Hear That Rustling Noise of Those Scurrying About?

Here's the first part of Daniel Johnson's hardhitting op-ed:-

Ahmadinejad's Western Allies

"It began with Israel and it will only end with Israel!" It was the authentic voice of the British Broadcasting Corporation, or at least one of its most renowned and respected presenters, at a cocktail party last week. The Iraq Study Group, he declared, had finally sounded the death knell of the Bush doctrine. A chastened president would now have to kick out the neocon kids and listen to the "grownups." And the top priority would now be the unfinished business not just of 2001, but of 1967 and even of 1948. Had not James Baker himself — the most grown-up of all the grownups — endorsed both the return of the Golan Heights and the Palestinian right of return in his celebrated report?

The BBC now has a huge audience in America as well as in the rest of the world for its endless reiteration of the implied thesis that the Jewish state is the root of all evil — not only of war in the East but of terrorism in the West too — and that the "Israel lobby" rules in Washington. Gloating over the supposed triumph of Realpolitik since the midterm elections, the BBC can hardly contain its Schadenfreude at the departure not merely of Donald Rumsfeld but also of John Bolton.

Interviewing Mr. Bolton shortly before he announced his resignation, the same BBC presenter was taken aback by the acerbic ambassador's refusal to apologize for the invasion of Iraq, or indeed to agree with any of his assumptions about American policy: past, present, or future. The habitual hostility with which Bush administration officials are treated by the BBC was, unusually, turned back on the interviewer. "How do you know what my expectations were in 2003?" Mr. Bolton wanted to know.

The BBC has a much more deferential attitude toward another figure about to leave the United Nations: Secretary-General Annan. When he recently granted a valedictory interview to the BBC, the story was Mr. Annan's view that the situation in Iraq was now not only worse than under Saddam Hussein, but also "worse than civil war" — a view that is not only absurdly exaggerated but also incoherent. He was not asked a single question about matters for which he had personal responsibility. Not a word about the role of Mr. Annan's son in the oil-for-food scandal, nor about the United Nations' record in some of the worst acts of genocide since 1945: notably Rwanda, Srebrenica, and Darfur.

and here's the last part:-

Worst of all, however, was Mr. Annan's failure to mention the conference of Holocaust deniers in Tehran this week. Though his office issued a brief statement rejecting Holocaust denial in general, he pointedly refrained from any specific condemnation of Iran. The BBC has reported this gathering of ghouls as if it were a mere eccentricity of the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, rather than the culmination of a concerted policy intended to accomplish nothing less than the delegitimization, and ultimately the destruction, of Israel.

Such an open advocacy of genocidal anti-Semitism by a state of 70 million people is rare enough, but this one is backed up by a $50 billion-a-year oil income, much of which is being spent on a huge program to create weapons of mass destruction and a levée en masse of terrorist "martyrs." It was not Mr. Annan, who can of course speak with impunity, but a handful of Iranian students who had the courage to call Mr. Ahmadinejad a "fascist" at one of his rallies this week. I expect that David Duke and the other delegates to the conference would agree with the students about Mr. Ahmadinejad: That is why they like him so much.

What is surprising is that Mr. Ahmadinejad's toadies appear to have friends in high places in Washington and London. Mr. Baker is reported to be pushing for a "Madrid-2" conference, ostensibly on Iraq, but actually intended to give Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia a platform, while excluding Israel. It would also offer "a unique opportunity for the United States to strike a deal without Jewish pressure," according to an unnamed administration official, who also claims that this plan is backed by such heavyweights as John Negroponte, Condoleezza Rice, and Nicholas Burns.

These reports would be alarming if they were not so incredible. The idea that Israel's fate could be decided without Israelis even being consulted exists only in the fantasies of a self-styled "realist."

(Kippah tip: DB)