Until 1948, the Palestinians were living in their own homes, on their own  land – until they were suddenly driven out in a war to make way for a new state for people fleeing a monstrous European genocide.

Driven out? A misrepresentation of what really happened. Furthermore many Jews arriving in Israel didn’t come from Europe but from Arab states which had brutalised and in many cases expelled them – a crime Hari seems unconcerned with.

They lived huddled and dazed in the 20 per cent of their land they were allowed to keep.

Allowed to keep? As Hari surely knows they had been offered a deal giving them a far, far higher percentage of the land and they rejected it.

They hardly fought back: they wept and dreamed of return.

Hardly fought back? Oh please…

Day by day since then, the remaining Palestinian land has been taken and given to fundamentalist settlers who claim it was given to them by God.

True, some settlers believe that. Many believe nothing of the sort. If he wants to write about religious fundamentalism he could write more about Hamas. But again he seems only passingly concerned with them.

There are two peoples – the Palestinians and the Israelis. Let them live in two states, with 1967 borders, with full compensation for the victims of 1948. Although it is painful to accept swathes of your own dispossession, the Palestinian leadership has supported this programme since 1978, and even Hamas – the ugly fundamentalist group – tacitly accepts it….

Hamas accepts nothing of the sort. Many would argue that the same goes for Fatah.

…Yet it has not been offered to the Palestinians.

Absolute nonsense. The Palestinians have been offered a state many times including 1936, 1947, 1967, 2000 and 2008. Each time they have outright rejected it. When Israel gave them Gaza back they responded with increased rocket fire on southern Israel.

For a long time, I believed that the Israeli people – with their own history of unimaginable suffering – would change their behaviour on their own.

The nasty trick of turning the memory of the Holocaust against its victims. As Howard Jacobson wrote of this trend it is “the latest species of Holocaust denial”.

International pressure – applied intelligently, without hyperbole – can strengthen [the Palestinians'] hand.

Intelligently and without hyperbole? There’s a thought, Johann. Actually, the tragedy is that Hari is clearly a very intelligent and educated man who writes and commentates superbly on so many issues. Which makes his regular and willful distortions against Israel all the more baffling.

Meanwhile, a wonderful horse refuge in England is in danger of being evicted from its land. Many of the horses are too old or sick to be moved so please consider helping the appeal here.

My Q&A interviews with authors such as Daniel Gordis and Andrew Sanger proved popular last year and there will be more to come very soon. If you are interested in being interviewed by this blog or writing a guest post then please be in touch.

Finally a reminder that this blog has a Twitter account here and I have a new personal Twitter account here.

My post on ‘The Goldstone Test’ is here.

Every week it seems another of my Israeli friends proudly announces on Facebook the birth of a child. It makes me wonder what will be going on when those children reach 18 and are drafted into the IDF. I’m interested to hear your predictions. What will the situation be for Israel and its neighbours in 2028?

Lennox was roundly mocked for the naivety of her remarks and has unsurprisingly proved reticent to comment on the issue ever since. However, this coming week she will appear on the BBC’s Hard Talk programme where she will tell viewers that she has changed her mind and has now decided ‘both sides are right and both sides are wrong’. Gee, thanks for that Annie.

I will close with a tale from a showbiz gathering of celebrities like Simon Cowell and leading journalists like Rebekah Wade and Piers Morgan. Cowell mischievously proposed that they compile a top 10 of showbiz divas. At number six was Annie Lennox. Her (unnamed) nominator explained: ‘She was breathtakingly grand and offensive to me. I was shocked. But then other big stars told me she’s always like that.’

I’m honoured to be mentioned on Me And My Big Mouth, which is the brilliant blog kept by legendary book man Scott Pack.

Speaking of books I am off to continue reading my advance copy of Disgusting Bliss, a book about satirist Chris Morris. It’s brilliant – watch this space for a review and interview with the author, Lucian Randall.

I first visited Israel in 2006 and on my return I wrote in these very hallowed pages about how tearfully thrilling it had been for me, a gentile philosemite, to finally meet my heroes. I went again in 2007 and then made my third visit to Israel last week. Here are some highlights…

1 As he had driven me through the sleet of east Berkshire to reach Heathrow Airport my taxi driver had spluttered on at me about Ashley Cole. The taxi driver who took me to my hotel in Tel Aviv put a beautiful classical music CD on as we cruised down Menachem Begin Road and we both played air piano. When I told him the name of my blog – Oy Va Goy – he nearly crashed the car laughing.

2 The following day I took the bus to Jerusalem and walked through the Kotel tunnels with my good friend Tal (pictured with me below). I really recommend a walk through the tunnels, though they are cramped. At one point we were followed down a very claustrophobia-inducing section by a large gang of young Israeli soldiers. I thought for a moment I was about to cop it for the British Mandate.

3 Ze’ev Jabotinsky is one of my heroes so I was excited to visit the Jabotinsky Museum. The cheerful guide took me to the presentation room and asked me to choose from two videos, explaining: “One is for your heart, one is for your brain.” I said “I have a very large brain so the brain one please.” He told me to sit in the third row for the best view. As I sat down he sighed: “No, that’s the fourth row. Not such a big brain, then…”

4 As it was a short trip I was only in the country for three lunches and three suppers. Of those six meals I ate shawarma in laffa for four of them. The physiological effects were far from ideal.

5 I lost count of how many iced coffees I bought from Aroma. Addictive – horribly unforgivably addictive.

6 A tip: if you want to pause for a moment in Mahane Yehuda Market to savour your halva-filled Hamantash then don’t worry about inconveniencing your fellows pedestrians – they’ll just barge straight through you. (cf Carmel Market the following day.)

7 The free internet wireless I discovered on the corner of Ben Yehuda and Frishman was handy for posting smug weather boasts on Twitter. I wasn’t the only one who regularly paused there for an iPhone session – I saw the same glamorous Jewess several times. I even got a smile out of her on the last day.

8 On my final evening in Tel Aviv I was punished for all my Twitter weather-boasts when there was what can only be described as a biblical rain storm. With the roads of the city having little drainage whole blocks turned into a river. So we took refuge in a great business just off Dizengoff Square which combines a cafe, a DVD store and a launderette. The rain was perfectly-timed – the heavens opened just after I had bought souvenirs for me and just as I was about to look for presents for friends. Not my fault I came back empty-handed, people – take it up with the big guy.

9 As I arrived at Ben Gurion for my return flight I remembered my first trip when I received a 150-minute questioning and search at the airport. I love Israelis and I love talking about myself so I was secretly hoping for more of the same this time. To my disappointment they whizzed me through check-in with barely a whimper. What am I – chopped liver?

10 As my flight home lifted off the land of Israel I was gripped by one thought. Come back. Come back soon.

You can read Jewish News online here.

The Liberal Democrats at both national and local level have adopted an aggressive anti-Israel stance. They choose to communicate this message particularly in areas with large Muslim populations – suggesting that their anti-Israel stance is motivated by a desire to win Muslim votes.

During Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s effort to stop rocket attacks from Hamas in Gaza, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg came right out and said that “we must stop arming Israel” and even called for trade sanctions against Israel. This was echoed by the Lib Dems’ MP from Rochdale who branded Israeli actions a “massacre” and said to a rally in Trafalgar Square: “I am here on behalf of Nick Clegg to show solidarity for the people of Palestine….I want to stop the massacre [by Israel]”.

Jenny Tonge remains a member of the Lib Dems in the Lords, despite calling for an investigation into whether the IDF were harvesting body parts in Haiti – an outrageous and totally unsupported allegation. She was made a Lord by the Lib Dems after expressing sympathy with suicide bombers. She may well have finally lost her job as a Health Spokesperson, but surely the whip should be withdrawn and she should be expelled from Lib Dems entirely. It took years of antisemitic remarks for Tonge even to lose the Spokesperson job.

At a local level, the Lib Dems have ruthlessly targeted voters in Muslim areas with an anti-Israel message to whip up hatred against Israel and garner votes. Here is an example of a leaflet they used in an area of Redbridge with a large Muslim community – again calling for Israel to be disarmed and showing a photo of a dead child in Gaza. A similar Lib Dem leaflet was aimed at the Muslim community in the Kings Cross area of the Borough of Camden. Indeed, the Lib Dem Parliamentary candidate there, Jo Shaw, has made great play of her opposition to Israel, as shown by her website. The website post is totally unashamed about the fact the Lib Dems used the issue to recruit new Muslim members, saying: “The meeting was to welcome new Lib Dem members from Camden’s Bangladeshi community, who were heartened by Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg being the only mainstream party leader to call for a halt to arm sales to Israel”.

Here in Hampstead & Kilburn, where I’m the Conservative parliamentary candidate and there is a large Jewish community, we don’t see any Lib Dem leaflets calling for Israel to be disarmed. Instead, the Lib Dems put out cheery leaflets targeted specifically at Jewish voters (somehow, they seem to have compiled a list of Jewish people in the area). The leaflets have Hebrew script, and imply friendship with Israel through photos of their candidate at the Western Wall and with members of the Knesset, accompanied by claims to “understand the community”.

What leaves me staggered is that these leaflets – with Hebrew lettering and targeted at Jewish voters – were produced by the Camden Lib Dems, the very same organisation who sent the leaflets to Muslim voters in Kings Cross calling for Israel to be disarmed. They may even have been printed on the same machine for all I know.

The double standards are truly breathtaking. I have stood up and said this publicly already. For the record, I’m a member of the Conservative Friends of Israel. I spent a very happy summer in 1994 living and studying at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot. Israel, like any country, must have the right to ensure its security against terrorist attack.

What the Lib Dems have been doing to whip up hatred against Israel to win votes in a UK election is totally unacceptable, and pours fuel on the flames of racial and religious tension. I condemn it unequivocally.

Chris Philp is the Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Hampstead & Kilburn. He is pictured below with Conservative Friends of Israel director Stuart Polak.