Quite a lot to blog, in fact.

I'll start with DumbJon. This guy is great and you should read him. He's vehement about things other leave alone- his latest post gives you a classic insight into the UK's institutional culture plus our hang-ups. He often wallops the BBC- need I say more?

Meanwhile, this is quite a lady- she has an impressive string of men to her credit and they include Amir Taheri, who has written a must-read article ('read it all' in the words of the Instapundit) based on a recent visit to Iraq. It's like reading an extended post from IraqTheModel only with a bit more gravitas. Loads of juicy, juicy facts, insights and quotes.

Then, unusually, Melanie Phillips has been putting some weekend entries into her diary. First there is the Washington Times reporting the emergence of more chemical weapons in Iraq. Then news that the New York Times has performed a summersault on Iraq's ties to Al Qaeda by publishing a report about ongoing efforts by Saddam to ally with groups, including Al Qaeda, who opposed the rulers of Saudi Arabia. A pan-arab caliphate, anyone?

Finally, from LGF a link to Andrew Mcarthy at NRO who is trying to burst open that bubble of stale hot air that the words 'Abu' and 'Ghraib' have burped up. Charles couldn't find a quote that he felt helped sum it up (at least from where he was standing). I think I can, because amidst all the palaver Mcarthy brings us back to procedure. This is so sane it's the quote that counts for me:

'There is, of course, a straightforward way to find out what was actually done here, and it is precisely the way the administration appears to be proceeding: zealously prosecute the cases. The soldiers thus far charged, for the most part, appear to be claiming, unsurprisingly, that they were "just following orders." That claim will be tried in court-martial proceedings, meaning each soldier making it will have to establish who supposedly gave him such commands, at which point the spotlight will focus on that official, who will either deny it, admit it, or admit it and say he was acting on someone else's orders, at which point the process moves upward. That is how investigations routinely proceed.'

All of which reminds me that, in life's race, if you jump the gun too often you get disqualified.

Volker Checks In.

The man hired to investigate UNscam 'says he has uncovered "serious problems" with the program.'- via Friends of Saddam and Fox News. When you consider what generally happens in enquiries this degree of certainty seems significant.

M. Moore- Daahling of the BBC.

My fellow B-BBC contributor Andrew Bowman and I had an email exchange (incidentally, I'm having serious technical problems on the email front at the moment) a few weeks ago about the uncritical reception the BBC had offered to the Moore circus, and how Moore was a latter-day Reifenstahl etc etc.

The Beeb have been positively gleeful, realising that Moore represents the model of a straight talking leftie to make opposition to GWB look truehearted- an activity for the common man. Somehow Kerry can't quite bring that off.

Today they claimed breathlessly, 'Michael Moore's award-winning documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 has opened to rave reviews - but not among supporters of President George Bush.'

Now, someone needs to get a grip at the Beeb and realise that you do not have to be a supporter of GWB to dislike, even hate, and criticise Fahrenheit 9/11. Off the top of my head I can think of Roger Simon, Christopher Hitchens and Jeff Jarvis who have slated Moore and his work. Now, I suppose this is very web orientated, but these people are relatively significant, especially Hitchens. They are in many ways traditional democrats, who certainly may not be supporting Bush at the polls in November (Jarvis certainly doesn't intend to).

Both Hitchens and Jarvis expend great energy trying to nail Moore- and few could argue they fail to do so.

The truth about Moore is that only a diehard opponent of GWB would give his propaganda any kind of credibility- so the Beeb have got it backwards as usual. The real story is that senior Democrats have, cynically, effectively endorsed what is basically a propaganda film- but that's a perspective that won't come within a million miles of the BBC.
(I have something similar- but different- posted at B-BBC)

At Every Opportunity I spread the word that the BBC World Service is funded by the Foreign Office- which seems to me to be asking for trouble when that division of the BBC is essential in providing the backbone for its world coverage.

However, I had a 'duh!' moment this evening when I read on the excellent and newly linked blog (sitting comfortably between Melanie Phillips and Stephen Pollard in the 'Politics' section to your right) 'EU Referendum' that the BBC World Service has benefitted from funding from the EU of substantial sums rising to over 1 million pounds this year. That's not to mention further grants to other parts of the Beeb. Oh, and that's before I come to the loans from the European Investment Bank of over £90 million, which must be very comforting to have in hand against the backdrop of all this digital television mallarkey. I'm not sure what all the ramifications might be, but this seems a story saying which political future the BBC have placed their bets on. Worth bearing in mind.

I Have Another Site!

Readers of this blog will realise that though I describe it as 'Beeb-bash based' and about 'politics and poetry', only two of those three appear realistic (I hope no one accuses me of not bashing the Beeb, and politics is fairly much anything where you have a strong opinion). To make up for the lack of poetry I've created 'WritingHoarsely' (yes I know you can't write 'hoarsely' but it's, like, a metaphor.) At the moment there's just one short story I wrote over a year ago, but you're welcome to go and take a look.

Unscam update:

William Safire is still on the case, and from the sound of his source- 'You won't believe the grease being paid.'- it's a scam that however unexciting to some and unwelcome to others will keep on being raised (via Friends of Saddam). Certainly Safire seems dedicated enough.

In fact even the BBC have added a recent report to mark the occasion when US oil companies have been receiving subpoenas. It's so much easier to report when the potential bad guys are flagships of US capitalism, isn't it? A spoonful of sugar helping the medicine go down.

'Anonymous' and the Clerical Error

When you find one report promulgating the notion that the Bush administration misled the public by understating the number of terrorist incidents last year, and one immediately beside it saying that the US is losing the War on Terror, you have to think that's a remarkable coincidence; but in the way that the BBC website usually seems to bend space and time two remarkably complementary stories occupied the same section of their website simultaneously.

When the BBC say that 'The Bush administration seized on the original report [recording a reduction in numbers of attacks] as proof that its "war on terror" was succeeding.' is there not a faint stench of subjectivity in that judgement? That's not to mention the double quote-marks and the possessive 'its', as though the WoT only belonged in the Bush administration's imagination. Meanwhile, at no point do we get the cohesive explanation offered by CNN:

'John Brennan, director of the federal Terrorist Threat Integration Center, said a database error caused his agency to provide incomplete statistics to the CIA. The CIA then passed those incomplete numbers along to the State Department.

Brennan said he took responsibility for the error, but "Anyone who might assert that our numbers were intentionally skewed is mistaken." '

As I've already pointed out, it's a small step from this story to the one about the anonymous author who's written a book condemning the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq. In the US context this is conveniently close to the furore over the 9/11 commission.

The BBC graciously report it with the qualification that 'The 309-page Imperial Hubris is the latest book to attack the Bush administration in an election year - many written by former officials with an axe to grind.' (link added by me)- but this is the only qualification, and it actually enhances the fact that the book is 'the work of an official with long years of counter-terrorism experience, who is still active in the US intelligence community.' . And, by the way, I did not notice the BBC describing any of the books they might have been referring to as written by people 'with an axe to grind' at the time they were published. Richard Clarke with an 'axe to grind'? Ssshurely not!

It's bizarre and laughable in the article that we find out so much about a man supposedly 'anonymous'. His identity, like that of the unfortunate Dr David Kelly in the UK, cannot be felt worth hiding if this much is let out into the public domain. Having found some celebrated but retired names being shot down in the flames of their obvious politicisation or self-interest, the opponents of President Bush have resorted to a current intelligence operative to fireproof their case, they just can't name him- although I bet they know who he banks with. So, we're left with plenty of context but no substance, nothing to scrutinise because we don't know- as per usual- where he lives, who he knows, who he drinks with etc etc. What are we supposed to say: 'oh how clever, that's really done it now', or, nore likely, 'another damn-fool gimmick further undermining the credibility of Bush's critics'?

The BBC's account includes lavish quoting from the book, and speculation from newspapers that have had contact with the author, including the Guardian and the Washington Times. Now how often do the opinions of newspapers get such coverage on the BBC website? Often they dismiss print journalists as 'hacks', as was the case with Paul Reynolds' description of Christopher Hitchens recently. This time we get to know what the Guardian thinks, what the Times thinks, what 'Anonymous' thinks- including the big joke, that Al Qaeda are considering a strike on the US to keep Bush in power.

Ha ha.

Media News Round-up.

The new BBC Director General, Mark Thompson, has taken over and announced a shake-up, which has got to be good news if it means that criticising the Beeb will be less like shooting fish in a barrel. Also, the Telegraph has been sold to the Barclay brothers, which hopefully ends its long period spent in limbo and should make for a better paper in the coming months.

Meanwhile, anyone who has criticised Michael Moore (and there have been many) over his latest film Fahrenheit 9/11 will be wishing they'd held back until they read Christpher Hitchens' disembowelment of Moore's bloated media corpse. Roger Simon has some observations to add comparing one media monster (Moore) with another (Clinton, whose book has by now hit the streets of America like a splodge of lumpy porridge).

By the way, if you want a real news round up, this time about Iraq, try Arthur Chrenkoff. Such a fascinating read. (Thanks to Instapundit for 3 of 5 links).

Also by the way, a new and well-informed blog has started to focus on the EU Referendum over the constitution. I was particularly interested (and gratified) by this post, which echoes a recent post of mine about the BBC's coverage of the constitution- in fact it examines the same Q & A non-information article that annoyed me quite a bit. (via Samizdata)

Somehow I think that Mr Blair's little soundbyte about 'myths' and 'realities' concerning the constitution is going to acquire teeth and bite him.

Blog Quality and Big Ideas

Although you can easily make the argument that much of what appears in blogs is poorly written, poorly researched, and shallow, it's also true that for developing ideas, as well as letting descriptive/imaginative powers run loose, the internet can be quite spectacular.

Just recently Wretchard of the Belmont Club has hit a purple patch: some great thoughts encompassing great spans of time and space. Some might describe it as rambling; others as a 'bit of a stretch' for the imagination, but I'm just glad he does it because I'd never have the guts. The negative responses (I'm guessing) would be more likely from Europeans, since Wretchard is American and since we Euros tend to look down on people talking with an eye to the cosmic.

I just wanted to share a couple of Wretchard's quotes, relating to the Euro-project that's been thrust forward into the limelight by the recent elections (numbers represent links to specific posts).

1) 'The Third World in general and the Islamic World in particular have burst their bounds; they can no longer be herded into the decrepit and threadbare tent of the United Nations; the Kyoto climate agreement; the International Criminal Court or any of Potemkin treaties woven by the European Union.'

2) 'The real significance of the Osama's attacks on America to future historians may be that it marked the end of the transnational project of a politically correct world order; delineated the final boundary of the European tradition of Marxist thought and created the first post-post-colonial Western ideology. The Global War on Terror is in certain respects spectacularly ill-named. Its principal victim has not been the Al Qaeda network but the old order. The notion of the centrality of the United Nations; the idea that terrorism is a law enforcement problem; the idea that history is an irreversible march toward a Green-Left future are projects as cold beneath the earth as the Taliban's armies. If the European Union as envisioned by France finally dies; it will mark its departure, however long it may linger, from the time Mohammed Atta's aircraft struck the Towers.'

Kind of puts into perspective the wrangling over the constitution, doesn't it? That seems, well, backward looking when you consider the far greater forces at work. The basic theme, one I think we'll either have to accept or endure in due course, is 'stop picking at you navel, Europe, start looking over your shoulder.'

'Deirdrie' Replies (sooner than I expected):

'For 30 years, as the EU has acquired the organs of a state entity, the argument of British Europhiles to the people has been: who ya gonna believe?

Me or your lyin' eyes? Say what you like about those shifty duplicitous Continentals, but on this issue it's successive British governments that have been shifty and Monsieur du Plicitous who's been admirably straightforward.' -'Deirdrie', aka Mark Steyn

Which is Clearer?

Dear Deirdie,

Although the Beeb took up Mr Blair's challenge to distinguish 'myth' from 'reality' about the EU constitution, as I noted already in my weblog, I was not impressed- it just seemed like they were in denial. Yesterday I read an article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph that seems far clearer. This is a difficult time in my history, and lots of my friends keep muttering dark things about the Euro-sceptic rightwing press. Please help me. Who should I believe?

Yours,
Britain.

I'll probably write a fair bit about the EU constitution: another central issue of the times that no doubt the BBC will get present arse first, so to speak. Here's an initial response:


BBC on EU : 'The show goes on'.

No sooner has Tony Blair on Breakfast with Frostie hailed a battle to allow 'reality' about the EU to be distinguished from 'myth' (obscured, so the story goes, by the narrow europhobic press), the BBC obliges with a helpful Q&A: EU- Myths and Realities.

The overall tone of this report indicates that 'myth'= anything scary about growing EU powers, while 'reality'= everything's right and fairly proper in the EU garden.

So, to each vaguely anxious 'question' about the increase in EU power intrinsic to the constitution the answer is negative.

Asking whether the EU constitution will lead to a 'United States of Europe' (like the US), the response is unequivocally 'no'. If you read the explanation, however, it is clear that while in some areas qualified majority voting is extended (in fact wherever it's not otherwise stated qualified majority voting will be applied)- to immigration for instance- in no cases is it diminished. Thus, the balance described between people wanting more integration and those wanting to preserve national powers is false, since the movement in the Constitution is all one way. Who knows whether it will 'lead to' a USE; what's clear is that it's a step in that direction.

Asking whether having a Foreign Minister means having a common foreign policy the BBC comment with apparent wryness, 'not in the EU'. As the BBC comments, however, without 'agreement' the EU Foreign Minister will be 'powerless'; therefore, unless he or she is an idiot, the Foreign Ministers will spend his/her time weighing and balancing the EU's individual interests to get agreement. From another vantage point this might mean arm-twisting and shoe-horning various national representatives. I was particularly alarmed by the BBC's assumption that the EU were united in their view of the 'Middle East Peace Process'. That may be true, nominally at present, but I would not want under any circumstances to be tied to French foreign policy over Israel.

Coming away from reading the BBC's analysis, I feel that I have had contact with an idealist's vision of how the Constitution will work; one which anticipates nationalistic fears but not the practical concerns (and experiences) on which most fears are grounded.

Anyway, for an example of that apparently hopelessly biased euro-sceptic press, The Times' Financial editor David Smith's EconomicsUK site is a place to bookmark. Currently running an impressive article on intelligent economics-based scepticism, if current trends continue people like him will be a little more critical of the drive for integration than the BBC.

Went Trawling; found stuff:

William Kristol on Kerry's response to the 9/11 Commission:

'This is surely a major moment in the presidential race. John Kerry had, until last week, been running a disciplined general election campaign, carefully suppressing his left-leaning foreign policy instincts, soberly emphasizing his commitment to fighting the war on terror and to seeing through the effort in Iraq. Then he couldn't resist the temptation to jump on the (misleading) press accounts of the (sloppy) 9/11 Commission staff report, in order to assault the Bush administration on the issue of terror links between Saddam and al Qaeda.'

The BBC reporting a big surprise:

'Residents of the Iraqi city of Falluja have disputed an American account of an air attack in which at least 20 people were killed.'

Roger Simon on why he can't agree with Andrew Sullivan's flip-flop towards Kerry:

'My basic reason is so simple and unsophisticated it's embarrassing to have to spell it out, but as I wrote in the comment section of another blog: If John Kerry is elected in November, it will be interpreted by the world as such a repudiation of the WoT it will make the electoral defeat in Spain seem like a student council defeat in Iowa.'

For what it's worth I think that Bush is doing well on just about everything. What often looks careless or reckless, lazy or feckless, in the President's management, seems to turn out better than you imagine. The bombing in Fallujah, for instance, is indication that the US is not frightened to intervene destructively in that city, and that allowing certain opponents to congregate in apparent safety there may bring opportunities to root them out. With all those friends in Fallujah it does seem as though Zarqawi and his ilk are suspiciously 'at home' in Iraq.

The 9/11 Commission, with its apparent (and in reality very ambiguous) thumbs down for Bush's justifications for the war in Iraq, smokes out Kerry's agenda and allows convincing, detailed evidence to be circulated that refutes the sceptics over Iraq-Al Qaeda links. Of course you don't find such information on the BBC, but then that sidelines a news organisation that will not deal with news which disagrees with them- which is good news, in a way.

Bursting the Bubble:

Tom Gross in NRO presents a powerful accounting of what he calls 'The BBC's very own Middle East policy'. He's exactly right in that viewpoint. The BBC does effectively have a manifesto for the region, and for much else besides. Significant passage, after which follows a catalogue of BBC shame:

'the Cold War plays a very small part in the worldview of the BBC. They seldom showed signs of caring much about hundreds of millions of people living under Communist dictatorship then, and they are still very reluctant to acknowledge that it happened, let alone their own failings in reporting it.

I mention this because it helps explain the bubble they live in today with regard to the Middle East and Arab world. A bubble which has led them to seek to undermine, even delegitimize Israel, the region's sole democracy, while at the same time bending over backwards to excuse extremist Islamic clerics, and the worst of the Arab dictators.'

The BBC licked its lips and got stuck in when the 9/11 Commission reported, but funnily enough that only seems to have made them hungrier.

Of course the way BBC correspondent Jon Leyne puts it you might imagine that he's knocking the final nail into the coffin of the Bush doctrine by coming out and accusing the administration of propagandising the link between Saddam and Al Qaeda. He says 'It has been a subtle operation. Only rarely do administration officials state the case quite as baldly as the Vice President, Dick Cheney, on Monday.'

It's startling isn't it, that Cheney and Bush choose this of all weeks to make their most prominent assertions (click this one for sure if you haven't seen the transcript already) of the link? :

'BORGER: Well, my reading of the report is that it says that, yes, contacts were made between al-Qaida and Iraq, but they could find no evidence that any relationship, in fact, had been forged between al-Qaida and Iraq.

'Vice Pres. CHENEY: And you're talking generally now, not just 9/11.

BORGER: Not just 9/11. And let's talk generally and then we'll get to 9/11.

Vice Pres. CHENEY: Talk generally.

BORGER: Generally.

Vice Pres. CHENEY: That's not true. '

I have a strong feeling that the BBC, along with many other bien pensants, have been 'done' here. Commission reports, has linguistic constipation trying to diminish the 9/11 link; Cheney and Bush offer the laxative of real information for the public to reinforce what it already believes: that Saddam's links with Al Qaeda were potential, and maybe actual (forgive pun) dynamite.

In Isolation.

My favourite point from Mcarthy's article:

'I would point out, moreover, that al Qaeda is a full-time terrorist organization — it does not have the same pretensions as, say, Sinn Fein or Hamas, to be a part-time political party. Al Qaeda's time is fully devoted to conducting terrorist attacks and planning terrorist attacks. Thus, if a country cooperates with al Qaeda, it is cooperating in (or facilitating, abetting, promoting — you choose the euphemism) terrorism. What difference should it make that no one can find an actual bomb that was once in Saddam's closet and ended up at the Cole's hull? If al Qaeda and Iraq were cooperating, they had to be cooperating on terrorism, and as al Qaeda made no secret that it existed for the narrow purpose of inflicting terrorism on the United States, exactly what should we suppose Saddam was hoping to achieve by cooperating with bin Laden?'

Mel sums up:

'what is clear is that the mainstream media, both in the US and in Britain, is now simply incapable of applying proper journalistic criteria to the subject of the war in Iraq. Whether through venomous ideology or sheer incompetence and laziness, it is not prepared or able to do the spade-work and actually read what is in the public domain, let alone try to excavate more material.'

There's something deeply wrong with the analysis of the 9/11 commission, and equally the reporting of its findings. It seems that evidences of contacts- real meetings on actual dates; real associations representing a pattern- have been made to defer to a cultural understanding that Saddam and Al Qaeda could not have cooperated because fundamentalist Islam and secular Baathism couldn't endure each other's company.

I look at it this way:

Islam is a political religion. Baathism is a religous kind of politics (if you doubt that consider how Baathists would commit acts of torture while chanting the name of Saddam). Both Pan-Arab nationalism (of which Baathism was a product) and Wahabi Islam (from which Al Qaeda is a paramilitary offshoot) are about the restoration of Islamic/Arabic pride (one emphasising an Arab 'empire', the other a caliphate). Far from being alien, they are, at best, 'cousins'- and we all know what cousins are like in Arab countries. Saddam's government was a government of cousins for cousins, by cousins.

I read Melanie's response to the 9/11 commission findings, and then I read her link, to Andrew Mcarthy at NRO. Mcarthy surely makes the kind of points all sane, concerned, informed people ought to make. His comment on the Mohammed Atta controversy for instance:

'I am perfectly prepared to accept the staff's conclusion about Atta not being in Prague — if the commission provides a convincing, thoughtful explanation, which is going to have to get a whole lot better than a cell-phone record.

Perhaps the 9/11 Commission wasn't intended to do that. Perhaps it was a political sop to Bush's opponents, giving them a chance to put things in a manner acceptable to Democrats, to give the Dems an entree into the War on Terror.

But Will They Backtrack? I don't think so.

Yep, Sharon has copped it from the media in Israel, and the BBC has found it a very convenient bandwagon- worth giving the wheels an extra spin. I can think of occasions on the BBC where Sharon has been depicted as a a 'godfather'-type (Orla Guerin referred to him as both 'godfather' and 'strongman' in one broadcast). That's not to mention a sudden interest in Israeli organised crime .

This has been unsettling at a time when it's important that Sharon retains the trust of westerners and indeed his own people.

When the BBC firmed up their earlier reports that charges against Sharon would be dropped for lack of evidence, I was not surprised (partly because I read the earlier, downbeat BBC reports, partly because it always seemed rather too convenient- too grubby a scenario to catch a powerful man like Sharon)

So after all the shenanigans (and here I mean the press', not Sharon's),

'Everybody expected Attorney General Meni Mazuz to announce that he didn't have enough evidence to prove Ariel Sharon guilty of bribery. Instead, Mazuz revealed that he has tons of evidence showing that there never was any bribery in the first place.'

The above quote is excerpted from an extraordinary 'mea culpa' from a Jerusalem Post journalist- 'The writer is a veteran journalist'- as he says:

'Here I want to apologize for having written that Sharon was a crook and that he should be indicted.'

And the lesson to be learnt by the media is:

'Clearly, we have to start being skeptical of justice officials and stop treating them like the children of light who are going up against the children of darkness – i.e., the politicians and their rich friends.

We should also restrain our tendency to tell news stories like morality plays – they can make for great reading, but real life is rarely that neat. Real life, we've been reminded, can surprise the hell out of you.'

Well, I am not sure the BBC are surprised, because they merely shifted gear in their anti-Sharon coverage:

'Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is in the clear over one bribery case, but another still hangs over him'. (yes, always a 'but' in BBC coverage of Israel, and 'another' is really not all that exciting, but it makes the gear shift smoother, doesn't it?)

And when the BBC says that 'Sharon Case Splits Israeli Press' the reality is that the split is over whether to congratulate Sharon or condemn the prosecutors who brought the case forward for raising it in the first place.

Absolutely no surprise that the 9/11 Commission's dismissal of links between Saddam and Al Qaeda was no.1 story across the BBC networks tonight. When I say dismissal I mean it- this fellow sums it up neatly, running through the options the commission faced when evaluating evidence they have acknowledged that Bin Laden did begin overtures with various countries including Iraq in 1994 (via Instapundit)

It really demonstrates the uniqueness of US politics where opposition to declared Government positions is accorded such a vantage point and platform.

Personally, as a sports fan familiar with cricket's controversial LBW laws and the infamous soccer 'offside' rule, I'd just like to query what how they define the word 'credible' in opposition to the term 'benefit of the doubt'. In cricket, the batsman (I will call him Saddam Bin Laden) is not to be given out if the ball pitched outside leg stump, if bat may have touched ball before impacting the pads, if the bounce may be too great etc etc(you get the picture). In soccer, a forward (I will call him Osama Hussein) is not offside until there is 'clear daylight' between himself and the last defender. I think these laws are there primarily to make the game more exciting as a contest. Is that what the 9/11 commission had in mind?

[Update: Instapundit advocates a closer look at the report. Apparently it does give some support to the notion of Saddam/Al Qaeda cooperation- just not over 9/11. To me though if you accept the one you'd be foolhardy to rule out the other, and if you emphasise that 9/11 was completely free of Saddam's involvement to the best of our knowledge you're seriously downgrading any allegation of collaboration. As in sport, it's no use having a slow-motion replay after the referee has made a decision- the opposition (ie. people like the BBC) have already taken advantage.]

Sharon's right BBC- live with it.

When venerable BBC journalist Jeremy Bowen talks of a 'facade of peace' in Israel I am curious, even suspicious (after all, the BBC has form on Israel). The reality of Israel over the last three years has been one of uncontrollable bloodshed. Peace there means the end of that, and that is what Sharon's policies have been designed for and what they have brought.

That's not good enough for Bowen though:

'Many Israelis believe that the policies of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon are starting to pay off. A few big bombs could change everything.'

Well, yes, except that all that would change would be perceptions. The reality would still be that Sharon had created an oasis of calm for Israel-proper to enjoy; that Sharon's policies when less than half complete stemmed the flow of civilian blood. Recent deaths on Israel's part have been military not civilian. They have taken place in Gaza, where Israel plans its withdrawal to take place. Palestinian deaths have resulted from action taken to interdict the terrorist capability in the areas where, for example, roadside bombs have been used to kill passing Israeli troops. So death has lost its sting in Israel itself, and that to me is a real kind of peace. Not the only kind, but the most essential and most basic to all others.

In Bowen's view the two sides are separated not by terrorist acts, but political inequality- which shifts responsibility away from terrorists and onto the Israelis, whose political power is buttressed by military strength. In that his is just a more eloquent summary along lines previously expressed by people like Jenny Tonge, who famously said that if she were in the place of the Palestinians she'd be bombing too (kind of undermining the many Palestinians who take a more peaceful view on principle). All this goes to show that the BBC, far from being impartial, take a strong view and don't hesitate to reinforce it at every opportunity.

Bowen goes on to say that Palestinians in Gaza are miserable, so the peace can't last. I say no: Palestinian misery (as well as that of irrational extremists in Likud) is a necessary phase to be passed on the way to a lasting peace. The illusory comfort blanket of an end to Israel's territorial integrity as a staging post to a Jewless Middle East is an unhygenic psychological prop the Pallies will have to cast away as they rocket giddily upward into the 21st century and the first world.