Bravo

The EU parliament's most senior foreign relations personality has quit an official trip to Israel next week because he said his fellow deputies are plotting "anti-Israeli propaganda."

That is to say, more than the usual days’ detached tirade.

A stunt, I’m sure, which is likely to have descended into ridicule anyway, something along the lines of Marlon Brando asking an utterly fake Apache to indignantly refuse his Oscar on his behalf.

"Out of the 25 deputies who are to take part in the mission, there are fewer colleagues than the fingers on one hand whom you could define as pro-Israeli, or even [be] neutral!" he said. "Rather than a peacekeeping mission, it looks like an anti-Israeli propaganda mission is being prepared!"

Which should not surprise anyone, but if they REALLY meant it, wouldn’t self-immolation be a gesture whose sincerity one couldn’t question? A sort of ‘unimpeachable moral authority’ thing that they think they already have by, say, boycotting grapes and oranges.

The Israeli embassy to the EU said MEPs' visits to Gaza give moral support to Hamas, the militant Palestinian group which holds sway in the strip.

"It is discouraging to learn that a distinguished delegation, representing one of the symbols of European democracy, chooses to concentrate its programme around interlocutors representing the views of only one side of the conflict," it said in a statement on Tuesday.

I’d rather they need to be extinguished, and wonder if they really are distinguished, if’n you get my meaning.

Look at the bright side: at least this delegation won't have to worry about running out of Astro Glide.