UK foreign policy establishment’s hostility to Israel threatening MidEast peace process, and undermining Britain’s own national interests
What on earth is going on in Great Britain? Earlier this week, the Foreign Office emerged as the strongest supporter in Europe of an almost unbelievably reckless proposal from Sweden — which holds the EU’s rotating presidency — for a European Union resolution on the Middle East which would have recognised, in advance of any negotiations, East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state. Worse still, it called for the EU to recognise a Palestinian state should the Palestinians declare one unilaterally.
Any such moves would have so incensed the Israelis that the EU would, in all likelihood, have been excluded from any future role in peace talks. It even risked undermining the peace process by encouraging the Palestinians to believe that the EU would rubber stamp a declaration of statehood regardless of their approach to negotiations. Why bother holding serious talks with Israel if a member of the MidEast quartet has already said you’ll get what you want in advance? Mind blowing.
Fortunately, the resolution was watered down somewhat. But we have reached a pretty pass when the British Foreign Office has become so overcome with anti-Israeli hysteria that it is prepared to take measures which threaten the very peace agreement that the government has always said it supported. Make no mistake about it, the UK foreign policy establishment is thus working against the UK’s own national interests.
As if that wasn’t enough, it emerged on Thursday evening that Britain’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has issued an advisory statement to retailers calling on them clearly to label products from Israeli settlements. The statement read:
“Importers, retailers, NGOs and consumers have asked the government for clarity over the precise origin of products from the Occupied Palestinian Territories…The label ‘West Bank’ does not allow consumers to distinguish between goods originating from Palestinian producers and goods originating from illegal Israeli settlements.”
The Israelis have rightly said that this is tantamount to encouraging a boycott. And it is as clear an admission as you will get that anti-Israeli bigotry in mainstream society is now being listened to in government.
But again, let us simply concentrate on Britain’s declared national interests.
Surely, even the British Foreign Office — which clearly rubber stamped the decision — must know that any peace agreement would inevitably involve land swaps between Israel and the Palestinians in which most settlements would become part of Israel anyway. This has been an accepted part of peace frameworks from the Clinton parameters, through Geneva to Annapolis. Most Palestinian factions do not even regard the matter as controversial — the big issues for them are Jerusalem and refugees.
At such a delicate time, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made concessions in the hope of kick starting talks and when the Obama administration is doing everything it can to get the two sides round the table, it is simply astounding that the British civil service should be kicking dust in everyone’s face.
The lunatics have taken over the asylum.
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December 11th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Matthew Gould, the British Jewish diplomat, has been appointed ambassador to Israel from next year. Asked in the JC this week about the Rowan Laxton affair, in which the said senior Foreign Office worker shouted “f***ing Jews, f***ing Israelis” while watching reports from Gaza on a television in a London gym, Gould said this:
” “I think it would be a great shame if people drew the conclusion [from that incident] that the Foreign Office was inherently Arabist. There lingers in part of the community a stereotype of the Foreign Office: that is a reality long out of date, and I hope my appointment goes some way to changing that.”
Brings a whole new dimension to the word “naive”.
December 11th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt warned Thursday that Israel must not play “divide and rule” with the 27-member European Union over a recent resolution calling for Jerusalem to become the shared capital of Israel and a future Palestinian state.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=Bildt&itemNo=1134160
I don’t know Swedish so can’t be sure about the correctness of the translation, but the expression “rule” in connection with Jews and Europe is coming from the neo-nazis’ vocabulary. It seems to be not too strange for Bildt.
December 11th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Fascinating - but how much worse this export row would have been in Biblical times!
http://lavatoryreader.typepad.com/the-lavatory-reader/2009/12/israeli-food-export-row-not-as-nasty-as-gods-haemorrhoids.html
December 11th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Slightly off-topic, but outrageous…
Have you heard of this and is it true that while the representatives of the Iranian regime can happily participate in the climate conference, the Israeli delegation is shunned and boycotted?
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001075.html
ISRAEL SHUNNED AT COPENHAGEN CLIMATE CONFERENCE
Israel’s official representatives have found themselves shunned at this week’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, according to reports in the Danish media. While many Israeli experts and scientists have been at the forefront of ways to improve the environment and foster clean tech energy, Israeli officials have been rejected in their attempts to join discussion groups at the various sessions in Copenhagen.
European Union countries clustered together, as did non-aligned countries, so Israel pulled all its diplomatic strings to join a group in which Mexico, South Korea and Switzerland were members, but it was rejected, the supposed reason given being “the war in Gaza” (one of the least deadly of the many wars from Yemen to Congo to Pakistan to Sri Lanka, that have occurred this year).
About 40 Israeli representatives attending the conference are finding it difficult to participate, according to reports. Among those participating is the Iranian regime, which this week continued brutally to crack down on pro-democracy demonstrators in several Iranian cities.
December 11th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Call me vindictive, call me arrogant, call me agressive I will tell you what I think.
I tell at the start that I agree with this blog entry piece.
I’ve been to England 3 times in my life, last time this autumn (didn’t have the necessary money to live there and therefore was forced to give up study at a London Uni (Queen Mary) - Ł 8400 for 2 years of a postgrad MA. Funny, the only (”half”-)Jewish guy out of my group of 20 students… Those filthy rich, manipulative, sinister Jews who BUY everyone in the world, and elbow their way out, mind you… There was a guy from Oman, at least he didn’t have problems with the ruining fee.)
I think the British Labour establsihment has not the spine of a dog. Why am I saying this? Because after Cast Lead it turned out that they will kind of enact a partial arms embargo for spare parts for ships. They denied that this is an “embargo”. Similarly they deny it again that this move amounts to a boycott. Seriously who are they trying to fool? Why are they lying and hope to get away with it? Wouldn’t it be fairer to say: “Look guys, yes WE initiated this arms embargo [ALONE among any big EU nations, to the best of my knowledge not even the rightly called anti-Semitic Spain did this] and this boycott against you because we hate your guts. Period!” Why the obfuscation, why the double-talk? Why the astoundingly disgusting crookedness? We see through it like a glass anyway. Do they think that the Americans, for example, will not see this for what it is? Do they think that we all are stupid idiots?
Yes, this country is unfair to Israel and lunatic. It’s really breathtaking that after what happened between them in the 20th century they effectively still dare to open their mounth. I think arrogance, hatred and vengence after 60 years (they have been kicked out by force by a much-much weaker party) still have their effect.
Oh, how utterly ridiculous, how utterly pathetic and how utterly transparent. Does Britain have an accute inferiority complex? The Economist ahead of a G8 summit held in Britain remarked: “The UK is the only country where you can not persue either summer sports or winter sports. At least we are unique!” - with its genuine bittersweet irony. I found the country of unbelievable ugliness lacking any aesthatics at all while traveling from London to Oxford. Virtually all their big cities are astonishingly and horrribly ugly - compared to ANY French, Italian or Spanish cities. What a sad place I thought to myself. (I am very interested in utrban design and urbanism and seen hundreds of pics about Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester or Sheffield or Glasgow).
I think the (multi-)cultural malaise is more advanced than in other big EU countries of comparable size. They are hell-bent on appeasing radical Islam and their followers. Any sane and not too biased perso can see that all in all this country, imho, is finished and beyond redemption. Many say (I’ve had conversations) that France is in a much worse position because they have 2 or 3 times as many people of the Muslim faith. I disagree. While it is true that France have a 5-6 million Muslim community, it still managed at least in traces to retain some sense of purpose and antional identity. England has none of this. Hence its elites can easily get away with virtually anything in their pursuit to kill off their own country.
I will not play hide and seek and confide that I for one, am happy that this country is losing space and weight among the other players in the world. The UK is rapidly loosing ground against France, and Italy. Its share of world trade is below that of the Italians, something like 2.7%:3.2%. Its GDP is now reportedly smaller than Italy’s while the UK’s overall population is bigger by more than a million. (If you consider England only - as two nations face to face -and compare it to Italy, its position is drastically worse still.) Schadenfreude? Of course, and I hold an honest line ’bout it. My message to the English establishment: Guys, please be honest at least. We are not children and know what you are. And any Jew who doesn’t tout your line is excluded, marginalised, punished in the higher classes. Guys, you ARE RACIST and you cannot cover it up. And, lstly, here should I observe what I see, and give BIG credit for, is the relatively and historically untainted by the virus of anti-Semitism of the English/British proletariat - unlike virtually anywhere else on the planet. Many of the English proletariat couln’t be fairer when it comes to the Jews and Israel. This seems clear to me. The peculiar English phenomenon of the higher you are going on the sociologic ldder of British society, the higher the chances that those classes are racists and anti-Semites however they try to hide it. This is one more feature that you would not normally see anywhere else in Continental Europe, barring perhaps the Swedes, Spanish and Irish. The overall contrast to the Dutch, for example, whre I also spent a mont and a half this spring, couldn’t be more stark. Give me the cheese-munching FAIR Dutchies any day… Cheers!
Fränkl Gábor
December 11th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
“Surely, even the British Foreign Office — which clearly rubber stamped the decision — must know that any peace agreement would inevitably involve land swaps between Israel and the Palestinians in which most settlements would become part of Israel anyway. This has been an accepted part of peace frameworks from the Clinton parameters, through Geneva to Annapolis. Most Palestinian factions do not even regard the matter as controversial”
“Most Palestinian factions do not even regard the matter as controversial”
What on earth are you talking about? What planet are you living on?
Robin Shepherd says: If you spent less time listening to the BBC and more time looking at what Palestinian leaders actually say and do, you’d realise that the existence of the settlements and their eventual incorporation into the state of Israel via a peace agreement is broadly accepted. They don’t want the settlements expanded but refugees and Jerusalem are far more important to them.
December 11th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
I’m certain that the Foreign Office was overjoyed at the decision. However, surely the actual decision was made by the UK government and at the very highest level given the sensitivities involved. Let’s face it, the most amoral and incompetent government in living memory having destroyed the finances of the UK for at least a generation is desperate for votes. There are between 1.5 million and 2 million Muslims in the UK and only around 280,000 Jews. It’s pretty obvious therefore which side this particular vile Brown government is going to take.
Selling out the Jews is an age-old British tradition. It has just become so much easier now that the prime minister is a Ted Heath in pseudo-socialist clothes, or for our American friends, a Jimmy Carter without the brains.
An inconvenient truth
http://tinyurl.com/yjqg7r2
December 11th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Typical Court Jew? Genuflect, genuflect
December 14th, 2009 at 12:49 am
Joshua #7 a little info on your historian friend Andrew Roberts.
Johann Hari: The dark side of Andrew Roberts
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-the-dark-side-of-andrew-roberts-1765229.html
I thank you for your support.
December 14th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
“Joshua #7 a little info on your historian friend Andrew Roberts”
I do not visit anti-Semitic hate sites as a matter of principle. And, as for Hari, you might as well have linked to an article by Julius Streicher.
December 14th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
Incidentally, herewith a little something about the dark side of Johan Hari:
The war against the Jews
http://tinyurl.com/cptpfa
Whoops, what a giveaway
http://tinyurl.com/6qmwhy
Numerous historical errors (scroll down)
http://tinyurl.com/5eztmo
If there really is a smear campaign to try to silence the critics of Israel, it isn’t working
http://tinyurl.com/6hs6no
The Stench Spreads
http://tinyurl.com/6evefw
December 17th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Hey Josh cheer up! An Israeli has more chance of dying from an ingrown toenail than from Palestinian violence. Now why don’t you stop sulking and go bulldoze some more Palestinian houses there’s work to be done, more land to grab.
Happy Hanukkah.