Because it so often bravely challenges the Zionist narrative (read, for example, about Melanie Philips’ most recent experience) I never miss an episode of BBC’s Question Time. I ended up listening to it (as opposed to watching it) on 30 January and I have to say it was especially exhilarating because there was completely uniform acceptance (by the panel and the audience) of our leftist narrative on every single issue (although sadly, for once the Zionist entity was not mentioned). Given that the panel always includes one ‘Conservative’ you might think I am exaggerating – until I tell you that the ‘Conservative’ was Ken Clarke MP (who I think may have disagreed with some of the more heroic views expressed but was too laid back to bother saying so). I understand the other panelists were shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry MP, Liberal Democrat peer Lord Oakeshott, comedian and feminist activist Kate Smurthwaite, and director general of the Institute of Economic Affairs Mark Littlewood.Bravo to them!!

To give an example of their sharp thinking, one of the questions was about the recent decision by the UK Government to give another £600million for Syrian aid and to allow the immediate entry of Syrian refugees to the UK. The panel were in total agreement that not only was all of this obviously the right thing to do, but that it was a scandal that the UK was not doing much more. But one fool in the audience had the audacity to say something like “why are we giving all this massive support to Syrians when there are millions of old people suffering hardship in the UK and many affected by the floods who are getting no government support”. The answer (I think from Emily Thornberry) to thunderous and sustained applause was: “Because, unlike the people in the UK, the Syrians did not choose to be the victims of a terrible civil war”. Analysing the brilliance of that statement deserves a blog posting all of its own (at some point in the future I will write one about it).

There was much more brilliance along those lines, but both of the women on the panel (I was listening but not watching) sounded exactly like my marvellous best friend Camilla with every utterance more incisive than the previous way and each being greeted by even louder applause. The men on the panel simply agreed with everything they said. In fact, based on what I heard I am delighted to report that there is NO alternative voice allowed. So, based only on comments from one program, I think it is safe to assume that if you want to appear on Question Time – either as a panel member or audience member it is mandatory for you to believe all of the following:

• Global warming/Climate change is by far and away the most important problem mankind has ever confronted and all the world’s wealthy countries must use all their money to combat it. The floods in Somerset are proof that climate change is now about to completely destroy the world – and it is all entirely man made. Not a single scientist disagrees, but a tiny number of insane climate deniers are in control of things and stopping any progress.
• Second in importance to climate change is the need to allow unlimited millions of refugees – especially from troubled Muslim nations – into the UK and they must be given unlimited funds forever and we must under no circumstances attempt any kind of background check on any one of them as this is Islamaphobic. Doing this will be fantastic for the UK economy because all Muslims are peace loving with an incredible work ethic.
• Third in importance to combating climate change and solving all the world’s refugee problems by ourselves is how to confront the evil fascists of UKIP.
• It is a crime to be rich, but fortunately taxing the rich will solve every economic problem.
• Giving unlimited money to people on the doll, immigrants etc will lead to massive economic growth for the UK as it will give them spending power.
• Foreign freedom fighters convicted in the UK must never be deported
• The world is so interconnected and everybody is really so similar that we have an obligation to help every country in the world where there is conflict and poverty because doing so will lead to an improvement in the world economy. In fact, the British economy can only improve by giving all our money to poor nations because that will make them richer and they will then spend their money boosting our economy. In any case all that poverty and conflict is the fault of the rich Western nations and that is why it is our responsibility to solve it.

And, of course, you will be very pleased to known that one of next week’s guests is none other than my former employee George Galloway; so to get on the program you will also need to add the obligatory beliefs about the Middle East and Israel (see full list here and here).

If all that was not uplifting enough, following Question Time was the Andrew Neil programme where he and his guests essentially repeated everything that was agreed on Question Time (and Andrew Neil is also supposed to be a ‘conservative’). There was, however, one dissenting voice: a Syrian woman interviewed by Andrew Neil who said the Syrian refugees should go to Arab countries not the UK because their culture and language was the same whereas it was completely alien to the UK. Fortunately Andrew Neil literally laughed at her saying, correctly, that we must not allow the Syrians to go to Arab countries because they would be repressed. He said that wealthy Arab countries like Saudi Arabia were out of the question because ‘the women would be forced to cover up’ (and ‘we’ in the UK must not allow that to happen), while the ‘other Arab countries are too poor or overcrowded’. And luckily for all of us, there are no such countries called UAE, Qatar, Bahrein etc.

Visit Confronting Antisemitism and Israel Hatred in the UK.

The Al Qaeda terrorist network reportedly is breaking ties with the Islamic State of Iraq and greater Syria (ISIS) Syria that has been balking at orders from Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri. The terrorist group also is known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

An unconfirmed website message from Al Qaeda stated the ISIS “is not a branch of the al-Qaeda group [and al-Qaeda] does not have an organizational relationship with it and is not the group responsible for their actions.” The ISIS has been acting independently has tried to take over the Nusra Front. Fighting between them and with rebels has created a mini-civil war within the larger civil war raging through Syria.

On Saturday, the ISIL killed 26 people, including the commander of the rival al-Tawheed Brigades, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported late Saturday that the ISIL killed 26 people.

Syria’s foreign minister Walid Muallem said on Saturday that the Syrian delegation is refusing the U.S. request for direct negotiations with the rebels unless Secretary of State John Kerry apologize for his remarks at the Geneva II talks.

“The Americans asked us to negotiate directly with them in Montreux,” Muallem told Syrian state reporters during the flight home from 10 days of talks in Switzerland.

In his opening remarks at the conference, Kerry said that Syria’s embattled President Bashar Assad “will not be part” of the next Syrian government.

“There is no way, not possible in the imagination, that the man who has led the brutal response to his own people could regain legitimacy to govern,” Kerry said.

It’s hard to believe how unskilled this man is in the art of speaking to folks who aren’t from Boston.

According to the Syrian state news agency SANA, Muallem said his delegation refused to come back for direct talks with the opposition “before Secretary of State John Kerry apologized for what he said at the conference.”

I’ll bet Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, who had to apologize to the self same John Kerry for pointing out his messianic complex and his carving for the Nobel Peace Prize, will enjoy watching his nemesis eating crow.

Muallem was also not buying the whole “coalition of the so-called ‘opposition’” business.

“If they do not abandon their illusions, they will get a rude shock because we are a country of institutions and a constitution and we have a president of the republic,” he said on Saturday.

Muallem said it was “a stain” on the opposition that they refused to sign a declaration condemning “terrorism” in the country.

See? That’s how you deal with rebellion in the Middle East. First, you get America out of the picture.

According to AFP, more than 136,000 people have been killed in Syria since the beginning of the conflict in March 2011, and more than 2.4 million Syrians have become refugees.

BDS Syria!

Syrians demonstrating in Geneva in favor of President Assad.

On Friday morning, Hundreds of Syrians gathered in front of the UN’s Headquarters in Geneva to express their support for the motherland, Syria, its army and Syria’s official delegation to Geneva 2 conference, SANA reported.

Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi told the participants in the march that the Assad government is prepared to deal with the opposition on the matter of “love of the homeland and drawing its future.”

136,000 dead so far – that’s a lot of love.

The IDF has released an exclusive video that offers a rare glimpse into advanced combat training to defend Israel against Hezbollah.

The footage shows the elite Combat Engineering Battalion 601 in a simulated takeover of a Hezbollah position. The simulation prepared soldiers for the moment of truth against Hezbollah, simulating the takeover of a terrorist stronghold and an attempt to kidnap Israeli soldiers.

Hezbollah continues to arm itself with long-range missiles and other weapons capable of striking any part of Israel. The terrorist army in southern Lebanon, armed by Syria and Iran and financed by Tehran, has an estimated 80,000-100,000 missiles.

The Israeli Air Force has carried out pre-emptive bombings of several convoys of advanced Soviet-made missiles that were destined for Hezbollah from Syria.

The IDF has developed sophisticated methods to stop Hezbollah, whose size and strength have grown dramatically since the 34-day Second Lebanon War in 2006.

“The best way to maintain our readiness and remain sharp is to train,” said the battalion’s commander, Lt. Col. Yanai Manor. “We try as much as possible to simulate events that could occur in reality.”

Al Qaeda terrorists already have set up three bases in Turkey after having established a presence in Syria, IDF Intelligence Chief Maj.- Gen. Aviv Kochavi told a national security conference in Tel Aviv.

“Syria is projecting its conflict to the whole region. Those blotches (on the map) in Turkey are no mistake by the graphic artist and it is a short way from there into Europe,” Kochavi said.

Turkey has denied that Al Qaeda is allowing Al Qaeda to operate within its borders, but Kochavi’s spokeswoman provided Reuters with a map showing where the terrorist bases are located.

The head of IDF Intelligence said on Wednesday that enemy countries have 170,000 missiles ready to be fired on Israel, a threat that is worse than the Iranian nuclear program.

The numbers have been known before the sum total was announced by Intelligence Director Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi. It has been reported dozens of times that Hezbollah has anywhere between 60,000 and 100,000 missiles It also is a given that Syria, Hamas and Sinai terrorists have an arsenal in the tens of thousands.

Kochavi, speaking at a security conference in Tel Aviv, also said that cyber warfare is the greatest revolution in warfare since the invention of gunpowder and that Israel.

Israeli spokesman said “no comment” on reports from Lebanon that the Israeli Air Force bombed Syrian missiles destined for Hezbollah.

Explosions were reported in the Syrian port city of Latakia, which previously has been targeted and presumably by Israel to prevent “game-changing” weapons from being smuggled into Lebaon for Hezbollah.

Several Lebanese new sources as well as the Lebanese army reported that Israeli planes entered Lebanese airspace at low altitudes and remained in the air for more than one hour.

Recently published photographs of people allegedly tortured by the regime of Syrian President Bassar al-Assad brought out the Nazi comparisons Wednesday by Syrian opposition leader Ahmed Jarba.

Speaking to the Geneva II talks, he said, “The pictures of torture are unprecedented except in the Nazi camps during the Second World War.”

The photos were provided by a Syrian military photographer who defected and showed evidence of the methodical murder of more than 11,000 people arrested by Assad’s forces.

The pictures are grounds for charging Syrian President Bassar al-Assad with war crimes, but his regime rejected the timing of the release of the report prior to the Geneva II conference as “categorical evidence that its goal … is to undermine efforts aimed at achieving peace in Syria.”