St Greg's Fartwa on Jeremy Corbyn.

Hark! Somewhere, deep within the bowels of News Corpse, something stirs, namely Greg Sheridan, foreign editor of The Australian, author of God is Good for You (2018), and knight errant for Israel.

And somewhere, deep within St Greg's bowels, something darker stirs, namely his latest fartwa, Corbyn's rise is a symptom of the West's infirmity (18/8/18).

Herewith, some only of its more mephitic odours:

"[L]et's be clear: Anning presents like a combination of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt compared with Corbyn."

And, while we're being clear - it has to be said! - Corbyn even makes Adolf Hitler, Genghis Khan, Dracula, and Tony Abbott look good.

Gnashing his teeth over "the increasingly ubiquitous dynamic of celebrity," St Greg pronounces that "by contradicting every tenet of common sense and political decency [Corbyn] became a star. He certainly stood out from politicians who may have been dull, but whose very dullness was evidence of a connection with reality."

A star, yes, but a dark one:

"Corbyn's addiction to conspiracy was not born of digital media. He is an analogue conspiracy believer and hater from way, way back. Which brings us to the matter of Jews and anti-Semitism. For 2000 years, indeed longer, Jews have been the centre of the most lurid conspiracy theories. From the false conviction of Alfred Dreyfus to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and countless other cases, Jews have been at the centre of baseless and viciously malign conspiracy theories.

"Many Christian individuals and institutions played horrible roles in anti-Semitism, while many Christians also opposed it. The past 20 years have seen a dangerous upsurge in anti-Semitism in the West. It has two sources. One is Islamist - even nonviolent Islamists and indeed much Muslim opinion generally. The other is the conspiracy mindset of contemporary left activism, especially as it focuses on Israel."

St Greg's fartwa continues, but with the following piccolo-like proviso:

"It is of course perfectly OK, and not remotely anti-Semitic, to criticise Israel."

(Funny that, coming from one who has never in his life criticised Israel! And who once vehemently dismissed the well-documented - including from Zionist archives - fact of Zionist ethnic cleansing in Palestine in 1948 as "all rubbish." See my 9/5/09 post Sheridan: Nakba Denier.)

No sooner had the piccolo - if I may refer to it thus - faded away than suddenly there came a sound from St Greg's nether regions as of a rushing mighty wind which filled all the house where he was sitting:

"But to apply standards to Israel that would never be applied to other nations, to accuse Israel of blatantly untrue crimes, to equate Jews automatically with all the policies of Israel, to equate Israel with Nazism, to criticise Israel in terms of traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes, to accuse Jews of having greater loyalty to Israel than to the nations of their citizenship, to generate such exaggerated hatred of Israel that it spills over into hostility to Jews, all of that is anti-Semitism. And supporting terrorists who kill innocent Jews is also anti-Semitism."

Verily, not even the cockroaches which rule the roost in the bowels of News Corpse could withstand such a wind as this! Yea, smitten were they and utterly destroyed.

As for the rest of the fartwa it was these two cheeky, shofar-like blasts in particular that knocked me to my knees:

"There are Jews whom Corbyn likes. If a Jew routinely execrates Israel and adopts every other far-left conspiracy-tinged political cause, Corbyn will be his friend."

How dare Corbyn not like Netanyahu, Lieberman et al. I mean, really now, what's not to like? Top blokes!

"Corbyn has equated Israel's presence in the West Bank with the military occupations of World War II. Such language automatically invokes Nazi images."

Far out! How dare Corbyn compare a mere 51-year Israeli "presence" in the West Bank with a German military occupation of 4 years! (Parenthetically, there's been an Israeli army base and half a dozen Israeli settlements, whose inhabitants have been running around with firebombs and chainsaws in my backyard for, like, forever, but, hey, I'm not complaining. After all, it's just a "presence," innit?)

Listen, Corbyn, you can run on your cloven hooves, but you can't hide, OK?