God And George Bush

When I heard the "God Told Me To Invade Iraq" story my crapometer went off the dial. When I heard that the source of the story was Palestinian the crapometer melted and is now in the bin.

The remark seemed too good to be true - almost designed for the place where it indeed ended up - the front pages of the Guardian and Indie (neither of whom get too excercised about people who claim God's sanction for blowing up school buses, or shooting mothers and their childen).

A Tory blogger previously unknown to me, one Daniel Lucraft, points out that the source of the story, one Nabil Shaath, has given the Guardian some good quotes before, too. He it was who revealed the hideous extent of the legendary Jenin Massacre.

A senior Palestinian, Nabil Shaath, accused Israel of carrying out summary executions and removing corpses in refrigerated trucks. He said close to 500 people had been killed.

The White House has denied the story.

And now Mr Shaath is beackpedalling furiously.

"Nabil Shaath said he and other world leaders at a Jordan summit two years ago did not believe Mr Bush thought God had given him a personal message."

But the story has got its own legs now. We'll see it on many a banner at demonstrations to come, along with the Jenin Massacre, the 100,000 dead and the Thanksgiving Plastic Turkey.