RANK HYPOCRISY

I recently referred here to an article published in The Australian in which commentator Christopher Hitchens asked what had become of the Palestinian suicide bombers.

One of the main reasons for the diminished activity of the bombers was the significant increase in security measures introduced by the Israelis, not the least of which was the construction of a security barrier (mostly fence and partly wall) dividing Israeli and Palestinian communities from each other and effectively helping to keep terrorists out of Israeli towns and cities and dramatically reducing the death toll on the Israeli side.

For their part, the Palestinian terror groups responded with a new strategy - particularly in Gaza where the Moslem Brotherhood inspired Hamas has now gained full control. The strategy was the use of missiles, many of them crude but others of increasing sophistication, fired indiscriminately over the security fence and into Israel's populated centres. This strategy ultimately resulted in Israel's Operation Cast Lead, an attack on Hamas in Gaza.

The Palestinian terror groups have developed a substantial following in the west of "enablers" - those who lobby on their behalf to assist them with their stategies of deligitimising and ultimately destroying the Jewish State. These enablers have ficussed heavily on all aspects of Israeli security and the use of lies, distortions and half truths have been their main tactical weapon. Hence, the security barrier which has saved so many Israeli lives has been wrongly described as an Apartheid Wall or an attempt at a land grab. Our own ABC, through its news and foreign affairs programmes has not been averse to joining the enabler's party.

So it came as something of a surprise this week when the ABC aired this week's "Foreign Correspondent" programme about a similar "us and them" situation in which the virtues of a similar security barrier which runs through and separates Belfast's Christian and Protestant area were extolled as a "Wall of Peace!"

Here's the transcript of the programme but don't hold your breath waiting for any self-righteous ABC correspondents to start wailing and gnashing his teeth about the "Apartheid Wall". It seems that these days walls that save lives are "Walls of Peace" - except of course when the lives saved are Jewish lives!