Yes, they should have known that the hostility to Israel in Europe would trigger this kind of blowback. But I’ll bet the attitude around the Mossad water cooler is “better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6.”

What am I saying? I am saying that since 11 September anti-Semitism and its open expression has become respectable once more. Not in Germany or Catholic central Europe, but at London dinner tables. […W]e are not only talking about right-wingers here. The liberal establishment, which professes to unsheath its sword at any injustice, has been more anti-Semitic about this whole business than any other political group. One of those crossbench life peers who is never without either a copy of the Guardian or a copy of a human-rights bill told a friend of mine, ‘Well, the Jews have been asking for it, and now, thank God, we can say what we think at last.’