Douglas Murray

I have a piece in the Wall Street Journal (Europe) today on the pyrrhic ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Also - this week’s magazine carries a cover piece by me on the change that is happening in the region. As though determined to prove me right, the new Egyptian President has – with the praise of Hillary Clinton and Ban Ki-Moon still ringing in his ears – made certain declarations of intent: ‘Egypt's President Mohammed Mursi has issued a declaration banning challenges to his decrees, laws and decisions. The declaration also says no court can dissolve the constituent assembly, which is drawing up a new constitution. President Mursi also sacked the chief prosecutor.

Hamas have claimed responsibility for a bus-bombing in Tel Aviv earlier today. It is worth watching this video, which went out a few hours ago on Hamas’s ‘Al-Aqsa’ TV.  Over the presenter's response are shown the first photographs of wounded Israelis being carried from the scene of the bus-bombing. The presenter is saying: 'These are the scenes of the casualties. God willing, we will soon see black body bags. I pray to Allah the exalted that we see body bags in a short while. These are scenes of the Zionist casualties so far.' Right now in these moments, the mosques in the Gaza Strip – their minarets are loudly sounding cries of “Allahu Akbar” and cries of joy, and the residents of the Gaza Strip are bowing down to Allah for this offering.

I have only just caught up on the latest episode of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Any Questions’. In that programme, from All Saints Church in Somerset, a Mr Stephen Bedford asked the panel this question: ‘Despite all the foreign aid and support Israel has spectacularly failed to get on with its neighbours.  Does Israel deserve a future?’ More people have been killed in Syria in the last twelve months than have died in the whole of the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians over recent decades. In addition, the Assads have spent recent decades destabilising the Lebanon, assassinating leading politicians there and much more.

The latest offensive between Israel and Hamas may only just have begun. But already a set of the usual lies have entered the British coverage. Let me pose a few questions to the people who are propagating them. 1) Why are Hamas firing into undisputed Israeli territory? The territory that Hamas are firing rockets into is not disputed territory. They are firing into Israel proper – that is, into land which absolutely everyone except for Israel’s annihilationist enemies recognises is the land of Israel. Is this Hamas’s way of calling for a two-state solution? Is it their way of trying to persuade Israel to sit down with Hamas’s enemies in the PA? Of course not.

The papers and media are full of the news that Israel has killed a Hamas leader in the Gaza. Why did this happen? Where did it come from? Is it not yet another example of the blood-thirsty Zionists doing their worst? If you read most of the British media that may well be what you think. After all there has been barely any previous mention in the British papers of the massive escalation in rocket fire into Israel in the last month or the even swifter escalation this week. Certainly no British paper or broadcaster has come close to giving these attacks the front-page publicity they grant to Israel’s response today. Nobody much bothered to report that in October alone, 116 rockets and 55 mortar shells were launched against Israel in 92 separate attacks.

What a lot of things President Obama seems to have been holding back until after his re-election. Each day brings something new. There has been the news of an attack by Iran on a US drone in the Persian Gulf. Then there is the Petraeus affair – known about for months, but only leading to the CIA chief's resignation immediately after Obama's re-election. The Benghazi hearings are yet to come. And now another surprise. It transpires that the Iraqi government, a body which is only in power because of the sacrifice of thousands of American, British and other allied troops, is releasing from custody a senior Hezbollah terrorist who was in detention for killing American troops.

I have just returned from two hours of broadcasting on the BBC World Service. It is an odd time to be inside the BBC, not least because reporters from the organisation itself, as well as its rivals, are standing outside the studio doing pieces to camera about what is going on inside. Anyhow – having dealt with some web and print-press troubles in my last post, I wanted to jot down a few thoughts on the BBC's troubles. 1) The first is that the Newsnight McAlpine story is devastating. How any news organisation, let alone the publicly-funded (and compared to its commercial rivals extremely well-funded) BBC could have run such an amateurishly flawed piece of investigative journalism is appalling.

Differences between the US and the UK are often commented upon. But the storm ‘Sandy’ this week has highlighted one in particular. It is no criticism of either President Obama or Governor Romney to say that it seems strange to me to see them hugging and otherwise comforting people who have lost their homes and in some cases all their possessions. I keep testing – and then mentally blocking – the images of a similar thing happening here. I am trying to imagine my mental state had my house and few possessions been washed away only to see, emerging from the mist, the figure of Gordon Brown. He would be surrounded by legions of cameras and reporters, of course, otherwise there would be no point in him being there.

The politics of poppy-wearing shift slightly each year. The unofficial rule used to be that poppy-wearing began at the start of November. In recent years this has crept forward further and further into October, largely, I think, because of politicians and the BBC. The BBC lives in terror of someone appearing on one of its programmes without a poppy and thus sparking a round of ‘BBC presenter in poppy snub’ stories in the papers. If you appear on the BBC during this period you will find people on hand to pin a poppy on anyone not already sporting one. To my mind this slightly misses the charitable, not to mention voluntary, purpose of the exercise. But politicians have also fuelled this poppy mission-creep. Each year they begin to wear their poppies earlier.

I have a piece in this week’s magazine on the fall of Barack Obama. I’m not saying he may not still win, just that even if he does he will be a diminished President. It’s available online here.