Anglo-Jewry should either be relieved at Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent paean of praise for Jewry and Israel when he addressed the Community Security Trust recently in London, or be confused. I subscribe to the latter opinion.
With me you have a prime minister whose belief in Israel is indestructible. And you have a prime minister who wants to build a strong and productive relationship with Israel….
I will always be a strong defender of the Jewish people. I will always be an advocate for the State of Israel
An advocate ofr the State of Israel is he?
This is the same Mr Cameron who, as I reported last year, said the following to a receptive Turkish audience:
“Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza can not and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp,” he said.
By characterising Gaza as a prison camp Cameron was not being an ‘advocate for the State of Israel’; in fact, quite the opposite because he was using the very same language that Israel’s vilifiers and demonisers use.
By misrepresenting the situation and accusing Israel of stopping humanitarian goods entering the Gaza Strip, not only was he sucking up to the Turkish regime that approved of the infamous IHH-led Mavi Marmara, he was also maligning Israel in an international forum and appeasing a dangerous Islamising state at the heart of NATO. A state which wants to join the EU even though it has an appalling human rights record in Kurdistan and Northern Iraq and an alliance with Iran.
This same Mr Cameron, when leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition was not an ‘advocate for the State of Israel’ when he said:
“The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable,”
Instead of depicting Turkey as a heroic modernising Islamic state, which it certainly no longer is, and laying the groundwork for its entry into the EU, he should have been chastising them for their role in the Gaza flotilla and their subsequent lies about what happened. Cameron should have been asking them why they were imperilling an important friendship with Israel.
Yet, at the very same CST conference he had this to say:
…[Israel is] within its rights to search vessels bringing cargo into Gaza…
But, does he realise that to search ships they have to be persuaded to stop first.
During the investigations into the alleged use of British passports by Mossad he called for Israel’s ambassador to the UK to be asked “some pretty tough questions”.
The then Shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague “later said Israel should issue a ‘robust statement’ ensuring its government would not sanction the cloning of British passports”.
Yet, yesterday it was revealed that these same two politicians, now in power, saw fit to issue SAS and MI6 agents with fake passports.
Melanie Phillips remarks:
Today we learn that the six SAS soldiers detained (and now released) in Libya
were held after going to an agricultural compound when Libyan security guards found they were carrying arms, ammunition, explosives, maps and passports from at least four different nationalities (MP’s emphasis).
We trust most earnestly that none of those was an Israeli one.
And she also notes a previous ‘hostility’ towards Israel.
Like just about everyone else, Cameron and Hague have been pushing at the open door of Israel and demanding concessions and the easing of the blockade whilst not even fumbling at the firmly locked gate of Palestinian rejectionism.
So, as Melanie also asks, has there been “A Change of Direction”
I don’t think so. It’s platitudinous claptrap.
Unless, when Cameron has the clear evidence before his eyes of what real war crimes are and he sees Middle East democratisation stalled, just maybe he suddenly can see Israel in a new light.
Oh yes, HMG has a right to criticise, but it also has an obligation to treat its ‘friends’ as just that.
Maybe the new political realities of the Middle East have shown him where Britain’s interests really lie and the true nature of the threat that Arab revolts might pose to the West.
Don’t hold your breath.
