My sister has an amazing talent for creative birthday greetings. Today she outdid herself. This is my nephew Gabriel...

So there I was, comfortably ensconced on a wicker chair at an outdoor cafe "somewhere in Tel Aviv." It was a lovely sunny morning and there was a perfectly prepared cappuccino on the table in front of me. I unfolded the International Herald Tribune, read the op-ed pieces, then started flicking through the stories - and when I reached page four, I got a headache. There it was, right beneath a positively scintillating article about a cheddar cheese aging live, online: British journalists' union calls for Israel boycott.

The union is called National Union of Journalists (NUJ), and it is Britain's biggest jounalists' union. From the IHT article:

"The boycott call was initially part of a broader condemnation of Israel's so-called "slaughter of civilians" in Gaza and "savage pre-planned attack" last year on Lebanon but was separated for a specific vote. The condemnation of Israeli military action in Gaza and Lebanon was approved by a wider margin."

::snip::

"The timing of the ballot was particularly delicate since a BBC journalist, Alan Johnston, has been held for more than a month in Gaza, making the boycott call seem one-sided."

Indeed.

Well. What does one say in response to this particular incidence of inanity? Quite a bit, it seems - and, interestingly, the best comments are on prominent British journalists' blogs (the previous link provides summaries of and links to those blog posts. Recommended click).

Toby Harnden, the Daily Telegraph's United States editor, wrote one of the most strongly worded posts about the NUJ vote. Excerpt:

"...if you read the [NUJ's] anti-Israel motions, you will spot a complete absence of any sense of journalistic impartiality. The 'slaughter of civilians' by Israel is condemned (no mention of suicide bombings or human rights abuses by Palestinian militias, needless to say), as is the 'savage, pre-planned attack on Lebanon by Israel' and 'continued attacks inside Lebanon following the defeat of its army by Hezbollah'.

What kind of language is this? It is tendentious and politically-loaded propaganda that would be rightly edited out of any news story written in a newspaper that had any pretensions of fairness."

Olivia Lang, an NUJ member, expressed her opposition on the union's blog.

"As one member mentioned, the union will ineluctably be seen by some as anti-Semitic because of this particular stance against Israel which, despite being a ridiculous misconception, is also one that needs to be taken into account. Not least because such individuals can quite rightly ask, ‘why target Israel? Why not persecute other states with bad records internationally?’ And the union has no answer."

Okay, here's what I think. It's my birthday, so I can say what I want to. The IDF regularly commits stupid and cruel acts in the Palestinian territories. It sucks to be a Palestinian living in the Palestinian Authority. I know because I've seen how much it sucks. And these issues must be discussed - honestly, openly, fairly and (heaven forbid) without hysteria.

However.

I would like to draw attention to the fact that the Coalition for International Justice currently estimates that about 390,000 civilians have been killed in Darfur. And at least 62,000 Iraqi civilians have died a violent death over the last four years. That's just a little sample of the massive cruelties going on all over the Middle East. If a person who knows these facts still thinks that Israel is the biggest, baddest, most evil and satanic pariah state in the whole entire world, the one that deserves to be boycotted and despised above all others, well, then I think there is something wrong with that person. Emotionally wrong. As in, get thee to a therapist and figure out what's really driving all that gratuitous hatred.

P.S. No, I do not think that the entire British media is hopelessly biased against Israel. (for heaven's sake).