The latest egregious addition to the ranks of those who are spreading the poisonous libel of the 'world Jewish conspiracy' is Anthony Sampson, the veteran and well-regarded author of the 'Anatomy of Britain'. Writing in the Independent on May 1 (sorry, no free on-line service provided) he wondered how the British had allowed themselves to become 'so dependent on the policies of the Pentagon'. To answer his question, he referred to the new book on the Iraq war by Bob Woodward, 'Plan of Attack', which chronicles the tensions in the Bush administration in the run-up to war. Then, out of the blue, came this:

'It was the victory of the Pentagon over the State Department which determined American policy in the Middle East, reinforced by the powerful influence of the neo-conservative cabal and the Israeli government'.

Note that word 'cabal' -- the Jewish conspiracy from the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' brought up to date once again. Moreover, so important did Sampson clearly think this sinister Jewish influence was over the war, he actually returned to the theme to finger the hapless Paul Bremer as yet another tool of the Jews, even though -- as he conceded -- Bremer was actually a State Department appointee:

'But Bremer soon showed himself closely aligned to the generals, as well as to the neo-cons in Washington and their allies in Jerusalem'.

'Their allies in Jerusalem'? In Sampson's view, the war in Iraq was a Jewish plot stretching across the world. Wherever does it come from, this demented fantasy that Israel was pulling the White House strings over Iraq? Certainly not from Woodward's book, in which Israel barely figures at all and the neo-con influence is relegated to a relatively minor factor. In his account, the main drivers behind the Iraq war were Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and George W Bush himself. Not a neo-con between them.

'Regime change' in Iraq, as Woodward reminds us, was actually US policy since Bill Clinton first promulgated it in 1998. And as for Britain becoming 'prisoners of policies made in the Pentagon', Woodward also reports that Tony Blair was urging President Bush to do something about Iraq before 9/11, because he was so worried by the confluence of rogue states, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. As he has often said.

None of this was reflected in Sampson's article, which went on to laud (of course) Britain's 52 revolting 'camels' (see below) and to praise the UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi's 'real independence of view' for describing Israel as 'the great poison in the region'.

This article demonstrates once again that those who imagine anti-Jewish feeling is a preserve of the far-right are utterly misguided. These disgusting attitudes now course openly through the British liberal intelligentsia and establishment, from where they influence countless thousands of people because of the respect with which such influential voices are heard. Well, it's time to strip away such pretence. This is raw, ignorant, bigoted Jew-hatred, no less shocking because it uses an educated voice rather than a knuckle-duster. The world Jewish conspiracy is a disgusting smear rooted in medieval prejudice. When applied to the war in Iraq, as to everything else, it is a lie. But in Britain, alas, it is a lie which has burrowed appallingly deeply into the consciousness of the nation, with potentially alarming consequences both for the war on terror and for the Jewish people.