Good Article in New Statesman Shock

ist boss, about as “spiritual” as Osama Bin Laden.

Yet, in the British media, every Israeli sin is amplified, while those of the Arab world are ignored. The million dead of the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein’s 300,000 victims, thousands more massacred in Chechnya, the Arab militias killing black Sudanese, the torturing Middle Eastern tyrannies are ignored – but in Britain, every Palestinian death is reported like a sacred rite. Our media conceal the venom directed at Israel by Arab clerics, television and the internet, presenting Israeli complaints as propaganda. The Middle East commentator Tom Gross revealed in the National Review that when the “moderate” Saudi cleric Sheikh Abdur-Rahman al-Sudais visited Britain this month, the BBC hailed him as a brave worker for “community cohesion”. Yet his Friday sermons call for Jews – “scum of the human race, rats of the world” – to be “annihilated”.

Also in this week’s issue, though only available to subscribers: articles on France’s secret dirty wars – “In looking after their interests abroad, the French have overlooked bribery, corruption and even genocide. Becky Tinsley reports on a foreign policy based on the cash register” – and The philosopher as dangerous liar – “Michel Foucault taught that might is right, truth is relative, and history just an interesting narrative. Why do we still lionise the French philosopher?”. I might even invest in a copy for the first time in a good few years, despite the inevitable Pilger contribution.