George W Bush yesterday called on Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian cities occupied by its forces during the last week.He excused Israel’s violence, but lectured the Palestinians and the rest of the Middle East on the need for restraint and a lasting peace. “The storms of violence cannot go on,” said Bush. “Enough is enough.”

In the week that Parliament was manipulated by the Government and denied a proper vote on whether Britain should join the Bush gang in its assault on Iraq, many thousands of people will converge on London in what is expected to be the greatest demonstration against war for a generation.

The Blair government was told in January by the Americans that there was no justification for attacking Iraq in the “war on terrorism” and that their main aim was getting rid of Saddam Hussein who stood in the way of the West’s control of Middle Eastern oil wealth.

On November 7, the day before the United Nations Security Council voted on a resolution that made an American and British attack on Iraq more than likely, Downing Street began issuing warnings of imminent terrorist threats against the United Kingdom.

The American and British attack on Iraq has already begun. While the Blair government continues to claim in Parliament that “no final decision has been taken”, Royal Air Force and US fighter bombers have secretly changed tactics and escalated their “patrols” over Iraq to an all-out assault on both military and civilian targets.

In its leaders supporting the war in Iraq, the Observer proves that it has truly buried its great liberal editor David Astor, and his principled, “freethinking” legacy.

When Saddam hanged a British journalist in 1990, MI5 had the journalist smeared in the Sun, and the Mail agreed he was a spy. What did Blair say? John Pilger can find nothing.

Civil disobedience is the sole path left for those who cannot support the Bush-Blair pact of aggression. Only then will politicians on both sides of the Atlantic be forced to recognise the folly of their ways.

“A painful decision,” say the supporters of an invasion. But it is not they who will feel the pain: it will be the Iraqi infants writhing in the dust when the cluster bombs fall.

“We had a great day,” said Sgt Eric Schrumpf of the US Marines last Saturday. “We killed a lot of people.”