Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East.
(From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Thursday 10 February 2011

William Hague – Israel’s Fairweather Friend – and Little Sir Echo from the Camel Corps: “We Will All Suffer if Israel Persists in this Present Course of Trying to Survive by Force of Arms”

The actress Joan Collins once cruelly said of William Hague that he looks like a foetus. None of us can help our looks, and we can’t all be pin-ups, let alone perennial pin-ups like Joan herself, so I’m going to be much kinder. I’m going to say that in matters of foreign policy the First in PPE from Oxford looks like a dunce. The flat-voiced Yorkshireman who joined Conservative Friends of Israel when still a schoolboy is, as Foreign Secretary, a “friend” to Israel of a very dodgy sort.

Just like the man he calls his boss, in fact. David Cameron, always keen, it appeared, to keep his part-Jewish ancestry firmly under wraps until, desperate for votes in what looked unexpectedly like a very close-run race, he revealed not quite the full extent of it to the Jewish Chronicle just before last May’s election, in what looked suspiciously like a cynical bid for votes, is neither the most trustworthy of Tory politicians nor one who carries empathy for Israel in his gut. Just look at the way he behaved over the Mavi Marmara affair – proclaiming in Turkey (which he’s determined to see admitted to the EU) that Gaza is an "open air prison" and denouncing Israel’s defensive, well-justified attack on the IHH terrorists aboard the flotilla ((http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2010/07/sick-man-of-europe-david-cameron-talks.html).

And now, with Israel – already imperilled by Iran, sliding ever nearer nuclear capability, by Hezbollah, and by Hamas – looking nervously upon the turmoil in Egypt, understandably deeply fearful that the 1979 Peace Treaty is under threat, Hague has the audacity to insist via “a blunt instruction” that Binyamin Netanyahu – the elected leader of a sovereign nation and an ally – “tone down” the rhetoric, as The Times reports in a big story on its front page today. Hague, says that paper, responding “to increasingly militaristic pronouncements by Mr Netanyahu, who has been urging his nation to prepare for ‘any outcome’ and vowing to ‘reinforce the might of the state of Israel’” declared ‘This should not be a time for belligerent language. It’s a time to inject greater urgency into the Middle East peace process.’

Hear Hague here, on Al Beeb (BBC radio 4’s Today programme: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9391000/9391888.stm)

In that same broadcast you will hear Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles (British Ambassador to Israel, 2001-3; pictured) on the necessity for “tough love” towards Israel and the urgency for Israel to accept the peace that's "been on offer" to it since the Peel Commission of 1937  what, no Arab rejectionism or violence or intransigence, Sir Sherard?  and to abide by the terms of the Balfour Declaration!

Israel (or rather the Jewish Agency) DID accept the Peel Commission report! The Arabs rejected it!!!

For those who don't know,  the report gave the Jews a small portion of land along the coast but the Arabs still said "No".

What an outstanding symbol of the twisting of history.

And that Cowper-Coles, a Foreign Office official and diplomat, doesn't even know that is really shocking! 

(See also Yisrael Medad's response to Sir Sherard's  nonsense:  http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-mandate-period-history-is-essential.html
and Melanie Phillips's demolition job:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/6686665/a-monstrous-inversion.thtml#comments)
Does Hague buy into the fiction that if only the “Israel-Palestine” problem were to be settled, there’d be no more strife in the Middle East? Is he so naive, or so beholden to the Arabists in the Foreign Office, that he believes that the responsibility for the current unrest lies with Israel, and that if only Israel were soft and malleable all would be sweetness and light?

Does he have not a clue about the antisemitism in the region or the lethal agenda of militant Islamists? It would appear so – and hearing Little Sir Echo (Coles) reinforces that view.

That superbly realistic Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick has a written a book about her country called Shackled Warrior.

And “shackled warrior” is what Hague and Cameron and Coles evidently wish tiny Israel to be – fighting for its survival against fanatical murderous Islamists  including the Muslim Brotherhood (which of course spawned Hamas) if Egypt falls under their control –  with its sword arm, so to speak, chained behind its back.

From the great – the truly great – Lord Palmerston to Wee Willie Hague.

How is the mighty Foreign Secretaryship fallen.

But Masada shall not – must not –  fall again.

For if it did, the fall of Britain and the rest of Western civilisation would not be long behind.

The public figures who joined Jose Maria Aznar’s Friends of Israel Initiative know that full well.

It seems that Hague and Cameron and Coles do not.

Incidentally, have a look at Melanie Phillips’s post on Hague, if you haven't already:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/6684255/with-friends-like-this-who-needs-enemies.tht
and click back to see her superb take on David Cameron's speech regarding multiculturalism.

4 comments:

  1. Shkoyach Daphne.

    Excellent

    Am Yisroel chai.

    Maybe a little birdie, should whisper in William Hague's little ear, that Israel would like nothing better than to live in peace

    At this point in time she would very much like to survive without a force of arms

    He should ask the Israeli people how they feel.

    One of my cousins once said to me, that people outside Israel, have no idea what it is like to spend one’s life in fear, constantly looking over one’s shoulder, wondering when it will be your turn.!!!

    Though since the advent of the wall they feel much safer. Bear in mind he was born in Israel in the 1920s, so he has seen the bad times. He lost a brother in 1922, who was 19 years old, in an Arab uprising.

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  2. Does it really matter what Hague says or does ?
    Does Bibi hang on his every word ? And what would they have said to Sharon if he had offered instructions to the British government on the troubles in Ulster or The Falklands. Hague plays at politics, its his hobby, remember his embarrassing performance at the tory conference back in the 70's. The problem here is that he and Cameron weren't around in 1948 and have no idea how the present situation has evolved.

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  3. Thanks, Shirlee and Steve.
    Great comments.
    I'm still reeling from Cowper-Coles's ignorance - he is supposedly a ME expert at the FO but has a strange history of gaffes, it seems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherard_Cowper-Coles
    I think his comments re the Peel Commission deserve showing up and he owes Israel (and radio listeners whom he misled) an apology!

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  4. Whoops just noticed a mistake. I should be that my cousin lost an uncle, not brother.

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