Say what you like about the Labour government, they are experts at the art of splitting the difference. Even when they lose, by and large they win. For example, the existing rules on allowing terrorist suspects to be locked up for 28 days without charge was a “compromise” eked out of the last time they tried getting their 90 days proposal through.

It looks as if the Labour backbenchers are in no mood to fall for that one again and enough of them will join the Lib Dems and Tories to block the 42 days proposal. But is that the whole story? I was not, for example, previously aware that the counter-terrorism bill included scope for Home Secretaries to ban coroner juries with a stroke of a pen in the interests of “national security“. It sounds like a dreadful idea, but in the kerfuffle over 42 days, how much attention will be paid to it? And for that matter, how many other clauses in this bill are we likely to be concerned about?

Could it be that Jacqui Smith is prepared to lose “42 days” so long as the debate surrounding it succeeds in obscuring all the other bad laws she intends to get through the backdoor? Scrutiny in the Lords can only block so much.

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Given the furore I caused last week by being rude about nationalists, I was somewhat disappointed that my piece about faith groups earlier in the week didn’t elicit at least one death threat.

However, I am extremely grateful to Jim Denham for providing me with some info on the ‘moderate’ Islamic scholar Azzam Tamimi, which has lead me to this story:

At the last Stop the War event, a Palestinian born Muslim scholar, Dr Azzam Tamimi of the MAB promised to give Israel “hell” in response to its military action.

Dr Tamimi, a supporter of Hizbullah, caused controversy in 2005 when he told the BBC that he supported Hamas suicide bombing and said he was willing to carry out a suicide mission himself.

Isn’t it a bit worrying that the rhetoric of a man like that is virtually indistinguishable from that of senior Anglican clerics?

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The BBC has it here.

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You’ve got to be pretty bloody barking to be able to make Jack Straw look like a liberal by comparison. Fortunately however, we have Tory MPs Julian Lewis and Liam Fox. This pair of halfwits are calling for the BBC to be bitchslapped over their decision to broadcast an interview with a Taliban leader.

I watched that interview. It was part of a piece that was very sympathetic to the British troops in Helmand province. It illustrated only too well of the sort of people they are up against. How Lewis and Fox thought this equated to broadcasting terrorist propaganda is anyone’s guess.

It brings back memories of the 1980s when the Tories banned Sinn Fein’s voices from being broadcast, leading to all the news agencies broadcasting footage of Gerry Adams and co with their voices dubbed by actors. Utter moronic, and illiberal, stupidity.

This isn’t just some dinosaur backbencher spouting off. This is Cameron’s hand-picked defence spokesperson. This is what Cameronian Conservativism is all about: be nice to gays (although not that nice), but ban freedom of the press. And chocolate oranges of course.

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After the “Hug a Hoodie” speech, is this one to become known as “Hit a Hijab”?

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I haven’t blogged about the situation in Lebanon, but that isn’t to say it hasn’t been constantly on my mind. The problem is, how do you articulate a position without instantly being jumped on by either side? As with Iraq, for so many people there is no space for nuance.

But I will say this: I have constantly hit out at people who tend to make excuses for terrorism. When Jenny Tonge made fatuous remarks about how she would have been a suicide bomber if she was Palestinian, I was one of the first to criticise, just as I was earlier this year when Chris Davies made similar comments. But it does amaze me how certain people who have been quick to attack such comments seem blind to the fact that it does work both ways.

Israel’s attack on Lebanon was by no means unprovoked but it has resulted in something like 10 Lebanese deaths for every 1 Israeli. The Israeli reaction to claims that this is disproportionate is “what would you have done?” But this sounds just a little too much like the rote of “something must be done” > “this is something” > “therefore it must be done.” Are we really to believe that there is no such thing as going too far?

Israel can’t expect us to sympathise with its right to defend itself, however disproportionately, and then expect us to condemn Palestinians or Hizbullah for reacting in the same disproportionate manner.

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Another incoherent article in the Observer by Nick Cohen again this week. The man truly is hopelessly confused.

This week he manages to conflate people who see Zionist conspiracies in everything with people who believe in the conspiracy theory (for that is what it is) that al-Qaeda is a SMERSH-style international organisation with Osama Bin Laden sitting there in his cave in Northern Pakistan plotting their every move (presumably complete with white Persian sitting on his lap).

Although I must admit to not having seen Adam Curtis’ Power of Nightmares, my understanding of his thesis is not that terrorists identifying themselves as al-Qaeda don’t exist, but that there is no “organisation” called al-Qaeda as such. Indeed, that is both their strength (hard to eradicate fully) and weakness (can only ever pick away at targets without ever really damaging infrastructure in a meaningful way).

As Max Hastings puts it in today’s Guardian, this grand conspiracy theory - shared by busom buddies Nick Cohen and George Bush - has the perverse effect of equating the Palestinian struggle - people with a legitimate grievance even if groups such as Hamas go the wrong way about it - with people who are completely beyond the pale, cannot be reasoned with and who are committed to the total destruction of our way of life. In the past, international diplomacy would have been dedicated to driving a wedge between these groupings; Bush’s strategy over the last few years has been to drive them together.

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