Try this for a headline from the BBC: “Witnesses cast doubt on Israel’s convoy raid account”. That’s the lead story on the MidEast section of the BBC’s website. Here’s the first paragraph:

“Eyewitness accounts from ships raided by Israeli commandos have cast doubt on Israel’s version of events that led to the deaths of at least nine people.”

So, members of a virulently anti-Israeli convoy whose friends, colleagues and soul mates launched a violent attack on Israeli soldiers which ended in bloodshed have a different version of events from the Israelis, their sworn enemies? That’s a quotable lesson in BBC propaganda: people whom the average 11 year old could see have a conflict of interest are passed off as objective “eyewitnesses”.

But if you think that’s stupid, wait until you see what the Guardian’s serving up as Middle East editor Ian Black refers to the predictable condemnation of Israel in the Islamic world and then feigns surprise that it has been echoed in the West:

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Consider two examples of a western democracy refusing entry through its borders to a foreign dignitary on the grounds of a disagreement with his political beliefs.

In the first case, the man in question was denied entry for fear of offending a Muslim minority. He is in constant danger of assassination for his opinions, and he is being prosecuted for them by his home government. If that prosecution (which will start in October) is successful he could well become the first political prisoner on his continent since the end of the Cold War. To be sure, his views are controversial, and though he does not incite violence or racial prejudice he is sometimes abusive and insulting about the religion of Islam. However, he does not bear any grudge against the country that denied him entry, and has never defamed its reputation.

That man is Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician who was denied entry to Britain by the Labour government in 2009. Much of the liberal intelligentsia in Britain was broadly supportive of the decision to ban him, and demonstrations were launched against him after the government finally did allow him into Britain in 2010.

Now consider the second case, of a man who was briefly denied entry to the West Bank by Israeli officials at the border with Jordan this week.

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An interesting story is developing in Egypt where, according to Sky News, the government is planning to end the State of Emergency that was initially imposed after the country’s defeat in the 1967 war. Sky quotes unnamed “sources” as saying the State of Emergency will be repealed in advance of the parliamentary elections this year and the presidential elections next year.

The core issue of interest here is that any such move would allow greater freedoms for Egyptians to engage in political debate and campaigning: a good thing in itself, but something which risks handing the initiative in the country to the Muslim Brotherhood.

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The breaking news today is that Israel has finally been invited to join the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Israel was brought into the OECD (and will formally join at a ceremony in Paris on May 27) along with Estonia and Slovenia. The number of OECD countries will thus rise to 34.

Predictably, activists sought to prevent the Jewish state (and only the Jewish state) from joining. According to Reuters, “Some critics and human rights activists — including Nobel peace laureate Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland, Italian vice-President of the European Parliament Luisa Morgantini, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe and filmmaker Ken Loach — made a last-minute bid urging OECD member states to delay the process.”

Interestingly enough, the most senior Palestinians did not mount significant, vocal objections*, offering another illustration that in some respects the group hysteria that defines the anti-Israeli agenda in much of Europe takes its participants in a more anti-Israeli direction than the Palestinians themselves.

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Please click here to read my piece in today’s Guardian which attempts to re-frame the debate about British foreign policy. Feel free to leave any comments here on my site or on the Guardian’s site.

Many thanks to Cif editor Matt Seaton for running a piece which he must have known would be somewhat controversial.

The comment threads make for interesting reading. What do you think?