I don't know if many of you saw Johann Hari's article on Israel in last week's Independent. I'm no fan of Hari (not least because of his warmongering re Iraq, notwithstanding his later mea culpa), but this seemed reasonably fair and balanced. But the hate campaign that has been launched against him as a result (as has become common practice from vicious, right wing, blindly pro-anything-Israel-does, macho warmongering, lobbies and pressure groups) has been hideous, not least from that ultra-racist (as blatant as the [edit: silly party], with whom she shares a common cause in many ways) Melanie Philips (her of 'Londonistan' fame, peddling fanatical hatred of Arabs and Muslims). Hari responded to this campaign here; for the predictable stuff from Philips (and links to other hate sites that she loves), see here (try substituting the words 'Jews' or 'blacks' for 'Palestinians' in any of that stuff, and you'll have something that even Griffin, Le Pen, De Winter or Haider might find too extreme).

It is impossible for there to be rational, balanced debate on Israel and its actions with respect to the Palestinians, because of the campaign of disinformation and hate that attempts to silence all critics. This is why Israel has been able to build nuclear weapons (in blatant contravention of the non-proliferation treaty), commit countless atrocities, and maintain an illegal occupation for over 40 years, whilst still receiving large amounts of financial support from the US, and favourable diplomatic and economic relations with the rest of the West. And liberal opinion and the media frequently fight shy of all of this (the ways in which liberals run scared of applying the same standards to Israel as to other nations is truly sickening), because they know the hate-mongers can just cry 'anti-semitism' at any opportunity (including at large numbers of other Jewish people). I'll put my neck out and agree with Norman Finkelstein who said words to the effect that this sort of thing actually serves to ferment anti-semitism itself. Very little of what you read in the media can be trusted to be balanced, because of the censorious atmosphere. I'd strongly recommend the works of Ilan Pappe (much despised by Philips); very pleased to hear that he has recently taken up residence on the Dartington Estate.

By the way, whatever happened to Melanie Philips?  I thought she was deputy at the Guardian at one time, and suddenly she was cropping up on Any Questions, The Moral Maze and elsewhere to the right of The Daily Mail.

Or is it someone else?

The original Damascus moment lead Paul to abandon any comfort and social status for a life constantly under threat of persecution.

Any idea what it was that made the scales (as she would see it) fall from Ms Phillips' eyes?

Well, that's often how it is presented - leaving behind the old certainties and beliefs, friends of a lifetime etc for the exhilarating stony paths of the new reality. 

I'd agree with Swan Knight that they were discovering their true political selves.

Let's not also forget the former 'Angry Young Men', such as Kingsley Amis, John Osborne, et al. Or for that matter George Orwell, who decided to give a list of 37 individuals with communist leanings to the British government. Also various neoconservatives (Irving Kristol, James Burnham, Jeane Kirkpatrick) who began their careers definitively on the political left (or so they thought).