Catchy headline, huh? Can it REALLY be true? Well, read on, dear reader, read on...

On Monday, the 31 member states of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) voted to admit Israel into its ranks. There was a strong campaign to make Israel's membership conditional on some changes it its behaviour towards the Palestinians. I know, I was part of it, attending meetings with Swiss, Norwegian and Turkish diplomats, all of whom expressed concerns about issues we raised, whether they were political, economic or technical. A legal argument continues as to whether OECD member states have opened themselves up to lawsuits because by accepting Israel into the OECD on the basis of data including economic activity of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Occupied Territories (but excluding Palestinian economic activity) they risk being seen to endorse the occupation and thus be in breach of the Geneva Convention.

That legal argument is extremely unlikely to make any difference. But the harlotry charge? Well the OECD is "The group of the world’s richest nations" (http://www.thejc.com/news/israel-news/31643/israel-joins-group-worlds-ri...). Now, Israel is a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) too. Only in this instance, it defines itself as a developing country, benefiting from trade concessions based on that self declared status.

So when it comes to international trade organisations, Israel is “saying one thing to one group and something opposite to another” so they “behave with the morals of … a harlot.” (http://thejc.com/blogpost/libdems-exposed). So, according to Stephen Pollard, by extension, Israel is no better than - whisper it now - the Lib-Dems!