THE VISIT of Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem at the end of September was the catalyst which touched off large-scale Palestinian protests.

But the official press in this country never mentioned the underlying subtext to the protests. Sharon, besides being hated for his brutal invasion of Lebanon, is also closely associated with the fanatics who want to demolish the al-Aqsa mosque which stands in the way of the mad project of recreating the Temple of Solomon destroyed by the Romans over 1,900 years ago.

Israeli troops and police mowed down the Palestinians as if the unfortunate Arabs were the moving targets in a gory, ultra-violent computer game. The media came out with the usual, "balanced" weasel words about infants being killed in "cross-fire." How much cross-fire can there be when one side, in the main, has rocks and the other side uses dirty great assault rifles provided courtesy of the unconsulted US taxpayers? Most of the former American middle-class is gradually being turned into slave-like drones, but the bloated cuckoo of the Middle East still gets the billion-dollar grants and soft loans.

In spite of the alleged prosperity of their country, a huge number of Americans juggle a couple of menial service jobs, as so much of the manufacturing base has been exported to Asia and Mexico. One state - Wisconsin - has declared war on the poor, who could probably do well with just a little of the cash spent on tanks and Apache helicopters for an ungrateful putative "ally". What sort of ally is it that sells on top-secret American military hardware to a third party, namely China? If any other county on the globe had done a tenth of what Israel has done, it would be a pariah, an outlaw bandit nation. It would seem that Israel alone has a special exemption from civilised behaviour. Anything is permitted - even disgusting pogroms against Arab shops and houses.

Corrupt theocracy

Oh, I know that the propagandists say that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, but closer and more honest examination of the facts shows that the country is a deeply unpleasant and corrupt theocracy - a place where, civil marriage, for instance, is outlawed. This tiny nation is one of the major centres of money-laundering, as was officially admitted at an international conference on crime. A recent Amnesty International report has also pointed out that Israel is a focal point for trafficking in female sex slaves, mainly young girls from poverty-stricken areas of Russia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. What a noble democracy that the West has to support and protect with blood and treasure, as in the Gulf War! Those who are naive about the realities of world politics may be surprised, for example, that, the Government of far-away Australia has declared that the security of Israel is a major corner stone of its foreign policy!

It was recently suggested, as a result presumably of a mental masturbation session among politically-correct lawyers, that British law should be changed so that "racist" language [undefined] in private houses could be subject to prosecution. (Readers may like to know that the popular response to the top PC lawyers in Government echoes my terminology!) As soon as Blair, Brown, et al, appear on the TV screen in my local pub, a massed cry is heard of: "Turn those bloody wankers off." The middle-aged Lancashire housewife who habitually and innocently referred to the Asians in her home town as "foreigners" might have been turned into a criminal, but the real racial hatred that expresses itself in the blasting away of a nine-year old Palestinian boy with rockets fired from a helicopter gunship is ignored and disregarded. It's a lunatic world where one country - Israel - has a special exemption from the "multi-culturalism" and "diversity" promoted everywhere else. Not only that, but large sections of Israeli opinion seem to regard the tank, machine-gun and missile as the proper and legitimate answers to multi-culturalism in the country's own back yard. This is the natural end result of a vicious supremacist doctrine that holds that Arabs are not really human. When faced with a massacre by Israelis, the western response is strangely muted and tepid: news bulletins refer to the large number of "people" [note the lack of ethnic identification] who have "died" in the last two weeks, as if they've all peacefully succumbed to a rare disease termed "bulletitis". Arabs may be mown down by tank fire but there is little response from the "humanitarians" of the PC Left. One is left amazed by the effrontery, nay the chutzpah, of Israelis who can protest about imaginary "human rights" violations in Austria, whilst inflicting murder and mayhem on Palestinians.

No call for sanctions

Where Israelis concerned, there is no call from Robin Cook for immediate sanctions or round-the-clock bombing of the aggressor. Indeed, Cook was far more agitated when a court in Iran sentenced some Iranian Jews to terms of imprisonment for spying than he is when the Israeli Army acts as judge, jury and executioner for dozens of stone-throwing Palestinians.

During their presidential debate in the United States, Bush and Gore both declared themselves (surprise, surprise!) to be very keen supporters of Israel, and called on Yasser Arafat to control violent Palestinian youths, who were apparently causing no end of trouble by throwing themselves on machine-gun nests and tanks! This grotesque "debate" on the Middle East ended with Bush and Gore concluding that there were no differences between them in their undying support for Israel.

Our "leaders" are no different, running around like little nuisances, supposedly helping to secure the stability of the pampered pet of the New World Order in the eastern Mediterranean while they neglect problems at home. In mid-October, while the unequal battle raged in Palestine, 216 people, mainly women, lost their jobs with the Brentwood clothing company in Astmoor, Runcorn, a grim industrial estate surrounded by an area suffering from the usual multiple deprivations of crime, poverty and drugs. To judge by their downcast faces, most of them didn't expect to find another job again. Foreign competition was blamed for the closure - just one out of dozens over recent months.

The official propaganda mouthpieces may say otherwise, notably the new edition of Britain: An Official Handbook (stated price £37.50 but seen by me for £1.50, a photo of the doomed Dome on the front... how fitting!), but all normal folk know the situation. Any job is a good job, and all jobs are potentially at risk. Places like Runcorn are hardly likely to see any sign of New Labour overlords except if they pass through at top speed in an armour-plated limousines on their way to somewhere else. We should put our own people first... and show no deference towards "special" nations which behave as abominably as Israel. What say you to that, Mr Blair? This is a man with all the charm - and capacity for independent action - of a Thunderbirds puppet. Why doesn't Blair concentrate on looking after his own people?