Cameron is quoted on the Conservative Home website — a popular site for grassroots supporters which is close to the party but which is not formally affiliated to it — as calling Gaza a “prison camp” in a speech he made while on a visit to Turkey. This sort of language lies at the softer end of an extreme form of discourse which routinely describes Gaza as an “open air prison”, or even a “concentration camp” and which always airbrushes Hamas anti-Semitism and its annihilationist ambitions against Israel and the Jews out of the equation.

Cameron employed precisely such a strategy in his speech, where he — or his speechwriter — even blundered into territory which could be construed as making him look soft on terrorism.

“…the situation in Gaza has to change,” he said. “Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp”.

The point at issue here comes in the words “humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions”. The first part is a classic red-herring since genuine humanitarian aid already flows into Gaza. But what precisely does a British prime minister think he is doing suggesting that Israel should free up its borders with a zone packed full of would-be suicide bombers?

The kindest explanation is that he is simply being careless and on reflection would probably have wanted to add that Israel is of course entitled to be careful about which Gazans it lets into Israel. But careless talk costs lives and Cameron or his advisers should be aware that it is precisely because they want the option of sending waves of suicide bombers into Israel that Hamas has been so vocal in calling for its people to be allowed into Israel without restriction.

A harsher explanation of what is at work here is that Cameron has constructed his political personality around a desire to be seen as the kind of Conservative who is palatable to “progressive” opinion — a desire which has been redoubled by joining the Left-leaning Liberal Democrats to form a coalition government.

For the purposes of this discussion, this means going soft on terrorism, going quiet on Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism and, of course joining forces with the great global campaign of deligitimisation of the State of Israel. Hence the Gaza as a “prison camp” rhetoric and hence the absence of any reference whatsoever to Hamas’s terroristic ambitions or its vile anti-Semitism.

It is not yet clear which of these two alternatives comes closest to explaining what is going on. It is now time for friends of Israel in the British Conservative party to make sure that it is the first and not the second, and when they’ve done that to use their good offices to ensure that such carelessly grotesque rhetoric is never again employed against Israel by a Conservative British Prime Minister.
——–

Those readers interested in a more extensive explanation of the anti-Israeli agenda in Britain and Europe may like to see my book A State Beyond the Pale: Europe’s Problem with Israel.

Given that the Taliban systematically hides behind the civilian population this sort of thing is, of course, inevitable. Nonetheless, it is understandable that the revelations by Wikileaks have caused embarrassment to the governments of all the coalition countries.

But for those coalition countries in Europe – Britain first among them – who are currently cheerleading the passage of the Goldstone Report on Gaza through the United Nations this is more than an embarrassment. In the light of Goldstone, it represents an outright threat to the security of their soldiers on the ground as well as to their national interests in international tribunals.

In my experience, the MidEast crowd at the British Foreign Office and its equivalents elsewhere in Europe tend to be a little on the slow side. So, let me spell this out so there is no ambiguity.

International laws, norms and procedures to a great extent operate on the basis of precedent. So when Britain and other European countries allowed the Arab dictatorships to push a report through the United Nations specifically designed to criminalise the Israeli military’s attempts to deal with terrorists hiding behind a civilian population in Gaza, they simultaneously set a precedent for all countries, including their own.

Now that it has been revealed — via official documents — that British soldiers, for example, have been involved in exactly the same kind of operations against exactly the same kind of terror groups using exactly the same tactics and resulting in exactly the same kind of outcomes in terms of the loss of civilian lives, British soldiers and ministers could face exactly the same kind of censure and penalties as Israel.

This could range from the purely verbal assaults of the kind mounted by European governments during Operation Cast Lead right up to prosecutions in international tribunals or through universal jurisdiction laws in countries around the world that have adopted them.

Of course, I am using Goldstone as both a concrete precedent in its own right, but also as a proxy for the whole panoply of terror-appeasement policies and norms that outfits such as the British Foreign Office have allowed to develop, or have actively supported, in the international community over decades.

The Foreign Office and its equivalents are thus proved not merely to have been engaged in the vilest of discriminatory hypocrisy over Israel, Goldstone and all that it represents, they are shown to have been deliberately and wilfully allowing a depraved anti-Israeli agenda to take precedence over their own national interests.

I didn’t realise that undermining one’s own military or one’s own national interests was what our diplomats were being paid to do. Perhaps they would care to comment?

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.

He argues, reasonably, that proper interaction with women wearing face coverings is not possible and suggests that if they want to raise an issue with him they send him a letter instead. According to the BBC, the multiculturalist civil rights group Liberty has pledged to offer legal representation to any Muslim woman whom Hollobone refuses to meet.

But the fact that such groups would leap to the defence of a practice that would have been considered oppressive to women in the England of the Middle Ages is no longer surprising. The real story here is the way that Conservative Party ministers in the new British government are right behind them.

Caroline Spelman,the Environment Minister, last week said “the burka confers dignity” and even went on to describe it as “empowering” to the women that wear it.

“I take a strong view on this, actually,” she told SKY News. “It is part of their culture, it is part of understanding that they choose to go out in the burka and I think those that live in this country, if they choose to wear a burka, should be free to do so”.

Yes, indeed. It is part of “their” culture. But it’s not part of our culture, and it is our culture that must have primacy in our country if we are to sustain and reinvigorate the liberal-democratic tradition that we have cultivated over centuries. That, of course, is a point that the multi-culturalist mindset finds impossible to understand.

And the core issue here is that multiculturalist assumptions have become so deeply embedded in British society that they now set the default position on such subjects even for powerful sections of the British right. Spelman is not alone among senior Conservatives in her truly bizarre approach to this matter.

Conservative Immigration minister Damian Green also came out strongly in favour of the burka recently describing a ban on it as being “at odds with the UK’s tolerant society”.

In a previous article I said the following about that utterly specious line of argument:

“Quite apart from the inherent oppression of women, the central point here is that cohesive Western societies operate under certain unwritten rules which make interaction between strangers manageable. First among these is a skill which we start to learn as babies and develop as adults: the range of human reactions to the body language of others, the language of facial expression in particular.

“It’s an inexact science and some are more proficient at it than others. But the unspoken assumption that we all have the right to a fair crack at understanding the intentions of others is the only way our societies can exist without the kind of extreme levels of police control or the stifling social conventions that exist in alternative forms of society. This is how a free society can and must operate in the public domain.

“That is why — if it started to happen — we would not allow sections of our youth to walk around our city centres wearing commando-style balaclavas, with three holes for the eyes and mouth. That is also why no supporter of liberal-democratic values is remotely concerned about Muslims wearing headscarves on the street — covering the hair challenges no-one’s ability to interact normally with others”.

I repeat, the multiculturalists will never get the point here. The Guardian in an editorial at the time of the French burka ban vote actually suggested that the burka was no more threatening to a free society than the wearing of “sunglasses”. But the Guardian is a long-standing opponent of the open society, and we expect little better.

What is truly frightening is that people who really should know better appear not to. And when that happens, free societies start to degenerate.

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.

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

** “For 82% of respondents, Israel plays a ‘central’ or ‘important but not central’
role in their Jewish identities”.

** “90% believe that Israel is the ‘ancestral homeland’ of the Jewish people”.

** “72% categorize themselves as Zionists; 21% do not see themselves as Zionists,
and 7% are unsure”.

** “An overwhelming majority (87%) agrees that Jews are responsible for
ensuring ‘the survival of Israel’— over half (54%) the non-Zionist respondents
also agree”.

Taken together, such figures are indeed devastating to the claims of anti-Zionist Jewish groups in Britain such as Independent Jewish Voices that they speak for significant sections of Britain’s Jewish community. Given the kind of attitudes represented above, they would be hard pressed to claim the support of more than 10-15 percent of British Jews. In other words, they are very much on the fringes of the Jewish community with the percentiles in which their opinions fall being roughly similar to those of people in wider British society who sympathise with the far left or the far right.

On policy issues in Israel, British Jewish opinion tends be slightly more dovish than Israeli opinion. Nonetheless, their views fall well within the Israeli mainstream. Here is a selection of other findings from the report:

** “Two-thirds (67%) favour giving up territory for peace with the Palestinians;
28% disagree”. Religious respondents are less likely than secular respondents to
agree”.

** “Almost three-quarters (74%) are opposed to the expansion of existing
settlements in the West Bank (Judea/Samaria). Even among those who define
themselves as Zionist, 70% are opposed”.

** “A large majority (78%) favours a two-state solution to the conflict with the
Palestinians; 15% are opposed, and 8% are undecided”.

** “Just over half (52%) think that Israel should negotiate with Hamas, while
39% do not”.

** “Half the sample (50%) agrees that ‘Israeli control of the West Bank (Judea/
Samaria) is vital for Israel’s security’, while a sizable minority (40%) disagrees.

** “There is still stronger support (72%) for the view that the security fence/
separation barrier is ‘vital for Israel’s security’”.

** “Most (72%) agree that the Gaza War was ‘a legitimate act of self-defence.’
Religious and Zionist respondents are considerably more likely to agree with
this than secular and non-Zionist respondents”.

** “Fully 87% of respondents agree that ‘Iran represents a threat to Israel’s
existence’”.

** “A large majority (80%) feels that ‘Democracy is alive and well’ in Israel.

** “By contrast, 67% agree that ‘there is too much corruption in Israel’s political
system.’ Only 13% disagree, while 20% are uncertain”.

** “About three-quarters (74%) think that ‘Orthodox Judaism has too much
influence in Israel’s society’. Close to half (45%) of ‘Religious’ respondents also
agree with this assertion”.

** “60% of respondents agree that Jewish minority groups in Israel, such as people
of Russian or Ethiopian origin, ‘suffer from discrimination’, and only 20%
disagree. Similarly, 56% agree that non-Jewish minority groups ‘suffer from
discrimination’ in Israel, while 27% disagree”.

** “Over three-quarters (76%) of the sample feel that Israel is relevant to their
day-to-day lives in Britain. Even so, 67% do not feel any conflict of loyalty
regarding Britain and Israel”.

** “Just over a quarter (26%) say that they ‘feel uncomfortable living in Britain
because of events in Israel’. Respondents living in parts of the country with
fewer Jews are the most likely to feel uncomfortable”.

** “A majority (60%) says that Israel is either not an issue or only one of several
issues that influences their voting behaviour. 36% say that Israel is either ‘the
central issue’ or a ‘high priority issue but not central’”.

** “Almost a quarter (23%) of the sample had witnessed some form of antisemitic
incident in the previous year. Of these, over half (56%) believe that the incident
was ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ related to the abuser/assailant’s views on Israel.

** “More than one in ten respondents (11%) said they had been subjected to a
verbal antisemitic insult or attack in the 12 months leading up to the survey.
Over half of the victims (56%) believe that the incident was ‘probably’ or
‘definitely’ related to the abuser/assailant’s views on Israel”.

** “Over a third (35%) think that Jewish people should ‘always’ feel free to
criticize Israel in the British media; a further 38% say that there are some
circumstances when this would be justified. Only a quarter says this is ‘never’
justified”.
————————

But with the French parliament’s decision to ban the burka this week in mind, it is a sign of the shallowness of much of Europe’s liberal establishment that no greater level of sophistication about such issues, and the profound implications they entail, is currently possible. The burka ban has been variously described across the continent by bien pensant opinion as “racism” “bigotry” and “Islamophobia”. So much is to be expected. But in some cases, they have truly outdone themselves.

First prize in the contest for the stupidest commentary imaginable goes to none other then Britain’s very own Guardian newspaper, whose editorial today is in parts laugh-out-loud hilarious. Consider the following, as our heroes summon up every ounce of conceivable insight to deliver what they presumably regard as the coup de grace on French and, by extension, Western, hypocrisy:

“Users of the metro or underground learn instinctively to avoid looking each other in the eye. It is regarded as an intrusion. And yet no state legislature would think about passing a law that bans the wearing of sunglasses indoors on the grounds that it poses a threat to national security”.

I promise readers that I did not just make that quotation up. A form of dress so extreme in its oppression of women that it forces them to hide their faces from society and that thus represents a form of subjugation unheard of in Europe since the witch burning days of the Inquisition is being compared to keeping yourself to yourself on the underground railway system, or the wearing of sunglasses.

As we have seen many times, the liberal-establishment’s anti-Western, third-worldist prejudices trump pro-Western, enlightenment notions of universal rights at every turn. And the commitment to such prejudices is so intense that it must be upheld even at the expense of inviting ridicule.

But that has all been said before, and is no longer controversial among those who are not themselves part of that liberal establishment. It is the sheer inability to access any form of profundity whatsoever in this discussion that really leaves one flabbergasted. For here is how the Guardian chose to introduce the above quoted thoughts a few sentences earlier:

“…what is it about the invisibility of a woman’s face that is so challenging to western European identity? What is so important about the niqab that gives the state the right to intervene?”

It is fascinating and revealing that such questions are deemed by that mindset to be rhetorical. But here is the answer that people less blinkered than the editorial team of the Guardian would immediately want to proffer.

Quite apart from the inherent oppression of women, the central point here is that cohesive Western societies operate under certain unwritten rules which make interaction between strangers manageable. First among these is a skill which we start to learn as babies and develop as adults: the range of human reactions to the body language of others, the language of facial expression in particular.

It’s an inexact science and some are more proficient at it than others. But the unspoken assumption that we all have the right to a fair crack at understanding the intentions of others is the only way our societies can exist without the kind of extreme levels of police control or the stifling social conventions that exist in alternative forms of society. This is how a free society can and must operate in the public domain.

That is why — if it started to happen — we would not allow sections of our youth to walk around our city centres wearing commando-style balaclavas, with three holes for the eyes and mouth. That is also why no supporter of liberal-democratic values is remotely concerned about Muslims wearing headscarves on the street — covering the hair challenges no-one’s ability to interact normally with others.

Probably the best counter-argument to what the French parliament has just done is that it is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut: so few people actually wear the burka in France — possibly just a few thousand out of five million Muslims — that the proposed new law is actually vindictive.

In most cases, that would be a reasonable proposition. But in this case it is flawed, for two reasons.

First, the problem is not trivial and the fact that only a small number of people are part of it now does not mean that that number will stay small in the future. If it’s wrong and socially dangerous, a line has to be drawn.

Second, the notion of a challenge by some important sections of Europe’s Muslim community to western, liberal-democratic values is not fanciful. From the Salman Rushdie affair, through the gender segregation of swimming pools (in France) to the Danish cartoon controversy of 2005-6 there are myriad examples of Europe partially or fully caving in to pressure from Muslim groups at the expense of Western values. It is important to make an emphatic statement that enough is enough, and that the tide will be reversed.

It may well be that the French burka ban does not in the end become law in France due to the multi-culturalist assumptions inherent in the French constitution. If the country’s highest court rules along such lines (as many believe it will), Europe will have lost yet another battle in the struggle for Western values.

But that is for later. For now, one of Europe’s most important countries has taken a bold step in defence of its culture. The French should be applauded, and we should encourage others to do likewise.

First the facts of the matter. Last week, Frances Guy, Britain’s ambassador to Lebanon wrote an entry on her official Foreign Office blog mourning the death of Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, the spiritual godfather of the Jew-hating, Hezbollah terror group. She described Fadlallah — the man who blessed (literally) the suicide bombers who killed more than 300 Americans in the 1983 Beirut bomb attack — as “a true man of religion; leaving an impact on everyone he meets, no matter what their faith.” And, she went on to say: “The world needs more men like him willing to reach out across faiths, acknowledging the reality of the modern world and daring to confront old constraints”.

The relatives of the hundreds of people whose arms, legs and heads he had blown off might take a different view of the kind of “impact” Fadlallah has on “everyone he meets, no matter what their faith”. But before we come to the commentary, be aware that there has been more of this sort of thing from the British government’s top representative to Jordan. Here is a selection of recent remarks from Ambassador James Watt:

“No one outside Israel is prepared – or very few – to take Zionist arguments at their face value any longer.” He said the notion that “a Jewish people was building Jerusalem 5,000 years ago” was “completely non-factual”. He described the Arabs as “the indigenous Palestinian population”. He lamented “the arrival of the Zionists in Palestine, with their commitment to avoiding any kind of integration into existing society” which he described as “the origin of the problem.” He wrote of Israeli policies being “progressively more violent” and, “more ready to inflict civilian casualties on a large scale in pursuit of its political goals” and he repeated various pieces of Hamas propaganda about Operation Cast Lead and the Gaza blockade.

I will deal with both of these characters together in a moment. But it is also worth noting a postscript to the scandal (or lack of one) surrounding the remarks by Frances Guy, HMG Ambassador to Lebanon, in particular. Her initial remarks have now been removed from the website — even the Foreign Office has baulked at mourning the death of a man who approved the slaughter of hundreds of Americans, citizens therefore of Britain’s greatest ally. But what has now materialised is a new blog by Guy in which she appears completely unaware of what she has done:

“The problem with diplomatic blogging,” she says, “is that you risk being anodyne or controversial”. No. The problem with diplomatic blogging is that you risk saying what you really think and thus revealing your core beliefs and values. “I have no truck with terrorism wherever it is committed in whoever’s name,” she says.

Ah yes. That’s the official Foreign Office line. But caught without her diplomatic clothes on, her thinking was revealed to be very different, wasn’t it? And even in what is supposed to be an apology, she is still unable to tell the truth about the mass murderer that she had spoken of in such glowing terms: “The blog was my personal attempt to offer some reflections of a figure who while controversial was also highly influential in Lebanon’s history and who offered spiritual guidance to many Muslims in need.” (My italics)

And, she concludes: “I regret any offence caused”. Really? So why didn’t you prove that point by describing Fadlallah as he really was? The truth is that, in the absence of a single word about Fadlallah’s profoundly significant and direct support for terrorism, the only sense in which her statement of regret can be taken seriously is in the sense that she regrets having revealed the underlying thinking of the British Foreign Office about Islamist terror. Thus, even as she offers an apology, she reaffirms her original offence.

But here, and simultaneously bringing in her counterpart in Jordan, we come to the core issue. In the thinking of the British Foreign Office, she (and he) committed no offence at all. A slip of the tongue, perhaps. A faux pas, certainly. But an offence? Not really. Who in the hierarchy of the British Foreign Office really disagrees with either of these two ambassadors’ views on terrorism, Israel and the conflict in the Middle East? These aren’t two rotten apples in an otherwise blemish-free barrel-load. As Mark Steyn is wont to say in such circumstances, quoting the language of the computer techies, this isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.

In other words, this is policy. This is what the British Foreign Office stands for. This what Great Britain Plc does in the world. This, in other words, is the extremist mainstream — a centre-ground in Britain which is now so saturated with hatred for the Jewish state, with sympathy for the “grievances” of the terrorist, with ambivalence about liberal-democratic values themselves that a complete reversal of normality has now been achieved.

Views which should exist only at the far fringes of a healthy democratic society now occupy the mainstream; views which should occupy the mainstream are shunned, demonised and exiled to the fringes.

I sometimes chide people for being too casual with their analogies to the 1930s. But in this case the only sense in which I would disapprove is that the situation in Britain in 2010 is starting to look a good deal worse. For if there is a Churchill waiting in the wings, I really haven’t been able to spot him.

This can only go on for so long before something finally snaps. I don’t know where we are heading. But the future is looking darker by the day.

http://www.stopirannow.com/

A poll out today in the Jerusalem Post shows not only that two-thirds of Palestinians oppose rocket attacks — they want the Hamas ceasefire with Israel renewed when it expires in September — but also that Hamas would get an absolute pasting if elections were held tomorrow. This is all terribly embarrassing to the bien pensants whose line of argument would mean that Hamas should now be registering polling figures somewhere up in the stratosphere and support for rocket attacks should be surging. Not a bit of it. The poll of 1,200 Palestinians, by Arab World for Research and Development, put support for the more moderate Fatah at 56 percent compared to 33.5 percent for Hamas.

This is by no means the first opinion poll to show such a decline in Hamas support since the Islamist terror group won the Palestinian elections in 2006 with 44 percent to Fatah’s 41 percent.

A poll by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research in June put Fatah support at 45 percent with just 26 percent opting for Hamas. That poll was conducted just after the Mavi Marmara flotilla incident and was identical in its results to a poll by the same group conducted in March. Again, therefore, we have evidence that “excessive” or “disproportionate” (as the EU would put it) Israeli policies have absolutely no effect in terms of “radicalising” Palestinians.

Indeed, restrictive Israeli policies against Gaza in recent years have coincided with a sharp decline in support for the radicals. Now, to coincide with something is not the same as to cause something. But what the opinion poll evidence does allow us to conclude is the following:

First, the core prevailing assumption that radicalism is a form of blow-back caused by Israeli policies is simply counter-factual: the available evidence refutes it, and does so conclusively.

Second, although there are too many factors going on at once to state the point as logically infallible, on the balance of probabilities the best available evidence suggests that Israeli policies in Gaza have been immensely successful in making support for extremism unattractive. The blockade, Cast Lead, targeted assassinations and so on have been a disaster for Hamas and a boon for their more moderate counterparts in Fatah.

What an appalling indictment of Western policy, therefore, that Barack Obama, the EU, Britain and company have now forced Israel to abandon the blockade and thus offer Hamas a public relations bonanza just at the time its fortunes were dwindling.

Appeasement is bad enough, but when the leaders of the Western world are actually colluding in the promotion of terrorism it can only be a matter of time before something goes badly wrong.

If it sometimes seems perverse that the British Foreign Office should adopt such a positive stance on terror groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, it is nonetheless important to be reminded that the British government has a long and depressing history of outright support for Islamist terror groups throughout the world. Just such a reminder is provided today in a stunning piece of writing by Mark Curtis, whose book Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam was published last week.

Writing in the Guardian — an irony that I will come to in a moment — Curtis explains how an approach characterised by myopic short-termism has engendered a culture among policy makers in Whitehall — a shorthand term for the British government named after the central London street on which many ministries are located — whereby Britain has ended up supporting Islamist groups who subsequently bomb us:

“Two of the four London bombers [who struck London five years ago tomorrow],” he says, “were trained in Pakistani camps run by the Harkat ul-Mujahideen (HUM) terrorist group, which has long been sponsored by Pakistan to fight Indian forces in Kashmir. Britain not only arms and trains Pakistan but in the past provided covert aid benefiting the HUM.”

And, he adds:

“This dependence on militant Islamists to achieve foreign policy objectives is an echo of the past, when such collusion was aimed at controlling oil resources and overthrowing nationalist governments.”

In another must read piece today, this time in the Daily Telegraph by Douglas Murray, director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, the sense in which the British government and all the main parties are mired in denial is starkly explained:

“Our police and Security Service continue to do the hard work of preventing actual attacks, and have been remarkably successful. Yet for the past five years the major political parties have failed in their principal task, which should be to argue for British values. MPs who have spoken out frankly have been silenced or reprimanded by their parties. Outspoken critics of radical Islam have been sidelined or ignored.

“Senior counter-terrorism officials have made clear that it is a matter of “when” not “if” the next July 7 occurs. By engaging extremists and sidelining not just progressive Muslims but also the mainstream opinions of British society, government has done much to store up far more problems in the future. In the long run, is it better for Britain to Islamicise or for Islam to become more British? Any government worthy of governing Britain should be able to answer that clearly.”

But apparently, they cannot. Coming back to Curtis in the Guardian, the extent of collaboration with extremists emerges as breathtaking:

“Britain had first covertly funded the Muslim Brotherhood, a new radical force with a terrorist wing, in 1942, and further links were made with the organisation after Nasser’s revolution. By 1956, when Britain invaded Egypt, contacts were developed as part of plans to overthrow Nasser. Indeed, the invasion was undertaken in the knowledge that the Muslim Brotherhood might form the new regime. After Nasser died in 1970, and the pro-western president Anwar Sadat secretly sponsored militant Islamist cells to counter nationalists and communists, British officials were still describing the Brotherhood as “a potentially handy weapon” for the regime.”

Now, it is easy to be wise with hindsight. Prior to 9/11 most of us were blind to the threat posed by militant Islam, and it would be disingenuous to retrospectively lambast policy makers who did not have the knowledge that we possess today. But that is not Curtis’s point. The point he is making is that even today the British government shows little sign of having woken up to the dangers that radical Islam poses:

“In the occupation of southern Iraq, Britain’s weak position led to conniving with Shia militias. Liberal, secular forces were bypassed after the invasion, and when Britain withdrew its combat forces it in effect handed responsibility for “security” to these militias. The irony is that Britain’s favoured collaborator, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, has long been Iran’s favoured vehicle for its policy in Iraq. Britain also continues its deep alliance with a Pakistan that is the main protector of the Taliban, and does little to press Islamabad to end its support for the jihad in Kashmir. Thus, in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Whitehall has been in the bizarre situation of being allied to its enemy.”

The wider point here concerns the sheer futility of building a foreign policy on a “realist” agenda which turns out not to be realistic at all. Detaching our foreign relations from liberal democratic principles is actually dangerous, as I and others have been saying for years.

But, in pushing our arguments thus, we have been going right up against apologists for Islamism in the Guardian newspaper (mainly) and proponents of appeasement in the British Foreign Ofice who now control much of the country’s foreign policy establishment.

Both institutions were scathing about the democracy agenda of George W. Bush and turned the word “neo-con” into nothing less than a term of abuse to be thrown in the direction of anyone advocating a robust foreign policy approach which made democratisation and opposition to appeasement the centre-pieces of its agenda.

How ironic that it should be the Guardian newspaper that ends up giving space to an author whose research disproves all of that paper’s most treasured pieties and prejudices.