spinbadz own

John Pilger in defence of BBC



Looking at the first 2 paragraphs:

"Andrew Gilligan's reports were unlike anything the BBC had broadcast. They contradicted the official Anglo-American line about 'liberation' ".

- This is not correct. The BBC regularly contradicts or pooh-poohs the "line" as described. Many observe and comment on this. There could be nothing exceptional about Gilligan's report on that basis.

Pilger emphasizes that Gilligan's reports were "heresy", and thrilling to the folk at the BBC. What's more, he says, Gilligan is right and has "since been repeatedly proven right. There is no liberation in Iraq.There is a vicious colonial occupation."

- Every premise here is reasonably contentious: Is it really a"viscious colonial occupation"? Does the US intend no liberation? If one needs this kind of thinking to rationalize that Gilligan was emphatically"right", like Mr Pilger, then it seems journalistically unsound to contend that Gilligan is "proven" to be right (seeing as a lot of smart people would disagree with that).

Not much to build a case on, and not much here to help the BBC, I think.

Drudge: Gore channel alternative to ailing CNN


US to "cross the Rubicon" of space weaponization


7 Former Communist Countries Join NATO : Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.


Bill Gates: Hardware to Be Nearly Free in 10 Years : MS is betting that advances in hardware and computing will make it possible for computers to interact with people via speech and that computers which can recognize handwriting will become ubiquitous


WSJ article by Ian Johnson:

"The separation of some Muslims from broader German society is seen as a factor in the rise of the Hamburg terrorist cell that led the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. And since then, some members of German Muslim communities have been recruited for jihad against U.S. forces in Iraq.

"In Germany, Muslims live mainly in ghettos in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and cities of the Ruhr industrial belt. Even second- and third-generation immigrants, predominantly from Turkey, often still think of themselves as Turkish.

"Muslims... are still widely denied their constitutional right in Germany to religious education at public schools, although it is provided to Christian and Jewish pupils....Local German governments routinely turn down requests to build mosques because they might disturb 'social peace.'"



Israeli Arab intellectual and poet Salman Masalha on illiteracy:


"In order to explain a complex idea, you need high language, not the language of the souq. ... If you take young people, let's say eighth-grade Arab [children], and their French, or Jewish Israeli, counterparts, you will discover the discrepancy in self-expression. ..., the Arab pupil runs into a big problem. Thus it is in the entire Arab world.

"The Arab world does not read. .... Illiteracy in the Arab world is not 50% like it says in the reports. I say that it is over 80%. ... The average book published in Israel sells more copies than a successful book in the entire Arab world. This also has to do with the economic situation. Reading books is a privilege for people who have spare time and money. ...."

".... Crime and force rule in all Arab villages in Israel. There is a need to bring in Western culture, not only its margins; Western culture that is founded upon the drive of curiosity, the desire to truly develop, to ask…"

"The Islamists see the Arab world according to what I read in the scriptures, ...are trying to revive Islam by uniting in the framework of an Islamic nation. Was it really like that? [The Third Caliph] Muhammad Othman bin 'Affan was murdered and thrown onto the dung heap. Three days he lay there, and a dog ate his foot. This is the golden age to which they want to return?

"There's something in the Islamic perception that drives you crazy, and that is the looking only backwards, not to the future. If the golden age was in the past, your entire vision is rearwards. This causes deterioration. ...There is a need for change in this programming. There is a disk in the Arab mind that must be replaced with another disk...

Those who dare flee to America or Europe, because they cannot create and write in their own societies. Others ... received over the years envelopes full of dinars from Saddam Hussein. Intellectuals of this kind are the root of the problem.

"Today anyone who may not even have finished elementary school can grow a beard and become an authority and a source of power. People don’t know the history of Islam. ...There's no arguing with faith.... the war on fundamentalism cannot come out of ignorance; it must come out of knowledge...

"..(T)he Department of Defense has sunk millions into something that sounds to some like science fiction: ...efforts to get near-nuclear-level energy from a rare radioactive element without splitting any atoms.... a defense official has been promoting Collins's work with a picture of a "nuclear hand grenade,"


On the US political scene: The Bush is Bad News continues to highlight, on its front page, attacks on the present administration by a discredited CBS book publishing partner and Clinton appointee. Not surprisingly, Al-Jazeera is similarly enthused by Clarke and giving him wide coverage.

Meanwhile, regarding what will happen to Iraq in the future, Newsmax's Arnaud de Borchgrave makes some disturbing observation's about Ahmad Chalabi, the man being touted as the front-runner to be Iraq's main power-broker after the US withdraws.

see WSJ article here


"(Muslim militants in Europe)...resented the logic of assimilation. They denied their sisters and daughters the right to mix with "strangers." ... the faith became sharpened for battle. We know that life in Hamburg--and the kind of Islam that Hamburg made possible--was decisive in the evolution of Mohammed Atta, who led the "death pilots" of Sept. 11....

"Europe's leaders know Europe's dilemmas. In ways both intended and subliminal, the escape into anti-Americanism is an attempt at false bonding with the peoples of Islam ...

"But the truth is darker. Jacques Chirac may believe that he has spared France Spain's terror by sitting out the Iraq war. But he is deluded. The Islamists do not make fine distinctions in the bilad al kufr..... "

Europe's Microsoft bashing

Flying video camera drone as shown in Ha'aretz today



BBC chooses anti-Bush activist to deliver radio lectures

Clarke as angry, Clinonite, partisan perjurer

Dick Morris also saw evidence of Clarke's failings and of selfish political ambitions getting in the way of a coherent anti-terrorism policy under his old boss

Nestle, Gauloises, Maggie and other European companies advertise on Hizbullah TV

25th anniversary of Israel-Egypt peace treaty:


Today's quotes:

"The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic....The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that congress has a right to prevent."

- US SC Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Schenck case, 1917



"In the tarpaper morgue at Chalons-Sur-Marne in the reek of chloride of lime and dead, they picked out the pine box that held all that was left of....John Doe....

....the scraps of dried viscera and skin bundled in khaki
they took to Chalons-Sur-Marne
and laid it out neat in a pine coffin
and took it home to Gd's country on a battleship
and buried it in a sarcophagus in the Memorial Amphitheatre in the Arlington National Cemetery
and draped the Old Glory over it
and the bugler played taps"

- John Dos Passos, 1919

Slow Palestinian boy given 50 bucks to blow himself up:

"Abdu told soldiers of his dream of receiving 72 virgins in heaven, which his dispatchers had promised him, and said that he had been tempted by the promise of sexual relations with the virgins. He said that he had been bullied at school for his poor academic performance and that he had wanted 'to be a hero.'

... since the beginning of the intifada, there have been 29 Palestinians under the age of 18 who carried out suicide attacks, and 22 others under 18 who carried out "sacrificial attacks" - in which they opened fire and were killed - in the territories. Forty others under 18 were arrested on suspicion of intending to carry out attacks. "

(from A People's History of the United States , Howard Zinn, HarperPerennial 1995)


“I bring you the stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched and dishonored from pirate raids in Kiao-Chou, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Philippines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies.”

- Mark Twain, 1900

“Dear Sir:....I have not meant to leave anyone in doubt....My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because it helps to save this Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union…I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere could be free. Yours. A. Lincoln.”



- letter to New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley, 1862

Word on the ground is that Taiwanese President ("John Fitzgerald") Chen gained tremendous political benefit from surviving an "assassination" attempt just before the election he just won. Consider:

- Immediately after Chen was shot, he was photographed with blood coming from his stomach region and had no apparent idea he had been struck by a bullet;
- It is being said that the bullet found in his jacket after he was rushed to hospital had not entered his body and did not match the wound;
- Chen gained tremendous sympathy from the incident and defeated his KMT opponent by just 20,000 votes in an election that had 80% turn-out;
- the would-be assassin has not yet been identified or caught;

The PRC of China - as well as nearly half the Taiwanese electorate who passionately disagree with the incumbent president's policies - can be expected to be hopping mad at the re-election of Mr Chen, an agitator for Taiwanese independence. In the cauldron of Taiwanese politics and Taiwan-China relations, this would not seem to be a good omen.

Developing......

As outsiders survey the enthusiasm with which Spain's new socialist leader strives to portray himself, in his own words, as "un gilipollas integral" (a complete dickhead, see the Telegraph's editorial) , one aspect of this affair is already sadly clear:

That fear is an exploitable force with respect to any given electorate.

Larry Flynt knew this when he brazenly sought personal information about Republican Congressmen prior to their vote on the impeachment of former President Clinton. Flynt's activities coincided with the timely resignations of some key Republicans.

The US media establishment pretty much turned a blind eye to this at the time, or at least they chose not to address the democracy-threatening gravity the issue seemed to present.

In the rush to gain political advantage from the Spanish conundrum, we already see the New York Times and others basking ("basqing"?) in what they loudly trumpet as a blow to President Bush (see article), even as the US strives to replace it's martial rule with democracy in Iraq within a few months .

Due condemnation of the sickening perpetrators of the ruthless and calculated mass-murder of Spanish innocents has been obfuscated, as has the issue of suspected Iraqi- or Al Qaeda-sponored bribery of key American allies.

Review: One Palestine, Complete by Tom Segev, Owl Books, 2000

Compulsive Reading

Over many decades that Z-word has been colored and bashed black and blue.

The likes of the modern United Nations and the old Soviet Union have obtusely described it as a synonym for “racism” or “colonialism”.

Rather than being colonialist, political Zionism in Tom Segev’s conception seems more like a skilful surfer riding the wave of British colonialism. It’s a big difference. The surfer maintains balance through a remarkable series of bumps and breaks and obstacles until the wave peters out at the shore.

After which, the surfer trudges landward, even as British support shrinks and evaporates. The beach of Israel’s foundation is far from empty, but s/he single-mindedly claims a plot.

Segev’s historical narrative ~ and the narrative flow is smooth like a wave ride ~ focuses on the early Jewish Zionists, but also places them in elemental context and does so with detachment.





There is much detail about the British and somewhat less about the Arabs. There is enough in all cases for the reader to taste the flavor of events centering on Palestine over the first half of the 20th century.

Part of the author’s self-styled mission is clearly to refute any notion that the British were, wholly or mainly, an enemy of Zionist objectives. Attitudes within all 3 groups ~ Arabs, British and Jews ~ are instead shown to be evolutionary and complex.

Upon relieving the Ottomans of rule in Palestine Britain supports Jewish self-determination for an amalgam of reasons including Christianity-based Zionism, humanistic sympathy and Britain’s aspiration to distinguish herself in posterity as the power that enabled Holy Land redemption after 2,000 years of exile.

But it is British desire to curry favor with the (perceived) powerful forces of international Jewry that is, especially in Segev’s view, a real ~ and anti-Semitic ~ factor that is played like a symphony by Zionist leaders and most notably by the brilliant and charismatic Russian-born chemical engineer Chaim Weizmann.

Before the end of the First World War ~ when the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion has just rolled off the Tsarist presses to the murmur of some Europeans and the shouts of a certain hyperactive and mustachioed German war veteran ~ we (and they, presumably) see Weizmann, head of the London-based world Zionist executive, in numerous meetings with the likes of then Prime Minister David Lloyd George and key cabinet officials Lord Arthur Balfour and Winston Churchill.

The pinnacle achievement of Weizmann’s efforts is what we now call the Balfour Declaration, the famous letter from the Foreign Secretary committing his government to establishing a “Jewish National Home in Palestine”. It seems that the letter became a “declaration” when Weizmann saw it published in the Jewish Chronicle of London one week later on November 9, 1917 (or 9/11/1917, in British style, the very same day as the Bolshevik revolution).

The clout of the Balfour letter snowballs when its key phrases appear in the Mandate document authorizing British rule over Palestine that is incorporated into the Treaty of Versailles and rubber-stamped by the League of Nations in 1918.

In terms of pro forma legitimacy, little more could possibly have been done to serve Jewish self-determination interests.

It is Segev’s hypothesis that the image of Zionist power helped lubricate Zionist interests here and onwards throughout the ‘tween-war period.

We see Jewish luminaries like Albert Einstein, Baron Rothschild and Martin Buber associated with Palestine in synch with media fanfare, (British) Zionist Jew Herbert Samuel appointed by his country as Palestine’s High Commissioner in the 1920s, Weizmann cleverly and strategically intimating of his (in fact superficial）contacts with American Supreme Court Justices Louis Brandeis and Felix Frankfurter, and of his “knowledge” (in fact not true) that “Lenin’s mother was Jewish” and that Jews were behind the Russian revolution.

The memoirs of many of the great British leaders and politicians of the period ruminate on “Jewish” power (they did not tend to distinguish non-Zionist Jews from the Zionists or shades between) with special interest in Jewish leverage in the United States.

On the ground in Palestine, British officials are at the same time wary of rubbing the local Zionist Executive the wrong way, and miffed at the very existence of what was effectively a competing government.

In contrast to the idealistic pro-Zionist attitude of some key political elites back home, a negative attitude toward the nascent Jewish Yishuv colors a large cross-section of British expatriates in Palestine. In reality, Segev tells us, there were not three ethnic societies (British, Arab, Jewish) in Palestine but two: one Anglo-Arab, one Jewish. From the ranks of British military in Arabia spring not only influential orientalists like T.E. Lawrence and St. John Philby, but also many like the suspiciously violent Douglas Duff and the overtly anti-Jewish Evelyn Barker.

This negativity seems to grow as time marches on, and embodies the flip-side of Segev’s tempting “image of Jewish power” hypothesis, within the framework of which we can comprehend also that reading the Nazi decimation of German Jews as a blow to the power of “world Jewry”, the British made efforts not to upset the Arabs during World War Two (for example and principally, by curtailing Jewish immigration) seeing as the Jews were already in their pocket.

Yet even at the Mandate’s beginning, with pro-Jewish British idealism perhaps at its peak, England was careful to temper Zionist ambitions.

The wording “Jewish National Home” was deliberately ambiguous. As for “Palestine”, most its pre-war territory was immediately carved out of the prospective Zionist orbit and into a new country then called “Trans-Jordan”. British administrators of Palestine were then careful to delegate positions of power to rich Arab families like the Husseinis and the Nashesheibis in tandem with allowing Weizmann to set up the Palestinian Zionist Executive.

Perhaps, muses Segev, Britain thought they might perpetuate a role in Palestine as a kind of referee between battling schoolboys. Perhaps they thought the Arabs would soon learn to live with a significant Jewish presence in but one corner of the Arabian world.

If their thinking lay somewhere between these poles, they miscalculated.

One of the early 20th century characters whose views the author uses as a touchstone throughout the book is writer and teacher Khalil al-Sakakini, who is roundly back-slapped by his fellows for ironically sneering from the newspaper Falastin:

“Welcome, cousins. We are the guests and you are the masters of the house. We will do everything to please you. You are, after all, Gd’s chosen people.”

While rulers like the British or the Ottomans may come and go, and impinge upon the native population only to some extent, Sakakini and the Palestinian Arabs were affected at a far more visceral level by the immigration of large numbers of sovereignty-minded, relatively organized, and mainly European Jews.

Tel Aviv steadily grew from an outpost of Arab Yaffo into a Jewish city while strategically located Jewish agricultural settlements flowered up and down the country.　

The Jewish immigrants called themselves Palestinians, resurrecting the Hebrew language and strongly pushing for its inclusion in official documents, on signposts and in the (Jewish) education system.

They paid little heed to Arabic culture or language. Technically there was little need to entreat the Palestinian Arabs politically, as power lay with the British. The Zionists had already extracted from them the necessary legalities to legitimately pursue self-determination, and were busily and legally purchasing lands from Arabs.

But legalism proved to be only part of the equation. There were violent consequences as the push for Jewish sovereignty unfolded after 1917

Significant Arab riots broke out in 1920, 1921 and 1929. Arab anger and brutality smoldered all the years in between and afterwards until a full-scale revolt broke out in 1935 and was put down by General Montgomery.

For the many who believe the Arab-Israel conflict began in 1947, or that Zionism first became significant following the onset of Nazism, Segev’s detailing of these preceding events is an eye-opener.
On the question of what might have been – and what might have been avoided - we see that even in the early years there is lively debate.

In one popular Arab view, the Jewish predicament was a European problem that might concern the granting of European land.

Jerusalem’s so-called “Tower of David” was a Muslim minaret; the Jewish “Wailing Wall” and “Temple Mount” were both legally in Arab hands and the golden dome that adorned that site defined the very character of Jerusalem.

Had so for centuries. The Jewish claim to Palestine, they said, was akin to Muslims now claiming Spain by virtue of having sovereignty there for a very limited period many centuries ago.

Could Arabs have been persuaded to accept a Jewish presence?

In the eyes of some, the Zionists invited trouble by the deliberate tactic of being so very public and ostentatious with successful endeavors in which the Arabs had no say at all.

But the most prescient view was expressed by the rising labor leader David Ben Gurion in 1919: “There is no solution!... We want the country to be ours. The Arabs want the country to be theirs.”

And so it was, and is. So much of the character of events in this period ensues to this very day. Segev details some of the cases of rapes, mutilations and unspeakable heartlessness that occurred as Arabs rioted. Such events were widely sensationalized by rumor and report, and fed the stereotype: Arabs as uncivilized animals. Meanwhile, Arabs cried “bravo” at what they viewed as stand-up righteousness. The Jews launched their own brutal counter-terrorism campaigns. And so on and on.

As Segev tracks the history, he attends to fascinating detail. It starts with indicators of the decaying Ottoman environment. A large part describes the rivalry between Weizmann and Ben Gurion, and between the two of them and Revisionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and between all three of them and (assassinated) homo-erotic adventurer Jacob de Haan. We feel the shattered disillusionment of various British-appointed High Commissioners who come to Palestine full of idealistic intentions, and learn the origins of Mr Qassam of missile fame. We see that the first martyr of the modern era was the Jewish Yosef Trumpledor, a one-armed socialist revered as a Revisionist hero.

As far as it goes the book is a fantastic piece of historical scholarship, and I found myself wanting it to continue. It seems to run out of legs at the end. Some of the focusing on the personal activities and views of a select band of minor characters is a bit lengthy and tedious. But even this helps to add a texture and dimension missing from traditional histories.

I am so enthused by this book that it is tempting to agree with the rave on the cover: if you have to read one book about the British mandate period, this is the one. But there are certain elements that could be misinterpreted or used by people with existing biases to push their own prejudices, it is true. Particularly where the biases are anti-Israel to begin with. It is important to be aware, I believe, that the author is himself an Israeli who seeks to attack certain misconceptions held by those on the right of the Israeli political spectrum.

On the other hand, if you bring to the table a bit of knowledge, maturity and an open mind, it is a fantastic book.

Here's an amazing but true tale to warm the cockles of your heart.

Our hero is Tasco, a nuggety and bent-nosed hooker in a pretty good under-15s school rugby side. His team is in the process of handing out the father of a hiding, at home, to a lowly competitor.

Nothing special about this late ‘70s early winter outing - so far. Significantly, amongst a straggle of chatting and largely disinterested spectators are members of the home school's revered First XV, scheduled to play next on the same ground.

Deep into the match, a kick sails over the touch line, just where the first grade boys are milling around. The school rugby glitterati is there in force: the first grade coach is there, so is the school principal, the school captain, and so - most importantly, as far as Tasco is concerned - is the first grade hooker, a gentleman known as Fishhead.

Now, thinks Tasco, would be a great chance to catch attention. He decides to trial a highly unorthodox lineout play his team had concocted during the last training session.

And so it was that, with back to the first graders and body positioned authoritatively in throwing position, he made the historic call:

“Beautician!”

Curiousity was immediately palpable amongst the knowlegdeable spectators. This was not a generic call like, say, "Harbour Bridge" or "46". And it certainly didn't sound like any cousin of the infamous "99", which everyone in the district knew to be the signal for instigation of fisticuffs.

Later, Tasco was able to recall with pride that the perfect positioning of the lineout enabled the spectators to view what transpired in the same detail and with the same clarity as Tasco himself.

He, hooker and lineout thrower, released the ball with as much force as the needed accuracy and guile would allow, straight at the face of his opposite number standing at front of the lineout. It was a perfectly directed throw. In the split second it took the ball to reach its target, Tasco (and Fishhead and his friends) could see the eyes of the opposing hooker:

(a) Light up with surprised glee that the ball was coming his way; then
(b) Expand in panic as he realized this was as intended; then, finally
(c) Disappear from view to be replaced by the back of his skull, from which the ball ricocheted many feet in the air.

The thing that really sealed the deal, as - following a moment of collective and stunned silence - the crowd doubled over in loud hysterical laughter, was that the referee clearly had no idea about what had happened. He awarded no penalty, nor did he rule that the ball had not gone "in straight".

The previously unknown Tasco was an instant celebrity, and everyone suddenly wanted a piece. Never had lineout throwing been so popular. For the rest of the game, everyone on the team wanted to throw the ball in the lineout, and specifically to throw a “Beautician”.

Whenever the ball went out, five voices distant and close would yell "Beautician!". Locks were even kicking the ball out deliberately, just so there could be a Beautician.

The coach was having an apoplectic fit, but for 20 minutes or so Tasco was living out a rugby fantasy. The icing on the cake came when his own fly half instructed Tasco to feign injury when the ball went out, and then "recover" once the fly half was installed in his place at hooker and lineout thrower.

Therefore Tasco, the hooker, found himself playing fly half! The coach, a 120kg former rower, was red in the face and blowing a gasket on the sidelines, but by this time had lost his voice. The Beautician circus only came to an end when the referee, alerted by the strange musical chairs being played around the home team's never-before-so-popular hooking position, eventually cottoned on to the illegality of the throw.

As for the First XV boys, they laughed loud and long well after the end of the match. The loudest laugher was Fishhead. This was an unusual thing. Here was a character that was only known to school juniors for episodes of profound mirth following sequences like:

“Hey, Fishhead.”
“That's Mr. Fishhead to you, s*it for brains”. Wallop!

Fishhead was said to be so impressed with “Beautician” that his coach had to restrain him from using the throw himself.

This order famously broke down only in the very last game of the season: the grand final. Fishhead’s team was more than a converted try behind going into the last few minutes of a brutal game.

A ball went out and the call was made. It was heard in the grandstands. This time the school's spectators knew what to expect. Zoom!

Unfortunately, unlike Tasco’s opponent, Fishhead’s immediately sensed the malice in his opponent's action. He blocked the throw with his arms, then came forward throwing punches. Both hookers were sent off.

Coach’s head went into hands. "F*cking 'Beautician'", he was heard to mutter. The legend had snowballed.

The writer was a spectator at these events.

Years later, chance and circumstance found me wandering down to the old school rugby grounds to see a new generation of players in action. I hadn't been there more than a few minutes, when a lineout formed within earshot and close view: "Beautician!" came the call. If there was a chair underneath me I would have fallen off.

Sure enough: too straight went the throw. Up came blocking arms - in apparent expectation. Push and shove followed, as the referee's whistle. knowingly, reprimanded players and blew it up.

Watching the game was the old first grade coach, he still a teacher at the school. "F*cking Beautician, f*cking Fishhead", he laughed, shaking his head.

Regarding The Passion of The Christ, I forgot to mention that the film itself is quite boring. The hype is far more intriguing than the product.

My views about Mel Gibson's latest flick change with every exposure to appealing and well-constructed opinion, the latest being Charles Krauthammer's here

I wonder, though, whether Charles is not a little strong here in his denunciation of St Mel.

True, the central characters in 'The Passion of the Christ' are all Jews.

Just like vile Shylock in Shakespeare's 'The Merchant of Venice', Gibson's Caiaphas dresses in Jewish garb and is simultaneously the movie's touchstone of evil . Just like Shylock's daughter Jessica, 'Passion' 's heroes are ethnically Jewish but have embraced Christianity ... and are (therefore?) portrayed in the story like the embodiment of good.

For Jewish people - at a real and "visceral" (hasn't that word been a worked chestnut in 'Passion' discussions!) level - there is indeed much to feel uncomfortable about. The terrible charge of deicide has a long and bloody history of coinciding with maelstroms of anti-Judean bigotry.

Part of Gibson's apparent motivation in making the film, as Krauthammer points out, exacerbates such discomfort, to wit the overt distaste the actor/director has for Vatican II - a seminal event to the many who appreciate its express Papal directive calling for humane interpretation of the very subject matter of Gibson's 'Passion'.

But Vatican II is a disaster in Gibson's view for its watering down of fundamental Christian practices.

By now we all know - and I would greatly prefer not to know - that Mel's branch of Catholicism conducts services in Latin and is heavily geared towards giving the old two fingers to VII in other ways. Like making an unadulterated, honest to gospels film about Christ's final hours. One that powerfully conveys the meaning in the Eucharist. A version which, the director insists, is in no way anti-Semitic and in fact is all about promoting universal love.

Garbage, says Krauthammer. There is no way on earth - and this is clearly true - that Gibson could not have known this subject matter would be disconcerting for Jews, whilst abetting the types of nasty chauvinistic views we are led to believe - and, boy oh boy, wasn't this something you wish you'd never heard - are held dearly by Gibson's own father.

Furthermore, out of spicy Mel G's own mouth in that now famous 'New Yorker' interview came the clanger about "secular Judaism" trying (for ages, he says) to blame the Holocaust on the Catholic Church.

Following such a curious deluge of factoids I, for one, may never again be able to watch Mel's film 'Conspiracy Theory' with a light heart.

But on the substantive point of suspicion and difference between said Spiceboy and our non-Calvinist columnist CK I aver that - it is at least possible that - both legitimately claim to being righteously indignant.

Consider the obscure production - in volatile 1920s Jerusalem - of an opera, called 'The Jewess', in which one of the main (and bad-ass) characters is a Cardinal. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem became upset with that portrayal. He invoked the support of the (British) Mayor of Jerusalem in successfully persuading the play's producer to fashion said character as a black-robed and secular judge instead of a red-robed and cross-bearing cardinal.

Which pleased the patriarch - but at the same time upset radical Jewish commentators, who wailed loudly that the governor’s very public intervention had brought a “new inquisition” to Jerusalem.

Well, here we are in a different era. 'Passion' hails from a different continent, and motion pictures are of course a different medium. The shoes of the 1920s play were also on opposite feet, but still ... it's all the same hotdanged thing, isn't it!? Complainant says, hey, don't tell bad stories about me, don't you dis me. Purveyor says bug off, this is nothing to do with you, mind your own. And both stare and fold arms in religion-cloaked, sanctimonious indignation.

Now, this simplistic explanation is not to say that some of Krauthammer's points are not spot on. Mel (hey look, I know he has suddenly become "Mr Gibson" to a lot of writers but I always liked him when he was just plain Mel) is a long way from ignorant of the bullying effect on Jews that he is creating. He has admitted to wanting to promote "discussion", and his PR campaign has of course cashed right in on this heavily hyped Christian v Jewish controversy. He may be startled that things got this big, but it would be surprising if part of his financial windfall is invested in, say, trying to win back millions of Jewish fans who now feel a little bit disturbed instead of delighted when they gaze upon that familiar face in re-runs of 'Ransom' , 'The Patriot' and 'Air America'.

The hatchet job on Gibson that has been done by the liberal media brigade led by 'The New York Times' has certainly achieved enough - no matter what you're view - to make you wonder about Mel G's hidden (err, "visceral"?) demons. The father's influence looms large. Some wonder whether Mel is affected by his age: whether at 48 or thereabouts, in one view, there is the drive to reinvent himself within his art. Perhaps, others may quietly muse, he is disaffected with some of the Jewish powerbrokers in Hollywood. Then, in yet another view, there is the flavor that many of us have seen regarding people who later in life find religion; that the transformation is often zealous and driven by escapism, reform, denial, repentance or some such reaction to mistake or misfortune.

It's all mere speculation. Who knows what, if any, demons lie within? The ad hominem information we're getting on Gibson is more unseemly and compelling than anything in a Hollywood gossip magazine, but has been blasted at us from mainstream newspapers and network TV screens. It has incensed the actor, while catapulting him to a place in cinematic, box office and inter-religious history instead of succeeding in ignominious character assassination.

Thankfully, Gibson has so far proven not be a high-profile Jew-hater like Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford or Roald Dahl. And, understandably, the entire American Christian establishment is pinching itself in glee at pegging a big one back in the face of a mighty and sustained attack, most recently regarding homosexual paedophilic abuse by Catholic clergy, it's uphill battle on issues like gay marriage and abortion, and the enmity of liberal public figures like Ted Turner and a plethora of activist US higher court justices.

Not to mention the murderous anti-Christian chauvinism of Islamic radicals.

Curiously, emphasizing the justificatory "He died for our sins, ALL our sins, so that we may love one another" message of the movie is a great result for Christians and Jews alike. This atmosphere has given rise to the rethink of the cleric in one part of Colorado who was motivated by the film, at first, to display "The Jews Killed Jesus" outside his church, and then to pull it down when angry voices were raised against him.

In another part of Colorado, the 'Passion' wave motivated the anonymous no-life idiot who tarnished Jewish graves, as well as the good people who joined the Jewish community in cleaning those same gravestones. The 'Passion' "discussion" has caused leading Christian clergy to reach out to their communities with proactive instructions not to lapse into anti-Semitism.

Of course, people like we imagine Mel Gibson's father to be will draw ugliness from the film and the gospels' message, as they always did. But perhaps, we can hope, even some of that ilk will notice that the same liberal elites they imagine to be part of a Jewish conspiracy also attack Israel incessantly and have recently been carping about the sinister influence of "Jewish neo-conservatives".

Perhaps they might also notice that Christian precepts and morals are rooted in Judaism. That it corrupts the essential Christian message to quantify every Jewish 5 year old, grandmother and dunderhead as a target for ugliness, or as a part of "ZOG", or as a sinister Elder of Zion.

In fact, despite the fact that both are Jewish, one of very, very few things upon which Charles Krauthammer and a 'New York Times' denizen like Frank Rich might agree is something which - err...viscerally - alerts them to the spectre of a direct threat.

Like a story from the bible that has galvanized bullying, and outright carnage, of the Jewish minority over many centuries.

Contrary to what is being propagated, it is tough for people like CK and the ADL's Abraham Foxman to stand up to a popular figure like Mel Gibson. In some quarters, the way things stand,this movie has had an excellent effect. Part of that is the boon to people like Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Newsmax.com, Drudge and the gang who have rallied on this issue against arrogant liberal elites. Part of it also, and this may be only in my imagination, may be to show stratospheric Islamic or Palestinian radicals that the issues between Jews and Christians historically have been quite significant and that the Jewish nexus with the Holy Land is very real - and not a myth of "colonialist" European expansion.

Part of it, though this remains to be seen, may be the drawing of renewed attention to fundamental issues that can be, and have been, a source of chauvinism and conflict, and the development of a more moderate, sensible approach to such issues.

But all things are variables. The key thing is the goodness within each individual.

Churchill, said the television show host, called depression his "black dog".

Perhaps if Winny had been able to let it all out on a keyboard it might have been more of a middling grey dog, who knows. On the other hand, had he lived in times like these, even a dark chihuahua might have taken the proportions of a snarling wolf.

I guess I've always fancied having a public rant, so let's give this thing a go and let the fun and games begin.