I have been attending a conference in Boston discussing the upsurge of Jew-hatred in Europe. I have only just caught up with the extraordinary piece published on BBC Online last Saturday by Barbara Plett, the BBC's correspondent in Israel, on Arafat's illness. The whole thing is an emotional spasm in fawning support of Arafat, whose airlift from Ramallah actually caused this supposedly objective BBC correspondent to start to cry. For an understanding of the moral universe inhabited by this exemplar of BBC neutrality, try the following passage:

'Despite his obvious failings - his use of corruption, his ambivalence towards violence, his autocratic way of ruling - no one could accuse him of cowardice.During those black days in Ramallah, he was a symbol of Palestinian unity, steadfastness, and resistance. Since then he has languished in the twilight of world indifference to his plight.'

His 'ambivalence towards violence', eh? You'd never think that Arafat was the godfather of Palestinian terrorism. You'd never think that his Palestinian Authority has been orchestrating the mass murder of Jews without remission. As a new book by Time's Matt Rees, Cain's Field: Faith, Fratricide, and Fear in the Middle East, is reported to say, Arafat pumped millions of dollars into the Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades which has carried out so many murderous attacks.

Clearly, we cannot expect the BBC's Ms Plett to report such things; nor to start to cry over the Jewish victims murdered by Arafat's thugs. No, this representative of the BBC's high standards of journalism tells us instead how she identifies with Arafat and feels his pain:

'I remember well when the Israelis re-conquered the West Bank more than two years ago, how they drove their tanks and bulldozers into Mr Arafat's headquarters, trapping him in a few rooms, and throwing a military curtain around Ramallah. I remember how Palestinians admired his refusal to flee under fire. They told me: "Our leader is sharing our pain, we are all under the same siege." And so was I.Maybe that gives me some connection to the man whose presidential compound became a prison. I know what it is like to stare at the same four walls and find them staring back; to watch tanks swing their turrets outside my window; to scan rooftops for snipers during brief hours of freedom between curfews. I could understand why Palestinians responded to Mr Arafat then the way they did.'

This is truly disgusting stuff -- morally despicable and professionally disreputable. Any news organisation committed to objectivity, truth and decency would sack such a journalist on the spot. But then, any such news organisation would never have published such filth in the first place. The BBC did. That tells you all you need to know about the BBC.