George Friedman, whose subscription-financed global intelligence service 'Stratfor' regularly produces some shrewd and well-informed assessments, has written a book about the invasion of Iraq which, according to this article in the Australian, presents it in strategic realpolitik terms. Although the US believed Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction, the underlying aim of the invasion was a strategic manoeuvre to defeat the financiers of Islamist terror.

The purpose of 9/11 was to stir the Islamic street to insurrection against the west and rebellion against non-Islamic regimes. After the devastating blow struck by the US against the jihadists in Afghanistan, America fingered Saudi Arabia as the core of the problem. But because of the difficulties in waging war against an ally, it decided to attack the crucially positioned Iraq to complete the US military encirclement of Saudi Arabia. The article concludes:

'Friedman believes the US-jihadist war hangs in the balance. However, the measured actions of the US during the past three years, including its strong military presence in the Middle East, have caused significant moderation of the position on global jihad of Saudi Arabia and other Muslim regimes. The strategy of the jihadists has stalled: "Not a single regime has fallen to al-Qa'ida ... There is no rising in the Islamic street. [There has been] complete failure of al-Qa'ida to generate the political response they were seeking ... At this point the US is winning ... The war goes on." '

Undoubtedly, Iraq was singled out for the second strike against the axis of terror for many reasons -- which certainly does not make any of them invalid. However, the defence against terror hangs in the balance not merely because of the unfinished business in Iraq, but because (see posts below) the hoped for domino-effect has not yet occurred to sweep away the mullocracy in Iran or to bring free societies to other axis rogue states. From this account, Friedman's thesis seems to be a timely corrective to the lunatic conspiracy theories that are now in vogue about American motives, as well as a sober assessment of the nature, scale and implications of the vital task in hand.

So, even though Iran has demonstrated continuous bad faith and broken undertakings to halt its nuclear programme, the pusillanimous Europeans and IAEA have papered over the chasm and the IAEA has 'welcomed' Iran's worthless promises. As the New York Times reports:

'In a nine-page statement to the closed-door session of the board after the resolution passed, Jackie Wolcott Sanders, the head of the American delegation, accused Iran of deceit and the board of the I.A.E.A, the United Nations' nuclear monitoring organization, of irresponsibility. She also charged that Iran's assertion that it wants to produce only nuclear energy, not bombs, is untrue, and that Iran has a clandestine nuclear weapons program that "poses a growing threat to international peace and security."'

And how the Iranians are gloating over humiliating the Great Satan -- and getting away with it. As BBC Online reports, Hassan Rohani, the cleric who heads Iran's security body, not only boasted that Iran had won 'a great victory' over the US but also made clear that the agreement was worthless:

'According to Mr Rohani, Iran's offer to suspend uranium enrichment would only apply for the duration of talks with the EU."We are talking months, not years," the cleric and head of Iran's top security body said.'

An article in the Weekly Standard further amplifies Iran's uncompromising position. Itquotes Richard Russell, a professor of near-East and south-Asian security studies at Georgetown university, who says that having seen how Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea have developed clandestine nuclear programmes with little protest from world powers, the mullahs will not stop until they have developed the bomb. The article then spells out the nature of the threat this will pose to the west:

'Iran will continue its nuclear weapons program until it obtains the bomb once and for all--it is seen as a matter of military necessity and the key to Tehran's influence in the region--while hiding behind ambiguity and concealment. A nuclear Iran, however, cannot be tolerated. Iran is well known for its sponsorship of terrorist organizations and has conducted a foreign policy of violence by proxy. The risk that Iran will transfer its nuclear technology to groups such as Hezbollah, whom Iran supports with an estimated yearly stipend of more than $100 million, is great. Additionally, a nuclear-armed Iran would be emboldened to strong-arm America's regional allies into pulling away from the United States or run the risk of an atomic attack by terrorist proxies.'

With one bound, it seems, Iran has escaped referral to the UN Security Council. But according to the NYT, America can unilaterally refer Iran to the UN. So will it now do so? What's to lose? Yes, Appeasenik Global will blow a fuse. But better that than the Iranians light their own.

Michael Ledeen pungently assesses the disgusting abdication of moral responsibility being displayed by Europe over Iran's race to acquire nuclear weapons:

'They accept it for many reasons, of which two seem paramount: They have huge financial interests tied up with the Iranian regime (billions of dollars worth of oil and gas contracts, plus other trade agreements, some already signed, others in the works); and Iran is the last place in the Middle East where they can play an active diplomatic role. This is particularly acute for France, which knows it will long be a pariah to free Iraqi governments, and views Iran as its last chance to thwart America's dominant role in the region. Sad to say, there is no evidence that the Europeans give a tinker's damn either about the destiny of the Iranian people, or about Iran's leading role in international terrorism, or about the Islamic Republic's joining the nuclear club. They are quite prepared to live with all that.

I think they expect Iran to "go nuclear" in the near future, at which point they will tell President Bush that there is no option but to accept the brutal facts — the world's leading sponsor of terrorism in possession of atomic bombs and the missiles needed to deliver them on regional and European targets — and "come to terms" with the mullahcracy. In other words, as the editorialists at the Wall Street Journal have wryly commented, the real goal of the negotiations is to restrain the United States, which, left to its own devices, might actually do something serious. If President Bush found a way to prevent Iran from acquiring atomic bombs, it might well wreck the Europeans' grand appeasement strategy.'

Yes, that seems about the strength of it. But what way might Bush actually find? Ledeen reiterates the need to help defeat the mullocracy in Tehran. But that might well take too long -- if it ever happens anyway. So if Bush isn't going to wait for Iran to present him with the bomb tied up in blue ribbon, what's he going to do? Does he actually have a strategy? Or is he, like Europe, just waiting for something to turn up?

I was as tickled (in a teeth-grinding kind of way) as I was rendered aghast by that ineffable humbug Roy Hattersley in the Guardian today. Aghast because he was defending -- nay, extolling -- Children's Minister Margaret Hodge's Soviet-style programme to tell parents how to bring up their children. Hodge opined last week that family life should not be a private affair bcause the consequences to society of its failing were severe. Consequently, the state had every right to tell parents how to bring up their children and she was intending to do just that in a myriad ways shortly to be unveiled before our mesmerised gaze.

This is simply astounding. This is the government that has justified its removal of the privileges and supports for marriage because family life is a 'private' matter in which the state must not interfere. Accordingly, it has promoted instead the myth that all family lifestyles are of equal value -- even though it is demonstrably and conclusively proven that mariage is the best protection for family members -- particularly children -- from abuse, poverty, and physical and emotional ill-health, and that the problems of parenting are infinitely exacerbated by having to bring children up alone and unsupported by their other parent. Having thus created countless inadequate parents and even more countless distressed and traumatised children, Hodge's government now says parents can't cope and so the government will have to step in. In other words, having helped destroy properly functioning family life, the state will now take it over instead on the grounds that it needs 'help'.

This is nothing other than an attempt to nationalise the family. On BBC Radio Four's The World at One last week, I said precisely this after Hodge was interviewed. This is where Hattersley comes into the story. The vain hope that no individual with even the sketchiest knowledge of the evils of Communist control over family life, and the fundamental value of the family as the supreme protection for the individual against totalitarian state control, could possibly endorse Hodge's preposterous argument was dashed upon reading his column. Yup, Hattersley -- long-term advocate, in effect, of state control of children's minds and their government-engineered place in society through ruthless state educational control -- thought it was a truly fabulous idea:

'At last a member of the government has described the "state" - which is no more than the collective will of the people - as "a force for good". It was a mistake to use the verb "intrude" to describe the help that the community can give to families, but that was a minor flaw in an otherwise impeccable performance...However, intervention is not - as I understand it - the noun that best describes the principle on which the government will base its family policy. If what Ms Hodge said on the radio (and later to a meeting of the Institute for Public Policy Research) is to be believed, all she wants to do is offer advice and support. Who doubts that a proportion of parents need both and that at least as many will welcome all the help they can get? Not to provide it would be an abdication of a progressive government's duty.'

It appears that Hodge had subsequently protested that all she wanted to do was offer advice and support. But parents already get advice and support from armies of welfare workers. What the government is moving into is quite different -- pushing mothers out to work while schools look after the children instead from breakfast to dinner time; ordering or inducing parents to conform to state ideas of child care through parenting orders or SureStart programmes; and now, we are told, producing booklets telling parents how to do everything, from what kind of food not to give their children to what kind of TV programmes they should watch.

But here's the funny bit. Hattersley began his paean of praise for Hodge thus:

'Last Friday, I switched on The World at One when it was half over. So I do not know the name of the egregious ass who announced that the government plans "to nationalise the family". But I did catch the name of the politician who rebutted that manifest absurdity with admirable common sense and absolute conviction. It was Margaret Hodge...'

So guess who the egregious ass -- later described as the

'nameless female Savonarola at the top of the programme'

was? You got it. Except that I wsn't at the top of the programme. I was in the middle, after Hodge and before Theresa May, whom he also heard. So why didn't Hattersley name me? Was it a) because he was so enthralled by Hodge's vision of the socialist utopia that he temporarily blacked out in a swoon; or b) because I am so great an enemy of the said socialist utopia and the nationalisation of family, children and every last redoubt of a free society that I have now become She Who Cannot Be Named, and airbrushed out of the public prints altogether like in Stalin's photo albums?

The obvious is becoming more obvious by the day, as this story from the Sunday Times makes clear:

'Iran is working on a secret nuclear programme for military purposes despite its promise to halt all uranium enrichment activities, a German news magazine claimed yesterday. Citing documents from an unnamed intelligence agency, Der Spiegel said Iran had set up a laboratory in a secret tunnel near a nuclear facility in Isfahan. This would be able to produce large amounts of uranium hexafluoride gas which could, in turn, be used to enrich uranium — a vital component for a nuclear bomb. Orders to build the tunnel were given last month by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, the magazine said. The claims emerged as Britain, France and Germany warned Iran last night it could face sanctions if it does not agree to freeze key parts of its nuclear programme by tomorrow. The three have hitherto failed to back calls by America to refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council. Their patience appears to be running out, however, after Tehran last week tried to backtrack over a deal agreed in principle earlier this month.'

Amazing. Who would have believed it.

So when is this charade going to be stopped? And who will stop it?

I've been sent the transcript of remarks made on BBC Radio Four's Today programme last Thursday, when Barbara Plett -- who famously burst into tears of sympathy when Arafat left the Muquata to go and die in Paris -- took part in a two-way on Jack Straw's visit to the Middle East. Here's how this objective dialogue on the airwaves of Britain's objective public service broadcaster went:

'CAROLYN QUINN

... But let's just cross to Jerusalem now and our Correspondent there, Barbara Plett:

Barbara, Jack Straw we know is going to hold talks with senior Palestinian leaders today – the next leg of his Middle East visit. Do you know who he'll be talking to and what about?

BARBARA PLETT

He'll be speaking with the main Palestinian leadership – the Palestinian Prime Minister, Ahmed Qurei, the new chief of the PLO Mahmoud Abbas and the Foreign Minister Nabil Sha'ath and the interim president Rauhi Fattouh - and he's going to be telling them that they'll get as much support as possible from the British for holding presidential elections. He's also going to be telling them they have to do as much as possible to stop violence against Israel and then the peace process can go forward.

CAROLYN QUINN

The fact that he is touring the region, does that provide any hope that there can be new life breathed into the process?

BARBARA PLETT

Well I think people here are taking this with a grain of salt – all of the visits from the international community. I think the Palestinians, if we're speaking to the Palestinians today, their view would be that they would like a greater role for Britain and for Europe but they don't just want talk - they want action – and from a Palestinian point of view, if you speak to officials, the demand from lowest level to the highest level is always the same in terms of what they want from international mediators; in order to strengthen the leadership / the new leadership after Yasser Arafat they want Israel to end its policy of assassinating Palestinian militants, they want Israel to stop the raids into Palestinian areas and they want Israel to release prisoners and they say if they can get movement on these things then they can get public opinion to swing behind them; then they can maybe actually do the things the international community is asking them to do but if they don't get that – if they only get words, if they only get the lifting of the closure for one day so the Palestinians can vote – it won't make any difference.'

Note how the whole thing is only presented from the Palestinian point of view. The Israelis aren't even in the picture. The message? Israel doesn't want peace.

Hello, BBC governors! Wake up from your coma!

What's the EU deal on Iran worth? Read this in the New York Times:

'The recent nuclear accord European officials signed with Iran appears to have halted Tehran's uranium enrichment program at least temporarily, but it leaves Iran free to make plutonium, which can also be used as fuel for nuclear weapons, diplomats and arms experts say. Iran is constructing a heavy water reactor that is designed to produce plutonium quite readily, and the agreement, announced last week, does not address that project. Weapons experts say plutonium is often preferred to enriched uranium for compact warheads on missiles because it takes a smaller amount to produce a significant blast.

'European diplomats said the issue of suspending Iran's plutonium program, while long discussed with Tehran, was set aside during recent negotiations as a concession to getting the more limited suspension deal. The uranium issue was seen as more pressing, they said, while plutonium production is years away and can be addressed in the future. But American experts expressed doubts about the European approach, suggesting it had addressed only half the atomic threat. Their main concern is a site at Arak, where Iranian construction crews are starting work on a 40-megawatt heavy water reactor that will make plutonium."This is an obvious omission," James R. Schlesinger, a former energy secretary and secretary of defense, said in an interview. "A heavy water reactor of 40 megawatts is likely to have one significant purpose - the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons." '

The Europeans say uranium was the more immediately threatening route to the Iranian bomb. But even the uranium deal isn't quite what it seems:

'Although European officials said they would try to address plutonium production in wide-ranging talks with the Iranians next month, there were signs yesterday that Iran's commitment to the uranium freeze was in doubt. Diplomats said that Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear monitoring group, that despite the agreement, it wanted to be allowed to operate about two dozen uranium centrifuges for research purposes.'

None so blind as those with their heads stuck down a centrifuge.

An alert and well-informed reader/BBC listener has sent me this dispatch from the front line of the BBC propaganda offensive:

'Heard this on BBC 5 pm Radio News programme this evening as one of the lead headlines: "Marwan Barghouti, who was jailed by Israel for leading the Intifada, has announced that he will stand for President of the Palestinian Authority". Marwan Barghouti was NOT jailed by Israel for "leading the Intifida" (whatever that means). He was jailed for the murder of five civilians, of involvement in four terror attacks, given 20 years for attempted murder and another 20 for membership of a terrorist organization.Barghouti was found guilty for his role in three shooting attacks that killed a Greek Orthodox monk near Ma'aleh Adumim in 2001; an Israeli near Givat Ze'ev in 2002; and three people at a Tel Aviv restaurant in 2002. (source http://www.factsofisrael.com/blog/archives/000764.html)

'The BBC headlines further neglected to say that the EU is "pressing Israel to agree to free Barghouti". The Kuwaiti daily Al Qabas reported several weeks ago that a deal was being formulated under which Barghouti would be released from prison in exchange for the release of Azzam Azzam, an Israeli citizen who was arrested and
imprisoned by Egypt in 1997 on charges of spying for Israel. According to the report, officials in the European Union have been backing the initiative. Typical of the astute analysis I've read re the current BBC/Euro /mainstream media tactic of inflation/deflation; anything Israel does is always inflated so that at best it looks wholly unjust and at worst is the equivalent of Nazi genocide; anything the Palestinian terror groups do is deflated to their being "militants" including Barghouti who is "leading the intifada".'

Lazy BBC journalism? Sloppy? Malicious? Bigoted? All four? Whatever, it's coming at us every day, on programme after programme, bulletin after bulletin. People are believing it. And we are actually paying money for the disservice.

British Jews are becoming understandably agitated about a vile conference to be held on December 5 at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Under the title 'Resisting Israeli Apartheid', a veritable galere of Jew-haters (including Jews) and Israelophobes -- starring Tom Paulin, the poet who compared Israeli soldiers to the Waffen SS and said the settlers should be shot -- is assembling for a day-long hate-in, which will do its bit to inflame the country's anti-Jewish and anti-Israel prejudice. But the Jewish community should resist hysteria, cool down, and think more strategically about how to respond to this event.

The agenda is, of course, utterly disgusting. By creating a whole conference around a lie, by having a succession of speakers articulating the lie and a succession of chairmen chairing the articulation of the lie, by using London University to lend the authority of its buildings, at least, to the promulgation of the lie -- and no doubt paying due attention to the need for a creche or access for the disabled to ease the attendance of those who wish to applaud the lie -- the organisers intend to create the fiction that the lie is actually true.

The lie is that Israel is an 'apartheid' state. No-one with a glancing knowledge of Israel and a brain not totally warped by the paranoid ravings of the Jew-hating left could possibly entertain this proposition for a minute. To say this of Israel is not only a collective libel on Israel but devalues the enormity of the crime of apartheid itself in South Africa. But of course, facts count for nothing with such a conference because the intention is simply to spew out lies and hatred and vilify Israel so that it becomes what it is already turning into, a pariah state in the eyes of Britain and Europe -- and so that the Jews are blamed for their own victimisation.

So it's no wonder Jews are upset. But hello -- it is not clever to bombard the head of SOAS with angry messages, some of which are no doubt abusive. It's extremely counter-productive. Similarly, it would not be clever to try to disrupt this meeting, or march around with banners outside. Anything which increases the opportunity for these creeps to wrap themselves in the mantle of victimhood is to be avoided at all costs.

What would be far better would be to organise a rival conference, preferably nearby, with a significant audience, to promulgate the truth about Israel's democracy, to record the ethnic cleansing of of Jews from Arab lands, to talk about the mortal threat to Israel -- and above all, to analyse the phenomenon of the Jew-hatred of the left, the lionisation of people like Paulin by the British intelligentsia, the widespread re-emergence without adverse comment of the Jewish conspiracy libel, and the pathology of those Jews who eagerly sign up to the agenda of the enemies of the Jewish people.

It is words that are doing as much damage to Israel and the Jews as terrorist bombs. And it is only words that will defeat them.

Our Foreign Secretary progresses from supine to sick. The BBC reports:

'UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has laid a wreath at the grave of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.'

A garland for terror and respect for mass murder. Who said New Labour had no continuity with British history?

I have received the following cri de coeur from someone who was a teacher in Britain until, horribly disillusioned with the disintegration of British education and culture, he went to observe life in Ghana. Here is an extract from his message to me:

'I have been teaching in an inner-London college for 16 years and have become increasingly frustrated with the increase in administration generated by new schemes – the latest was ‘value added’ - and with the drop in standards. I was finally forced to drop much of the content of my course, as it no longer matched Edexcel’s revised programs. Students who apply for the course have been well-qualified, having more GCSE’s than ever before and with higher grades. Strangely they seem less able to cope than in previous years and don’t seem to be able to write properly! There is not time on a course, where the hours of delivery are less than those naively suggested by Edexcel, to teach the basic skills one would normally have acquired before progressing onto a level 3 course, unless you sacrifice something else. Course content and standards are therefore cut to avoid failing most of the students, which would have implications for future funding and of course, my job. My friends who work in universities are also having to lower their entry criteria and intellectual content, to compensate for the new breed of students we are sending them. In addition, I have been teaching ‘pop’ music and having to decide whether to give a pass, merit or distinction to a young man rapping about how many women he intends to impregnate was getting all too much for me! 'Before I left my college, I wrote a critique of differentiation which was to be a major focus for the upcoming inspection. In its latest reincarnation it talks about matching teaching methods with students ‘learning styles’. The methods for diagnosing these styles is, in my opinion, suspect, but they are supposed to dictate the way you teach, regardless of the demands of the subject. Interestingly, the article didn’t create much controversy amongst my colleges who said they agreed with the ideas. They, of course, will still practise differentiation and, I doubt, will not critique it openly, as their role as ‘professionals’ means they must implement the ideology of their institution. And that of course is the problem. Many of us have a growing unease that our methods, assessment procedures and philosophies are flawed, but have to suppress these feelings in order to complete the requirements of our jobs. It seems to me that these buzzwords are little more than a way to justify the increasing impossibility of teaching with the system as it stands. I believe the problems teachers face are part of a wider social problem which will not be solved in the short term and not without a drastic critique of our society. 'Observing life in Ghana, where there is still some remains of traditional society, has also forced me revise many of my former views... As an atheist, I have always rejected the ‘opium of the people’ but can now witness first-hand its function as a way of uniting a culture behind a set of shared beliefs and values... I have visited some schools here (where they still use the cane but are phasing it out to be more ‘modern’) and was surprised to see the way a huge class of pupils can sit quietly and focussed for long periods of time. This is something young people in London are unable to do. Teachers here, although very poorly paid, have as much, if not more, respect given to them as parents command. I’m sure the students are not genetically different from ours in the UK so other factors are clearly at play.'

Indeed they are. I know that this teacher's experience is mirrored by many others. Education standards in some third world countries are now higher than they are in Britain. If this country does not reverse its education decline -- and it has to start by waking up from its dream-world and acknowledging what is happening -- it will not have a future.

As the Simon Wiesenthal Centre reports, France has revoked its ban on Hezbollah's viciously Jew-hating al Manar broadcasting organisation from transmitting its hate-filled frenzy into France. The Centre states:

'The spike in Moslem attacks on Jews in France last year paralleled Al-Manar's transmission of the horrific Syrian miniseries "Al-Shatat" ("The Diaspora"), based upon The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that depicts rabbis ritually slaughtering children to mix their blood into matzah for Passover! The Center's initial protest galvanized broad public support leading the Broadcasting Authority to ban these broadcasts, which were in clear violation of French laws against spreading antisemitism.'

So why has France suddenly revoked the ban? I am told this was being demanded as the quid pro quo for the release of the French hostages in Iraq (remember them?) who I am also told have been moved to Iran. This deal has been on the cards for weeks. Thus the French barter the lives of some of their citizens for many others; thus they display gross cynicism and absence of principle, decency or indeed a sense of self-preservation; thus they once again show that in the fight against terror, they are on absolutely the wrong side.

An article by David Frankfurter in The Sprout magazine (subscription required) offers an acute, if chilling, analaysis of the role Europe is really playing in the Israel/Palestinian impasse. Its ostensible position is to push for its own plan (excuse me, what about the Road Map?) which would confirm a two-state solution, supported by elections and overseas policing in the Palestinian territories. But Frankfurter suggests its real agenda has to be deduced from the game the Palestinians are now playing. The EU regards the Palestinian Authority as the instrument to lead the Palestinians into statehood. But the PA, he suggests, is simply the old PLO, still intending to terrorise or otherwise dispatch Israel into oblivion. And it's the otherwise that we should note, as much as the terror. Frankfurter observes:

'In a recent editorial in the New York Times, Michael Tarazi, who draws his salary from the PLO Negotiation Support Unit, explained that the Palestinians are discarding the public acceptance of the European vision of a two-state solution. He ingeniously calls on Europeans to work towards equal citizenship, a euphemism for a one-state solution and the annihilation of Israel. And here's the catch: Taraziâ's Unit is funded by Britain, Sweden and others. Seemingly, they are innocently financing a group working in contradiction to their own policy of a two-state solution. Innocently? Given these contradictions and financial fiascos, should Israel trust the EU? It is easy to see why not. European complacency to the public statements by UNRWA Commissioner General, Peter Hansen, that his organisation employs members of Hamas did not surprise the Israeli public. While Hamas is catgorised as a terror group by Europe, the EU and member states are UNRWA's leading donors. And then compare the public outrage by senior Europeans, like Swedish Prime Minister Persson and Dutch Foreign Minister Bot, at the senseless slaughter of women and children at Beslan with the relative equanimity of the daily targeting of innocents by Palestinian terrorists. And the EU is starting to wave the weapon of economic sanctions in the direction of Israel. Put bluntly, if Israel does not play ball, the EU will pull the plug on trade concessions. This matches recent assessments by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Leaks of a confidential report showed fears that Europe is willing to sacrifice Israel and turn it into a pariah state, if she does not capitulate to European demands.

'Rewarding the proponents of terror at the expense of a democracy is consistent with the EU's new commercial policy, having signed a new trade deal with Syria last month, on the very same day the UN endorsed a French led demand that Syria cease its occupation of Lebanon, where it is supporting Hizbollah terrorists. In the summer of 2000, Chairman Arafat realised that the heavy compromises of Prime Minister at Barak at Camp David demanded a full recognition of Israel. The Palestinian leadership could not accept this. It ran to Europe, specifically President Chirac, for a soothing cuddle. Europe obliged its charge. Two months later, war was declared on Israel and terrorists, arrested under the Oslo accords, were released from their cells in Ramallah and Gaza.'

In other words, Europe is trapping Israel in a pincer movement, between Palestinian terror on one side and the opporobrium of the EU, with escalating economic pressure, on the other. And just what is it that it is pressuring Israel to do? Why, nothing other than sign its own death warrant. One way or another, Europe wants Israel gone. it would prefer not to have its own fingerprints on the corpse, and so it is placing the gun in Israel's own hand while pointing another at its head.

Here is an extremely sensible, factually informed and logical piece about global warming. Thomas Sieger Derr, a professor of religion and ethics who has written a lot about environmental ethics, points out in this piece in First Things the screamingly obvious -- that the so-called scientific evidence for global warming simply doesn't stack up:

'In sum, what we learn from multiple sources is that the earth (and not just Europe) was warmer in the tenth century than it is now, that it cooled dramatically in the middle of our second millennium (this has been called the "little ice age"), and then began warming again. Temperatures were higher in medieval times (from about 800 to 1300) than they are now, and the twentieth century represented a recovery from the little ice age to something like normal. The false perception that the recent warming trend is out of the ordinary is heightened by its being measured from an extraordinarily cold starting point, without taking into account the earlier balmy medieval period, sometimes called the Medieval Climate Optimum. Data such as fossilized sea shells indicate that similar natural climate swings occurred in prehistoric times, well before the appearance of the human race.

'Even the period for which we have records can be misread. While the average global surface temperature increased by about 0.5 degrees Celsius during the twentieth century, the major part of that warming occurred in the early part of the century, before the rapid rise in human population and before the consequent rise in emissions of polluting substances into the atmosphere. There was actually a noticeable cooling period after World War II, and this climate trend produced a rather different sort of alarmism—some predicted the return of an ice age. In 1974 the National Science Board, observing a thirty-year-long decline in world temperature, predicted the end of temperate times and the dawning of the next glacial age. Meteorologists, Newsweek reported, were "almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century." But they were wrong, as we now know (another caution about supposedly "unanimous" scientific opinion), and after 1975 we began to experience our current warming trend. Notice that these fluctuations, over the centuries and within them, do not correlate with human numbers or activity. They are evidently caused by something else.'

This is saying no more than countless scientists have been trying to point out since the whole global warming scam started back in the late 1980s. Sieger Derr then asks the big question: why have so many people been taken in by it? As he concludes:

'Picking apart this argument to show the weakness of its pieces does not go to the heart of the fear and loathing that motivate it. The revulsion shows in the prescriptions advanced by the global warming alarmists: roll back emissions to earlier levels; reduce production and consumption of goods; lower birth rates. Our material ease and the freedoms it has spawned are dangerous illusions, bargains with the devil, and now comes the reckoning. A major apocalypse looms, either to destroy or, paradoxically, to save us—if we come to our senses in the nick of time.'

Fear and loathing are indeed the key. It is particularly notable that many of the people who insist that global terror against the west is a manufactured threat, thus denying the evidence of their own eyes, tend to be the same people who insist that global warming is a real threat, thus denying the evidence of their own eyes. Both are surely rooted in the same mindset-- fear and loathing of the west, and a desire to destroy it rather than defend it. Of course, this does not apply to all who take these positions. But there is surely a general premise that has become the orthodoxy that the west is bad and the rest is good. Thus irrationality, malice and cultural suicide have become the hallmarks of our age. Thnk goodness there are still some people who can think straight, and bear witness to reality.

A devastating demolition of that Lancet survey that claimed 100,000 Iraqis had been killed since the war started has been made by Andrew Bolt in the Australian Herald Sun. Many others have rubbished this figure, but Bolt marshals a magisterial case. The Lancet researchers, he says, arrived at the 100,000 figure by comparing death rates in Iraq before the invasion, which they put at 5 per 1000 per year, with the death rate after it. He goes on:

'But what evidence we have tells us these pre-war death rates were actually much higher. Dated United Nations figures suggest the overall death rate was well over seven in every 1000 – or close to, if not higher than, the present rate of 7.9 in every 1000 that the Lancet survey suggests. But even more persuasive are 2002 figures from UNICEF, which in a much bigger survey of 24,000 households found the infant mortality rate in Iraq before the war was actually a tragic 108 deaths per 1000 infants.This is more than three times higher than the Lancet survey claims was the case – and double what even the survey claims is the infant mortality rate today. How could the anti-war activists forget? Remember, before the war, anti-American propagandists such as John Pilger denouncing this "genocide" of Iraqi children and blaming it on the United Nations sanctions demanded by those evil Americans?'

Yes, it is indeed amazing how the power of prejudice simply airbrushes out of history every fact that contradicts it, even the last outrage from which such people made such noisy mileage. But journalistic ideologues are one thing. Where, though, does this leave the Lancet, whose claim to objectivity and authority in the medical world now lies in shreds?

A most disturbing story from Scotland has not received the attention it should have done south of the border. Last March, a 15 year-old schoolboy, Kriss Donald, was snatched from a Glasgow street by a gang of Asians, driven away and murdered, and his body was then set on fire. He was singled out in this way and murdered simply because he was white. At the High Court in Glasgow last week, Daanish Zahid was found guilty of his abduction and murder, which has been described as a racially motivated crime.

However, as the Scotsman reported, six months before the murder the Glasgow police abandoned an operation to tackle the problem of Asian street gangs in the city because it was not 'politically correct'. Furthermore, the Scottish Executive is now refusing to hold an inquiry into this decision. This has caused widespread protests:

'Bill Aitken, a local Tory MSP, urged the Executive to carry out an inquiry and said: "When it comes to justice and police, there must be an even-handedness. We must ask the question, if an Asian teenager had been murdered by a white gang in such a charged atmosphere, what would the Executive’s response have been?" Margaret Smith, the Liberal Democrats’ justice spokeswoman, said: "I shall be seeking reassurance from the minister as to why [Operation Gadher] was wound up and I would hope the police can reflect on whether this was the right decision or not." Norman Brennan, the founder and director of the Victims of Crime Trust, said: "As a police officer of 26 years service, I can safely say that the majority of officers are sick and tired of political correctness. It prevents us from doing our work properly, from the street right up to homicide. I think it’s about time police chiefs stood up and said 'enough is enough’.'

There is likely to be only one reason for such hypersensitivity: that Kriss Donald's killer was Muslim, and that the problem of 'Asian' street gangs may actually be a Muslim problem. This is not an irrelevant detail, because there is evidence that Muslim youths have a particular animus against western society. There is no evidence that any other Asians have such an animus. That is why there needs to be a proper inquiry, to determine whether this is indeed the case. But such is the climate of intimidation over addressing this issue that the word Muslim is nowhere to be heard, even from those who are protesting about the winding up of the police inquiry and the Executive's decision not to investigate.

This terrible event may have happened in Scotland, but the implications affect the whole country. It's time the mainstream press in the rest of Britain woke up and started to look at Kriss Donald's murder, and ask whether this may have been not a racial but a religious crime -- and what this means for community relations. Will anyone have the bottle to do so?

From the tireless Anne Bayefsky comes another jaw-dropping illustration of the UN's balanced, sane and unprejudiced attitude towards the Jews. She reports that the UN invited along to advise it on antisemitism a bunch of.. well, antisemites, including a couple of Israelis (the assumption that Jews cannot hate their own people with a murderous venom is, of course, historically as well as currently false).

The result was a UN document which will become the orthodoxy on combating antisemitism. It not only says anti-Zionism is different from antisemitism ( true in theory but very often not in practice) but this:

'The genuine Zionism of many Jews helps to explain the fact that many people wrongly feel that most Jews lend their unconditional support to Israeli policies. That is why we have seen attacks on synagogues, arson attacks on schools, desecration of cemeteries, for reasons that have nothing to do either with religion, or education, or the peaceful rest of the deceased, but that have a great deal to do with a political and a territorial conflict. . . .

In other words, if antisemitism is to be avoided Jews must denounce or abandon Israel in its struggle to prevent the mass murder of Jews and the annihilation of the Jewish state. As Bayefsky comments:

'Simply put, Jews are responsible for anti-Semitism. Or, if it weren't for Israel's annoying insistence on defending itself, on the same terms as would be applied to any other state faced with five decades of wars and terrorism aimed at its obliteration, Jews would be better off.'

The document also tells a further bare-faced lie:

'In the past, anti-Semitism as a phenomenon was absent from the Arab-Muslim world.'

This is simply untrue. Jews were repeatedly persecuted, attacked, murdered and ethnically cleansed under Muslim rule; at best they lived as 'dhimmi' or enslaved, second-class citizens. And then the document instructs Jews thus:

'. . . The leaders of Jewish communities should also act to distinguish defence of the State of Israel from the fight against anti-Semitism. . . .Contextualising the memory of the Holocaust with that of other genocides and serious events in contemporary history in order to make sure that at the end of the day everyone can feel the Holocaust as their own tragedy, both Jews and non-Jews.'

So Jewish leaders are to dump on Israel and relativise and thus diminish the Nazi Holocaust, a unique event in human history. As Bayefsky observes:

'In other words, according to the U.N. experts' draft report, discrimination against individual Jews is bad, while "anti-Zionism"--the denial to the Jewish people of an equal right to self-determination--is not. Since it is the perception of unconditional Jewish support for Israel that leads people to attack a Jewish cemetery, and anti-Semitism was absent from the Muslim world prior to the Arab-Israeli conflict (the mufti of Jerusalem and his friend Hitler notwithstanding), the way to defeat anti-Semitism is for Jews to cut loose defense of the state of Israel. And by the way, anti-Semitism will diminish if only we stop emphasizing the unique horror of the Holocaust.'

Indeed. This is monstrous stuff. It shows once again (remember the obscene Durban conference on antiracism which turned into a carnival of Nazi-style antisemitism) that the UN, far from upholding decency and justice in the world, is itself a principal motor of Jew-hatred. Now let's see how many snivelling defenders of this corrupt and vile 'international order' have the elementary decency to object to this example of institutionalised racism, which will legitimise further terror and bloodshed against the Jews in the official name of the world.

Another brave and acutely observed article by Anthony Browne in the Spectator about the turmoil in the Netherlands following the murder allegedly by Islamists of the radical film-maker Theo van Gogh. In the Times, Browne has been doggedly chronicling the dramatic fall-out from this murder, as the Dutch recall also the slaying two years ago of Pim Fortuyn, the flamboyant homosexual and 'far right'politician who warned of the danger to progressive Dutch society from aggressive Islamist cultural imperialism. Now Van Gogh's murder has been followed by the discovery of an alleged Islamist terror cell in the Netherlands, an Islamist spy in the Dutch secret service, attacks on mosques and churches, and death threats to various Dutch politicians who have spoken out against Islamist extremism. The result is a convulsion as the liberal Dutch grapple with the implosion of the multiculturalism they so unthinkingly embraced and about whose effects they were in denial -- until now.

But as Browne says, the Dutch may have had their eyes opened at last but that is certainly not true for others in Europe, where political correctness has its thumbs on the windpipe of public debate. (He might have added that it's not true in Britain, where he is almost the only journalist to be reporting on what is happening in the Netherlands, whose experiences have such resonance for the UK). Browne reports:

'In a sickening essay, Rohan Jayasekera, the associate director of Index on Censorship, a group which supposedly defends freedom of speech, blamed van Gogh for his own murder. He wrote that the film-maker was guilty of ‘an abuse of his right to free speech’, his ritual slaughter was ‘his very own martyrdom operation’ and we should ‘applaud Theo van Gogh’s death as the marvellous piece of theatre it was’. Unable to make the moral distinction between offending someone and murdering them, Index on Censorship has forsaken liberal democracy in the clash of values that faces us; but it is not alone. In Britain, the government wants to introduce laws supposedly to ban ‘incitement to religious hatred’ but which will inevitably be used by Islamic activists to silence criticism of their religion and culture.'

This is what the left has descended to, extolling murder as a 'marvellous piece of theatre' and blaming the victim for his own slaughter. Vile, wicked stuff. But it seems to me that the Dutch response is more ambiguous than Browne suggests. For they are also considering reviving the law against blasphemy to 'calm sectarian tensions'. This actually means attempting to appease terror, since Van Gogh's own film Submission, which attacked Islam's treatment of women and apparently provoked his murder, would probably have been banned under this law. Similarly, Browne points out that Belgium, by banning its largest party, the Vlaams Blok, for being racist, is responding to the unrest caused by multiculturalism by attacking democracy:

'By curbing free speech and political parties, and demonising those who fight for gay rights and against domestic violence, the Left is telling the world that multiculturalism is incompatible with liberal democracy. The Left’s loss of faith in liberal democracy is a result of its naive belief in human nature. The creators of multicultural societies believe they can abolish tribal feelings of belonging based on shared values, history and culture. Just as communism could only be upheld by totalitarianism, so multiculturalism is being upheld by curbs on free speech and democracy. The lesson of the Netherlands is that there is only so much you can do to change human nature, and the more you shut off the valves of debate and democracy, the more human nature — in all its ugliness — will assert itself, often violently.'

Will Britain wake up to this before it is too late?

Not content with presiding over the destruction of education content or slandering the Prince of Wales for expressing his despair over such trends (see posts below) our anti-Education Secretary Charles Clarke has further distinguished himself by telling schools that don't have their fair share of disruptive pupils that they will be forced to take in pupils who have been expelled from other schools for disruptive behaviour.

Dear oh dear. What moral, intellectual and political bankruptcy is here. What ignorance, stupidity and sheer vindictiveness. Not content with having ruined education by the philosophy of dumbing everyone down to the lowest common denominator in the service of 'equality', Clarke is now going to cap this by imposing an equality of disruptive misery and chaos. The reward for an orderly school is now to be made disorderly. Unbelievable.

In any event, the policy of forcing any school to accommodate disruptive children in the cause of 'social inclusion' is profoundly wrong. Wrong for the schools and and wrong for the disruptive pupils themselves. Such children, who increasingly present severe emotional problems, need specialist education and help of the sort that was once provided in specialist schools. These were shut down because they cost a lot of money and because they got up the noses of ideological councils, who believed in equality of misery -- forcing schools to educate disturbed or out-of-control children alongside everyone else. The result has been chaos in the schools which simply can't cope with such children; disrupted education for other children in the school; teachers driven to the edge and sometimes over it altogether; and very bad news for the disruptive pupils themselves, who are often hived off to substandard sin-bins within the school where they progressively sink into further disaffection, truancy and crime. Instead of reinstituting the specialist help these children need, Clarke is now going to spread the chaos into other schools -- with the result that their own pupils will suffer. And what a moral lesson, too, in which children behave badly and the rest of the community has to pay.

What an objectionable and astonishing travesty of ministerial responsibility.

Having just watched a disgraceful item on BBC TV Newsnight about the Prince Charles row, I am ever more astonished and aghast at the malevolence and bias of a culture in which remarks are wrenched out of context and gratuitously misrepresented. Prince Charles wrote a private note to a member of his household, in the context of a dispute with another member of staff about employment opportunities, in which he sounded off about an educational culture which encouraged everyone to think they could all achieve the dizzying heights of fame and fortune. This is most of what he wrote:

'What is wrong with people nowadays? Why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far above their capabilities? This is all to do with the learning culture in schools. It is a consequence of a child-centred education system which tells people they can become pop stars, high court judges or brilliant TV presenters or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having the natural ability.It is a result of social utopianism which believes humanity can be genetically engineered to contradict the lessons of history.'

This has been represented by various journalists, along with the Education Secretary Charles Clarke, no less, as the Prince telling people to know their place. Newsnight further put the boot in by sneering at his own privileged background and education. But this is a total misrepresentation of what he said. He was not decrying aspiration. How on earth could he, when so much of his public good works through the Prince's Trust is devoted to raising the aspirations of the disadvantaged?

He was making an entirely different point, one not grasped or investigated by Newsnight at all. This was that the current educational orthodoxy does not encourage aspiration or equality of opportunity so much as promulgate the disastrous fiction of equality of outcome. It tells pupils that everyone can get good A levels, that everyone can go to university, that everyone's qualification is of equal value to everyone else's. The notion of achievement has been all but destroyed in favour of an 'all must have prizes' philosophy that is all about the appearance of achievement rather than the reality. For the reality is that not all who aspire can make it. Not all can win prizes; some will fail to do so. Not everyone has the aptitude or ability to do everything. But to maintain the cruel and destructive lie that this is not so, our education system has dumbed down, reduced examination standards to meaninglessness and emptied education progressively of content (see the post below) on the basis that what children bring to the classroom is of greater value than any actual knowledge teachers might teach them. This so-called 'child-centred' approach thus confirms children in their own ignorance and traps them forever in disadvantage.

That is what Prince Charles was on about. It is nothing to do with genuine aspiration. It is instead its antithesis. It is a disaster that is simply destroying this country's future. But the malevolence of this culture means that this cannot ever be discussed properly. Instead we are treated to an ignorant, prejudiced, class-war, sub-Marxist jeering along with a quite staggering dishonesty in reporting.

I have been banging on about this accelerating education catastrophe for years. Indeed, I wrote a book about it called All Must Have Prizes. As a result, I gather from a reader that on Channel Four News this evening Tony Benn apparently described me - along with the former Chief Inspector of Schools, Chris Woodhead, who fought a lonely campaign against this madness and lost -- as 'very very right wing'. Only someone as closely associated as Benn with the destruction of the life chances of hundreds of thousands of children by the anti-meritocratic, anti- education, anti-west philosophy for which he has stood all his professional life could describe a deep concern to rescue from disaster British education -- and particularly those at the bottom of the heap who depend upon the schools to escape from disadvantage -- as 'very very right-wing'.

Such is the debased debate in this country now, an indication in itself of the collapse of education standards and a symptom of a society in advanced decay.

John Clare in the Telegraph records yet another extraordinary development in the de-education of Britain. The GCSE science curriculum, studied by all pupils from 14 to 16, will no longer have much science in it. Instead, according to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, pupils will be taught about science, as well as being fed straight propaganda. Thus:

'Instead of learning science, pupils will "learn about the way science and scientists work within society". They will "develop their ability to relate their understanding of science to their own and others' decisions about lifestyles", the QCA said. They will be taught to consider how and why decisions about science and technology are made, including those that raise ethical issues, and about the "social, economic and environmental effects of such decisions".

'They will learn to "question scientific information or ideas" and be taught that "uncertainties in scientific knowledge and ideas change over time", and "there are some questions that science cannot answer, and some that science cannot address". Science content of the curriculum will be kept "lite". Under "energy and electricity", pupils will be taught that "energy transfers can be measured and their efficiency calculated, which is important in considering the economic costs and environmental effects of energy use".'

Anyone who hasn't closely followed the collapse of British education over the past few years might well refuse to believe all this. Instead of being given the knowledge to enable them to understand science, to decipher how scientific processes work and even to become scientists themselves, pupils are to be taught instead about the effects of science on society -- and from an ideologically correct position. In other words, science education is simply being emptied of content.

The implications for individuals and for Britain are of course astounding. Nor is science alone in this. Maths, history, geography, all have been progressively emptied of content over the years and been replaced by spoon-fed propaganda. Foreign languages, whose teaching was emasculated by the ideological animus against formal grammar, have all but disappeared from many schools altogether after the government weakened their compulsory element.

The reason given for the change to the science curriculum is to make science 'relevant to the 21st century'. This is in accordance with the government's doctrine of 'personalised learning', which means that everything that is taught must be 'relevant' to the individual child. This philosophy, of course, destroys the very basis of education which is all about exposing a child to what he or she does not already know. 'Personalised' or 'relevant' education implicitly means that the child does not progress from the level at which he or she starts.

Once again, one has to ask the key question about this government. Are they mad or bad? Stupid or evil? Do they really have no understanding of what they are doing -- or are they following a programme to destroy the very basis of this society?

Another startling article from the Islam scholar Bat Ye'or, in which she repeats her claim -- to be expanded in a book to be published in the new year -- of a devastating alliance between Europe and Islam going back several decades, in which Islam sought to colonise Europe which duly rolled over and accommodated itself to Islamist imperialism. She writes:

'For years the European countries have joined the 56 countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to promote Palestinianism in the international bodies as a world warfare against Israel waged by its leader Arafat whom they supported. This war was officially stated at the 1980 Fez Islamic Conference and at the Amman Arab Summit, soon after the Venice Declaration. It was re-emphasized at the Mecca-Taif Islamic Summit (January 1981). Those august bodies showered thanks on the Vatican and the World Council of Churches for their invaluable support to Palestinianism. The red-green alliance was then strengthened in the Amman Arab Summit Declaration (November 1980). In this marriage the Muslim trend, confident in its divine mission and fed by unlimited funds, overwhelmed its faithless, leftist European partner. The latter, weakened by Communism’s collapse, is now rejuvenated as the antisemitic, anti-Christian, and anti-American conveyor of Islamization in Europe.'

The result is a Europe which is rapidly turning into a decadent civilisation which poses in turn a mortal threat to America:

'Today it is not uncommon to hear Europeans express their disgust for Europe and their wish to emigrate. Europe, they say, is dead and has no future. They flee this Islamic-Christian dhimmi civilization where the native non-Muslims are deprived of their basic human rights under the yet unofficial shari’a rule that recognizes conditional peaceful co-existence only to dhimmis respectful of Islam. Going Europe’s way means a U.S. compliance to bin Laden and the denial of Islamist global terrorism, whose creator and promoter was Arafat, Europe’s hero and the demonic agent of its downfall'.

The evidence of European decadence, its obsessive prejudice against Israel and its servile attitude to Islamist imperialism, are all plain enough to see. But Bat Ye'or takes this one stage further. She claims that Palestinianism was a European invention:

'Palestinianism as an ideology bringing together Europe and the Arab countries on the ashes of Israel was conceived and planned in Europe with unofficial Gaullist benediction, and Arafat was its embodiment.'

If this claim is true, then the whole history of the Middle East over the past four decades needs to be recast; and Europe stands revealed not as the wholly inadequate defender of western civilisation but instead a principal architect of its destruction.

Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona well describes the fundamental split between two diametrically opposite views of the world and how to deal with the greatest issue of our time that are now fighting for supremacy. The choice is between fighting terror and defeating it, or making an accommodation with it that guarantees it will eventually defeat you. On the one side is the Bush administration; on the other is the United Nations. Its Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, wrote to President Bush, Tony Blair and Iraqi interim Prime minister Ayad Allawi to voice his concern:

'at the "prospect of an escalation in violence," particularly the reports of major military offensives being planned for Falluja. "Ultimately," Annan argued, "the problem of insecurity can only be addressed through dialogue and an inclusive political process." It boggles the mind that a world leader could display such naivete in the face of efforts by thousands of insurgents and foreign fighters to terrorize and impose a Taliban-style rule in Fallujah, complete with summary executions. Reaction from those on the ground was swift and angry. "I don't know what pressure he has to bear on the insurgents," Allawi said in an interview with the BBC. "If he can stop [them] from inflicting damage and killing Iraqis, then he's welcome." '

Allawi subsequently sent Annan a strong letter telling him where to put his inclusive dialogue. The terrible thing is, as Kyl comments, Annan's approach -- along with all the anti-war, anti-US hysteria throughout the west -- merely gives heart to the terrorists and will result in yet more violence as they try ever harder to prevent Iraq's free society from ever being born. The free world is fighting with one hand tied behind its back.

Joe Klein, the impeccably liberal Democrat, has understood the point about the moral values factor in the US election. Because the anti-Bush luvvies hysterically smeared the moral values camp as 'rednecks' and godly half-wits, some Republican supporters dismissed this moral factor out of hand as a statistical misreading that was talked up by malevolent lefties. Klein, however, more coolly concludes there is indeed a vital lesson here for the Democrats. Pointing out that the Pew survey put the percentage of voters saying moral values were most important at 27%, some five points higher than the initial exit polling, he observes correctly that a) this was indeed a key factor and b) meant something far wider and more significant than a crude vote against gay marriage:

'Most "values" voters are the "average" folks John Edwards was talking about throughout the campaign: Mom and Dad both working, spending less time with their kids and falling behind economically...George W. Bush promised practically nothing except faith and strength. But religious faith is the implicit Republican solution to the personal traumas of the middle-class squeeze — the fact that overworked parents are scared to death that their unsupervised kids are taking life lessons from the sex, drugs and weirdness spewing from their televisions and computers. Liberals scoff, but the balm that comes with being part of a religious community—the Bible study, youth groups, choirs and, yes, the moral absolutes that often accompany such communion—is real and comforting, unlike the promise of complicated and expensive government programs.'

This is surely correct. Concern for children's welfare under the influence of a culture in which all the norms that keep most people safe are breaking down is uppermost in most parents' minds. That, as much as or even more than terrorism, is at the root of their feelings of insecurity. And to combat that insecurity they need to trust their country's leader; and to trust him, they value things like whether he goes in for straight talking and has his head screwed on about the important things in life. That's why the wealthy Nantucket windsurfer couldn't compete with the reformed and penitent Texan sinner who showed backbone by allowing religion to turn him from vice to virtue. When it comes to embodying security, there's no contest. That's why in modern politics, in our post-modern, cynical, licentious society, it's still values -- and religious values, at that -- which really matter.

Charles Krauthammer cuts to the chase about the prospects for peace in the Middle East now that Arafat is dead:

'He turned terrorism into a brilliantly successful political instrument, a vehicle to international recognition and respect. The man who murdered more innocent Jews than anyone since Hitler died an international hero. The president of France bowed to his casket. The secretary general ordered U.N. flags to fly at half-staff... Deploying every instrument of propaganda -- television, radio, newspapers and, most importantly, schools and summer camps for children -- his Palestinian Authority fed his people a diet of such virulent anti-Semitism and denial of the Jewish connection with the land that no successor will even be in position to contemplate breaking Arafat's rejectionist precedent.

'Arafat's most cherished achievement was to so poison the well that the revolution -- until total victory -- continues long after he is gone. As soon as he died, the most murderous terrorist wing of his Fatah movement, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, changed its name to the Yasser Arafat Martyrs Brigades. They understood their master. Which is why the prospects for peace upon his death are far more distant than the naifs (who got him wrong all through his life) now insist. Arafat's legacy -- the romanticization of violence, the rejection of Israel, the indoctrination of a new generation in intolerance and hatred -- will require a long time to undo. It will require years, perhaps even generations. It will require brave new Palestinian leaders who are the very antithesis of Yasser Arafat.'

Maybe such people do indeed exist. We shall soon find out.

As the crisis intensifies over Iran's race to develop nuclear weapons, the EU seems determined to repeat the credulous mistakes of the past. France Germany and Britain are studying a letter delivered by Tehran yesterday in which it pledged to suspend temporarily 'nearly all' uranium enrichment activities. They certainly need to study the fine print, because we've been here before. It's not just that Iran has strung the international community along on this matter for the past 18 years, but as the New York Times reports, Iran has promised something very similar before -- and it turned out to be bogus:

'The foreign ministers of the three countries brokered a deal, announced with much fanfare in Tehran 13 months ago. In it, Iran agreed to suspend its production of enriched uranium, which can be used in nuclear energy or nuclear weapons programs, and to submit to more intrusive inspections of its nuclear facilities. After Iran violated the agreement, officials from the three countries acknowledged that the deal had been made too hastily and that the language of the final accord was too vague and open to misinterpretation.'

It is of course no coincidence that Iran has made this promise ten days before the IAEA is due to decide whether to refer Iran to thew UN Security council for possible sanctions. Iran's good faith on this matter therefore seems highly unlikely. But as this piece on US News points out, even if it was referred to the Security Council sanctions would probaly be blocked by China and Russia, which is helping Iran huild its nuclear reactor. There is also a suggestion, made by Henry Sokolski, Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Centre, that the EU deal is worse than useless because it would actually accelerate the making of a nuclear bomb because of its guarantee of a supply of fresh light-water-reactor fuel:

'Fresh, lightly enriched light-water-reactor fuel is far closer to being bomb grade than is natural uranium. If Iran were to seize the fuel and divert it--as it probably could without IAEA inspectors' immediate knowledge--Iran could reduce five-fold the level of effort it would need to make bomb-grade material: With the centrifuges Iran admits having, it could make a bomb's worth of fuel in roughly nine weeks as opposed to a year. This suggests that the IAEA's current cycle of inspections at Bushehr--once every three months--is woefully inadequate. Second, so long as Iran and other aspiring bomb-makers have a right to pursue all the activities necessary to get them within days of a bomb, they will have the upper hand in negotiations. Certainly, with Iran's enrichment facilities in place and its right to operate them uncontested, Tehran could suspend enrichment operations--as it has just agreed to do--and yet be free to resume them any time it wants. The worry now is that Iran will simply buy time with the European Three, to push for permission to exercise its right to enrich while building up its covert capabilities to do so.'

Nevertheless, President Bush apears to have given the EU initiative his blessing. This is because any military option to destroy Iran's nuclear programme is said to be logistically, as well as politically, extremely difficult. The problem is, Iran knows it. The US strategy has been to use Iraq to help strengthen the Iranian dissidents and thus topple the mullahs. But Iraq is not yet pacified, and time is running out. So what can or should be done?

In the Jerusalem Post, Tom Gross provides a useful, if depressing, tour of the Arafat hagiographies in the western media to illustrate just how triumphant the decades-long Palestinian propaganda offensive has been -- and how total the rout of Israel's effort to convey the truth about the war being waged against it.

Meanwhile, the joint press conference by President Bush and Tony Blair last week was notable for the way both men emphasised something we had not heard before -- the need for the Palestinians to fashion a democratic process as a precondition of peace with Israel. This conveyed two absolutely vital messages: that the onus was on the Palestinians to show they had decisively broken with their tyrannical and murderous past; and that resolving the Israel/Palestinian impasse lay four-square within the overall strategy to destroy Islamist terrorism by encouraging the development of free societies which would no longer pursue ideological war and genocide. Easier said than done, as we all know: but a noble aim, and one which explicitly associates the struggle by Israel to survive with the defence of the free world. In other words, Israel is no more or less than a target of the same murderous forces that threaten the rest of us.

Tony Blair allied himself publicly and earnestly with this position. Yet it does not mesh with his earlier, ill-advised remarks when he said of Arafat:

'He led his people to an historic acceptance of the need for a two-state solution. Peace in the Middle East must be the international community's highest priority: the goal of a viable Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel is one that we must continue to work tirelessly to achieve.'

These assertions reveal a hopeless, and dismaying, failure to understand what the Middle East impasse is actually about. Arafat did not lead his people to accept Israel. On the contrary, despite weasel words to the west he headed an organisation which remained committed to ending the Jewish state. He repeatedly told his people they were within striking distance of doing so, presided over an administration which taught Palestinian children to hate Jews and to kill Israelis, and turned down the offer of a Palestinian state with half of Jerusalem as its capital because he wanted to change the Jewish state into a Palestinian one. So what is the Prime Minister talking about? And as for the international community's highest priority, surely it is to defeat Islamist terror which threatens all free societies, including Israel. It is only when that is achieved that peace will come to the Middle East, not the other way round.

So did Blair's endorsement of the Bush doctrine mean that the President had managed to convince him of the fundamental error in his thinking? Or was Blair merely going along with it while privately still sticking to his ignorant views -- or, more likely yet, without even realising there was any contradiction?

An analysis in Ha'aretz suggests that, notwithstanding President Bush's gesture of thanks to Tony Blair by having a cosy chat this week about kick-starting the Middle East 'peace process', Bush is not about to change course. Thank goodness for that, if true, since Blair (with the Europeans behind him) is singing the siren song of appeasement. As the Ha'aretz article observes:

'Sharon is under both domestic and international pressure to recognize the new reality created by Arafat's death, and change his approach accordingly - to coordinate the disengagement with the Palestinians and restart talks on the implementation of the road map. Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to freeze the disengagement and negotiate with Arafat's replacements. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has spoken in closed forums of "coordinated disengagement" and talks with the Palestinians. Opposition leader Shimon Peres is dying to resume negotiations. So far, Sharon is withstanding this pressure. He scorns Netanyahu and ignores Mofaz. And Likud kingmaker Silvan Shalom is backing him: "A war on terror, in accordance with the first stage of the road map, is the only way to return to negotiations."

'Sharon's firm stance is possible because of backing from Washington. President George Bush is in no rush to change directions in the Middle East. He is rejecting Europe's urgings that he rush forward with negotiations and evict Israel from the territories in exchange for improved trans-Atlantic relations. White House officials Elliott Abrams and Daniel Fried told European emissaries this weekend that "there are no shortcuts." America is unwilling to skip the first stage of the road map, which requires the Palestinians to halt terror, dismantle the terrorist organizations and enact governmental and security reforms. The Europeans and new Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas want to go straight to final-status negotiations on borders, refugees and Jerusalem. But Washington insists that the new leadership prove itself first.'

If this is so, then undoubtedly the terror-supporters' glee club will strike up once again their morally obtuse refrain that it is Sharon and Bush who are, through their war-crazed obduracy, preventing peace from breaking out. But the fact is that Bush's attributed position is the only moral position. There is not a balance of terror on both sides in the Israel/Arab impasse. It is the Arabs -- in recent years through their Palestinian proxies -- who are trying to annihilate Israel. For any peace settlement to be achieved, the onus is therefore on the Palestinians to stop instigating terrorist mass murder and inciting their populations to hatred and killing. If they were to do that, the Israeli incursions against the Palestinians would stop instantly, as everyone whose mind has not been twisted grasps only too well.

It is because the conflict is that way round that the now defunct Road Map laid down as its first requirement that the Palestinians dismantle their infrastructure of terror. The European position that the Israelis should immediately move to final status talks regardless of the fact that Palestinian murder and incitement continue, in defiance of the Road Map, is simply a grotsque capitulation to terror and makes the Europeans effectively party to the extermination of Israelis and, beyond them, the Jewish state. Before negotiations begin, the Palestinians have to demonstrate that they are now prepared, after a hundred years of refusing to accept the Jewish presence in Israel -- or before that, Palestine -- at all, to accept a Jewish state living in peace side by side with their own rather than as a 'Trojan horse' -- their term -- to achieve the ethnic cleansing of the Jews. In other words, they have to show that with Arafat's death they really have drawn a line under their bloody past.

So far, the signs are not auspicious. Mohammed Dahlan, the Gaza strong man who for some reason the Israelis think is a pragmatist in the making, has said that:

'...halting four years of violence with Israel will not be the first priority of the post-Arafat leadership. “If you want, there will be a cease-fire. If you don’t want, there won’t be. The key is in your hands,” he was quoted as saying, blaming Israel for the breakdown of previous cease-fires. “But a cease-fire is not the first stage. We are building a new house now from the foundations. That is the first task,” he said.'

And a permant cessation of Palestanian violence will not happen while Blair and the Europeans insist on piling the pressure not on Palestinians such as Dahlan but instead upon Israel to stop defending itself, leaving Bush alone to champion the victims of terror against their slaughterers, and uphold right against wrong.

Both Jeff Jacoby and Michael Ledeen make important points which reaffirm moral sanity in the face of the dismaying and widespread moral inversion following the death of Arafat. Jacoby, reeling from the eulogies to such a monster from western journalists, rightly brings us back to his appalling legacy of hatred:

'And what about those victims? Why were they scarcely remembered in this Arafat death watch? How is it possible to reflect on Arafat's most enduring legacy -- the rise of modern terrorism -- without recalling the legions of men, women, and children whose lives he and his followers destroyed? If Osama bin Laden were on his deathbed, would we neglect to mention all those he murdered on 9/11? It would take an encyclopedia to catalog all of the evil Arafat committed. But that is no excuse for not trying to recall at least some of it.

'Perhaps his signal contribution to the practice of political terror was the introduction of warfare against children. On one black date in May 1974, three PLO terrorists slipped from Lebanon into the northern Israeli town of Ma'alot. They murdered two parents and a child whom they found at home, then seized a local school, taking more than 100 boys and girls hostage and threatening to kill them unless a number of imprisoned terrorists were released. When Israeli troops attempted a rescue, the terrorists exploded hand grenades and opened fire on the students. By the time the horror ended, 25 people were dead; 21 of them were children. Thirty years later, no one speaks of Ma'alot anymore. The dead children have been forgotten. Everyone knows Arafat's name, but who ever recalls the names of his victims? So let us recall them: Ilana Turgeman. Rachel Aputa. Yocheved Mazoz. Sarah Ben-Shim'on. Yona Sabag. Yafa Cohen. Shoshana Cohen. Michal Sitrok. Malka Amrosy. Aviva Saada. Yocheved Diyi. Yaakov Levi. Yaakov Kabla. Rina Cohen. Ilana Ne'eman. Sarah Madar. Tamar Dahan. Sarah Soper. Lili Morad. David Madar. Yehudit Madar. The 21 dead children of Ma'alot -- 21 of the thousands of who died at Arafat's command.'

Ledeen, meanwhile, reflecting on the turmoil in the Netherlands following the murder of film-maker Theo van Gogh by the Islamic jihad, draws a wider conclusion about a culture where right and wrong have simply been reversed:

'That's what happens when a culture is relativized to the point of suicide. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once remarked of an American politician, "he can no longer distinguish between our friends and our enemies, and so he has ended by adopting our enemies' view of the world." This has now befallen Europe, which cannot distinguish between free societies — their natural friends — like the United States and Israel, and has ended by embracing enemies such as the radical Islamist regimes and elevating Yasser Arafat to near beatific stature.'

This is exactly what has happened in Britain and everywhere else that the left holds sway -- the adoption of our enemies' view of the world. It is, as has been said before, the way to social and cultural suicide.

Truly warped and disgusting comments by the leading Christian churchman in Wales, Archbishop Dr Barry Morgan, about the death of Arafat, whom he eulogises thus:

'Yasser Arafat has given his life to the cause of the Palestinian people and will be remembered for his perseverance and resolve in the face of so many challenges and set-backs. When I heard the news of his death this morning, my initial reaction was to pray that in death Yasser Arafat will find that peace which only God can give and which was denied him in life. I pray also that his death will not lead to bloodshed and conflict within the Palestinian community, or confrontation with the forces of the Israeli state. I call on the Israeli state to do all it can to avoid inflaming an already tense situation and condemn its deliberately provocative act today in sending armed police officers into St George's Anglican Cathedral in Jerusalem to arrest Mordechai Vanunu who has enjoyed sanctuary there since his release from prison in April of this year following 18 years of incarceration.'

So a mass murderer is all but canonised for his 'perseverance and resolve' in the face of 'set-backs' -- presumably the tiresome desire of those damned Jews to try to prevent him from exterminating them -- while Israel, the target of his terror, is the party that has to be restrained from 'inflaming the situation'. But then, of course, as far as church leaders like this are concerned, the Israelis wilfully 'inflame the situation' because they have no sense of self-preservation but merely seek to trample Palestinians underfoot.

American church leaders would do humanity a great service if they started to highlight the moral bankruptcy displayed over Israel by their fellow churchmen in the UK; and started also to teach them a few facts of life about the obscene lies, libels and incitement to murder with which the Palestinian and wider Arab and Muslim religious and civil leadership have been 'inflaming the situation' against the Jews for the past hundred years.

The degradation and corruption of British and western society, not to mention the United Nations, are now on sickening display for all with eyes to see from the disgusting response to the death of Arafat. This man, the godfather of modern terrorism, who caused the deaths of thousands of souls, who preached death and destruction towards the Jews, who terrorised and swindled the Palestinian Arabs he purported to lead and kept them trapped in penury, servitude and squalour, is being feted in death as a world statesman. The Jerusalem Post reports that the UN lowered its flag to half-mast, while UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was 'deeply moved' by the news, according to a UN statement, and he 'conveyed his condolences to Suha Arafat and the Palestinian people'.

'President Arafat will always be remembered for having led the Palestinians, back in 1988, to accept the principle of peaceful coexistence between Israel and a future Palestinian state," the UN statement said. "It is tragic that he did not live to see it fulfilled.'

'Peaceful coexistence'? From the man who spearheaded barbaric acts of mass murder against the Israelis until the end? 'Tragic' that he did not live to see a Palestinian state, when Arafat was the man who turned it down in 2000? What kind of madness is this?

French President Chirac was as usual genuflecting before terror:

'French President Jacques Chirac visited the Percy military hospital to bid a final farewell to Arafat, whose body was to be flown to Cairo later in the day."I came to bow before president Yasser Arafat and pay him a final homage," he said after the 25-minute visit, pledging France would continue to work for Middle East peace.'

While Nelson Mandela showed his true colours as an enemy of decency:

'Yasser Arafat was one of the outstanding freedom fighters of this generation, one who gave his entire life to the cause of the Palestinian people,' said former South African president Nelson Mandela in a statement.

And then let us not forget our own pygmy Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, who on the Today programme (8.10 am) yesterday shockingly and unbelievably called 'President' Arafat a 'towering figure', said it was difficult to imagine the Middle East without him and announced that he would be representing the Britsh government at his funeral. Since when did the British government feel the need to represent itself at the funeral of a mass murderer? How can Tony Blair pose as a noble defender of civilised values against terror when his government honours in this way one of the world's principal terrorists?

On National Review Online, Tom Gross expresses revulsion at the moral corruption of such responses:

'Yet until the very end, some prominent Western journalists never stopped heaping praise on him, or covering up for his countless crimes and misdeeds. It didn't matter how many Jews, Arabs, and others died on his orders, or how many times he let down his own people, or stole from them. For these journalists, as well as for many European governments, he remained a worthy Nobel peace-prize winner and the "sole legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people. To judge by some of the reporting as he lay on his deathbed in Paris — the hushed tone of the television newsreaders, the flattering touched-up portrait photos on the cover of the London Times — Arafat was a figure who deserved to be deeply revered, a kind of ailing pope. There was little mention of the fact that he played a central role in the growth of modern terrorism, and continued to instigate it until the end. That his hijacking of airplanes inspired al Qaeda, that he ruined the modern Olympics by gunning down athletes, that he had a wheelchair-bound American pensioner shot and thrown into the Mediterranean, or that the PLO's massacre of 21 young Israeli children in their school pre-dated Beslan.'

The reaction of the free world to Arafat's death, along with the opprobium heaped daily upon his victims in Israel, illustrates the decadence that now rewards evil and punishes those whom it terrorises. It is a horrifying indication of a world that has simply lost its fundamental understanding of right and wrong. All who value life, liberty and justice should take careful note and shudder at this moral -- and mortal -- sickness. This is the way a civilisation dies.

To those who have deluded themselves that President Bush's victory was a seismic aberration caused by weird and dumb evangelical fundamentalists, here is what a US reader has written to me:

'Now that the election is over, the Democrats and their dupes in the media are in effect calling voters "stupid". How DARE they not recognize the intellectual superiority of the liberal view. How DARE they consider their ethics and values when electing their representatives...the liberal values being so advanced compared to the "Jesusland" Neanderthals (see Michael Moore's website).How DARE they not listen to the wise sages in the mainstream media and act upon their drumbeat of denegration of the Bush presidency and the "neo-cons". How DARE voters in Clark County, Ohio, not be swayed by the Guardian Newspaper, and instead, vote Republican in higher numbers than in 2000. How DARE young voters not listen to Eminem and Rock The Vote Hip-Hop stars to oust the evil Bush empire from office. How DARE the ignorant masses not follow the lead of Hollywood and reject the Bush madmen. And on and on.

'I live in Ohio. I have a Master's degree. My neighbor has a doctorate. Our neighborhood is all university trained professionals in a wide variety of careers.Almost all had a Bush for President sign in their front yard.But, according to the Democrats and other liberals, we must just be DUMB.

'Here is why we voted for Bush, in my opinion:

'* We do not want to experience the economic stagnation that embraces an increasingly socialistic Europe.It is a looser's game with disastarous long term consequences.
* We do not want, or need, other elitists in foreign countries telling us who we should elect for our leaders.
* We know the United Nations is a corrupt organization (Oil for Food?) and cannot visualize being under their mandate for anything - particularly our national defense.
* We believe that moral imperatives are a good thing, not to be tampered with by activist judges, far left or far right fringe groups or a political party.
* We were repulsed by the far left groups endorsing John Kerry, especially Michael Moore (he may be a hero to Europeans but he is for the most part detested in the US).
* We believe in low taxes, less government intrusion into our affairs and civic pride.John Kerry and his Party offered the opposite.
* We resented the vile personal attacks coming primarily from the liberals and thoug'ht their attitude, behavior and cordiality to be woefully crude. "They are who they are" became a popular phrase to describe the leftists during the campaign.
*And, we know that the War or Terror is real, challenging and a long term event that must be won. Unfortunately, the United States must share the lion's share of the burden for now.'

And so says Middle America.

It is extraordinary that Michael Howard, the Conservative leader, not only seems determined to draw the wrong conclusions from President Bush's re-election but is also ignoring the much closer parallels with his namesake John Howard in Australia. John Howard has pulled off a stunning victory for conservatism by grasping the core truth about his country -- that it is rotten with political correctness and moral collapse, and that the Australian mainstream is utterly fed up with it. Like the mainstream in Britain and the US, Middle Australia is worried sick about declining values, the threat to national security and the future of their children. Since Howard's win a month ago, senior ministers have already called for a debate on abortion, particularly the high number and the rising incidence of late term abortion; a national advisory council of anti-paternalistic aboriginal leaders has been established; and the federal minister for education has caused for a national inquiry into illiteracy in schools. As can be seen from Bernard Slattery's website, Australia's problems and preoccupations are startlingly similar to our own (see post below). John Howard won in the teeth of the same kind of vicious left-wing uproar as characterises British public debate, simply because he displayed tremendous courage and political genius. To his credit, Michael Howard has engaged a former John Howard adviser as part of his election team. But so far, he has shown a marked reluctance to understand the significance of the John Howard strategic vision and how it could play here too.

Riveting article in yesterday's Times law pages about how the crime of inciting religious hatred -- very similar to the new law being propsed for Britain by the Home Secretary -- is playing out in Australia. As might be predicted, it is being used to suppress legitimate freedom of expression and democratic argument and fomenting community tension. The article, by British barrister Neil Addison about a key Australian case, is quoted here at length to convey the full force of what is at stake :

'The Australian case involves an allegation of “religious vilification” brought by the Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV) against Catch the Fire Ministries and two of its pastors, Daniel Scot and Daniel Nalliah. It relates to a seminar they presented in March 2002. The event lasted a day and dealt with the concept of jihad, the history of Islam, its future in Australia and whether it was compatible with Western concepts of democracy.

'The seminar involved quotations from the Koran and references to the life of Muhammad and the Hadith (traditions) of the Prophet that together form the basis of Sharia. Present during parts of the seminar were three Australian converts to Islam who reported back to the ICV, which brought the case under section 8 of the Victoria Racial and Religious Toleration Act 2001, which had come into effect in 2002. That section says: “A person must not, on the ground of the religious belief or activity of another person or class of persons, engage in conduct that incites hatred against, serious contempt for, or revulsion or severe ridicule of, that other person or class of persons.”

'The claim asked for damages and also that the defendants be ordered to “acknowledge” that remarks at the seminar were inaccurate, “retract” the statements, “sincerely apologise” for the offence caused and be prohibited from “further publication or distribution, directly or indirectly of any material containing statements, suggestions and implications to the same or similar effect”. If such an order was made, any breach would be a contempt of court punishable with imprisonment.

In their defence Catch The Fire Ministries argued that the seminar accurately reflected Islamic teaching and history, it was an exercise in free speech and reflected their personal religious beliefs. During the case it became apparent that the converts had been deliberately sent to the seminar with a view to bringing a case. Both pastors were known to have strong views about Islam and Sharia but these were based on knowledge and experience. Scot is a Christian from Pakistan who had gone to Australia to escape persecution, and Nalliah had worked in Saudi Arabia, where the practice of Christianity is a criminal offence. At one point Scot was asked whether he believed that Muslims and Christians prayed to the same God and the question was allowed by the judge.

'The trial was scheduled to last for three days. It actually extended over seven months and the judgment is still awaited. Meanwhile, another case has been launched by a witch who claims that her religious beliefs have been vilified. Whatever the ultimate decision these cases demonstrate the dangers inherent creating a crime of incitement to reli'gious hatred.

'Proposals to criminalise religious hatred or vilification draw comparisons with existing race crime legislation. However, there is a fundamental difference between being a member of a racial group and being a member of a religion. Race is something you are and cannot change; religion is something you choose and that you can change. A Jew who becomes a Christian still remains a Jew, but a Christian who becomes a Muslim ceases to be a Christian. Jews who had converted to Christianity were still gassed by the Nazis because of their race, not their religion. Belief in a religion is belief in an idea and in particular historical figures whether Muhammad, Christ or Joseph Smith. The life of historical figures and the religion they established must be open to examination, to question and indeed to ridicule. To say that “all men are created equal” is idealistic but to say that “all ideas are created equal” is idiotic.

'The danger with creating these special types of religious offence is that they stimulate feelings of divisiveness, create “thought crimes” and lead to show trials where judges, or juries, have to make decisions in areas where historians and philosophers have been unable to agree for centuries. If the law makes it impossible to argue about religion or the history of religion in any meaningful way then only the extremists on either side of a debate will benefit. Or as Amir Butler, executive director of the Australian Muslim Public Affairs Committee, has said: “Who, after all, would give credence to a religion that appears so fragile it can exist only if protected by a bodyguard of lawyers?” '

Australia today, Britain tomorrow. This Home Office proposal must be fought by everyone concerned with the fundamental liberties of a liberal society.

Alarming turmoil in the Netherlands in the wake of the alleged murder by Islamists of radical film-maker Theo van Gogh who was butchered as he rode through Amsterdam on his bicycle. Six Islamist radicals have been arrested for conspiracy to murder. As the Times reports, mosques and churches have been attacked as emotions unleashed by the murder and its aftermath boil over. An opinion poll shows that 40 per cent of Dutch people no longer consider Muslims welcome, while a Muslim school in the southern Dutch village of Uden was burnt down last night.

In this paradigm state of multiculturalism and tolerance, both are now spectacularly foundering. While the people are incensed, some official reaction has displayed a supine confusion. Artist Chris Ripke painted a mural in protest at the murder with the Biblical injunction:' Thou shalt not kill'. But as this Dutch article notes, because the head of the nearby mosque complained to the police that this was 'offensive' and 'racist', the police sent in city workers to sandblast the mural. And when a local journalist, Wim Nottroth,wanted to protest against this by standing in front of the mural, he was arrested.

Meanwhile, the threats of violence by Islamists increase, in line with the threats made against the wider world which were pinned to van Gogh's body (see earlier post). As the Times notes:

'Since the murder, other politicians seen as “enemies of Islam” have been issued with death threats and two have been taken into police custody.'

A fuller account of this crisis in Dutch society is conveyed by this article in the German paper Die Welt.Under the headline 'Jihad in Amsterdam', it says the Dutch have understood that the murder of van Gogh, the murder two years ago of the anti-Islamist politician Pim Fortyn and the increasing threats by Islamists to people in public life mean, as the head of the liberal/conservatives has said, 'We have the Jihad in the country'. All political parties agree that such a threat now has to be fought. The article observes that Dutch politicians and media have for years tried to conceal such ominous developments under the cover of political correctness and a society committed to tolerance and liberality. No more, it seems. The Dutch, it says, are now prepared to throw all this overboard. Meanwhile, there is a flight of the middle classes from Dutch cities as people seek to escape Islamicisation. And it quotes an article written in 2000 in NRC Handelsblad which predicted that 'the multicultural drama could become the biggest threat to social peace.'

We cannot ignore this.

The head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, is reported in the Times as warning against complacency over the prospects of an Islamist terrorist attack on Britain. She said:

‘ “There is a serious and sustained threat of terrorist attacks against UK interests at home and abroad. The terrorists are inventive, adaptable and patient; their planning includes a wide range of methods to attack us”. She suspected that there might be people in the CBI “who doubt this description of the threat or perhaps question the language used to describe its scale… But I would urge you to consider the events of 9-11 (when nearly 3,000 people were killed), in Bali (where 202 died), in Istanbul (31 dead), and in Madrid (191 killed),” she said. She added: “Be under no illusion. The threat is real and here and affects us all.” '

Her warning and observations are timely. For there is a strong current of opinion, gaining ground by the day, that not only was Saddam no threat to this country but there is no Islamist terrorist threat at all. This myth has been sedulously put about as part of the deranged conspiracy theories which are circulating through the media and have now gained serious traction, demonising President Bush and Tony Blair for having produced a massive fabrication of a danger that does not exist.

The seriousness of this great tide of irrationality was illustrated by the BBC2 series by Adam Curtis, The Power of Nightmares. Having now seen all three episodes, I can only say that the alarm that has been sounded in some quarters about this production grossly understates the case. It is hard to exaggerate the mendacity and malevolence of its argument. Episode three told us there was no such thing as al Qaeda, merely an idea — no international conspiracy, no sleeper cells across the world. Just a few disparate terrorists who have run out of steam and hardly present any great threat to anyone. 9/11 was, er, just one of those things. Nothing to get too excited about. Yet you only have to glance at Rohan Gunaratna’s scholarly book, Inside al Qaeda, to realise that while it is undoubtedly true that this is an inchoate grouping which constantly mutates and reforms itself, it is indeed a global conspiracy with cells across the world. You only have to look at the pattern of terror attacks from country to country. You only have to read what the perpetrators say about their aims in destroying western culture and restoring the medieval Muslim caliphate.

But according to Curtis, the threat of Islamist terror was instead deliberately and artificially confected by a sinister group of people, the American neo-conservatives, who have spent the past thirty years confecting one phantom enemy after another for their own power-crazed ends. Almost everything in this thesis is bogus, distorted, mendacious or wrong.

We are told that the neo-cons dominate Washington. Wrong. They are a tiny group whose opinions came to dovetail after 9/11 with those of the old-style Republicans.

We are told that they do the bidding of their teacher, Leo Strauss, who is presented as a more sinister figure and of more global impact than the leaders of al Qaeda. But Strauss was an obscure political scientist, who taught only a few of the neo-cons. We are told that he not only believed that liberal society in America was decadent, but taught that the American people had to be fed ‘noble myths’ to bring them together, even if what they were being told was a lie. I have never heard any neo-con say anything like this about expedient myths. As for Strauss himself, there have been plenty of people on the left who have tried to assassinate his character because it is undoubtedly the case that what he taught blew a hole through the moral and intellectual basis of the left’s political programmes — so much so that his daughter has protested that the diabolical picture being painted of her father bore no relation to reality.

Be that as it may, the fantasies Curtis accuses the neo-cons of inventing are indeed fantastic. He claims they wanted to create myths of good versus evil, in order to create an artificial threat so they could pose as defenders of the world. The first phantom threat they created was communism. Yup, you read it right. Communism, according to Curtis, was no big deal. By the time President Reagan (another neo-con puppet, as everyone in this story seems to be) started inveighing against the evil empire, it was already crumbling. Well, there’s something in that; but the fact that the west hadn’t realised how near to collapse the Soviet Union was does not negate the threat that it posed, nor the damage it was doing. Curtis tells us that the neo-cons persisted in seeing a threat that the CIA told them didn’t exist. Professor Richard Pipes, the distinguished Russian expert who knows infinitely more about the Soviet Union than Curtis, is made to look a fool for maintaining that the absence of visible weapons programmes indicated they had been hidden (guess where that particular thread was leading). But what Pipes said made sense — that since the Soviet Union had exactly the same know-how and wherewithal as the west, it was just not credible that it had not developed these weapons.

Next, Curtis sneers at the neo-cons’ certainty that apparently disparate terrorist groups, such as the IRA, Baader-Meinhof or the Palestinians were all supported by the Soviet Union. But the release of the Stasi files has shown that this was indeed the case; indeed, it revealed that much of what was feared about the intentions and capabilities of the Soviet Union and dismissed as paranoid red-baiting had been true all along.

The next ‘myth’ invented by the neo-cons was — wait for it — Bill Clinton’s bad character. Forget Monica Lewinsky, Jennifer Flowers and the lies Clinton told about such events. His character was destroyed by the vast neo-con conspiracy — not even the right generally, but the neo-cons — who decided to create a fantasy enemy to make the American people realise the decadent truth about liberal America. Even if some claims made about Clinton were invented by his political opponents, one hardly needs to invent this baroque ideological conspiracy to explain ordinary dirty politics. But the purpose of this risible twisting of history is to make the neo-cons seem worse than Clinton.

As if all this isn’t bad enough, Curtis draws explicit parallels between the neo-cons and the radical Islamists. He claims that their ideologies and political trajectories are so similar they are equal partners in the vast and mendacious conspiracy to terrify the world. This grotesque analysis is based from the start on a glaringly obvious false premise. He equates Leo Strauss, who concluded that liberal society had descended into morally relativistic decadence, with a principal theorist behind radical Islamism, Sayed Qutb, who, he says, similarly concluded that the west was decadent and returned to Egypt to spread the word against western influence through the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the main inspirations of the Islamist jihad in general and Ayman al Zawahiri, the principal theorist of al Qaeda, in particular. But this is a mind-blowingly absurd comparison. Strauss inspired a return to the moral values of western civilisation which he thought had been undermined, and warned against tyrannies which threatened the freedom that characterised liberal society. Qutb’s whole purpose was to fight against such freedom, destroy such western values, and inspire instead religious tyranny.

Offensively and incredibly, Curtis draws parallel after parallel between the neo-cons and the Islamofascists. Thus he tells us that William Bennett, who served in both the Reagan and (first) Bush administrations, blamed the American public’s moral decline for not rising in revulsion against Clinton, just as al Zawahiri blamed the Arab masses for failing to rise against their corrupt rulers —which failing Zawahiri used as the pretext for slaughtering them. Neat comparison, huh? Thus the neo-cons are as bad as homicidal zealots.

Having made this odious comparison throughout, Curtis brings his anti-history to a conclusion by stating that the neo-cons deliberately invented the non-existent threat of Islamist terror in order to realise their mission to spread their ideas about good and evil. Accordingly, they invented contacts between Saddam and al Qaeda that never existed. But there is considerable evidence of these contacts (see many previous posts) — and evidence that, as with the Soviet backing of terror in the past, the CIA screwed up by never acknowledging this. As Richard Perle says on the programme, it is astonishing that people can deny this evidence — a statement of documented reality which merely elicited from Curtis gasps of incredulity.

The conclusion of this vile series, repeated at the beginning of each episode, is that the neo-cons have transformed global politics through a dark fantasy, used to terrify people and thus provide a sense of purpose for politicians who are no longer trusted to deliver the good society.

This is simply deranged conspiracy theory. There is no other adequate description. But the terrifying thing is that in Britain, this is being taken seriously and believed. It was, after all, transmitted by the BBC, our supposed guardians of journalistic standards. There are senior editors in the BBC who took the decision to transmit this garbage because they presumably thought it had a serious contribution to make — rather like the senior executives of Egyptian TV decided to transmit the multi-part TV version of the infamous anti-Jewish conspiracy libel, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Disturbingly, I keep meeting people who tell me how impressed they were by the Curtis series. It has undoubtedly done much to further inflame the current climate of hysterical irrationality.

Someone should be talking very seriously about this to the BBC chairman Michael Grade and to the governors. Such a travesty of journalism, public service broadcasting and truth must not go unchallenged.

Excellent piece by Michael Gove in the Times on the forthcoming initiative by Tony Bair and President Bush on restarting the Middle East 'peace process'. As Gove observes, the premise underpinning this whole approach -- which consists largely of pressuring the Israelis not to defend thmselves but instead to 'negotiate' -- is false:

'The first wrong-headed assumption is embodied in the demand that Bush “re-engage” with the Middle East peace process, as though conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians was like a squabble between children, a dispute due primarily to a failure on the part of the figure in authority to assert himself. This error springs from a misplaced faith that major conflicts can be resolved if only outside figures apply themselves to brokering negotiations with all the energy at their disposal. The truth about peace processes is that outside brokers can achieve something only if the parties to the conflict want out. And that wasn’t the case with Arafat.'

Ah, say BlairBush, but now Arafat has gone the way is open for a fresh start. Maybe that is so. But as Gove observes, regarding the Middle East dispute as a discrete problem is to look at it through the wrong end of the telescope:

'Arafat was not the only Arab leader to blame his people’s problems on the Jews, to prefer the romance of the liberation struggle to the hard work of democratic modernisation, and to line his own pockets while his citizens scrabbled for survival. The root cause of violence, poverty and division in the Middle East is not a failure to solve the peace process. The failure of the peace process stems from the continuing addiction of so many of the Arab world’s leaders to fomenting violence, presiding over poverty and indulging in the politics of division.'

The great fallacy is to see the resolution of the Middle East impasse as a key to resolving world terror, when in fact it is only by defeating world terror that the Middle East impasse will be resolved. In other words, this will only happen when the rogue regimes of Iran and Syria are persuaded to stop arming and backing Palestinian terror; when Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and the rest are persuaded to stop pumping out the grotesque lies and libels that demonise Israel and the Jews; when Palestinian sermons and TV stop inciting their population to hatred and mass murder of the Jews; and when the Arab and Moslem world is persuaded to stop using the Palestinians as pawns in the greater game of destroying the Jewish state altogether.

To resolve the Middle East impasse, therefore, BlairBush should be tackling Iran and Syria. Instead, the risk is that once again they will produce an ostensibly even-handed approach to Israel and the Palestinians -- which, because the situation is not morally even-handed at all but involves Arab mass murder of Israelis against which Israel is merely trying to defend itself, will once again have the effect of putting the Israeli victim in the dock, tying its hands and thus delivering the advantage to the people who are attacking it.

Bush has been down this road before with the ill-advised 'road map'. Then, as now, he did so at least in part as an act of gratitude to Blair for his support. Bush was very wrong then; he will be very wrong now if he repeats this fundamental error.

Daniel Pipes, meanwhile, looks further ahead and sees even greater dangers:

'Israel has been spared from unremitting U.S. pressure during the past three years only because Arafat continued to deploy the terrorism weapon, thereby alienating the American president and aborting his diplomacy. Thanks to growing anarchy in the Palestinian territories, Israel will probably remain “lucky” for some time to come. But this grace period will come to an end once clever and powerful Palestinian leaders realize that by holding off the violence for a decent interval, they can rely on Israel’s only major ally pressuring the Jewish state into making unprecedented concessions. I doubt this will happen on George W. Bush’s watch, but if it does, I foresee potentially the most severe crisis ever in U.S.-Israel relations.'

One of the ironies of the current refrain that the US is in Israel's pocket is that America has often forced Israel to do things that have imperilled its security. The word is that the initiative being announced this week will be a big deal. It should be scrutinised with extreme care to see whether it really does address the issue properly, whether it delivers instead a further victory for terror -- or whether it is a confection full of sound and fury but signifying nothing of any real significance at all.

Fascinating article by Labour rising star Douglas Alexander in today's Guardian. He writes that the lesson for the government from the Bush victory is

'how a party of power can not only solidify but strengthen its hold on the common sense of its times'.

Alexander has got the point the Tories have failed to grasp. Bush was surfing the zeitgeist. Kerry was in the diametrically opposite moral and cultural universe. Alexander notes:

'Since Barry Goldwater's candidacy in 1964, the right in America has been building a uniquely powerful political movement. It has its own thinktanks, its own sources of money, its own grassroots. And, just as crucially, it has put in place a unifying ideology that brings together an otherwise diverse coalition - including evangelical Christians, gun owners, blue-collar workers and corporate business. The strength of this coalition was such that it was able to define the terms of political engagement on which the election was fought. Thus, from the start of the campaign, it seemed as if John Kerry was playing catch-up.'

Being a man of the left, however, Alexander can't bring himself to admit that the centre ground is social conservatism. He therefore has to pretend that the 'right' shifted that centre ground in the US. To win in Britain, therefore, the Labour party has to similarly shift the centre to its vision of the good society to produce a 'progressive consensus'. He unconcsciously exposes the flaw in his own argument by going on to claim that Labour's heart and that of the British political centre beat as one:

'Labour's internal polling shows we are today a nation whose character is progressive and socially democratic, with concerns that speak to fairness, duty, liberty and equality'.

Well, if Labour is where the British centre ground is, then why would the party need to shift it? The truth is that the government, and the world view of the moral relativist, truth-denying, post-modernist, nihilist left is far from the British centre ground inhabited by a mainstream that feels politically disenfranchised and abandoned. 'Fairness, duty and liberty' are currently dying on their feet, while 'equality' has been deformed into the monstrous victim culture.

And the same was true in the US. What happened was not that a bunch of right-wingers decided to shift the nation's moral compass. It had been shifted by the post-moral social wreckers of the left. The right then got its act together and organised a fight-back which, because it re-enfranchised the silent majority, has now retaken political power -- although the culture wars inthe US are far from over.

What all this means is that in Britain, where there has been no such cultural challenge to the hegemony of the left, it is now imperative that such a challenge is made through the formation of think-tanks, publications, websites or whatever. Alexander's article also suggests, however, that it will once again be Tony Blair who grasps the need to appeal to the socially conservative centre (however bogus that appeal may be), while the Tories continue to commit slow political suicide by not recognising the need for such an appeal at all.

Sensible comment by Jeff Jacoby puts the gay marriage furore inthe US into its proper perspective. As he says:

'The gay political leadership does itself no good when it pretends that a campaign to shake marriage to its core is a quest for "fundamental human rights." Men no more have a fundamental human right to marry other men than fathers have to marry their daughters, and no one ought to be called a bigot for saying so. When tens of millions of Americans, in state after state, vote against remaking society's core institution, their views are entitled to a modicum of respect. After all, a large and growing majority of Americans treats same-sex relationships with respect. Gay and lesbian couples are widely accepted as part of the social landscape, they enjoy many legal rights and privileges, and no one challenges their freedom of private conduct. But civic equality goes only so far, and most Americans draw the line at saying that sex should be irrelevant to marriage, the core function of which is to unite the sexes. That is hardly an outlandish position. What is outlandish is for the head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force to declare that courts shouldn't "give a damn" about deeply rooted American values.'

Exactly. Gay people, like everyone else, are entitled to respect, freedom and security. But gay marriage is an assault upon the norms of behaviour and culture which sustain our society. That's because the real agenda is not, as is claimed, the eradication of prejudice and discrimination but the destruction of those moral and social norms so that no-one feels 'abnormal'. The problem is that marriage between a man and a woman is sui generis as the crucible and safeguard of human identity, and cannot be replicated without its fundamental meaning and purpose being mocked and destroyed.

That is why there is such opposition to gay marriage. Contrary to the hysterical reaction among activists, it is nothing whatever to do with prejudice against gay people. To characterise the defence of our most fundamental institution as prejudice is grotesque. Fortunately, some gay people are well able to make the distinction:

' Speaking at Boston's Ford Hall Forum one day after the election, the nation's best known gay politician urged his allies on the left to stop showing such contempt to social moderates and conservatives. "There is something to be said for cultural respect," US Representative Barney Frank remarked. "Showing a bit of respect for cultural values with which you disagree is not a bad thing. Don't call people bigots and fools just because you disagree with them." '

If only everyone was as mature as this.

An incensed reader sends me this message about the BBC's radio coverage of the US election:

'I'm in correspondence with the BBC over their general reporting bias at the moment - why should they think that they fool all their viewers and listeners. What about this classic from Wednesday's PM programme. Justin Webb described Kerry as appealing to 'rational, scientific opinion.' So by implication, anyone who supports Bush is irrational and unscientific! That, together with the fact that up to 5.16pm (when I switched off to call in and complain bitterly about the bias) their programme was one great dirge for the defeat of Kerry, and they had not had ONE Republican commentator at all, is extraordinary. Needless to say, the letter I have recently had from the Beeb said that they did not attempt to promote or to denigrate any view, but to present significant views objectively. Liars.'

Good for her. Only if more listeners and viewers complain will the BBC ever be forced to acknowledge its failings.

Excellent point by Frank Lunz in the Washington Times about the Bush victory. Having observed that the main reason was Bush's credibility as a man who meant what he said, he then demolishes one of the principal canards presented by his detractors:

' Some will claim that Mr. Bush won on Tuesday because he waged a campaign of fear. The exact opposite was the case. Americans turned to him precisely because they saw him as the antidote to that fear. Polling over the past few months and the results on Election Day itself illustrated an essential principle of electoral success: It is no longer enough to say no. Voters need someone who will say yes. Mr. Kerry became a symbol for voters opposed to the president's policies and procedures, but not much else. Conversely, Mr. Bush became the vehicle for those who wanted an affirmative, proactive, preventative approach to homeland security. Americans will tell you that it was Mr. Bush, not Mr. Kerry, who offered the hope that personal security could be restored. And in this election, hope won.'

This is indeed surely one of the secrets of electoral success.Voters are looking for a politician who offers the prospect of constructive change or successful defence against attack. They do not warm to a candidate whose pitch is to diss the other guy, as there's no point in voting for him. Like the rest of the anti-Bush analysis, the claim that fear was his key to victory says nothing sensible about the election and instead everything about the people making it.

The Peacetalk website has published an English translation of part of the message pinned to the body of Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film-maker killed by jihadists in Amsterdam. It’s addressed to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch parliamentarian who abandoned Islam. Here's a flavour:

'“Since your entry into Dutch politics you have been constantly engaged to terrorize Muslims and Islam with your statements. You’re not the first, nor the last to have joined the crusade against Islam...“It’s a fact that Dutch politics is dominated by many Jews, themselves a product of Talmud institutions, the same applies to your party members. What do you think of the fact that the current mayor of Amsterdam adheres to an ideology that allows Jews to lie to non-Jews?” (editor note: Amsterdam’s current mayor, Job Cohen is Jewish)'

And then, to make sure we all get the point:

'I know for sure that you, Oh America will go under; I know for sure that you, Oh Europe will go under; I know for sure that you, Oh Holland, will go under; I know for sure that you, Oh Hirsi Ali, will go under; I know for sure that you, Oh unbelieving fundamentalist, will go under.'

As the website notes, what this underscores -- for those who still don't believe it -- is that we're all in this together. What will the Dutch do now in the face of this abomination?

Characteristically insightful opinion by John O'Sullivan in the New York Post points out that with the re-election of John Howard in Australia, George W Bush in the US and probably Tony Blair in the UK next year, an alliance is cemented in the defence against terror which he hails as 'the Anglosphere':

'The "Anglosphere" is the new shorthand term (made popular on the Internet) for countries that share a political tradition of law and liberty, an economic tradition of free trade and market capitalism and (most noticeably) the English language. In brief, these countries are the United States and the nations of the former British Empire — in particular, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, etc., but also India and the West Indies. Because they are shaped in part by the same cultural and political traditions, they tend to see the world in the same way — hence to migrate to each others' countries, to invest in each others' economies and to fight in each others' wars.

'The Anglosphere nations even form a distinctive bloc in those international opinion polls on anti-Americanism. They tend to be significantly pro-American, readier to defend Western interests by force — and more likely to believe in the free market than in government solutions.Of course, Anglosphere countries are not America's only allies — Poles, Italians and East Europeans have all stood bravely with us in Iraq. It's just that the peoples of the Anglosphere as well as the governments usually see the world in the same way. So we can usually rely on the moral stamina of their voters to get through early setbacks and to fight to the finish.'

The Anglosphere, says o' Sullivan, is therefore at the very heart of the war to defend the free world. There's much in what he says, of course. But as the ever-gathering tumult in Britain increases, I'm not at all sure that he's right to assume the unbreakable centrality of his own country, Britain. This country is becoming more and more flaky by the day. Even if Blair wins the next election, the anti-American, appeasement commotion may paralyse his participation in any further military campaigns. For the paradox is that this country may be being led by Austalia, but the populace is mutating into Spain.

As an illustration of the higher intellectual snobbery, political myopia and sheer nastiness of the British anti-Bushite, the article by historian Simon Schama in the Guardian today is a corker. America, he tells us, is a country divided between the Godly and the Worldly -- a division he compares to the Sunni and Shia, or Muslims and Hindus. Clearly, the fact that these last two terrible divisions have caused millions of people to be butchered, a horror of which thankfully there is no sign or prospect in the US however bitter the disagreements, cannot be allowed to interfere with such a comparison made by such a distinguished -- and therefore presumably objective, accurate and fair-minded -- historian as Schama.

And no prizes for guessing which camp Schama is in. Indeed, the Godly in his eyes are stupid, irrational, primitive throwbacks. It is only the Worldly, by contrast, who are rational, open-minded and open-hearted. That's why, Schama tells us, they support stem-cell research. Of course there cannot be any argument against this which is anything other than primitive, stupid etc.

And that's because, in Schama's offensive and all-too revealing declaration, we hear trumpeted the supreme post-Enlightenment fallacies which have so degraded our moral sensibilities -- that scientific progress is an unchallengeable benefit, that utilitarianism is the sole creed that can be permitted to govern our actions, and that anything as stupid as a sense of the sacred and a respect for human life can only be laughed to scorn.

If you can stomach reading on, you find what is surely the real cause of Schama's rage:

'The received wisdom in these Worldly parts (subscribed to by yours truly; mea culpa) was that a massively higher turn out would necessarily favour Kerry.'

Ah. The great thinker was made to look an idiot -- and by a cretin like Bush, too! Since this is the equivalent of the sun rotating round the earth, Schama has to find an explanation. So the reason for his freakishly mistaken prognosis is something so outlandish no rational thinker could possibly have forseen it -- the persistence into the 21st century of Christian believers, even equipped with blogs and iPods, for Dawkins' sake: an army of Orcs unleashed by the Sauron of the Republican party, the sinister and diabolical electionmeister Karl Rove. The idea that the values represented by Bush spoke to millions of mainstream Americans, while those represented by Schama's side of the argument repelled them for the very good reason that they are repulsive, could not of course be entertained by Schama for a moment. The idea that he might just conceivably stand for values which are socially destructive is of course inconceivable.

That's because he stands for rationality. And it is doubtless as just such a rational thinker that Schama can ascribe the war in Iraq to:

'a pair of draft-dodgers who had sacrificed more than eleven hundred young men and women to a quixotic levantine makeover'.

Quixotic? Thus the eminent historian, the supreme man of reason, the supposed apostle of the creed of verifiable truths, dismisses out of hand -- and with a gratuitous spiteful insult -- all the voluminous evidence linking Saddam to terrorism, weapons programmes and regional ambitions that together meant he posed a historic and present threat to America and the world.

Or take this rumination on the defeat of the candidate whose victory Schama had predicted:

' On CNN a fuming James Carville wondered out loud how a candidate declared by the voting public to have decisively won at least two of the three televised debates could have still been defeated. But the "victory" in those debates was one of body language rather than reasoned discourse. It registered more deeply with the public that the president looked hunched and peevish than that he had been called by Kerry on the irrelevance of the war in Iraq to the threat of terror. And since the insight was one of appearance not essence, it could just as easily be replaced by countless photo-ops of the president restored to soundbite affability. The charge that Bush and his second war had actually made America less, not more safe, and had created, not flushed out, nests of terror, simply failed to register with the majority of those who put that issue at the top of their concerns.'

Oh dear. It wasn't Schama's failure to understand the people -- how could that possibly be? No, it was the people's failure to understand simple realities. The people were stupid. All of them. Of course. It simply doesn't cross Schama's mind that even while Kerry was acknowledged to have won those TV debates, people were assimilating the contradictory and defeatist statements he had made and concluding that the man was a flake. For Schama is simply wrong about the American view of these candidates. Many voters appear to have been all too aware of the mess post-war in Iraq, and of the President's various failings. But they concluded Kerry would be a disaster, particularly for the defence of the nation. So they made a balanced, mature and eminently reasonable decision. But because it was the decision that Schama and his camp didn't want, they immediately resort to sneering and jeering.

If you actually listen to what the people have been saying, you realise that their attitudes are a great deal more complex -- nuanced, even -- than the strip-cartoon caricature of Schama's analysis allows. But then, if you are a much-lionised telly-historian, and you know beyond doubt that your world-view is simply unchallengeable so that anyone who stands outside it is by definition mad or bad, you really don't have to listen to anyone else at all.

An article by Bruce Thornton on the website of Victor Davis Hanson cuts to the chase in reflecting upon the reasons why the Democrats managed to pick themselves such a dreadful candidate in John Kerry:

'Once again the Democrats have loaded on their backs a poisonous candidate whose political nature is toxic to most Americans. The problem with the liberal elite and those who share their sensibility is that deep down they don't trust the average person. Liberals believe they alone possess some higher knowledge and superior insight lacking among all those church-going throwbacks with their quaint moral values and traditional ideals like patriotism, family, hard work and self-reliance. Instead, the elite believe, with all the fervor of the fundamentalist, that all those ideals are mere illusions (see Marx, Darwin, and Freud) and that government social technicians are better equipped to run things than the average Joe with his baggage of racism, sexism, homophobia, and addiction to fast-food, talk-radio and trashy television'.

In other words, it's their profound self-delusion that prevents them from seeing what is so obvious to everyone else. That goes, of course, not just for the candidate but for all the things they believe with such fervour and which bear no relation whatsoever to reality. And that is partly why the reaction to Bush's win is so deeply irrational. In Britain, this is particularly notable -- and terrifying -- because these guys have what Gramsci would approvingly term 'cultural hegemony' -- ie, no other voices can be heard to present a challenge, other than a few marginalised souls. As a result, political discourse in Britain has descended into something akin to a collective madness.

An email from an American reader conveys some of the bewilderment felt by any sensible, rational individual when confronted by this astonishing irrationality and bigoted hysteria:

'I had dinner last night with a friend who works for the BBC - she started in on me about how could Americans be so stupid as to vote for Bush and I then told her I had voted for him myself and she was stunned. I gave her my reasons - that I didn't believe he was stupid, I admired him for having turned his life around, I thought Kerry was an inferior candidate who reminded me of a bride who couldn't see beyond the big white wedding to the hard work of marriage beyond. She said she hadn't thought of it that way. Americans see Bush for what he is because he doesn't pretend to be anything else. We know about his past - he doesn't try to hide it. We know his faults and that he's made many mistakes (humans do). Iraq has gone on for far too long and has been far too messy. If the Democrats had come up with a half-way viable alternative, they would have had a good chance of getting in on the basis of the ongoing problems in Iraq and the domestic issues, but Kerry never convinced he'd be an improvement, and this is not a good time to switch leaders without a very good reason. I slept better Wednesday night than I have in months. Sure, it could all go horribly wrong, I really hope it doesn't, but voting Kerry wouldn't have guaranteed harmony, a man who says he can unite the country and then bases his campaign on his service in the most divisive war in American history since Lee surrendered. I've lived in England for 30 years and I've seen it all before, the sneering and the pretensions of moral superiority and now I just think, oh, you people. Listen to yourselves. I'm tired of being a "shy Republican". I'm out of the closet, and it feels good.'

If this country carries on in this way and doesn't come to its senses soon, it really doesn't have a future.

Oh man, are they mad. Take Brian Reade in the Daily Mirror, who blames the election of:

'A radical Christian fanatic who decided the world was made up of the forces of good and evil, who invented a war on terror, and thus as author of it, believed he had the right to set the rules of engagement'

on:

'The self-righteous, gun-totin', military lovin', sister marryin', abortion-hatin', gay-loathin', foreigner-despisin', non-passport ownin' red-necks, who believe God gave America the biggest dick in the world so it could urinate on the rest of us and make their land "free and strong".'

Want something more refined? Try this in the Guardian's G2 supplement, inside a cover that's totally blacked out except for two words:

'Oh God'.

Inside, the standfirst on the lead article tells us:

'We went to bed daring to hope and awoke to the crushing news. And ever since we've been swapping emails and texts about how miserable we feel. Emma Brockes on how George Bush's victory catapaulted liberal Britain into collective depression'.

Sure enough, it was the end of the world for Emma and the Guardian-reading universe:

'At lunchtime, friends from America woke up and joined the chorus. With a defeated sneer, the Brits among them threatened to move home in protest; it isn't hard to imagine a Republican reply to this. "There's going to be a brain drain from this country which will leave the Red-State [Republican] morons to fend for themselves," wrote an American on the Guardian talk-boards. "I wonder what the immigration requirements are like in the UK?" A friend in New York wrote: "The one consolation that people are clinging to is that he will fuck things up so badly in the next four years that the Democrats will move back into favour. That's if we still have a world." People in the city, he said, were wondering, "How we are going to survive the next four years. Unbelievable." I rang my cousin in Chicago. "I'm good," she said. "Well, no, actually, not great." The hope thing had prospered there, too. "We thought we were going to win. Bruce Springsteen ... the youth vote ... " She had to get off the line then; there were commiseration calls waiting. At 1.17pm my friend Dave called and, unconsciously arranging his speech into one last election slogan, said pitifully, "I'm clinging on for Kerry." But we both knew it was over.'

And on, and so lachrymosely on. Satire, surely, you say hopefully? No-one -- surely no-one -- could be this imbecilic, this infantile, this... hysterically hateful when democracy doesn't go their way? Alas, this country is heaving with them. On the ineffable BBC Radio Four Today programme this morning, in between the gratuitous description of American lobbyist and Republican supporter Devon Cross as an 'ideologue', and yet another attack by objective presenter John Humphrys on Israel which in his unasked for view had to have 'pressure' put on it to get out of the West Bank while the Palestinians apparently didn't need any pressure on them to stop their mass murder of Israeli civilians -- in between all this Humphrys asked Foreign Secretary Jack Straw:

'Does it matter that President Bush's election is so unwelcome to so many people here?'

Does it matter that the British media in general has become so arrogant, prejudiced, unhinged and wrong?

More on the BBC's, er, impartiality today from Stephen Pollard :

'Here's how Matt Frei ended the lead report on the Ten O'Clock News:

"President Bush now has a clear mandate. The question is: will he use it to unite or to divide?"

'Is it really, Matt? Isn't it, will he use it to carry out the mandate he has been given by the American people to defend it against terror? Yet another repetition of the BBC's governing credo, that Bush is a 'divisive' figure because he doesn't carry out BBC-approved policies.

'FURTHER UPDATE:
The explaining away of Bush's triumph has already started. He really shouldn't have won; it's all unfair. According to Gavin Hewitt on the Ten O'Clock News, Bush's victory is a result of the evangelical Christians getting their vote out. (I'm disappointed he didn't just come out and say that it was because the Americans are all morons.) I guess we should ignore the fact that Bush won more votes than any candidate in US election history, and that he trounced Kerry by over three and a half million. If those bloody Christians hadn't voted, the right man would have won.'

But of course.

Absolutely chilling and dreadful news from the Netherlands, where the tentacles of the jihad have stretched to murder the Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh, the provocative film-maker who had made a career out of attacking political correctness and Islam. As the Telegraph reports, the atrocity by a Muslim of Moroccan/Dutch origin bears a remarkable similarity to the murder of the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, who was apparently a close friend of van Gogh and had similar views. And in similar vein the decent Dutch have shown how appalled they are:

'In Amsterdam, an estimated 100,000 people - including many Muslims - marched to Dam Square, rallying in defence of the country's centuries-old model of tolerant co-existence. Thousands blew horns, banged tins and shouted in affectionate memory of the man famed for "making noise".'

As with the murder of Fortuyn, this killing once again exposes the lethal naivety of the Dutch experiment in multiculturalism. It also illustrates the extreme danger courted by those brave Muslims who dare protest at their religion's excesses. One of the bravest, Irshad Manji, has written of van Gogh's murder:

'I regularly get death threats through my Web site. Some of my would-be assassins emphasize the virtues of martyrdom, wanting to hurl me into the "flames of hell" in exchange for 72 virgins. Others simply want to know what plane I'm next boarding, so they can hijack it. Somehow, I don't feel the urge to share my schedule. A few threats have been up-close and personal. At an airport in North America, a Muslim man approached my traveling companion to say, "You're luckier than your friend." When she asked him to explain, he turned his hand into the shape of a gun and pulled the trigger. "She will find out later what that means," he intoned. But, for all of the threats, there's good news: I'm hearing more support, affection and even love from fellow Muslims than I thought possible. Two groups in particular -- young Muslims and Muslim women -- have flooded my Web site with letters of relief and thanks. They are relieved that somebody is saying out loud words they have only whispered, and grateful that they're being given the permission to think for themselves. That's why I don't take my bodyguard everywhere I go. It may be necessary to have one when I visit France next week. But in my day-to-day life, I refuse to be closely protected. If I'm going to have credibility conveying to Muslims that we can, indeed, live while dissenting with the establishment, I can't have a big, burly fellow looking over my shoulder. I must lead by example. So far, so good.'

One can only gasp at such amazing courage. What are governments doing, not only to offer such people physical protection but to encourage and support them by endorsing and praising them, throwing the full force of their own authority behind them, and making their work widely available? Not enough; not nearly enough. Indeed, the silence from such quarters shames us all.

So he did it after all. The exit polls -- surprise surprise -- were once again totally wrong. President Bush looks as if he has won not only the required number of seats in Congress but the popular vote, too. Of course it's not over yet. And it will be some time before a breakdown of the vote is provided. But at this early stage, a couple of things seem particularly interesting.

First off, it looks as if there was a significant vote for Bush by immigrant groups. If so, this might simply be because of his liberal immigration policy. But I suspect that the war against terror loomed large in immigrant-American minds and that's why they voted Bush. And that's probably because, as immigrants, they understand very well indeed the superiority and benefits of the American way of life, the horrors and violence of cultures which do not suscribe to democracy and human rights, and the fragility of the American values they so treasure when they are attacked by an enemy rooted in death-dealing cultures. In short, immigrant-Americans feel vulnerable and don't have the luxury of the upper-class Democrat disdain for security and the tough choices that need to be made to defend it.

The second point is that America has divided again not on economic but on cultural grounds. Bush won in rural, blue-collar areas where voters rate moral issues as most important. Kerry carried the urban, intellectual, professional areas where economy, education and Iraq were considered the key issues -- and where, no doubt, the moral agenda is regarded as 'fundamentalist', 'red-necked' and 'bigoted'.

The third point is that the conservative agenda has now entrenched itself deeply in the broader US government machine, with even the Senate Democrat leader Tom Daschle actually losing his seat in South Dakota.

From all this, it seems to me that at a time of war and unprecedented threat, the American electorate overall is circling its wagons. It is reaffirming the core values of the civilisation that it well understands is in peril, and rejecting those who are either undermining those values or at the very least choose to do nothing but ineffectually wring their hands as they are attacked, both from within and from without. At the same time, however, the country is clearly deeply divided, with many of the educated classes in particular falling into the latter category. Defeated once again at the ballot box, they will doubtless redouble their efforts through the intellectual and cultural institutions that they dominate.

A propos of which, the BBC went into mourning as soon as it became plain that Bush had won. Radio Four's Today programme undermined the ostensible balance of its intervewee list by the tone and premise of much of the questioning, which looked at the result from a Kerry perspective along the lines of: 'is-it-all-completely-hopeless-or-even-at-this-late-stage-can-anything- be-done-to-avoid-this-disaster?' While on TV, BBC Breakfast rounded off its show by interviewing the passionately anti-Bush writer Bonnie Greer and the passionately anti-Bush Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell.

Round two of the war within the west is about to begin.

Am I the only person to find the Bin Laden US presidential broadcast a bit...well, phoney? It just reads like a cynical, third-rate PR hack stringing together a list of golden highlights in the anti-Bush media over the past few months in order to make a yah-boo point about driving the US to bankruptcy. It's passages like this, where he talks about his message, that strike a false note in the tone and the language used:

'And you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott in Time Magazine in 1996, or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting with John Weiner in 1998. You can observe it practically, if you wish, in Kenya and Tanzania and in Aden. And you can read it in my interview with Abdul Bari Atwan, as well as my interviews with Robert Fisk. The latter is one of your compatriots and co-religionists and I consider him to be neutral.'

Apart from the great professional plug for Fisk, it seems curiously banal and bathetic for such a man with such a history of terrorism to be listing at such a time his named interviewers like this. It seems so weak. Or take this kind of language:

'So I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and shall tell you truthfully about the moments in which the decision was taken, for you to consider...I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere...'

Instead of the usual religious imagery and imprecations, this is more like a B-movie script. On the other hand, much of it is so nutty that no-one could possibly make this up. And as Yigal Carmon notes on MEMRI, the whole thing is a blatant attempt to intimidate not just the US but individual states into not voting for Bush. The Islamist website al Q'ala explains what bin Laden meant when he said:

'Any U.S. state that does not toy with our security automatically guarantees its own security':

'This message was a warning to every U.S. state separately. When he [Osama Bin Laden] said, 'Every state will be determining its own security, and will be responsible for its choice,' it means that any U.S. state that will choose to vote for the white thug Bush as president has chosen to fight us, and we will consider it our enemy, and any state that will vote against Bush has chosen to make peace with us, and we will not characterize it as an enemy. By this characterization, Sheikh Osama wants to drive a wedge in the American body, to weaken it, and he wants to divide the American people itself between enemies of Islam and the Muslims, and those who fight for us, so that he doesn't treat all American people as if they're the same. This letter will have great implications inside the American society, part of which are connected to the American elections, and part of which are connected to what will come after the elections.'

So now we know. What we don't know yet is whether in reacting to this, America will choose to be like Spain or Australia.

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.

Very many apologies for the absence of posts last week. As readers may have noticed from the Spectator Diary in my Articles list, I managed to break my wrist. This necessitated an operation last Wednesday, following which I had to take part in a conference in Boston -- where I still am. I thought I had posted a message last week explaining that there would therefore be no posts for a few days, and I have only just realised that this mysteriously failed to appear. Something to do with the results of anaesthetised one-handedness, maybe.

Anyway, after all this kerfuffle, I hope to resume posting in the next few hours.