This country would be accused of raging “anti-Semitism”.

Israeli MPs call for boycott of British goods.

Come to think of it, by dredging up the Nazis when discussing the British Government’s (rare) common sense decision to distinguish between Israeli goods and produce from the West Bank, they already have. Even Prime Minister’s Gordon Brown’s grovelling apology to the Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni over a court’s decision to issue a warrant for her arrest as a war criminal hasn’t placated them.

Meanwhile, a bunch of religious cranks in Israel itself have embarked on a campaign against Christmas trees; they are not kosher, apparently. One can only wonder what would happen if any Western European country tried to do something similar: cue wild and frothy-mouthed accusations of “anti-Semitism” and the invokation of the media-fed ghosts of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. These fellows can do what they like and have everybody else bend over backwards, but as soon as there is some sort of movement in the other direction all we hear about is the moustachioed one and visions of brownshirted goons beating up fellows in caftans with funny sidelocks in the street. Or something just as lurid.

To cap it all off, the past few days have also seen the mysterious removal of the infamous “Arbeit macht Frei” sign above the gate at Auschwitz I by a bunch of expert thieves – or insidious neo-Nazis, if that is your chosen angle. The fact that Poland has apparently declared a state of emergency just how insane all of this is – of course, anything less and they would lose whatever good faith they might have earned with the bellicose Israelis.

You genuinely have to wonder though – are the Polish authorities expecting the Nazis to march on Warsaw or gangs of marauding goons to sack their local synagogues? Random police checks? Are they going to stop every close-shaven individual and ask them to empty their pockets in the hope of discovering a piece of the Auschwitz sign?

Border patrol police were told to be on the lookout for the 5m-long heavy cast-iron plaque that had spanned the entrance gate, over fears that there might have been plans to take it out of the country.

Hmm. I have heard rumours that a 5m cast-iron sign was last seen sneaking along a forest path south of Chorzów, accompanied by a rather shifty-looking elderly gentleman who according to intrigued eye-witnesses bore more than just a passing resemblance to a certain Josef Mengele. Well, at least they can’t pin this one on John Demjanjuk.

Oy vey.