In these dog days for the war on terror, Israel and the concept of truth, it is more than heartening to find a newspaper article which is fair and honest about the Middle East and America. In the Financial Times yesterday, Gerard Baker wrote that support for Israel evinced by the US Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry was not an opportunistic genuflection to Jewish voters, but a sincere reflection of his views and those of many Democrats. This is what Baker wrote (the online FT requires a subscription, alas):

'The most common argument put to US policymakers these days is that their pro-Israel policy is directly undermining the war on terrorism, stoking the flames of Arab fury at US compliance in what they see as Israeli aggression. But Democrats who worked with Bill Clinton know that no president in the last 40 years was as focused on securing a Middle East peace settlement as the last one. No president was as successful as Mr Clinton in cajoling and persuading the Israeli government to agree to vacate more of the West Bank than might have been deemed politically prudent. No president was as sympathetic to the Palestinian cause or more willing to place trust in Yasser Arafat, its untrustworthy leader. Yet it was of course precisely during this heyday of active US commitment to a fair and balanced settlement that Islamist extremists emerged from their holes to initiate a series of devastating terrorist attacks against the US that culminated on September 11 2001. If the Clinton presidency's efforts were not enough to prevent al Qaeda from flourishing, why should anyone take seriously the argument that it is current US policy on Israel that is likely to result in more attacks?... Experienced Democrats with a grasp of the Middle East also understand that the real problem remains not the pro-Israel tilt of the Bush administration or Mr Sharon's supposed desire to persecute his enemies, but the continuing absence of a serious leader on the Palestinian side, able and willing to fight the extremists and begin negotiations in good faith with Israel'.

Exactly. So much is patently obvious to anyone with a fair mind and who spends five minutes looking at the facts. (Although I'm not convinced that all Democrats are quite as clued-up and sensible as Baker suggests). So why do so many journalists and commentators draw instead a perverse conclusion that is not fair or factual? Why did the British public conclude on 9/11 that Israel was the root cause of that atrocity? Why has this society departed so egregiously from truth and rationality, and swallowed the demented propaganda of hatred instead?