluffy Hamas” thesis of Conflict Forum/Forward Thinking. He just doesn’t get it.

For this guy to completely ignore the oppresive nature of states like Saudi Arabia or the blatant self interest of the French, Germans and Russians is an utter farce.

For me, Saddam had 10 years to sort his life out. He gambled that Uncle Sam wouldnt do anything…and he lost, and lost big time.

But that is a different argument.

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