Just to inform readers that my book, A State Beyond the Pale: Europe’s Problem with Israel, is now available in paperback. It has a new foreword bringing it up to date and making a few comments about the book’s reception.

Amazon is selling it at £5.99 which is a bargain! So, if you haven’t bought the book already (either for yourself, a friend, your member of parliament or whoever) here’s encouraging you to go out and buy it. To purchase it on Amazon, click here.

Also, I will be starting up the blog again sometime next week. I Hope you all had (or are having) a good summer break.

The way in which different European countries respond to the debate over Islamic face coverings for women is beginning to offer important insights into how well they are mentally and culturally equipped to deal with the continent’s ever expanding Muslim populations.

After the French parliament almost unanimously approved a ban on the burka on July 13, the focus of attention in Europe has now shifted to Britain where Conservative MP Philip Hollobone is introducing a bill to parliament which would forbid the wearing of the burka or the niqab in public places.

It has now emerged, however, that the deeply entrenched forces of multiculturalist political correctness in Britain have already begun to mobilise. Hollobone is being threatened with legal action under the Equality Act for refusing to hold meetings with voters in his area who insist on wearing their veils.

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For those that are not aware of it, Jose Maria Aznar, former Prime Minister of Spain and one of Europe’s most distinguished elder statesmen, has launched a major global initiative to bring reason and decency back to the discussion of Israel.

I would encourage readers to go the new website by clicking here.

The website will explain who is involved and how you can help. It is the most important initiative of its kind for decades, and I would ask all of you to send the link to the website to everybody on your email list.

A major new survey by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research suggests that British Jews are overwhelmingly supportive of Israel, with a very large proportion indicating that Israel forms a significant component of their Jewish identity. The report simultaneously represents a devastating blow to anti-Zionist Jews who are given huge prominence in the British media — particularly in the BBC and the Guardian — in order to give the impression that significant sections of Britain’s Jewish community are as hostile to Israel as much of the non-Jewish population.

The survey was conducted among 4,081 respondents in January and February 2010. The following are selected results taken from the report.

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The eminent Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz frequently provides a useful analogy about Israel’s predicament in the tribunals of international law. It is analogous, he argues, to the position that black people faced in the American south of the 1930s. The legal system would work fine in judging a case between a white man and another white man. A black man facing another black man may get a lesser degree of justice due to the insouciance of the system, but a reasonable degree of fairness could still be expected. Put a white man against a black man, however, and the black man never stood a chance due to the weight of the prejudices against him.

Dershowitz’s analogy is powerful and striking. But a decision taken in a British court this week suggests that analogies with America in the 1930s are no longer necessary. Bigotry against the Jewish state is now so entrenched in contemporary British society that juries have begun to acquit criminals merely if they can show that they acted against Israeli interests. No other defence is necessary.

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