Instapundit links to Lileks' rant [in part] about the BBC approaching war coverage from an arabist point of view. It doesn't surprise me, and it doesn't concern me. Britain has perennially been arabist in nature. Lovers of history will recall that when the British pulled out of the Palestine Mandate in 1947, it left the Jews on the scene essentially defenseless against 100 million arabs surrounding the soon-to-be-birthed [re-birthed?] Israel. In fact, in the months leading to the proclamation of the State of Israel, the British turned over bases and arms to Arab irregulars and the Arab Legion. Britain's support of arab regimes relative to western-style democracies, i.e., Israel, has been pretty consistent since the creation of Israel in 1948. Said the British Ambassador to Israel last year, referring to other british envoys in the region: "British Arabists send back highly colored reports, forgetting the realities in Israel," he said. "My job is to remind them of those realities".

Considering Britain's history of siding with the arabs, its support of and participation in the Iraq war may be seen as perhaps a watershed event in global relationships.