Rue, Britannia

I had the opportunity to watch an hour-long talk by Melanie Phillips on C-SPAN a couple of months ago while she was doing a US tour promoting the release of her book, “Londonistan.” The talk, which was both impressive and scary at the same time, focused on excerpts and anecdotes from Londonistan. Now, thanks to neo, I’ve been made aware Ms. Phillips has a web site. The day before I wrote my screed on the BBC, Ms. Phillips had this to say:

The BBC in particular has turned into the Beirut Broadcasting Corporation, reporting the war almost entirely from the perspective of a Lebanon that is entirely innocent and victimised (as opposed to Sky which is far more even-handed). All this with scarcely a nod at the scores of Israeli dead and hundreds of casualties, or the thousands of Israeli refugees being taken in by families in the south of the country. And this despite the fact that those Israeli casualties are being specifically targeted for death, whereas the Lebanese casualties are the inadvertent victims of attacks directed against Hezbollah terrorists and their infrastructure. The Israelis are leafleting Lebanese civilians in advance of their raids to ensure that as many as possible leave the zone of fire. Unfortunately it doesn’t always work, but the intention is patently there to avoid killing civilians because this is a war of self-defence against a terrorist army. The Hezbollah, by contrast, is firing its rockets tipped with ball-bearings — designed to murder and maim as many as possible —in order specifically to kill Israeli civilians.

[…]

There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that the cumulative effect of the BBC’s poisonous distortions is to incite hatred of Israel in anyone who knows little about the region and is exposed for long enough to its TV and radio bulletins. The impact this is having on the general population is bad enough. The likely effect on those Muslims who are already prone to a hysterical sense of grievance against Israel and the Jews as a result of the propaganda pouring out of the Arab and Muslim world – and who believe that the BBC is to be trusted, heaven help us, as the voice of truth and objectivity – cannot be exaggerated in its potential for fomenting yet further evil. The BBC has now become one of the most potent weapons of the enemies of civilisation. It is the most prominent cultural symbol of a society that has turned upon itself and is hell-bent on committing collective suicide.

But the moral crisis in Britain extends far wider and deeper than the wretched BBC and other media. The surreally distorted response by so many to Israel’s attempt to destroy the would-be purveyors of genocide raises the question of whether Britain will ever again support a just war — because it no longer knows what a just war is, and no longer has the intellectual capacity to know. This is in large measure because moral agency has disappeared altogether from the analysis. Intention, the essence of moral actions, is now tossed aside as of no significance. All that matters are the consequences of an action. This is in accordance with the prevailing amoral consensus which has negated moral agency altogether in order to remove the burden of personal responsibility. What someone intends to do is therefore held to be of no account. All that matters is the consequences of their action.

So the fact that Israel is at war solely to prevent the deaths of innocents is dismissed. All that matters is that the consequences of its actions are that Lebanese civilians are dying. The fact that the Israelis do not intend them to die is irrelevant. Those deaths are deemed to be the equivalent of the deaths caused by Hezbollah. The fact that Hezbollah deliberately sets out to murder innocent Israelis is irrelevant. Thus the only thing that matters is which side has more dead people. The fact that there are more dead Lebanese than dead Israelis settles the matter. The Israelis are in the wrong, are behaving disproportionately, are committing war crimes, are the villains of the piece. The fact that they are actually the victims of unprovoked genocidal aggression is deemed irrelevant. Thus the moral bankruptcy of Britain’s post-modern cultural desert.

That’s a pretty big excerpt, but believe me, there’s a lot more. Ms. Phillips is sufficiently alarmist, to be sure. But she does find hope in the fact the British “man in the street” seems to be more aware of the realities of the current Israel – Hezbollah situation, regardless of the arguments and rhetoric put forth by the intelligentsia and the British media, particularly the BBC. And she is right on point when she identifies Iran as the crux of the problem. I hope a majority of the British people are reading what this woman has to say, and more to the point, I hope they agree with her. Her voice needs to be heard in America, as well.

By the way… there’s much more on her web site than just the one essay I’ve linked. Ms. Phillips’ site is well worth browsing at length.

(Up early or late? You decide...)