Much Ado About An Ambassador To Israel Who Happens To Be Jewish

A row has broken out in the UK regarding comments made last week during an inquiry by the Public Administration Select Committee into the role of the head of the civil service by a Labour MP, Paul Flynn, who represents Newport in Wales, regarding Britain's ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould, who is Jewish.

During discussion about meetings thar Mr Gould had with former Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox's friend Adam Werrity, at which the subject of a potential military strike by Mossad on Iran's nuclear installations may have been raised, Mr Flynn reportedly observed:

 "I do not normally fall for conspiracy theories, but the ambassador has proclaimed himself to be a Zionist and he has previously served in Iran, in the service." 

He said doubts had been raised about Mr Gould's loyalty by two of his constituents, Pippa Bartolotti (deputy leader of the Welsh Green Party, seen prettily hijabbed in this photo here , and holding a Syrian flag with a rather distasteful pedigree at left) and another woman who participated in July's "flytilla".

 "When they were briefly imprisoned in Israel, they met the ambassador, and they strongly believe… that he was serving the interest of the Israeli government, and not the interests of two British citizens"

Indeed, as I noted at the time, Ms Bartolotti, a stalwart of the Palestinian cause, wrote of Ambassador Gould, after he visited her and her companion in gaol in the "apartheid state":

"This was a man of obvious Jewish extraction who had turned up in Givon and was clearly thinking we were a thorn in his otherwise quiet life and was probably there to announce that due to his great efforts, we were going."

And she subsequently mused:

"The British Consul said that Israel was a Sovereign State, and as such could remove any people from its land at any time. Yet Israel has no fixed borders, so how can it be a sovereign state? ...

Why does my country accept Israel as a sovereign state when it has no borders?" 

Never mind, though, because we now learn from Ms Bartolotti:

"My grandfather was Jewish, I have no problems with Jews or Isaelis."

The Jewish Chronicle (JC) reports that Mr Flynn has clarified his position by telling that newspaper:

'... ambassadors to Israel had not previously been Jewish "to avoid the accusation that they have gone native".

Britain needed, he said, "someone with roots in the UK [who] can't be accused of having Jewish loyalty".'

Oh dear!

As the JC further reports, Mr Flynn's sentiments have been condemned by the Foreign Office and MPs of various political stripes.

On his blog, the beleaguered Mr Flynn, who seems to have been carpeted by his party's Chief Whip, doughtily defends himself.  Read his post here

See also here

And read a related piece by the staunchly pro-Israel MP Robert Halfon, to whom Mr Flynn refers in the first of these cited links, here

But in the far left New Statesman (no friend to Israel, and which several years ago carried the dodgy cover pictured, accompanying an article co-written by John Pilger about Britain's pro-Israel lobby entitled "A Kosher Conspiracy?") columnist Owen Jones, who obviously doesn't like Zionists (at least the "hardened" or "ultra-" kind) shows Mr Flynn no mercy.