Next week Amnesty International is staging two events in London to demonise Israel’s security barrier: an art exhibition and the launch of a book which collects images of graffiti sprayed on the barrier. Between them these two events will bring together some of the worst elements of Britain’s Israel-bashers: ghastly self-indulgence, wilful dishonesty and a shameless contempt for the lives of both Israelis and Palestinians.

Lets deal with the self-indulgence first. It is so easy for your Amnesty type to be a fan of graffiti because few of them live in areas that are decimated by vandalism and therefore they rarely understand that it is the ordinary man and woman who pays – via increased council tax -  to have it cleaned up. It’s not so easy to marvel at ‘groovy’ graffiti when it’s on your own doorstep.

Even the Palestinians have taken issue with it.  When the childish graffiti guru ‘Banksy’ first travelled to paint on the security barrier  he set off full of enthusiasm, describing his trip to the West Bank as “the ultimate activity holiday destination for graffiti writers”. But the wind got taken out of his sails when a furious Palestinian approached him at the barrier. “You’ve made it look beautiful,” the man told him. “Oh, thanks,” replied Banksy. Angrily, the Palestinian explained: “We don’t want it to look beautiful. We hate it. Go home!”

The dishonesty of Amnesty’s criticism is fulsome. It begins with the very word they use to describe it – the “wall”. Only around three per cent of it could sensibly be described as a wall. This is around the same percentage of the English population that is between the ages of five and seven years old. So in reality the barrier is as much a ‘wall’ as England is a country populated by five-to-seven year olds. But, as so often happens, when it comes to criticism of Israel any slur will do.

Just as they lie, so do they ignore obvious facts: that most of the barrier conforms to the ‘green line’; that many Palestinian farmers have successfully petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to have parts of it moved; that almost every country in the world has borders and many have walls too, from Saudi Arabia to America. What is it about this ‘wall’ that uniquely offends them? That it has so effectively saved Jewish lives?

I hope that’s not it, of course. But until any of the barrier’s bitter opponents manage an even half-sensible suggestion as how to stop suicide attacks on Israel in its absence, we will have to wonder.  Before it was constructed there was regular bloodshed in Israel. Over a thousand Israelis were murdered or severely injured in suicide attacks in the six years leading to its completion. There has been a reduction of over 90 per cent in such deaths as a result of the barrier.  If the barrier were torn down then not only would deaths of Israeli civilians rise, so too would deaths of Palestinians because there would be inevitable responses to any new terror attacks.

When I’ve seen Palestinians being detained as they cross the barrier and other checkpoints I’ve felt sad for them. When I’ve seen Israeli school-buses ripped to pieces along with the bodies of the children they once contained, I’ve felt absolutely sickened. I have nothing but contempt for the people who are so bitterly opposed to the temporary measure that has effectively and peacefully stopped this sort of thing from happening.

It is no coincidence that efforts to delegitimize  Israel have been stepped up since the construction of the barrier. Starved of the ability to destroy Israel with bombs, its enemies are now determined to destroy it with lies. We need to respond to this tactic here just as Israel responded to the suicide bombings over there: with zero tolerance.

The above is my latest column for Jewish News. You can read the paper online here. Please note Jonathan Hoffman’s comment below about how you can help defend Israel from Amnesty’s distortions.

This is my latest column for Jewish News:

You always remember your first time. It was my Dad who introduced me to the joy of shawarma. I was a teenager when he  took me to  a west London take-away and bought me my first one. We stood guzzling them on a street corner, trying to not spill all the contents over the pavement. The lamb was juicy, the salad crisp and the chilli sauce vehement. I knew right then my life would never be the same again. We returned throughout that summer, sometimes twice in one evening.

I have since become obsessed with shawarma and have eaten them in locations as diverse as Jerusalem, Manhattan, Slough, Paros, Amsterdam, and Golders Green. It is in good old Golders that my most serious shawarma action has occurred. Oh those heady summer evenings sitting out the front of Solly’s with friends. This was my promised land, or so I thought. Then White House Express opened up the road….

At first I sneered at this new tahina-temptress and snorted at the very thought of me ever playing away from my beloved Solly’s. Then I began to hear glowing reviews of the new place and was eventually persuaded to try it. I arrived full of scepticism, more or less pushed through the door by my good friend Jonathan. But then they had me at the first mouthful. Now when friends ask me when I last ate in Solly’s I reply: “When I last ate where?” It’s a cruel world.

Speaking of that neighbourhood, if you saw two forlorn-looking fellows on Golders Green Road just after Pesach ended this year that was Jonathan and me. We had stupidly convinced ourselves that at least one of White House Express or Solly’s would throw open their doors the moment the festival ended. We ignored all the evidence to the contrary including the vocal derision of our loved ones and the unanswered phone-calls at both establishments. Of course neither place opened that night and we ended up having to settle for a curry. We told each other: “This is just as good as shawarma” but we knew we lying. When a shawarma is what you want nothing else will do.

I remember back in my teenage years my father amply demonstrated this one evening when he and my mother arrived home late from a drinks party across the road. My Dad was passionately craving a shawarma but was unable to drive to the aforementioned take-away as he’d supped a few too many Martinis. He sat with his head in his hands begging my mother to drive him there. Only when it looked like he might start crying did my mother relent. As I saw how seriously he took it I thought: “That’s the sort of man I want to grow up to be”.

And I think I have – I’ll do anything for a shawarma. I sometimes visit a Lebanese outlet near me and once had a tricky moment while paying. “My friend, would you like to donate your change to Viva Palestina?” asked the owner, and the entire venue fell silent in anticipation of my response. “I’ll sleep on it,” was the best I could muster. I now make sure I have the correct change.

During my most recent visit to Israel I managed to eat shawarma for all but one of my main meals during my stay. How my Israeli friends laughed as I came over all English, politely asking for a simple combination of fillings, while they gave detailed, demanding instructions for theirs. Oh man the shawarma was nice, though. My four-day feast of it brought with it predictable calorific and meteorological consequences but it was worth both. Naturally, one of the first things I did when I got back was text Jonathan and ask: “When can we meet in Golders Green?”

You can read Jewish News online here.

This is my latest column for Jewish News…

BBC executives at a corporation seminar were once asked to rule on a theoretical broadcasting dilemma. They were asked how they would react if a guest on BBC2′s Room 101 show nominated the following items to consign to the dustbin of history: some kosher food, the Archbishop of Canterbury, a Bible and the Koran. The response from the executives was that all the items would be allowed with the exception of the Koran, for fear of offending Muslims. This is ironic because their verdict is actually offensive to Muslims, suggesting as it does that Jews and Christians can take a joke but Muslims cannot.

Comedy is a funny world – and not always in the way it intends to be. I grew up as a wave of so-called ‘alternative comedians’ vowed to sweep away the old-school comics and truly shake up the establishment. Naturally, as their waistlines expanded their rebelliousness withered away. Many of them were soon parking their considerable behinds on the primetime television schedules and becoming fully paid-up members of the establishment. Fair enough. The only guaranteed way to avoid selling out is have something nobody wants to buy.

For the current comedy generation though the aim is often not to follow the ‘right-on’ humour of the 1980s, but rather to shock and offend. I’m not worried about offensive humour per se, but I’m sick of jokes about the Holocaust. It’s always wrong, all the more so given the younger generation’s regularly revealed ignorance of the issue (one in six British schoolchildren recently polled thought Auschwitz is a theme park). Jimmy Carr cracked an inappropriate joke about the Holocaust live on stage, prompting roars of laughter. But the memorable part was not the joke, nor the laughter itself but the round of applause that followed the laughter. It felt unsettling.

Not that Carr is alone in making such jokes. David Mitchell made one about Anne Frank, so too have Ricky Gervais and Russell Howard. Perhaps I’m a wimp but I don’t like it. And in my experience many of the comedians who like to push the boundaries of humour by making such quips prove less courageous when it comes to other sensitive areas, particularly extremist Islam. But then if you offend the Jewish community the worst that will happen to you is a few letters of complaint and perhaps a statement of condemnation from the Board Of Deputies. No bloodcurdling mobs, death threats or worse.

Not that I’m suggesting the latter response would be a good idea. But I do think that comedians should stop kidding themselves that they’re being brave by joking about the Holocaust or even Israel, when their comedic courage is so selective. The only comedian I can think of who will ‘go in studs-up’ consistently is Frankie Boyle. He’s made tasteless jokes at Israel’s expense but also at the expense of militant Islam and a range of other targets. You might think that being universally offensive is a bad thing, but at least he’s consistent and he’s actually very funny.

Which is more than you can say for the likes of Jeremy Hardy, with his egotistical film ‘Jeremy Hardy vs The Israeli Army’. Plenty of comedians make repeated quips at Israel, Bush, Blair and the war on terror but rarely speak about Hamas, the Taliban or Saddam Hussein. It’s easy to sneer at Blair in a London television studio, would any of them would be brave enough to stand on a street corner in Kandahar or Baghdad and poke fun at the extremists that our troops are bravely fighting?

If comics want to carry on slamming Israel and sniggering at Anne Frank then they can prove how taboo-breaking they are by fearlessly tackling some other sensitive areas like Islamic extremism. Until they’re willing to do that their jokes about the Holocaust and Israel will be doubly contemptible.

You can visit the Jewish News website here.

As some of you already know, I now have a fortnightly column in Jewish News. Here is the latest…

I see that acid attack survivor Katie Piper is delivering this year’s ‘alternative’ Christmas message on Channel 4, but I wonder who else was on the network’s shortlist? I will always remember my horror when I learned of last year’s choice: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Dorothy Byrne, Channel 4′s head of news and current affairs, spent months convincing him to do it. I wonder if she entertained any doubts during those months of courting.

Did she consider the millions of people brutalised and murdered during the Nazi holocaust, which Ahmadinejad denies even happened? Did she think about the women and children killed by Hamas rockets and suicide bombings, which are bankrolled by his regime? What of the women, gay people or peaceful protestors that have been slaughtered on the orders of Ahmadinejad?

Did she chase the Iranian bad boy despite his views and track record…or because of them? It’s a fair question because as we keep seeing, for every nasty Middle Eastern tyrant there are  plenty of Western softies who get a thrill from being associated with them.

Channel 4 is a strange network when it comes to Israel. Its news anchor Jon Snow suggested a disdain for Israeli lives when he claimed “nobody gets injured” by the rockets that have murdered, maimed and terrorised the people of southern Israel. I discussed this with Mr Snow over email recently. Fair play to him for answering emails, but it was a revealing exchange. At first he was polite and chatty, explaining that unfortunately he couldn’t comment as he was unable to check what he had said on the broadcast.

So I sent him a link to a video of what he had said and provided references to the Israeli civilians who have been injured and killed by the rockets. He dropped the friendliness and told me: “Stop wasting my time”. Has there ever been a crime against the Jewish people that someone, somewhere will not deny happened? I shouldn’t have been surprised: anyone who has seen Snow’s ‘interviews’ with Israel’s Mark Regev can see where he stands. ‘Twas ever thus with Israel: comment is free, facts are sacrificed.

The same is true of Peter Oborne, whose Dispatches programme Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby was astonishing. If a journalism student had presented that show as an assignment they would have been thrown out of campus. He failed to find anything remotely controversial or improper but was still given an hour on primetime: a bit of innuendo here, a conspiratorially-whispered piece to camera there, and clever conflations of the blood of Palestinians with Jews eating dinner in London. Disgraceful. Just days later Channel 4 was sneering at the Haredim of Israel in Unreported World.

The is the sort of obsession we have come to expect of the Iranian-regime-sponsored Press TV. George Galloway’s shows there are strangely compelling, in part because – hateful as his views often are – he oozes charisma. Which is more than you can say about those who call his Comment show on the network. One, for instance, rang Galloway to tell him that Coronation Street is a Zionist plot. The Rovers Return will never seem the same again. Welcome to your fan-base, George. You deserve each other.

The concept of a season of goodwill seems to be lost on Israel-bashers. Last year we had Annie Lennox whining to the press that Operation Cast Lead ruined her festivities. Yes, because it’s all about you isn’t it Annie? This year we’ve had two Israel-bashing Christmas carol services in recent weeks in London. I attended a counter demonstration outside the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s service at Bloomsbury Baptist Church. I was surprised by some of the things the PSC supporters shouted at us. “I wish Hitler had killed you,” screamed one lady. “Jews are cannibals,” shouted another. Channel 4 is probably on the phone to them as we speak…

If you are not in the newspaper’s catchment area you can read it in full online here.

As some of you already know, I now have a fortnightly column in Jewish News. Here is the latest…

You always remember your first time: biting through the rye bread into the juicy heap of greasy, tender, peppery pastrami…and here comes that mustard kick – wonderful. There are few joys in life as glorious as the hot pastrami sandwich of the American Jewish deli. It’s little wonder that Meg Ryan so noisily enjoyed hers in When Harry Met Sally, prompting a fellow diner to quip “I’ll have what she’s having.”

I know just what she means. Some of the happiest moments of my life have come while noshing away in such Stateside establishments. From the famous Carnegie and Katz in New York, to the under-rated Sam LaGrassas in Boston and the starry Canters of Los Angeles I have pumped my veins full of cholesterol and lived to tell the story. Along with the sandwiches and the soup, the hefty side order of Jewish wisdom and humour that the staff of these establishments routinely serve up are music to the ears of this philosemite. “My food will kill you,” was the memorable – and strangely tempting – boast of one of Manhattan’s most famous deli owners.

The banter is part of the menu. Which is I was why bitterly disappointed when – contrary to reputation – not a single member of staff at Stage Deli in New York was rude to me, however long I deliberately lingered and stuttered over my order when I visited last year. I’ve replayed the visit in my head many times and I still don’t know what I did wrong to not get ticked off. What am I? Chopped liver?

My pastrami passion extends to my bookshelf. One of my favourite books is How To Feed Friends And Influence People, which is the story of the Carnegie Deli, and more recently I have been devouring the excellent Save The Deli by David Sax. I even own a copy of the 2nd Avenue Deli Cookbook, though the less said about my efforts to reproduce its dishes in my Berkshire kitchen the better. As a friend who sampled my efforts put it: “This is a day that will live in infamy”.

As you might have guessed, I am obsessed with these delis and I’m far from alone. Visitors to the States flock to such establishments, queueing with  the locals for a sandwich, some soup or a knish. But why do we even need to fly thousands of miles for the pleasure? It puzzles me why nobody in the UK has cashed in on this popularity and opened such a place here. It seems a glaring omission from our culinary scene.

True, there are outlets selling pretty decent salt beef sarnies, including Blooms on Golders Green Road, Gaby’s on Charing Cross Road and Birley’s in Canary Wharf, but I’ve never found anywhere in Britain that does anything remotely like the gargantuan, juicy joy that is the Carnegie hot pastrami sandwich. We have every other ethnic food stuff represented on our high streets: Indian, Thai, Chinese, Sushi, Ethiopian, burgers, Italian, Greek, Lebanese – isn’t there room for one New York-style Jewish deli in the whole of London?

It would surely be a popular venture for both locals and American ex-pats. If nobody opens one soon I’ll do it myself. I can see the newspaper headlines as my clear-eyed business vision is vindicated by mile-long queues outside the UK’s first proper New York-style deli: “Brits go barmy for Chas’s Pastrami” (The Mirror); “Cheryl Cole balloons after just one sandwich”(Daily Mail); “Thousands suspected dead in Zionist catering massacre” (The Guardian).

Dear readers, you’ll all be very welcome to look in for a freebie. Jackie Mason said: ‘A sandwich to a Jew is just as important as a country to a gentile.’ Only you can tell me if he’s right but if he is – count me in.

If you are not in the newspaper’s catchment area you can read it in full online here.

I now have a fortnightly column in Jewish News, starting in today’s edition. If you are not in the newspaper’s catchment area you can read it in full online here.

Here is my first column:

So apparently I am a philosemite – it sounds like a medical condition or a multi-legged insect doesn’t it? Before you call a doctor or an entomologist, it actually just means I am a Gentile fan of all things Jewish. Well, that’s true enough. Although goy in heritage, I am enthralled by your history, culture and religion. My trips to Israel were joyous occasions and I’ve even been lucky enough to visit a couple of synagogues in London, and one in Amsterdam. I run hundreds of miles each year to burn off the colossal Shabbat meals I enjoy at the homes of my indulging Jewish friends. I always love them and the festivals too: I personally think that the Pesach Seder is over far too quickly. Why the rush? I blog in support of Israel and against antisemitism (as well as about far less serious topics) at www.oyvagoy.com

Another non-Jew who has backed Israel is Tony Blair. I’ve no party political affiliations, but I mostly admired him during his reign – particularly for his foreign policy. It was never more admirable than during Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah. He was halfway out of Downing Street and was under a lot of pressure to speak out against Israel. With his legacy already compromised by Iraq, he must have been tempted to give in – I’ll wager that his missus was piling on pressure too – but he bravely resisted and remained supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself against terror.

Admirable stuff, and I nearly got to tell him so in person. I was in Israel a few weeks after the Hezbollah conflict ended. My friend Susi and me got wind that he was staying just down the road from our hotel in Tel Aviv. We both had the same idea: find him, shake his hand and congratulate him on his foreign policy. We really wanted to do it, but didn’t fancy our chances of getting close to a still-serving Prime Minister, especially in Israel of all places. I admire the Shin Bet and Mossad with all my heart, but I’m happy to not meet any serving members up close. So we stayed by the pool instead.

Although I admire him, I can’t say I’m backing Blair’s bid to become EU President. Perhaps he would do a good job in that curiously nebulous position, but I’d actually rather he took power closer to home – as the next Prime Minister. Come on, choosing between Gordon Brown and David Cameron at the next election will be like choosing between gastroenteritis and root canal. Much better to bring back someone we can at least semi-trust do the job, who won’t get lost on his way to the loo at Downing Street and who could show Barack Obama that it is possible to be a good speaker and actually stand for something.

The Bring Back Blair campaign starts here. While we’re in nostalgic mood, let’s go really retro and put the Great back into Britain. I want the lovely Leona Lewis back on The X Factor as a contestant, Patrick Vieira to rejoin the Arsenal midfield, and That’s Life to make a toothy, bawdy return to the Sunday night TV schedules. Got it? I don’t like change (although the addition of White House Express to Golders Green Road has caused surprising levels of excitement in my Gentile, Berkshire household – oh my Solly’s of long ago…)

Returning to Blair, while trying to keep my self-aggrandisement under some sort of control I must say I feel personal kinship with the man. He has an enthusiastic, boyish smile that reveals eye-catching dentistry…and so do I. He loves exercise and drinks too much coffee…and so do I. He is one of the most influential men on the planet…and I have a fortnightly column in Jewish News.

So I’ll see you next time.