"Bravado"

Consider the following remarks from one of Britain’s leading “moderate” Muslim journalists, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, writing about Israeli actions in Gaza:

“First systematically starved, the [Palestinian] population was denied escape and more than 1,200 were slaughtered like animals in an abattoir… On the letters pages Zionists say the violence – including phosphorus burns on children – are “regrettable” but necessary. A nation that asks the world not to forget what was done to its people by Hitler, has advocates who believe brutal ethnic cleansing is “regrettable”. How many Palestinian Anne Franks did the Israelis murder, maim or turn mad?”

That was in January 2009. Here she is again, writing today in the Independent. This time she takes matters a stage further, emulating the Jew-baiting president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, following the visit to Britain last week of Geert Wilders, the anti-Islamist politician currently on trial for offending Muslims in the Netherlands.

“…the crypto-fascist, Aryan Geert Wilders, is invited into the Lords by [the United Kingdom Independence Party] UKIP and crossbench peers to show his vile anti-Islam film in the name of freedom of expression. Freedom my arse. It is just another entertaining episode of Muslim-baiting. I dare the same peers to now invite David Irving, the Holocaust denier, to share his thoughts freely in the Lords…”

These vile and appalling sentiments echo precisely the attitudes and strategy of Ahmadinejad who after the publication in Denmark in 2005 of a set of political cartoons deemed offensive to Muslims immediately set about organising a conference aimed at questioning the reality of the Holocaust.

Alibhai-Brown, like Ahmadinejad, adopts the following strategy: Offend us Muslims and we’ll show you a thing or two about offending people. First up, we’ll stick it to your friends, the Jews.

Quite why the invitation of Wilders — who has much less a claim on being a “crypto-fascist” than Alibhai-Brown herself — should immediately lead someone to think about calling in a Holocaust denier to even up the score, as it were, is perhaps something that only a “moderate” like Alibhai-Brown could explain.

But the most telling aspect of Alibhai-Brown’s writing is that amid all the self-pity about how “We are on trial, always, and always must expect to lose” she provides ample illustration of precisely why there is so much to worry about from the leading lights in the Muslim community.

It is not just the Jews and Israel who attract her ire. Here is what she has to say about Prime Minister Gordon Brown talking last week to a public inquiry about the war in Iraq:

“But, like his predecessor, he [Brown] is shockingly indifferent to the agony of the people most affected by the Iraq war, a war Brown still says was “the right” thing to do for the “right reasons”. His only regret? They should have thought a bit more about what to do next after they had defeated Saddam and pulled down his statues. Not a word about the countless Iraqis killed when we bombed indiscriminately in civilian areas…”

Note the incendiary vocabulary: “bombed indiscriminately in civilian areas”, which is a bare faced falsehood as she must know. The only indiscriminate attacks in Iraq have been conducted by Muslim extremist groups slaughtering fellow Muslims. This, of course, she never mentions. But note above all, that the prime minister of a sovereign democracy is expected to apologise, to express his contrition for having participated in a foreign policy venture of which Muslims do not approve. On behalf of fellow British Muslims (in whose name she speaks in this article), she expects the right of veto on how Britain conducts its affairs abroad.

But the veto extends further than foreign policy. She also turns her sights on recent court cases which have seen the jailing of some of the most violent, Hamas-supporting demonstrators outside the Israeli embassy in London last year during Operation Cast Lead.

“Meanwhile, ” she says “…Judge John Denniss is industriously sentencing demonstrators who gathered near the Israeli embassy to rail against that state’s attack on Gaza, one of the worst acts of state terrorism in recent history… Protesters came from all backgrounds but the vast majority of those arrested were young Muslim men. Dozens are being sent down for insignificant acts of bravado… To deter us from what? Having the temerity to believe we live in a democracy and are free to march?”

I stood outside some of those demonstrations outside the Israeli embassy. I saw the screaming, hysterical hatred in the demonstrators’ faces. I saw them scratching and flailing and punching at the police — desperate to get through the cordon to run riot in the embassy of the hated Jewish state.

For Alibhai-Brown, this is just “bravado”. To take legal action against such horrendous acts of violence and intimidation is to discriminate against Muslims. Muslims should have a free pass whenever they feel offended. The law, she suggests, should not apply to them.

But let me repeat the most important point. Alibhai-Brown is one of the most prominent “moderate” Muslims in Britain. She is feted by the national press and the broadcast media. Neither her editor at the Independent nor pretty well anyone else in the mainstream opinion forming establishment in Britain will have thought twice about her remarks.

Welcome to “normality” in modern Britain.

Few issues reveal the nature of the problem more starkly than the Israel-Palestine conflict where extreme hostility to the Jewish state now masquerades as “normal” commentary in much of the British media. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that fanatics and open anti-Semites feel they have licence to let rip.

The Guardian, of course, has come in for much criticism in this respect but equally egregious in its attitude to Israel has been the Financial Times which is rapidly acquiring a reputation as one of the most rabidly anti-Israeli outlets in the English speaking world’s mainstream press. Following a rare pro-Israel piece by the historian Andrew Roberts in the comment section of the newspaper earlier in the week, the online threads have featured some of the vilest anti-Semitic bigotry to have been sanctioned by a British newspaper for quite some time.

I quote eight examples below to illustrate both the tone and the content of what has appeared. Some clearly attempt to equate Israel with Nazi Germany by reference to the “abused” having become “the abusers”. Others are obsessed with the “Jewish” character of Israel. One (in an irony that would certainly escape him) appears to allege a Jewish conspiracy with the notion that Mossad has taken over the FT newsroom since that is the only explanation for the appearance of a very rare piece of pro-Israeli writing. One refers obliquely to the “chosen people”. Another describes as “laughable” the ancient Jewish presence in the Middle East.

As you read these contributions on the FT’s website, please note that they have been up for several days now. In other words, the FT must know about them and we must therefore conclude that they see no problem with them.

Once again, they all refer to Roberts’ article. Here they are, unedited:

1) nizar alshubaily | March 4 8:16am | Permalink
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Israel murdered Palestinians and stole their land. Israel continues to murder to keep the land it stole. Now Israel murders even more to eradicate any witness to its crime. The world’s greatest genocide attempt is being perpetrated on TV and no ones does anything about it. Gaza has become history’s largest concentration camp.

The Abused have become the Abusers.

2) ricardogf | March 3 9:57pm | Permalink
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Another pathetic display of bigotry right here on FT…if such biased articles continue to appear on this renowned publication (already filled with disproportionally high contributions by those on the zionist side), I will definitely cancel my subscription (as I did with The Economist and their warmongering articles on Iran). The sheer legal basis for the creation of Israel CAN and MUST be discussed in order to understand why “terrorism” exists in the first place. But instead of extending my opposition to this repugnant piece of fake journalism, I can only provide you with a simple analogy:

Is it terrorism when a thief invades my house, kills my family and ends up complaining to the “police” after I try defend my place against him and his criminal acts? Now transport yourselves to years and years and years of ethnic cleansing, bulldozing of homes, killing of unarmed civilians in filthy refugee camps and use of prohibited weapons. Add to that the stockpiling of ilegally obtained and undeclared nuclear weapons, the official statement that a certain State is “Jewish” (probably the most blatantly racist qualification ever to grace the constitutional texts of a single State) and HAS to preserve its “jewishness”, or the catastrophe brought about by a colonial power that was too incompetent and biased to ensure a home to the REAL inhabitants of Palestine.

In other words, another sad example of rabid, supremacist zionism in its worst form. Israel is NOT above the law, Israel is NOT morally superior to any other State, Israel DESERVES to pay for its crimes…enough said.

3) Richard Ramos | March 3 5:16pm | Permalink
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the choosen tribe…and loving it.

4) Roland | March 3 2:17pm | Permalink
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So wrong, so inaccurate, such a filthy piece of pro zionist propaganda. Too painful a subject to laugh.

5) nizar alshubaily | March 4 10:22am | Permalink
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@Maggie

Gaza is their land, so is the rest of Palestine which was
stolen by European immigrants who claimed it as theirs. We
will not make it easy for thieves to steal what is ours.
That’s why.

I know too much history to be fooled by any claim of
ownership of the land by Jews.

Show me the ownership receipt from God.

6) Justin Purcell | March 3 9:41am | Permalink
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The current plight of people in the West Bank Gaza with the lack of basic facilities makes this article even more repugnant. Has the abused become the abuser?

7)belkacem mensouri | March 3 9:20am | Permalink
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Hello,
We didnot know that some Mossad elements joined the FT newsroom.
We clearly received your pro-Zionist point of view.

8) Constance Blackwell | March 2 8:51pm | Permalink
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I could not agree more. Israeli Zionists, not all Israelis are extreme Zionists, brought terrorism to the Middle East - why do other middle eastern states want the Atomic bomb - because of Israel - - balance of terror -
Israel justifies its extreme Zionist claims on the laughable idea that 2500 years ago some people who called themselves part of the Jewish religion lived somewhere for 400 or so years - how silly is that.
The israeli war with France and England to take the Suez canel not only did not make Israel less safe but it cause the massive expulsion of people of the Jewish religion from the Magreb and other middle eastern states - it isolated a Jewish state rather than made it stronger - what would the middle east be like of the wealthy Jewish and Christian merchants were back where they were then - there certainly have been more trade and less zenobia by all -
I once stood in the Negev with a Palistinian Christian driver and he showed me an empty road. What is that I asked - it is the road from Egypt to Damascus -
what do those Israelis who seem to be mostly from Russia think they are doing - showing the old KGB they can do it better.
Constance Blackwell
London-
—————-

To read an in depth report on the FT’s bias against Israel, click here:

http://www.justjournalism.com/special-reports/view/financial-times-2009-a-year-of-middle-east-editorials

Plus ca change...

Several Israeli officials including former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni have in recent months cancelled visits to Britain after pro-Palestinian groups used the universal jurisdiction laws to get courts to issue arrest warrants against them. Universal jurisdiction means that warrants can be issued for alleged transgressions anywhere in the world and not just in the country over which the court would usually have jurisdiction.

According to the Times report, which was drawn from unnamed sources, the government will later today announce a consultation period on the subject, meaning that long delays to any remedy are highly likely:

“Today’s announcement…means that the issue will not be resolved until well after the election, expected in May… The delay is a victory for Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, who has argued that the legal point at stake is too important to rush. Clauses that could have been attached to the Crime and Security Bill now before Parliament have been drafted. Under one, the Attorney-General, not a magistrate, would have to authorise an arrest warrant.”

The Times may in fact be understating the matter. Given that opinion polls suggest that no party may get an overall majority in parliament at the forthcoming elections, the ensuing political chaos would probably push the matter down the political agenda significantly.

My interpretation is that the government is deliberately passing the buck; refusing to take swift and decisive action in the hope either that someone else will have to take responsibility for the decision after the election or at least that it will not have to do anything now that might be perceived as pro-Israeli and which might thus infuriate leftist and Muslim voters in what will inevitably be a knife-edge election.

Cowardice, pure and simple.

A common sight in Israel?

But it is not all going according to plan. In Canada, there are signs that the organisers may already have run into some embarrassing problems. As the National Post reports in a scathing editorial which rightly describes the event as “an odious and bigoted annual ritual” a motion denouncing Israeli Apartheid Week has been unanimously passed (even leftist members of parliament supported it) in the Ontario provincial parliament. This is a serious blow since Canada has been one of the worst offenders in the Western world in terms of anti-Israeli bigotry and has traditionally been at the forefront of IAW campaigning.

While it is still early days, what is going on in Canada should serve as an inspiration to those opposed to anti-Israeli extremism worldwide. Careful and consistent campaigning in favour of reason and decency over Israel can pay off, leaving the opposing camp looking isolated and obsessive.

Ontario MPP (member of the provincial parliament) Peter Shurman tabled the motion and as the National Post put it:

“[His] motion is part of a larger move toward support of Israel among Canadian politicians. In May, Dalton McGuinty will take part in a trade mission to Israel — an unprecedented move for an Ontario premier since the 2000 Intifada broke out.

“Last week, Conservative MP Tim Uppal announced that he would soon introduce a motion [in Canada's national parliament] declaring “that this House considers itself to be a friend of the State of Israel; that this House is concerned about expressions of anti-Semitism under the guise of ‘Israeli Apartheid Week’; and that this House explicitly condemns any action in Canada as well as internationally that would equate the State of Israel with the rejected and racist policy of apartheid.” On Monday, Michael Ignatieff declared that Israeli Apartheid Week “should be condemned unequivocally and absolutely.” Even Jack Layton [leader of the left-wing New Democratic Party] has kept a tight lid on the anti-Zionists in his party. As a result, anti-Israel activists –including not only the IAW crowd, but also those who campaigned against last year’s Israeli-themed Toronto Film Festival– have been shunned, or even denounced, by politicians.”

This is surely the way to go. Perhaps those who are interested could write to their own parliamentarians and their equivalents suggesting they follow Canada’s lead…

For information on IAW events around the world, click here:

http://apartheidweek.org/

Professionals at work

The resolution was a follow up to last November’s vote in the General Assembly calling for Israel and the Palestinians to mount credible investigations into allegations contained in the Goldstone Report that both sides, but particularly Israel, had committed war crimes against civilians. Britain abstained in that vote having absented itself entirely at the original vote in the Human Rights Council the previous month. Britain has therefore moved in three stages: absence, abstention, and now support.

Technically all three votes were slightly different in that the first asked participants to endorse the report’s findings, the second called for investigations on the basis of the report and the third provided for an extension of the time period in which those investigations should take place. However, as the United States — which voted against Goldstone on all three occasions — made clear after yesterday’s vote the key principle at issue is whether such a deeply flawed report should be given any legitimacy at all. That, said US Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Alejandro D. Wolff, was why the US continued to have no truck with it.

The Goldstone report is not only blatantly biased against Israel — it takes the testimony of Hamas supporting Palestinians at face value — it amounts to a full frontal attempt to criminalise self-defence operations mounted by democracies confronting terror groups.

The fact that the British foreign office remains wilfully blind to this reality is not only shameful, it also threatens to undermine Britain’s own national interests in places such as Afghanistan. If Israel is to be pilloried and criminalised over its attempts to deal with terror groups which use the civilian population as human shields, how will these new precedents in international law be subsequently used against British attempts to deal with groups such as the Taliban which use the same abominable tactics?

But if Britain is now prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder in the same voting group as Iran on this issue it may be that blind prejudice against Israel is now so deeply entrenched that arguments resting on logic and reason are completely ineffectual.

For the record, here are the official results of the vote reproduced in full from the United Nations website:

Vote on Follow-up to Report on Gaza Conflict

The draft resolution on the Follow-up to the report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (document A/64/L.48) was adopted by a recorded vote of 98 in favour to 7 against, with 31 abstentions, as follows:

In favour: Algeria, Andorra, Argentina, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Chile, China, Congo, Costa Rica, Cuba, Cyprus, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Denmark, Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Gabon, Greece, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Monaco, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Nepal, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Qatar, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zimbabwe.

Against: Canada, Israel, Micronesia (Federated States of), Nauru, Panama, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, United States.

Abstain: Albania, Australia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Liberia, Lithuania, Mexico, Montenegro, Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, Poland, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Samoa, San Marino, Slovakia, Ukraine.

Absent: Afghanistan, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Bahamas, Barbados, Benin, Bhutan, Botswana, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Kiribati, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lesotho, Malawi, Marshall Islands, Myanmar, Namibia, Palau, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Suriname, Swaziland, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Tuvalu, United Republic of Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Zambia.

At more than 800 pages it is a tome to be reckoned with. But do not allow its length to put you off. It is magnificently written and can be read either from cover to cover or as a reference book to be dipped into whenever the need arises.

this exhilarating work nails a defamation which to humanity's discredit, persists to this hour. Indispensible. (Howard Jacobson)

The bulk of the book looks at anti-Semitism in England from medieval times to the present day with the last two chapters specifically devoted to anti-Zionism. An invaluable piece of scholarship and a must read for anyone professing interest in the subject. Buy it now. To do so, click here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trials-Diaspora-History-Anti-Semitism-England/dp/0199297053/ref=pd_sim_b_1

To my knowledge, such an intimate strategic relationship on such a sensitive matter has never before been revealed. If it has, it has certainly not received widespread coverage in the UK press.

Kemp’s counter-orthodoxy views on Israel rose to global prominence in October last year when, against the background of the Goldstone Report, he appeared before the UN Human Rights Council to say of Operation Cast Lead: “..Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare. Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population.”

In the course of his speech last night, Kemp reiterated the substance of those remarks, adding that “dark forces” inside the BBC and further afield were subjecting Israel to a wholly biased, discriminatory and distorted campaign of vilification.

Speaking from personal experience, he contrasted the media response to the immense difficulties faced by British and American troops in facing down terrorists with the response to Israeli troops facing the same problems:

“When we go into battle we do not get the same knee-jerk, almost Pavlovian response from many, many elements of the international media and international groups, humanitarian groups and other international groups such as the United Nations which should know better,” he told the 400 strong audience.

He described it as the kind of “utter automatic condemnation” which British and American forces do not encounter. Shamefully, the British government abstained in the latest UN vote on the Goldstone Report against a background of near-monolothic vilification of Israel in the British and international media, and in order to preserve good relations with Arab and Muslim dictatorships.

To its credit, the BBC carried a report of Kemp’s speech to the Zionist Federation on its website (see link below). It will be interesting to see whether his remarks are now dispersed more widely across the British media.

To read the BBC report, click here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8527563.stm

I offer my translation from the original French of those parts of the interview which deal with Israel and make some comments of my own below it. I submit that both the questions and the answers provide stark illustration of many of the guiding assumptions of French policy in the Middle East.

Here is my translation with the headline and the questions in bold:

Kouchner: “A Palestinian state, quickly”

Is Israel a rogue state that uses the passports of friendly countries to execute its enemies?

We condemn targeted assassinations and the use of forgeries. The agents [who killed al-Mabhouh] did not, contrary to the situation with the Brits, steal the identities of our nationals but they did use a false French passport and a false name. We condemn this unreservedly.

Where could this crisis between Europe and Israel lead?

What needs to happen to get beyond this crisis is to affirm the political role of Europe in quickly laying down the conditions for the peace process and the creation of a Palestinian state. To receive Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, with whom I will be dining on Sunday, is to support a man who
holds the keys to the two state solution. The question of the moment is the construction of a new reality: France is training Palestinian police officers, enterprises are investing in the West Bank…Further, one could envisage the speedy proclamation of a Palestinian state and its immediate recognition by the international community even before negotiations on its borders. I would be glad to see this happen. However, I am not confident that other European countries would follow me on this, and I’m not even confident I’d be right. [NB: This last bit does not appear to make much sense in French either.]

Does this affair [the assassination in Dubai] tell us something about the kind of country Israel is becoming?

It tells us of the immediate necessity for peace and a Palestinian state. An Israel living in peace will fully rediscover the values on which it was founded and for the sake of which we support its security and its existence — for which we support Israel itself.

————-

The interview then trails off into other subjects. So, here are some thoughts on what Kouchner said:

1) In the first and particularly the last answer, we have a clear illustration of France’s belief in its moral superiority over Israel. As I say in my book (link below), west European opinion formers and senior politicians operate on the seemingly unshakeable assumption that they hold the moral high ground. They are doing the judging. Note also the assumptions loaded into the questions: Israel as a potential “rogue state” in the first question; the tut-tutting, when-will-they-ever-learn tone of the last question. The response to that last question also reveals a world view which regards robust self-defence as something contrary to respectable values. In asserting French superiority Kouchner unwittingly provides a quotable example of the pathological weakness of French and west European civilisation.

2) This entire interview pegs off the assassination in Dubai of a Hamas operative seeking to purchase arms from Iran. It does not occur to Kouchner that vast amounts of European aid money have been pouring into Hamas ruled Gaza in recent years, thus freeing up resources for Hamas to purchase weapons to use against Israel. This European aid could thus be construed as an indirect cross subsidy to Hamas. Now, this does not mean that Europe is definitely wrong to provide aid to the Palestinians in Gaza. The issue is complex. But an intelligent and constructive observer should be able to see that Israel is in an immensely difficult situation when it comes to everything to do with Gaza — from economic sanctions, through operations such as Cast Lead, to its approach to terrorists such as Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Kouchner merely berates Israel for assassinating al-Mabhouh while offering literally nothing to indicate he understands the nature of the problem.

3) Which brings us to the centre-piece of his remarks: his preference for a unilateral declaration of statehood by the Palestinians regardless of what Israel thinks. This, of course, is the plan advocated by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. But it has multiple problems: First, Fayyad is even more marginal (if that is in fact humanly possible) in Palestinian society than Mahmoud Abbas. Any plan associated with either or both of them would stand little chance of being accepted by the main Palestinian factions including those within Fatah. Second, and following from this, there is even a risk that a unilateral declaration of statehood could provoke civil war between the Palestinians. The risk is real because a unilateral declaration of statehood would imply a level of de facto recognition of Israel that would go well beyond the insincere paper declarations of the Oslo era. Hamas (to name just one group) is unlikely to be impressed. This brings us to the third problem. In the face of that risk, it is vital that any move to a two state solution has the full support of the Israelis. If Israel is not involved, let alone if Israel decides to take an active role against such a development, failure is guaranteed. Kouchner and all those supporting moves to exclude Israel from the equation have not thought the arguments through. They thus risk making a difficult situation worse.

So, to summarise all this in a single word: clueless.

Have a good weekend.

To read the article in the French original, click here:

http://www.lejdd.fr/International/Actualite/Kouchner-Vite-un-Etat-palestinien-173756/

To go to my book on Amazon UK, click here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/State-Beyond-Pale-Europes-Problem/dp/0297856642/ref=pd_sim_b_1

To go to my book on Amazon US, click here:

http://www.amazon.com/State-Beyond-Pale-Europes-Problem/dp/0297856642/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266682215&sr=8-1

What vexes them is not so much the use of the passports per se as the fact that the kind of hyserical public furore that we have come to expect whenever a stick presents itself for the beating of Israel has singularly failed to materialise. On the contrary, large sections of the British press have responded with barely disguised awe at the audacious operation that the Israelis had the balls to carry out.

The usual suspects in the Guardian and the BBC look uncommonly isolated. Witness BBC MidEast Editor Jeremy Bowen on World Service Television this morning.

A dour and subdued looking Bowen was asked to reflect on the effect the affair might have on the UK’s already strained relationship with the Jewish state but was only able to warn of “very severe” consequences at some vague point in the future if the allegations were proved to be correct.

Seumas Milne, a regular columnist for the Guardian and one of the most fanatical opponents of Israel in the British press, was almost tearful at the sheer refusal of both the media and the government to jump to attention in the usual manner. Writing in today’s Guardian he said:

“…instead of setting off a diplomatic backlash, the British government sat on its hands for almost a week after it was reportedly first passed details of the passport abuse. And while the Foreign Office finally summoned the Israeli ambassador to “share information”, rather than protest, Gordon Brown could ­yesterday only promise a “full investigation”.

“In parallel with this languid official response, most of the British media has treated the assassination more as a ripping spy yarn than a bloody scandal which has put British citizens at greater risk by association with Mossad death squads. It was an “audacious hit”, the Daily Mail enthused, straight out of a “Frederick Forsyth page-turner”, while the Times revelled in an attack that resembled nothing so much as a “well-plotted ­murder mystery”. Running throughout all this is a breathless awe at Mossad’s reputation for ruthless brilliance in seeking out and destroying Israel’s enemies.”

Milne is right. The public mood in Britain is remarkably pro-Israeli on this issue. Consider an opinion piece in the Times today by Melanie Reid tellingly headlined: “We’re all thrilled by Mossad the movie.” In the course of her article, Reid says:

“What the secret agents did — and, critically, what we saw them do — was compelling and breathtaking in its cleverness. Box office, in other words.”

And, she goes on:

“It is an unfashionable thing to say, but I have a considerable admiration for the Israeli way of doing things. They want something, they get it. They perceive someone as their deadly enemy, they kill them. They get hit, they hit back. They don’t waste time explaining or justifying or agonising; nor do they allow their detractors to enter their country and then afford them generous welfare payments. They just act. No messing. No scruples. Not even a shrug and a denial, just a rather magnificent refusal to debate anything.”

But there’s more:

“I’ve felt this way ever since the Entebbe raid in 1976, an occasion when the Israelis showed Hollywood a thing or two. After two Palestinians and two Germans had hijacked an aircraft on a flight that had originated in Israel, the Israeli army simply swooped in, killed the hijackers and freed all but three of the hostages. It was decisive, bloody and clever. Lieutenant-Colonel “Yoni” Netanyahu, the older brother of the present Prime Minister, Binyamin, was the only commando killed in the fighting.”

And more:

“Maybe, as the West becomes increasingly gentle and polite, and pays those monthly direct debits to Amnesty International, we need the Israelis to remind us that the world is not made according to our template. Maybe that is why we are drawn towards tales of uncompromising, ruthless derring-do. How else to explain the veneration of the SAS, the worldwide glut of books and movies on covert operations?

“One last point. Usually, in comedy heist movies, no one gets killed. Somewhere a family is weeping at the death of Mr al-Mabhouh and no one takes any pleasure from that. But the people who die in Mossad operations tend to be, like the Hamas leader, morally compromised. There’s a side to us that acknowledges that some assassins’ victims may have had it coming to them. So we’re appalled, but not so appalled that we don’t look forward with relish to the sequel. Ultimately, this is less about siding with the Israelis than loving winners.”

There is a lesson in all this, and it is a refreshing one. I spend a lot of time on this website expounding on the depth and breadth of UK (and wider European) hostility to Israel. Late last year I published a book on it. But as I say in the book and as I now repeat here in this article, the battle for Europe’s soul is still an open one.

Britain in particular is a 50-50 nation: as much the country of Churchill as of Chamberlain, as much the country of the proud and steadfast defender of democracy as of the mindless appeaser cringing and grovelling before terrorists and tyrannies.

It doesn’t always seem that way, particularly since the elite institutions of this country are so much more in thrall to the thinking of the second of those two alternatives than the first. But there is another Britain, and sometimes it shows its face.

How curious that on precisely the occasion when Britain really does have reason to be critical of the Israelis that different face of Britain should decide to come out and show itself.

To read the Times op-ed referred to, click here:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/melanie_reid/article7031188.ece

To read the Guardian column referred to, click here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/18/dubai-hamas-murder-uk-israeli-ambassador

To purchase my book, A State Beyond the Pale, click here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/State-Beyond-Pale-Europes-Problem/dp/0297856642/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Tonge has a sordid record of anti-Israel extremism. In 2004, she even went on record as saying she might have become a suicide bomber had she been born a Palestinian.

In her latest outburst, she associated herself with a medieval-style blood libel which was started last year by Sweden’s top selling newspaper Aftonbladet. The paper claimed that Israeli soldiers were murdering Palestinian children in order to harvest their bodily organs and sell them on the black market, possibly in conjunction with Jews in the United States. After Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt refused to distance his country from the story it spread like wildfire across the Muslim world and beyond.

Bildt, a favourite among the European governing classes, remains unrepentant and the story continues to resurface.

Tonge was fired by Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg who said her remarks were ”wrong, distasteful and provocative”. It is not yet clear whether she will be thrown out of the Liberal Democrat Party altogether, though that is thought to be unlikely.

Israel’s relief operation in Haiti has been widely praised as exceptional, which is why anti-Israeli activists and fellow travellers have been at pains to find ways of discrediting it.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/liberaldemocrats/7225643/Baroness-Tonge-fired-over-outburst-against-Israeli-soldiers-in-Haiti.html