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THERE’S an old joke about a drunken Australian wedding which came to mind this week. As the revellers are getting into their stride, one of the ushers rushes in and announces: “Sorry, everybody, the wedding’s off. The best man just shagged the bride.” A couple of minutes later, just as the guests are finishing off their drinks and putting on their coats, he returns with the news: “Panic over, folks. He’s apologised.” I thought about that when I read Downing Street’s grudging apology for the Wicked Witch’s sympathy for Palestinian homicide bombers. After insisting that she was only stating the obvious, it did concede that she was sorry if any offence had been taken. But the damage had already been done. The WW could no more unsay what she had said than the Australian best man could unshag the bride.As an act of contrition it was right up there with the IRA’s mealy-mouthed “regrets” over the murder of innocent British men, women and children. By then her words of comfort for mass murderers were already winging their way around the world. I wonder if the bomber who blew up a bus stop in Jerusalem on Wednesday had read the WW’s comments in the Arab Press before he set out on his deadly mission. Yesterday a British citizen was blown up by a car bomb in Saudi Arabia. Does the Prime Minister’s wife feel the pain of whoever carried out that atrocity, too? Her words were greeted with horror by the Jewish community in Britain, already alarmed and appalled by the anti-Israeli bias in most of the media. I’m not going to rehearse the rights and wrongs of the Middle East conflict. I did that several weeks ago. There will have to be a political settlement which includes a Palestinian state. But it is worth remembering that the Palestinians were offered 95 per cent of what they wanted a couple of years ago. Yasser Arafat had a deal on the table. He chose to reject it and order a fresh intifada of terror and murder Palestinian moderates would have taken what was on offer. But the real agenda is not an accommodation with Israel. Those behind the homicide bombings are Islamic fascists who want to wipe Israel and the Jews off the face of the earth. They are in the frontline of the war on Western democracy. You cannot do deals with these people. But the Left always sides instinctively with terrorists, so the Wicked Witch’s remarks came as no surprise to me. As I said recently, they divide the world into “good” and “bad” terrorists. The Palestinians, like the IRA, fall into the “good” category. Those on the Left are attracted to terrorists, in rather the same fashion that some politicians and celebrities in the Sixties flocked to be photographed with East End gangsters. They find it thrilling, romantic, with a frisson of danger. I’m sure the WW gets a little tremble just from being in the same room as Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. The consequences of her crass and offensive remarks about homicide bombers will run and run.Her husband has taken great pains to cultivate influential Jewish figures in this country. How many of them will now accept invitations to one of Lord Levy’s Labour fundraisers? Will Lord Levy himself still feel comfortable in his role as Tony Blair’s personal envoy? Labour’s overwhelming sympathy for the Palestinian cause is taken as read. That’s why Downing Street felt that the WW was only “stating the obvious”. On past form, given her penchant for dipping into the dressing-up box, it would not have been surprising had the Wicked Witch turned up at Tuesday’s Palestinian charity event wearing one of Yasser Arafat’s headscarfs and a belt of dummy explosives strapped round her waist. |