IN THE long and complex history of alliances and bust-ups in Israeli politics, the resignation recently of Moshe Yaalon as Defence Minister appears to be one of the more significant. His departure, he said, was the result of growing extrem­ism in the Netanyahu government.

Yaalon’s press conference was rich in rhetoric: Netanyahu’s gov­ern­ment was at odds with an Israeli society which, he said, “seeks a Jewish democratic and liberal state without the distinction of religion, race, gender, ethnic origin, or sexual orientation”. Whether or not we are to believe Yaalon’s assertion or motives — and, of the contributors to World Have Your Say (World Service, Friday), few did — it is instructive once in a while to be reminded of Israel’s original ambitions as a liberal, secular state.

This is one of the fine, largely unsung World Service shows that gives a voice to the BBC’s world audience. The callers here offered a perspective on the incendiary rhetoric of the Israeli right wing which British commentators would do well to respect: namely, that you should not believe everything that firebrand politicians, such as Yaalon’s successor, Avigdor Lieber­­­man, say, when they are in opposition.

In The Briefing Room (Radio 4, Thursday of last week), David Aaronovitch discussed the Labour Party’s problem with anti-Semit­ism, and the transference of con­tempt from the Israeli govern­ment’s occupation of Palestinian territories to Israel as a State, and thus to all Jews who support the State of Israel.

As one might expect, none of Aaronovitch’s guests here — all of them of the Left — was prepared to defend comparisons between Israel’s behaviour and that of Nazi Germany. But the chairman headed off a potential humdinger of an argument when an Occupy activist, Kerry-Anne Mendoza, brought up the allegation of forced sterilisation of Ethiopian Jews by Israel; and it was clear that between her, Owen Jones, and Pro­fes­sor David Hirsh, of the Engage Campaign, there were many shades of disapproval of Israeli political culture.

All were choosing their words carefully, and, on several occa­sions, “my Jewish friends” and “the Jewish side of my family” were invoked as inoculation against any charges of prejudice. One can imagine that other people, not far removed from their political views, might not have been so guarded.

From one kind of prejudice to another, this one a lot less perni­cious: in The Power of Cute (Radio 4, Tuesday of last week), the zoolo­gist Lucy Cooke investigated what it is about pictures of kittens and koalas which encourages us to coo.

The list of attributes that will gen­erate this response was drawn up by the ethologist Konrad Lorenz in 1949, and is known as the “baby schema”. Big eyes, round face, button nose — all these and more set off our instinct to nurture. But what has now become appar­ent is that this is good for the economy. Workers are apparently better at motor tasks when they have been exposed to cute images.

So don’t discourage your em­­ployees and co-workers from ogling YouTube videos of micro-pigs: it is all in the cause of greater productivity.