The Empire Strikes Back

The extraordinary reaction to the suggestion that America should treat Israel like any other friendly state.

But effective though The Lobby in the US certainly is, it is an amateur operation compared The Lobby in Britain. Take out every copy of the Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Sun, and just how many newspapers are actually bought in Britain on any given weekday? Not very many at all. Yet how many Telegraph or Mail readers, in particular, really are as pro-Israeli as all that? Quite a lot, no doubt. But, equally doubtless, quite a lot most certainly are not.

Ah, you may counter, what about the BBC? Well, what about it? Particularly on the mighty Radio Four, much of its coverage of the Middle East now seems to consist of extended discussions (not least featuring Melanie Phillips, who sometimes uses those platforms to claim that she can't get a platform) of allegations of bias on its own part.

And then there is the bought and paid for political influence, only just becoming exposed.