Just weeks before the election, British Conservative Party leader sets out pro-Israeli platform, or does he?
Cameron on the left
In an exclusive interview with Britain’s Jewish Chronicle, David Cameron — leader of the Conservative Party and a man who could be prime minister in eight weeks time — has set out an agenda which suggests he would take a much more pro-Israeli line than the current government should he come to power.
Cameron described as “feeble” the government’s handling of the universal jurisdiction procedures which have been used against senior Israelis saying, “We will keep pressing the government to make this right - and if they don’t, we will.” Islamist groups such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir — which openly calls for an Islamic state in Britain — would be banned and Islamist leaders would be prevented from coming to the UK. Cameron also said that Britain under his leadership would have voted against the Goldstone Report. The current government voted in favour.
The notion that the Conservatives would put Britain on a more pro-Israeli track is probably reasonable, but the devil lies in the detail. Consider, for example, Cameron’s explanation of his position on the Goldstone Report:
“The detailed allegations of human rights abuses… are serious and they do need to be fully investigated,” the Jewish Chronicle quoted him as saying. The Conservatives would have voted against the report because it “didn’t mention Hamas’s role in starting the conflict”.
But this thinking is muddled. The point about the allegations of human rights abuses is that they are not “serious”. In reality they are propagandistic, dishonest and designed to obscure the real issue, which is that the Goldstone Report is an attempt to criminalise defensive operations mounted by democracies fighting terrorists. That should be reason to oppose it in itself.
But there is also a very particular reason Cameron should be opposing the Goldstone Report. That reason is that it represents a threat to Britain’s own national interests. British soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq have been fighting terror groups which employ tactics that are all but identical to those employed by Hamas in Gaza. Thousands of innocent Iraqis and Afghans may have been killed by British (and American) forces in those countries, not because Britain is guilty of “war crimes” but because the terrorists use entire civilian population centres as human shields.
If Goldstone passes, it would set a precedent in international law which would inevitably be used against Britain.
It is worrying that Cameron appears unable to see this. For the Goldstone Report is a litmus test issue. If the man who opinion polls suggest could well be prime minister by early May does not get the point about Goldstone it is unlikely he will get the point on many other issues in the Middle East.
So quite apart from the fact that one would inevitably be cautious about the ultimate significance of a senior politician’s comments about Israel made to a captive audience in the Jewish Chronicle, there is also the worry that Cameron doesn’t really get it.
He’s better than Labour, and certainly far better than the Liberal Democrats. But let’s just wait a while before we start dancing in the fountains.
Tags: Israel
March 12th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
“The point about the allegations of human rights abuses is that they are not “serious”. In reality they are propagandistic, dishonest and designed to obscure the real issue, which is that the Goldstone Report is an attempt to criminalise defensive operations mounted by democracies fighting terrorists. That should be reason to oppose it in itself.”
To paraphrase Hillel: “This is the whole truth; the rest is commentary.”
Chapeau!
March 12th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
You are right, Robin. Cameron is hideously muddled. In 2006, he said that a future Conservative government would pursue a foreign policy guided by “liberal conservative” values which would “not turn a blind eye to the excesses of our allies - abuses of human rights in some Arab countries, or disproportionate Israeli bombing in Lebanon.”
A great example of moral equivalence, if ever there was one. Quite frankly, Cameron is not strong enough or clear-minded enough to rise above the morass of political correctness and stand tall to defend democracy.
March 12th, 2010 at 5:36 pm
Support for Israel is still seen as extremely controversial. If Cameron defended Israel, he would have to say that the great British public has been fed a pack of lies by the mainstream media, including the BBC. A tall order.
March 12th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Thank you for another fine analysis, Robin.
Here are some statistics which may help to put the war in Gaza into a broader context. The Independent carried an article by Kim Sengupta on 16 April 2009 about the Iraq war. It revealed:
“Analysis carried out for the research group Iraq Body Count (IBC) found that 39 per cent of those killed in air raids by the US-led coalition were children and 46 per cent were women. Fatalities caused by mortars, used by American and Iraqi government forces as well as insurgents, were 42 per cent children and 44 per cent women.”
No one I’ve read has suggested that Cast Lead inflicted casualty figures on Palestinian women and children in the order of 85%.
March 13th, 2010 at 9:20 am
“But let’s just wait a while before we start dancing in the fountains.” This is spot on. Cameron would have to turf out the whole camel corps arabist Foreign Office for British foreign policy in the Middle East to change appreciably.
A start could, at least, be made with Rowan Laxton, who is still in post with a criminal record for excoriating Jews and Israel. If and when he goes, I might just dip the end of my little toe in the fountain.
March 13th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
“A start could, at least, be made with Rowan Laxton, who is still in post with a criminal record for excoriating Jews and Israel.”
Unbelievable.
Tom Gross picked up on this:
“The Telegraph story, written by a London-based correspondent, has all the signs of being planted by anti-Israel elements at the British Foreign Office (of which there are many – witness, for example, the reinstatement last year of Rowan Laxton, a high-ranking diplomat and “Middle East expert” at the British Foreign Office, even after a London court had found him guilty of racially aggravated harassment for saying “F**king Israelis, F**king Jews… they should be wiped off the face of the earth” in a crowded London gym).”
Source: Tom Gross: Israel’s Fleet Street enemies
http://tinyurl.com/yz53hta
March 13th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
No doubt he’ll be as all politicians are at Election time - say one thing to get elected then do another. We can but hope in this case that he’ll perhaps not be too supportive of Israel beforehand but if elected, then become ultra-supportive. However, I can’t really see it personally.
But the anti-Israeli sentiment within the UK will come to be its nemesis (?) in the future as we become an increasingly Islamized country. Few in Government show that they understand that Islam is not a religion alone, let alone a religion of peace, but rather an exclusive ideology which demands subservience both within and without, and whose proponents are quite happy to lie through their teeth to gain ground however, whenever, & wherever possible in order to push through their agenda. If more MPs understood that Israel is a country they should be taking lessons from rather than scorning, we would be much better prepared for the future. Israel understands its enemy fully - we, as yet, have no concept if we thought the IRA was a tough “enemy”! :( Yet now the top men are in Government themselves so those within Islam who equally want to destroy the country/take it over, have learnt the lesson that you pretend to denounce violence, while at the same time orchestrate it AND get yourself into strong positions within government. Sadly I think if Cameron got in, he’d be shaking hands with a UK version of Osama Bin Laden & inviting him to tea while denouncing Israel for not shaking hands with their enemy & doing the same!!
March 13th, 2010 at 9:27 pm
In reality they are propagandistic, dishonest and designed to obscure the real issue, which is that the Goldstone Report is an attempt to criminalise defensive operations mounted by democracies fighting terrorists. That should be reason to oppose it in itself.
That’s very well put Robin. I noticed the hysteria at the Guardian in the fighting in Gaza when the number of admitted Hamas operatives killed was rising and it became obvious that partial solutions to win an asymmetric war were succeeding that the accusations of war crimes started to be heard. And then, horror upon horror, very few Israelis were killed.
‘Lawfare’ is the new tactic of the Loony Left.