Remember Howard Dean?

Now, a little sortie from the former Democratic presidential hopeful (though to be honest, it was always hopeless) and current Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean. He has accused Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of being an anti-Semite for condemning the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, while failing to condemn the actions of Hizbollah. Dean is right about the moral fudging here and al-Maliki's intentions may not be pristine, but it is particularly pathetic to use the anti-Semitic accusation against somebody for merely exercising reticence. It's the usual smear employed by some of Israel's more enthusiastic US supporters - many of them, like Dean, gentiles - for anyone that dares criticise Israel.

Will Dean imagine that President Bush and his cabinet are anti-Arab racists for prosecuting the war in Iraq? Or that the EU heads of state are racist for their failure to intervene in Darfur and before that, Congo? Both of these are moot points but Dean would not dare exploit them to make political capital from a cheap slur, like he did earlier on today.

And what would the Doctor make of the great Israeli refusenik and film-maker Avi Mograbi, whose documentary For Just One of My Two Eyes was one of the best films of last year, and who last week wrote this riposte to his fellow leftist David Grossman's endorsement of Israel's attack:

"I do not think it legitimate to bombard civilian populations in this way. I do not think it legitimate to destroy the infrastructure of a whole country just to pressurise a population to expel Hizbollah. I do not think that this is a legimitate way of striking at "public opinion". I wonder if Grossman, or any other Israeli in favour of peace, would support the measures of mass bombardment of Israel's civilian population and infrastructure to force the country to vacate the Occupied Territories. I see things as this: terror can lead only to terror. It is by ceasing to terrorise that we can hope to no longer be terrorised."

No doubt the good Doctor would have recourse to another slur that he and his ilk use to describe Jews that do not tow the line: "self-hating Jew."

And to think that the Republicans are accusing Dean of moving the Democrats to the far-left.