I sees no ships

My old bushy-tailed pal Cokeface The Generic Creole Conservative Squirrel from Nourishing Obscurity gives us the low-down on Uncle Sam’s latest military dare-to-be-truthful press release.

Dis from Da Penagroan ittsel’ me homies. Ay an’ I be missing dem sayin’ out loud da exac’ name o’ de Dalek fret to life, liver tree and da pursuit of Harpie Nose, an’whatever…

Commander Focuses on Stopping Asia-Pacific Terrorism

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4, 2009 – Calling counter-terrorism one of U.S. Pacific Command’s top priorities, its commander says he’s seeing headway made through increased regional cooperation and information-sharing.

Navy Adm. Timothy J. Keating, in a Sept. 2 news conference, called the merger of assets and capabilities a big step toward the ultimate goal of eliminating violent extremist groups…

Dis will be they Daleks and….

…scattered…

…showers of Ice Warriors. Later on de violence be turnin Zygons, wid a 40% chance of Zarbies.

…throughout Asia and the Pacific Rim.
“We are a long way from that, in my personal view,…

Dis lad personal view, it be Hot, man! Soon he gone notice all they bommins an’ boomins in da Pacific when dose Sontarans, dey hit Old Bombay Town, you bet!

…but it is one of our highest priorities at U.S. Pacific Command,” Keating said during the news conference at the U.S. Embassy in Wellington, New Zealand.
“The struggle against violent extremism continues…

He nearly name Da Name theres, yez sees? He so nearly said “de Daleks be Da Babylon in da Pacific teater of operations, sho’ ‘nuff.” Ay an’ I be waitn fo’ ‘ims to name Names pretty soon.

The events…

Man, dey be exterminatins boy: exterminatins! He evah gonna name de spatulate-bladed lever-handled digging tool as de spatulate-bladed lever-handled digging tool?

…in Jakarta just a couple of months ago certainly illustrate to all of us that we have work to do here,” he said, referring to terrorists’ deadly hotel attacks in July.

Keating also noted the November terror attacks in Mumbai, India,

See? I toleds yez de Admiral, he be da Del Monte Man about Bombay already! Still, ay an’ I could do wiv a hint. I mean, dese guys. Dey not be playin in da front row wid Bernie Gonniff’s Saxaphone Sounds Of Salsa at the Fishbein Bar Mitzvah any time soon, yez tink? Yez know what ay an’ I am sayin’?

…that left at least 166 dead.
“As you move throughout the Asia-Pacific region, you will find concentrations of terrorists in certain locations,”

An’ dey not be in Skaro, Gallifrey or New New York, yez gets what ay an’ I be sayin? Dey be near da naan bread but not da bagels, ay an’ I be guessin.

…he said. “We’re doing our best to assist those countries to combat terrorists and to make life more secure and more stable … for everybody in those countries.”

Keating pointed to Indonesia and the Philippines as examples of progress being made.

Well, compared wid de Mumbai an’ de Planet Of De Dead, dey be successes, an’ dis pretty lass be getting away wid de caution sometime soon, an’ maybe de slap on de wrist?

Also, compared wid de Saudis and de Autons, if she gets to keep de hand on de wrist, it be better still.

Good call, Admirable.

“We are pleased with the results Indonesia has made in restricting movement of violent extremists,” and in making it difficult for them to get the administrative, logistical and financial support they need to operate, he said.

Dat only leave de whole Middle East an’ Nort Africa an’ de Pennines an’ Luton an’ de Himalaya lands an’ Turkey an’ Kosovo an’ part of Central Ayesha an’ de Midwest to clear up now. Say, you sure be tinkin’ way ahead here, boy!

Meanwhile, about 600 U.S. special operations forces are in southern Philippines. In addition to training the country’s armed forces in counterinsurgency and counterterrorist warfare, Keating said they’re also sharing information and providing logistical help.

As in - an’ ay an’ I surely hope so - as in “actually is fightin de war alongside dem gallant Flips deyselves, likes da Vietnam but widout de cool music track and de embarrassin’ surrender an’ da huge jenny-sides an’ de many moussakas of civvy-lions afterwards in absolute secret when de liberal press be only lookin at some Republican dey doan like, Richard Nikkon de cameraman, maybes, or dat Sarah Palin who be yey funnier dan ’er Dad - exceptin maybe when ’e sing de Lumberjack Song?

Man, I be lovin’ dat ole song!

Keating said he knows of no concentration of terrorist groups in New Zealand and its southern Pacific region, and vowed that the United States will do whatever it can to help New Zealanders keep it that way.

Well, if der admirabule Admiral says dey be no concentration of violent terrorist groups in dat ole New Zealand (at least now since the Native Filmmakers’ Liberation Front packed up and made de ting about da killa sheep-kebabs on a budget de size of Viggo Mortensen’s coffee tab), den ay an’ I say dere be no concentration of violent terrorist groups in New Zealand.

As a friend of the Ferny Islands myself ay an’ I feel sure that with dis attitude, dose ole Kiwi anti-terrorist forces be signin up fo’ mo’ an’ mo’ wisdom o’ dat Admiral.

His talks with New Zealand officials focused on the two countries’ mutual interest in stability and security throughout the Asia-Pacific region. They discussed opportunities for their militaries to conduct humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and search-and-rescue exercises as well as personnel exchanges.

All dat what be needed in de seaside resorts in Hawaii an’ in de Caliphornia after de Daleks or whoever it be be kickin de democratic gummink outta da Filly-peons, afta dat ole Omaha Barmcake be spendin de Defences Budgit growin Oak Trees whats nuts only pigs eat, or buying up all de body shops an’ beauty parlours an’ soda fountainheads what de poor folks needs a fair deal in car repairs an’ nail jobs an’ that cold, cold Coca Cola instead o’ just de rich bastards an’ de Jews like dat Pope Sharpton ‘e be sayin’ all days every days already.

These relationships, Keating told reporters, promote a secure, stable environment that makes it increasingly difficult for violent extremists to operate.

That, in turn, makes it “increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for terrorists to lash out in their utterly indiscriminate, ruthless, bloodthirsty fashion,” he said.

Yez tink maybe dey do it on purpose for a reason or summink? Like dey Daleks, dey really knows what dey be doin an’ not makin it all up as dey goes along?

Man, O man, dat ole Admiral, he sure hit de nail on de thumb alright. We wins for sures wid dis boy on de poop deck.

All we are saying

Excerpt from ‘All We Were Saying,’ Thriftback, Gollancz, 2015.

Chapter Six: The Beginning of the End.

Text taken from contemporary accounts of the famous speech and from the Hansard Parliamentary Report posted on www.britainunited.gov.uk .

Provisional Parliamentary Buildings, University of Salford, Greater Manchester, England. Friday, 11^th November 2011.

The Queen opened a joint session of Parliament , leading the surviving 230 Peers and 173 UK Members of the Commons in prayer for the dead of London and Birmingham.

The Leaders of the Houses of Lords and Commons, the Speaker Sir John Redwood, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition Sir Frank Field, the leaders of the Liberal Democrats and also the six MPs of the Patriotic Front, along with the leaders of the newly-formed Royal Celtic League consisting of most of the formerly nationalist parties of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all joined Her Majesty in hoping that the civilian rescue workers, returning armed forces, and survivors would continue to bring ever greater order and security to the blasted and still burning areas of the Home Counties and Midlands. They also praised the Welsh and West Country Shire Civil Contingencies Divisions managing the diminishing but still dangerous levels of airborne fallout.

Surviving secessionist MPs remained in hiding, along with both Islamic Party Members, if they were indeed still alive.

The Archbishop of Canterbury (formerly of York prior to 11^th September 2011) preached a wide-ranging sermon concerning the divine love that Providence had shown in sending torrential rainstorms and powerful easterly winds throughout southern and central Britain immediately after the explosions, an especially moving and yet hopeful passage concerning Exodus, and another on the victory of David over Goliath. He later reminded Parliament that it was visitors from the East who, along with the humble shepherds, had first come to pay tribute to the infant Jesus and that they too had a part to play in God’s plan.

Death tolls and evacuation schedules matters were tabled for the Home Secretary’s address tomorrow. The Home Emergency Minister’s detailed reports of operations against conventional terrorism in the Emergency Order Quarantine Areas of Yorkshire, Bedfordshire and Lancashire which were published on www.britainunited.gov.uk for a crossbench motion and amendments on the following Monday in what was billed as the most highly publicised and the most democratic debate that Britain has ever seen.

The Prime Minister rose to address Parliament on the causes and consequences of the bombings of exactly two months ago.

‘The bombs came from Pakistan and not from Iran as was previously speculated.

Though the Reunification Government in Islamabad has officially denied it, we now believe that both warheads were looted this spring in the Taliban incursion that reached northern Peshawar. Indian Military Intelligence (to whom I express my deepest gratitude) has supplied information captured during the Reunification that indicates that the whole Taliban/Al Qaeda invasion was intended to gain access to hardened nuclear weapons stores near Peshawar before the then military Pakistani government had fully mobilized against secessionist Islamist provinces.

We now believe that the warheads were smuggled out of the publicly Taliban half of Afghanistan and thence to England, probably by using Fahad Mir’s shipping line to Hull, and thence to safe houses in Yorkshire.

We don’t believe that any more than two warheads were stolen, though our remaining special forces in Pakistan are working alongside both Reunion Government and Indian Army troops in the mopping-up operations and seeking radioactive traces as their sole priority. We are receiving little or no active help from the US forces in the so-called Worldwide Stand-At-Ease areas of Afghanistan or Kuwait.’

No-one asked her about any unofficial and nearly treasonous help from US troops and intelligence agencies, which was rumoured to be widespread and invaluable in the ‘Irwell Whitehall’ of the Salford campus’ regenerated Civil Service, but which was openly posted about and praised on the British blogosphere.

‘Both of my immediate predecessors,’ the Prime Minister went on, ‘Had sought peace and security for the world and our county over the last two years by active disengagement from fighting Islamism abroad in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. They sincerely believed that if we left them alone, then they would leave us alone.

They were wrong.

Peace lovers and patriotic supporters of our troops alike – both on the Left and on the Right - agitated long and successfully for the scaling down and eventual ending of British military operations in Afghanistan. They typified our forces’ previous operations there as ‘neo-Victorian’, ‘imperialist World-Order liberalism’, and ‘dishonest Blairite adventures.’ But an honest reading of the history of Islamic political power will realize that it is always expansionist until it is either overcome by greater force or by the threat thereof. The Troops Out movement of two and three years ago, coupled with the unprecedented US policy of Worldwide Stand-At-Ease after the 2010 mid-term elections led to a brief and tragic triumph in the Middle East of Revolutionary Iran and the resurgence of the Taliban to their East – and nearly to a nuclear-armed Islamic alliance from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.

Centrifugal and democratic forces ended the worst of that – but not before the nuclear tragedies here and in Israel.

And so to better news.

The 150,000 Israeli refugees in Bristol, Liverpool, Plymouth and Southampton are proving to be extremely helpful in the fallout and reconstruction efforts, and their almost universal Nuclear, Bacteriological and Chemical warfare training and the high proportion of trained medical staff amongst them is saving thousands of British lives every day. Every day too, thousands more arrive from the Levant as quickly as our reconstituted merchant fleet, the Royal Navy and National Airlines can bring them in from Cyprus and Gibraltar. I can assure Her Majesty, Noble Lords and Ladies and Right Honourable and Honourable Members that after our returning armed forces, Israeli expatriates are everywhere in the forefront of the anti-radiation effort and the rebuilding and staffing of hospitals.

One rather welcome difficulty that we face is the near-unanimous willingness of young and old Israelis alike to serve with the Home Guard in the Pennine and Bedfordshire EOQAs. Anyone who’s seen the films of Israeli settlers and their friends in Florida, New York and Los Angeles seeing off Anti-Impeachment rioters and gunmen will agree that not only do these gallant people have much to avenge but also that they have the means and the willpower to hold their tormentors to account. However, their help under arms is not needed yet in the United Kingdom. The Home Guard is working beyond Sir Frank’s and my late predecessor’s expectations to restore peace and law in those few areas still prone to violent treason.’

She put down her glasses and papers and launched impromptu into what was later described as ‘the best rant the internet never posted.’

‘Look. We’ll all have to live here together when this is done. Whatever led to this, whoever supported our enemies, we shall most of us be alive in these islands in a decade’s time if the radiation goes on being washed away, and we all have to do our part to remake a lasting peace. I’m not going to ask for Israeli volunteers when the Home Guard, Regular Army and the Royal Crescent legion are getting the job done. No sir, no. I will not give way.’

Here she refused to allow an interruption from the controversial deputy leader of the Patriotic Front.

‘You and I sir can, after this is all over and done, feel some bitter satisfaction about having been right all along about the traitors and potential traitors in our midst. But here and now and for the sake of the future, we should also rejoice – yes, I say “rejoice” - and stand humbled about being so pessimistic about their numbers. No sir, no. I will not yield the floor to you.

Mister Speaker, despite the known ideological motivation for these three colossal acts of nuclear murder, I have to say that sympathy for that cause is now all but non-existent here in Britain. A few hard-core holdout areas remain, but the Leicester Legion accompanied the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Home Guard Divisions to victory throughout the Black Country a mere week after those divisions and that Legion were founded and sketchily armed.

Overnight hangings now outnumber beheadings by a factor of thirty to one in Bradford’s last remaining EOQA, and the Oldham curfew is not merely holding up but is being enthusiastically enforced by Lancashire companies of the RCL.

We’re not out of the woods yet. There is much to do and no doubt there will be many setbacks, but the bombings that were intended to destroy Britain and leave it disunited and dispirited have only served to strengthen the people’s resolve to live in peace and freedom under democratic institutions with no-one and no community or belief system above and beyond the law.

Despite the great and painful work ahead to rebuild our wounded country, we can look once more to the overseas origins of this bloodshed, honestly examine and discuss the belief system that prompted it, and plan our foreign policy to recognise that wishful thinking and any kind of isolationism will no longer do against a remorseless, determined, and powerful enemy.

Sleeping dogs do not lie. They grow strong and go hunting.’

Insane wishful thinking # 3009 . Realism 101

I’m reproducing this from the New Statesman, which is scarcely a source of comfort for conservatives, though it’s often a treasure trove of material for fisking and extreme hilarity.

I’m not quite sure that to make of Asma Barlas’ thoughts. Given the name of the institutions for which she works and her academic history, it’s easy to discount what she writes as politically correct fluff at best and dangerous shilling for a great threat at worst.

However, goodwill and the desire for a better world are not monopolies of the Right and sometimes it does me good to see another side's opinion for a change.

Much of the Right’s criticism of liberals comes not from disapproval of their original motives -I wrote ‘Much’; not 'all'! - or of the moral hope enshrined in their desired outcomes, but from our conviction that their misconceptions and optimism cloud their judgement so badly that they're incapable of analysing the real world, and so their prescriptions are pretty much guaranteed to be wrong.

So what kind of thing is her opinion, do you think?

A ray of hope in a dark world? Insane wishful thinking? A very, very long shot? Seeking nuggets of gold in a midden? Liberal candy-coating of a dark and deadly threat? All of the above?

You decide.

Islam and feminism.

Asma Barlas

I have been asked to write about how feminism informs my understanding of faith and if and how faith influences my feminist views. I’ve discussed the intersection between Islam and feminism many times before and every time I have clarified that I do not like to call myself a feminist; yet, the label continues to stick!

The truth is that long before I learned about feminism, I had begun to glimpse a message of sexual equality in the Qur’an. Perhaps this is paradoxical given that all the translations and interpretations that I read growing up were by men and given that I was born and raised in Pakistan, a society that can hardly be considered egalitarian. Yet, the Qur’an’s message of equality resonated in the teaching that women and men have been created from a single self and are each other’s guides who have the mutual obligation to enjoin what is right and to forbid what is wrong.

But, then, there are those other verses that Muslims read as saying that men are better than women and their guardians and giving men the right to unfettered polygyny and even to beat a recalcitrant wife. To read the Qur’an in my youth was thus to be caught up in a seemingly irresolvable and agonizing dilemma of how to reconcile these two sets of verses not just with one another but also with a view of God as just, consistent, merciful, and above sexual partisanship.

It has taken the better part of my life to resolve this dilemma and it has involved learning (from the discipline of hermeneutics) that language--hence interpretation—is not fixed or transparent and that the meanings of a text change depending on who interprets it and how. From reading Muslim history, on the other hand, I discovered that Qur’anic exegesis became more hostile to women only gradually and as a result of shifts in religious knowledge and methodology as well as in the political priorities of Muslim states. And, from feminism, I got the language to speak about patriarchy and sexual equality. In other words, it was all these universes of knowledge that enabled me to encounter the Qur’an anew and to give voice to my intuition that a God who is beyond sex/ gender has no investment in favoring males or oppressing women either.

Most Muslims, however, are unconvinced by this argument and it may be because viewing God’s speech (thus also God) as patriarchal allows the conservatives to justify male privilege and many progressive Muslims to advocate for secularism on the grounds that Islam is oppressive. As for me, I continue to respond to the Qur’an’s call to use my reason and intellect to decipher the signs (ayat) of God. Thus far, such an exercise has only brought me to more liberatory understandings of the text itself.

Asma Barlas is professor of Politics and director of the Center for the Study of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity at Ithaca College, New York.

I’m away on Monday and Tuesday at a funeral.

For those who know me as a harsh critic of Islam as we often meet it in the news (causing terrorism and inflicting brutality on, for example, the peoples of Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Malaysia, the Philippines, etc.), and who might be genuinely curious as to where all this comes from, the New English Review this month has a symposium on Islam.

It contains a valuable range of viewpoints and topics: about the faith itself and how it looks at the rest of the world; about the history of the phenomenon as both a political and a religious belief system; about how followers of its worst aspects ply their trade in the West and in Islamic countries alike, and a number of carefully-researched reflections on how our civilisation meets and deals with Islam as a neighbour and as a settler within our lands.

It is both scholarly and up-to-date political analysis at the same time and is probably the best concentration of clear, complex and fearless academic reportage that I’ve found in a single site for a long time.

Its peers for comparison, and which I also recommend, are: The Religion of Peace which presents daily digests of Islam in the news and ongoing features about Islamic scholarship, beliefs, and practises; Jihad Watch which monitors the most aggressive tendencies within Islamic theology and politics both historic and contemporary; The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) which presents a digest of what is being said by and about Islam and Islamic countries and Arab politics – a ‘raw data’ source for the open-minded; Daniel Pipes’ site is both an academic and an opinion blog; and finally Front Page Magazine a rolling comment and analysis site which concentrates on political Islam in the USA and abroad and which often discusses modern-day Islam in the context of its intellectual and spiritual foundations and history.

Hyperbollocks

To liberals, libertarians, isolationists, Little Englanders, pacifists and other opponents of the perfectly legal 'illegal war' in Iraq:

This is what our tax pounds and many British and Allied lives were spent to end forever...


To liberals, libertarians, isolationists, Little Englanders, pacifists and other opponents of the torture of waterboarding.

This is what the victims of torture need in order to recover and rebuild their lives when the torture has been ended - say by the 'illegal war 'against Saddam Hussein.

This is what the victims of waterboarding need to recover rebuild their lives when the waterboarding has been ended, say by the victims telling our Allies' intelligence agents who the other terrorists are, and where they trained and what their plans are..

Board of life?

Click to enlarge

Some people have been so worried about the civil liberties threat of the original poster.

Quick question for you, just for fun.

How many civil liberties do your oxidized molecules have when they are welded to the sooty walls of a tube station?

A round figure answer would be best.

See here for details.

Home.

Proximate thanks to Sue at Muffled Vociferation here, and ultimate to James Holden.

Some dead kid. Another dead kid. Whatever.

Poor old Al Beeb. Just can’t help themselves, can they? It’s like shooting fisks in a barrel.

Here’s a simple, heart-warming tale of a common-or-garden child murder which the BBC bothered to mention – mirabile dictu! - with their usual panache and unique viewpoint.

Israeli child killed in West Bank

A Palestinian attacker wielding an axe has killed an Israeli boy and wounded another in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, police say.

Love that ‘police say.’ Because it’s necessary to point out that maybe, just maybe, the police might be a little biased, maybe? How unlike the editorial life of our own dear Beeb.

The incident took place in the Bat Ayin settlement south of Bethlehem. The attacker is reported to have escaped.

Doctors said the fatality was a 13-year-old, while a seven-year-old boy was being treated for serious wounds.

The military wing of Islamic Jihad and Imad Mughniyeh Group said they carried out the attack, Israel Radio reports.

Wonder if that’s true? I mean, the BBC has a £3,000,000,000 annual budget. Should be easy enough to check somewhere else whether this ‘report’ means either;

A, ‘What the whole world already knows’ or

B, Zionist State radio puts out unconfirmed filthy anti-Palestinian propaganda.

Shucks, if only there was some quick – or better yet instantaneous – way of finding such things out… By casting the runes perhaps( I use the Elder Futhark, though some make great claims for the Old English Rune row, but each to his own, I suppose),

But wait, I’ve found one.

I find: Yahoo. Channel News Asia. Gulf News. Bay Ledger News.

Of course, the probably got most of the story from some news agency source, but still, maybe the Three Billion Dollar Moan might have checked.

Fortunately, each and every one mentions the hawkish new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Mr Netanyahu's foreign minister and some of them firebrand Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Having a hawkish Prime Minister or firebrand Foreign Minister is an acceptable reason to hack a thirteen-year-old boy to death, as all nuanced broadcasters know.

Ah, here’s Bay Register News;

In a phone call to AFP and a statement released to media in the West Bank, Islamic Jihad and the Imad Mughniyeh Group claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was "a natural response to the crimes of the occupation."

In a statement in Gaza, Islamic Jihad hailed the attack, but denied it was responsible.

No wonder the BBC doubts Israeli Radio!

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the attack as a "senseless act of brutality against innocents".

Gotta say compadres, he’s about as bright as John Major; this one. Perhaps he should do some background reading. May I suggest the Koran?

Reports say it appears to be the latest of sporadic attacks

…not so many then, being sporadic and all? Like those thousands of sporadic home-made rockets that sporadically hit sporadic civilian targets and sporadic settlements from Gaza and Lebanon these past few years. Nothing to worry about. Just a spot of sporadic.

by Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territory.

‘Israeli-occupied territory’ huh. Glad you made that clear. Context is all. Makes all that axe-wielding seem worthwhile somehow, doesn’t it?

Pity the BBC has its context meter switched off so often when Israel defends itself against random sporadic stuff, and especially the worldwide lies peddled about the non-murder of Mohammed Al Durah and its equivocal and softball response to the revelations that it was likely another Pallywood production.

It is also the first such incident since the right-leaning government of Prime Minister Netanyahu took office.

Thank God; yes, I’m prepared to say it again, thank God there’s always an easy explanation for these apparently random events. And the BBC has it.

There are fears that the killing could heighten tensions between the Israeli cabinet

I can just see those old politicos getting all sweaty and muttering into their vodka at this. Maybe they’ll throw some insults when some Palestinians come in to their bar, maybe make some rucksack comments, diss their lovely, black-masked women.

No question of a reasoned response here from a sophisticated Western government, right?

and the Palestinians.

Second-mentioned, reactive or passive only. Can't be the aggressors.See?

Mr Netanyahu's foreign minister has declared his government will abandon the Annapolis agreement and go back to the so-called roadmap for peace.

The ‘so-called’ in quote marks which I don’t recall the BBC using when it used the Road Map for Peace as a good reason why the Israelis shouldn’t over-react to sporadic stuff. TRMPFP was the liberal Left’s previous internationally-mediated panacea, until all those intifadas and wars and rockets took the gloss off it. Never mind, there’ll be another one along in a minute. Ah, Annapolis.

According to the roadmap, the Palestinians first have to take a number of steps on security before going on to solve the final issues involved in creating their own state, the BBC's Paul Wood in Jerusalem says.

“the Palestinians first have to take a number of steps on security” in this context means abandoning their publicly stated commitment to wiping Israel off the map and following the Koranic tradition of permanent and universal anti-Semitism in case you were wondering what that meant.

Oh, and abandoning suicide bombing and other random acts of sporadic stuff.

Eyewitness account

Israeli TV reported that the attacker was a local Palestinian.

But BBC sources suspect he might have been something else, such as a crazed Tasmanian Devil or Pacific turtle with a Marks and Spencers bag up its arse. Who knows for sure?

A massive search by police and the army is now under way around Bat Ayin, which is inhabited by about 1,000 religious settlers.

Settler leader Shaul Goldstein said security guards managed to shoot the attacker, but he escaped.

One witness, who said his name was Avinoam, described trying to wrestle the man.

"I was near the settlement offices when I saw a Palestinian with an axe running toward me," he told Israeli television.

"I managed to block his arm, we fell to the ground and struggled but he managed to run away.

"I called for help, another resident fired at him, but missed.

"When I got up, I saw a child wounded in the head. I cried to warn his mother, who ran toward him," he said.

But context at last…

More than 400,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas which were captured by Israeli in the 1967 war.

Would that be the war of anti-Semitic genocide launched by armies from of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria and also known as the “Third Arab-Israeli War?” Less context here, for some odd reason.

All Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territory are regarded as illegal under international law,

Like the international laws forbidding attacks on civilians, fighting in civilian clothes, stationing weapons and artillery stores in private homes and amongst civilians, refusing UN inspectors into your nuclear plants. That kind of sporadic international law-breaking, O jewels of the desert, O sons of Islam?

…although Israel disputes this.

What with having been promised rather a lot more than it finally received, maybe?

Two things consistently make me ashamed about being British – our treatment of the Jews of the Middle East and the first ‘B’ in BBC.

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