In a recent article on these pages, I suggested that if Barack Obama was elected president of the United States - which he was - and Binyamin Netanyahu became this country's next prime minister - which, unfortunately, seems the case - then Washington and Jerusalem were set on a collision course. The response from Talkbackland was unanimous: I was nothing more than a self-hating Jew for having the temerity to suggest such a development.

This attack on the messenger rather than the message is a long-standing tradition of those on the Right, for they are unable to provide a compelling argument as to how Israel can remain a Jewish and democratic country while still occupying the West Bank and ruling over the 2 million-plus Palestinians who live there. Wrapping themselves in the flag and ignoring reality because it is too inconvenient, right-wingers prefers to slander their opponents - remember Netanyahu's "the Left have forgotten what it is to be Jews" in 1999 - rather than provide a convincing road map to secure Israel's future.