Conrad Black replies: Little in the letters of Lord Gilmour
or William Dalrymple requires a reply. Anyone with the slightest familiarity with how any of our publications deal with the Middle East, or with what I have written or said on the subject, knows that we have often been severely critical of Israel and have never failed to sympathise with the plight of the Palestinians. All our journalists must write the truth as they see it, and no attempt to mn771e or influence truthful reporting or fair comment will ever be tolerated. They and our many millions of discerning readers all know that.
The only one of the countless lies my accusers and their kindred spirits have published in the last two weeks on this subject that I will trouble to refute is Mr Dalrymple's assertion in the Guardian that my wife had described the Palestinians in the Daily Telegraph as 'animals'. She wrote that they had been shamefully treated like animals but that those among them who were terrorists had behaved like animals. This distortion is the same sort of malicious invention that did cause a committee of journalists and editors to remove Mr Dalrymple as a Daily Telegraph contributor on Middle Eastern questions some years ago.
Rising above the personalities of my accusers, which does not require much of a levitation, I ask them, setting aside the terribly inflamed history of the Middle East: do they believe Israel could reasonably have offered more than it did at Camp David last autumn? Do they believe that the renewed Palestinian insurrection was a reasonable response to those Israeli proposals?
If the answer to either question is affirmative, they are opposed to the existence of the state of Israel but have lacked the courage to say so. This, too, is their right, but it shows that they are cowards as well as bigots. And nothing in their conduct in the last couple of weeks indicates otherwise.
Conrad Black
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