...Now in her early fifties, Miss Phillips used to subscribe to the bien pensant view of Israel as a regional bully, partly because, as a domestic policy specialist, she paid relatively little attention to foreign affairs. Her own epiphany came during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, when media criticism of the Israelis went, she felt, beyond the bounds of reasonable comment.

At the Guardian, where she later served as news editor, she found herself increasingly at odds with the conventional wisdom. "I used to have this argument at the Guardian, which amazed and horrified me. I used to say, 'Why do we make a front page splash when the Israelis kill five Palestinians, when the murder of thousands of Muslims by Muslims is a nib on page seven? It's a double standard.' And they would say, 'Of course it's a double standard because we hold Jews to account by Western standards. We can't judge the Third World by our standards.' When I first heard this argument I was gobsmacked [stunned], because to me it was racist. It's moral and cultural relativism."...