Published by Daily Mail

Day by day, minute by minute, speech by speech and word by word, the United Kingdom Independence Party looks and sounds increasingly like the Conservative Party in exile – on the economy, law and order, education, defence, patriotism, Christianity, immigration, over-regulation, tax reduction, and their support for private enterprise, traditional marriage and the family, and (of course) the thorny question of the European Union. There is no longer any credible assertion that UKIP is a ‘single-issue’ protest party or pressure group.

And now, just as we have our long-held suspicions confirmed that the Foreign Office is essentially Arabist and ever so subtly anti-Israel, with government officials outrageously asserting that Benjamin Netanyahu uses ‘the incitement issue as a delaying tactic in peace talks’, we hear that Nigel Farage is confronting the ‘strong bias’ against Israel that exists within the European Union.

When have you ever heard a Conservative MEP do that?

“There is within the European institutions a very strong anti-Israel bias,” Mr Farage said. “I would almost say — and I am bit nervous of saying this — there’s almost a new trendy form of anti-Semitism creeping in…

“I could show you, within the last three months, transcripts of several dozen speeches in the European Parliament. There is a fundamental dislike of Israel. But it’s more than that. And we find that objectionable and worrying.”

And, as ever, he and his party are united in putting their votes where their convictions lie: they are opposing calls to suspend the EU’s trade agreements with Israel, and they remain highly critical of EU aid to the Palestinian Authority, some of which is routinely filtered to schools to teach the next generation about Islam, Jihad, martyrdom, and how to purify their land of the evil Zionist Jews.

“The one thing we have consistently spoken about in the European Parliament,” Farage said, “is that we object to 300 million euros a year being given to the PA — the sum is lower this year, it was up to 500 million a couple of years ago — with, from what I can see, absolutely no check or proper audit of how that money is disbursed or where it is being spent.

“I don’t think you should give money to anybody until you can absolutely guarantee that it is not falling into the wrong hands. The wrong hands could be fraud or, in the case we are discussing here, some of the groups who behaved in a very unpeaceful manner.”

I like ‘unpeaceful’. It isn’t a word, but it’s rather more evocative than belligerent, militant, violent or war-like. It reminds us that there are very many peaceable Palestinians who are victims in this struggle, made passively to suffer at the hands of their own government. Yet the EU turns a blind eye to the continuing acts of terrorism in order to perpetuate its love-in with Hammas and the Palestinian National Authority.

Farage adds: “I almost feel that the reason the EU gives this money is because it wants to appear to do the very opposite of everything America wants.”

The UKIP leader is not the first person to observe that the EU manifests anti-American proclivities. In a Westminster Hall debate on 29th March 2000, Michael Fabricant MP said: “According to President Chirac: ‘The object of the European defence identity is to contain the United States.’ That is some quote — quite extraordinary. Speaking in Paris in December, Chancellor Schröder echoed President Chirac’s comment, stating: ‘Whining about US dominance is not good enough. We have to act.’ Such anti-American rhetoric may go down well with continental audiences but it certainly does not reflect British interests.”

Such comments lend serious weight to the observation made almost 20 years ago by Bernard Connolly in his book ‘The Rotten Heart of Europe’, in which he warned that Jacques Delors ‘wants to create a new state, “Europe”, and to create with it a new “nation” based on some supposed cultural identity that can be defined only in terms of what it is not, what it is antithetical to’.

And so the EU is pathologically anti-American, anti-Anglo-Saxon, anti-Capitalism, anti-state, anti-individualist and anti-Israel; the logical corollary of which is that it is pro the antithesis or converse of each, hence the rationale for pouring millions of euros of aid into Gaza and the West Bank.

Farage says of this: “I understand why Israel may be prone to deep concern when there are neighbouring states which publicly say they want to obliterate them from the face of the earth.”

He evidently knows his history. He fully understands how sovereignty can be negated and national identity undermined.

For the political dream of Palestine to be realised, Israel must cease to be. Neither can agree to compromised borders, and the ‘two-state solution’ of sovereignties ‘pooled’ will founder on the ultimate status of Jerusalem. We all desire peace in the Middle East. We all long to see an end to the suffering of the children of Abraham – both Arabs and Jews. But the EU’s latent or blatant anti-Semitism and facile understanding of the theo-political complexities will only make matters worse. Thank God there’s one person who dares to speak out.