Salman Rushdie has exposed the great lie of a ‘Free Palestine’

This is what people must mean by the phrase ‘adults in the room’. After seven months of left-wing hotheads damning Israel as the source of every ill in the Middle East – if not the world – finally we have a cool, still voice venturing an alternative take. Perhaps, the voice says, Hamas is the problem. And perhaps those who call themselves progressive should think twice before making excuses for such a ‘fascist’ movement that would have them up against a wall quicker than you could say ‘Free Palestine’. Finally, wisdom cuts through the noise.

It’s Salman Rushdie. Of course it is. It’s always Salman Rushdie. He’s become a beacon of moral clarity in these ethically dazed times. Now, delightedly, he’s applying his lucidity of thought to the Gaza calamity. In an interview with the German newspaper Bild he took aim, in typically avuncular style, at ‘young progressives’ whose hatred for Israel sometimes crosses the line into something like sympathy for Hamas.