Ray Cook - As I See It

Israel, Zionism and the Media

Tag: UK

Mr Cameron, you are needed in Tahrir Square again

21/01/2012 / / 0 Comments

According to the BBC, Islamists in Egypt have won the election.

All the warnings about Islamists and the Arab Spring which were so poo-poohed by over-optimistic Western leaders seem to be coming true.

Tunisia, the first country to experience a revolution, also returned an Islamist government which saw fit to invite Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to Tunis as a baying mob shouted ‘Kill the Jews’. Nice.

It is almost a year since I sat watching the upheaval in Egypt in my hotel bedroom TV in Eilat, Israel. I was impressed but cynical. I hoped the true secular democrats would win. I feared they would not. I also noticed the many banners which accused Mubarak of being a Zionist and others which said unpleasant things about Israel and Jews.

Israel was criticised for not embracing the changes across the region. Any suggestion by its politicians or supporters that this was an opportunity to unleash forces that had been held under control by dictators, was dismissed as Israel being a country that claimed to be a democracy but would deny such freedoms for its neighbours.

Soon after President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, Prime Minister David Cameron flew to Egypt to join in the crowds in Tahrir Square declaring how happy he was to see the Egyptian people free at last.

The BBC reported at that time the following:

He said Egypt had a “great opportunity” to push for democracy.

“This is a great opportunity for us to go and talk to those currently running Egypt to make sure this really is a genuine transition from military rule to civilian rule, and see what friendly countries like Britain and others in Europe can do to help.”

How naive was that. It’s typical of a government that is purblind to the real intentions of the Palestinian Authority to engage in the politics of wishful thinking.

If Cameron was so ignorant about the almost certain outcome of a democratic election in Egypt installing the Muslim Brotherhood as the party of government (and joined by a hefty number of Salafist extremists, apparently), then his and his government’s belief that the PA is moderate, just because they would like it be true, is pretty much indicative of the politics of hope and delusion that is now endemic in Europe.

But it is more toxic than delusion.

If you see events in the Middle East through a haze of hope instead of clear-eyed reality you can assert that the impasse in the Israel-Palestine peace negotiations are due to Israeli incalcitrance and the settlements, and not Palestinian rejectionism and Jew-hatred.

You also get involved in the hypocrisy of a UK government, as part of NATO, helping rebel Libyans to unseat a government that it and its predecessors have been cosying up to in order to protect their commercial interests.

It leads to the Gibson Inquiry into claims, as reported by the Daily Mail and othersthat:

MI6 was involved in the illegal transfer of two Libyans into the hands of Colonel Gaddafi.

Democrats are only worth supporting, it seems, when they have a chance of success. Otherwise, tyrants will do just fine.
So Mr Cameron should return to Egypt and Tahrir Square to view the new Egypt, the Egypt of reality where pipelines to Israel are blown up by out of control Hamas supporters in the Sinai, where the Israeli embassy can be attacked with almost lethal consequences, where international peace agreements are likely to be dishonoured.
I happen to be old enough to remember the last great victory of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt: the assassination of President Sadat who was bold enough to make peace with Israel and perhaps because he did so.
As a result the Brotherhood was suppressed and its activities deemed illegal.
Now it has won. It was the long game for the Brotherhood just is it is for the PA.
So, off you go, Mr Prime Minister, go and see the new Egypt and tell us now about that opportunity for democracy you saw last year.
It’s the same democracy that elects Hamas in Gaza or Ghannouchi in Tunisia.
It’s a strange democracy indeed where the people vote to be enthralled by religious fanatics in place of hardline military dictatorships.
Maybe they need a lesson in democracy from Mr Hague and Mr Cameron; or why not send Cleggy; after all, he is now an expert on the Middle East.
No doubt Mr Cameron will express his hope that the Brotherhood will be democratic and ‘moderate’. Then Hague will announce that it is in Britain’s vital interest to do business with the new regime in Cairo.
Yes, moderate; maybe only 50,000 Christians will have to flee the country this year instead of the 100,000 that left last year.
If there are 50,000 left, that is.

When friends fall out – Israel, UK and the Dubai killing

24/03/2010 / / 2 Comments

You know the story by now? Hamas terrorist arms dealer found dead in a Dubai hotel room. A few days later Dubai declares that more than 20 people with forged UK and other national passports (using names of passport holders living in Israel) were a hit squad and that Mossad, the Israeli secret service, is behind it – or so everyone assumes.

UK government summons the Israeli ambassador. Two months later UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband announces that the top Mossad man in London has been asked to leave. He gives a severe dressing down to Israel and issues  a warning to UK citizens travelling to Israel that they should look after their passports and be wary of identity theft.

Israel supporters in the press here and many Israeli newspapers have stated that this is an overreaction, that the UK government is now openly hostile to Israel and this is some sort of conspiracy with the United States to destabilise the Netanyahu government. They tell us how hypocritical the UK is, some Israeli members of the Knesset have even referred to UK politicians as dogs who are pandering to an anti-semitic agenda.

I too am a strong supporter of Israel but I don’t go along with this paranoia. I also happen to be a British Jew but I am determined that when Israel is wrong I should say so; to do otherwise is dishonest.

No-one has owned up to the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. So why did Miliband say he has ‘compelling’ intelligence that it was Mossad? Do these who are so keen to shout foul really think that a British Foreign Secretary would make such a statement if he had not be shown evidence by MI6? Israel may even have ‘fessed up’.

Let’s look at the real issue the UK has with Israel here: several UK nationals have been recklessly put at risk by the action of Mossad (let’s assume this is now fact). These are individuals who have put their trust in the State of Israel. Some are Jews who have settled or wish to settle there, some are not, apparently.  And their recompense for this trust is to risk becoming international criminals.  They were not asked if they want to contribute to the assassination of a Hamas arms dealer, they were abused by the state and Israel was found out.

Now I know what you are going to say: countries do it all the time and the UK is hypocritical. No matter. If you are found out you pay the consequences. I do not see that the UK could do otherwise. It cannot be seen as an honest broker in the Middle East if it gives Israel a free pass.

Many commentators say that this is a blow to the War on Terror, and why should anyone cry over the elimination of a terrorist murderer? Not the point. It’s the method, the abuse of British sovereignty by forging its passports and getting caught doing so that is the issue. Let’s just turn it around. If the British had forged Israeli passports in their war on the IRA and used them to assassinate an IRA arms dealer and had been found out, would Israel not be equally aggrieved? Would the UK not have considerable criticism heaped on them from Israel?

If supporters of Israel see this as part of some plot, some evidence that the UK is about to abandon Israel and stand shoulder to shoulder with the US as they throw Israel to the wolves, they are wrong.

What we are seeing is a new approach to the Middle East, an approach in which see the resolution of the problem only being possible if the US and its allies can demonstrate that Israel does not get a free pass.

This is the wrong approach because the real problem is that for 60 years and more the Palestinians have not accepted the right of Israel and the Jewish people to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. That’s the real problem and everything stems from that fact.

It is that which hardens Israeli policies, it is that which leads to conflict.

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