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)
I decided to pay a call on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Middle East blogs, having neglected them for quite a while.
On a blog posted on 20 June to mark World Refugee Day, Britain's woman in Lebanon, our old friend Frances Guy (pictured, with a certain notorious Hezbollah cleric she admired, the late Sheikh Fadlallah), writes, inter alia:
"A timely reminder too this morning on the BBC that the world's biggest refugee problem is here in the Middle East; 5 million Palestinians, who technically don't yet have a home to return to. (A troubling thought and arguably unique in refugee situations, where refugees, however traumatised can dream of going home one day). The UNRWA spokesman argued vigorously that there can be no peace in the Middle East until the refugee situation is dealt with. There has been a tendancy [sic] to say that other issues need to be dealt with first. But these refugees deserve better.
They also deserve better treatment in the interim, as I have argued before. I hope the new Lebanese government will take its responsibilities seriously and make a commitment to granting Palestinian residents in Lebanon full rights; including above all, access to work." [My emphasis] http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/guy/entry/refugees
I assume Ambassador Guy, in the phrase "technically don't yet have a home to return to," is envisaging a future Palestinian state as the destination of these "refugees" and not hinting that Israel should take them in.
I recommend this post to her: http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2010/09/in-contrast-to-palestine-partitions.html and remind her of all the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees who fled Arab countries.
Her post has attracted a lone comment, from a pro-Palestinian activist, who writes:
'Dear Ambassador
I could not agree with you more. We need to find a solution to the 5,000,000 Palestinian refugees. How long have we being saying this? Why have we 5,000,000 Palestinian refugees? Where did they come from? Why are they not allowed to go home?
It is good that you bring it to our intention but surely after 60 years we expect something better from the FCO. The FCO keep on saying that we need to support the dialogue between Israel and the Palestinains. We have not been honest brokers in these communications. We do not speak to all the representatives of the Palestinains [sic]. Moreover, we bend over backwards to support Israel. The Human Rights report in 2010 produced by the FCO demonstrates clearly that Israel is no friend of democracy and theferore [sic] should be no friend of the UK.. Israel treat their arab citizens terribly. They already run apartheid policies against there own citizens, never mind the millions they hold under occupation.
Should we not agree that the 1948 UN agreement got it wrong. Why do we not go back to the drawing board and decide the correct solution for all the peo[p]le currently living in Palestine. Do we let a fanatical religious minority decide matters' [My emphasis]
It's disappointing that such a comment has been accepted for publication on the FCO website, with no attempt at rebuttal.
More disturbing is the fact that Frances Guy expresses with impunity her own views on foreign policy rather than doing what as an ambassador she ought to be doing - strictly reflecting the official views of the elected government of the day.
In 2006 British journalist Martin Bright authored When Progressives Treat with Reactionaries: The British State’s flirtation with radical Islam (published by the think tank Policy Search), available online as a PDF file. Bright dedicated the pamphlet to “a Foreign Office whistleblower whose courageous actions have allowed me to expose Whitehall’s love affair with Islamism.”
The whistleblower, Derek Pasquill, subsequently lost his job. "My client has been victimised," his lawyer said, "He believed that the public had a right to know about what he believed to be a dangerous government policy."
Dangerous indeed. For, thanks to Pasquill, Bright was able to expose the Foreign Office’s links with the Muslim Brotherhood via the Muslim Council of Britain and dependence on radical Islamist advisers, together with the fact that “the Government’s strategy towards the British Muslim community has been driven in recent years by the Foreign Office rather than any domestic department of state”.
This continuing process began when Jack Straw was Foreign Secretary – in 2001 he established a unit that became known as Engaging With the Muslim World.
That unit's head (2004-6), until her present appointment as ambassador to Lebanon, was Britain's former ambassador to Yemen (2001-4), Frances Guy – who would become so notoriously enamoured of Sheikh Fadlallah, the Hezbollah Holocaust-denier who masterminded terrorist attacks and the kidnappings of several British hostages as well as issuing a fatwa supporting suicide bombings in Israel, and blogged a fulsome tribute to him!
Here she is, in obeisant posture – and note that low chair, hardly worthy of the envoy of Her Britannic Majesty! – hanging on the great man’s words.
As head of the Engaging With the Muslim World Group Frances Guy established ties with such luminaries of radical Islam as Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi (pictured, in a British tabloid), known for his justification of suicide bombings in Israel and Iraq, of wife-beating and of the killing of gays, and with virulently anti-Western Bangladeshi MP Delwan Hossain Saayadi, and she arranged (at a cost to the British taxpayer of £300,000) a two-day (1-2 July 2006) “Muslims in Europe” conference at a luxury hotel in Istanbul, at which they were speakers.
Reported The Times acerbically:
'The Government’s funding appears to contradict the view of Tony Blair that radicals who support terrorism should not be tolerated. The Egyptian-born cleric has defended Palestinian suicide bombings as “a weapon which the weak resort to”.
Last year, after the July 7 bombings in London, Mr Blair said: “Let me make it clear . . . we want nothing to do with people who support suicide bombers in Palestine or elsewhere or support terrorists.”
In March Mr Blair specifically condemned the extremist ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Dr al-Qaradawi is the spiritual leader.
Dr al-Qaradawi, 80, is banned from entering the United States and last visited Britain in 2004 as a guest of Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London. That trip provoked widespread protest from Jewish groups and gay rights organisations.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews referred a dossier on the cleric’s comments to the Crown Prosecution Service but it ruled that there were no grounds on which to charge him with any offence.
Despite the concerns about Dr al-Qaradawi, an influential element within the FCO has lobbied against any attempts by 10 Downing Street and the Home Office to exclude him permanently from Britain.
An FCO memo written last July, a copy of which has been seen by The Times, described him as “a highly respected Islamic scholar” and argued that he had condemned the 9/11 atrocities and the 7/7 bombs.
The author of the memo said that the cleric “should not be excluded from the United Kingdom given his influence in relation to our foreign policy objectives”. He [she; i.e. Guy?] did not spell out those policy aims.
An FCO spokesman defended the decision to pay for Dr al-Qaradawi’s attendance at the conference, describing him as “one of the leading Muslim scholars in the world”.
The spokesman added that although the Government had funded the conference it was left to a steering group, which included Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the former head of the Muslim Council of Britain, to invite participants. He added: “We knew Qaradawi was going. The point of the conference, and the reason we were keen to be involved, was to provide a platform to debate contemporary issues facing Muslims in Europe”.' http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article686879.ece
Said the conference blurb: “For a broader dialogue to happen, we must state clearly and often that Muslims can also be Europeans. This is not a clash of civilisations. We have a common interest in being vigilant against Islamophobia and in standing up to the advocates of terror”.
And an account of the conference explained, inter alia:
“The past few years have been very challenging for the Muslims in the western world. Unfortunately the true picture of Islam has not been shown to the world although many efforts have been made by Islamic Organizations as well as Muslim individuals in many parts of Europe.
The British Foreign and Commonwealth office organized a 2 day conference … to discuss the Identity, Citizenship, and Challenges & Opportunities with regards to the Muslims in Europe. Prominent Muslim Scholars, intellectuals, academics and government officials participated from more than 20 countries of the world.
…. Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Dr Tariq Ramadan, Shaykh Hakim Murad, Shaykh Nuh Keller, Dr Mohamed Mestiri, Dilwar Hussain along with many more prominent scholars were the main participants who contributed in the conference.
The final and last speech among the main speakers was delivered by Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri on the 2nd day of the conference before the final session. Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri spoke on the true concept of identity and citizenship that Islam has given to the [sic] Humanity.
Islam has introduced the disciplines of plural society and has laid the foundations for an ideal plural society keeping the rights of every individual living in the society no matter what faith the individual belongs from.
Shaykh ul Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir ul Qadri further said that TERRORISM HAS NO RELIGION. [Their emphasis] It is a social act and it is linked to society due to several reasons. Terrorism is an act that is a reaction due to specific reasons. Terrorism can be from any society but it has no link to any religion in the world.Terrorism can be American, it can be Indian, it can be Christian, Jewish, Chinese or it can be based on any society or country but cannot be taken to be a part of any religion. [My emphasis]
Shaykh ul Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir ul Qadri concluded his speech by emphasising that Europe has always been in favour of Muslims within Europe and in the foreign world. But Europe needs to promote the true picture of Islam by placing modern learned Islamic Scholars and intellectuals as the participants of this conference on the media. Unfortunately media has not been playing its role in promoting the true picture of Islam due to which many problems have arisen for the Muslims as well as the European societies.” http://www.minhaj.org/english/tid/3560/Muslims-of-Europe-Conference.html
Moreover:
“Muslims from all over Europe came at the beginning of July to Istanbul to discuss such hotly debated issues as combating extremism, citizenship, identity, faith and its public role. The result of the 2-days conference entitled "Muslims of Europe: challenges and opportunities" has been not only numerous recommendations but also the following Topkapi Declaration....
• Islam's presence in Europe is not a new phenomenon but a historically long and culturally rich one. Its interaction with European society sparked a flowering in knowledge. Large numbers of Muslims have continuously inhabited the Balkans, Eastern and Central Europe for hundreds of years. Muslims have played an important role in the transfer and production of knowledge to and in Europe. They have subsequently helped to rebuild the economies of a war torn continent in the 1950s, arriving as immigrants seeking employment and settling to make Europe their home. In almost every field of life Muslims have thus been an integral part of the European tapestry. European Muslims today are at home in Europe; they have been contributors to Europe 's past and are stakeholders in its future.
• We recognise that European societies value openness, inclusiveness and democracy. European Muslims have a great opportunity to flourish as citizens in a pluralistic environment benefiting from access to education, prosperity and development. As citizens Muslims are obliged by Islamic law to obey the legislation of their countries particularly when they enjoy freedom of worship and benefit from social justice. As loyal citizens they are obliged to defend their countries against aggressors.
• Similarly in accordance with the teachings of Islam, Muslims also have a duty to promote social harmony and good relations with their neighbours. The virtues of decency, goodness and ethical conduct in all aspects of life are espoused repeatedly in the Holy Qur'an....
• One of the principles of a democratic society is freedom of religion. Islam also recognises freedom of religion, and like Europe today, gives this ethical ethos particularly strict importance. As stated by God in the Holy Qur'an , people cannot be coerced into belief ...
• As full and dynamic citizens aware of their rights as well as their responsibilities, European Muslims have the right to criticise, dissent and protest, as do all European citizens. This right is in accordance with the democratic processes of Europe and in accordance with their faith. Islam calls upon all Muslims to promote the common good and welfare ( maslaha) of society as a whole and prevent what is wrong ( munkar).
• However, we witness with great sadness the challenges that face many European Muslims, who suffer at the hands of those who resent their presence in Europe or those whose crude sentiments leave no place for people of different colour, culture or creed. It is a challenge to which we must all rise. We condemn Islamophobia and discrimination in all their forms. If Europe 's Muslims are treated as second class citizens, or seen as a burden or even a threat to society, then the level of trust built up over the centuries which is essential for the establishment of peace across the world will be jeopardised. There have also been problems of disenfranchisement and poverty particularly amongst Muslim youth. European Muslim youth should be seen as a positive force, which can benefit the labour force and social fabric of Europe
• We strongly urge European governments to promote inclusiveness and dialogue. This should be done through measures such as education, to encourage greater mutual knowledge and understanding, as well as social programmes to tackle socio-economic disadvantage. We applaud those European governments who have taken active measures to stem racism and who have legislated against overt and institutionalised forms of discrimination against minorities. We also acknowledge that the media has a role in ensuring accurate and responsible coverage.
• Terrorism in all its forms is an affront to our humanity. Under no circumstances does Islam permit terrorism and the killing of civilians. Terrorism is in direct contravention to the principles of Islam and the vast majority of Muslims remain faithful to these teachings. We condemn and abhor the violent actions of a tiny minority of Muslims who have unleashed violence and terror—by distorting the teaching of Islam—upon innocent neighbours and fellow citizens. The Holy Qur'an clearly declares that killing an innocent person is tantamount to killing all of mankind and likewise saving a single life is as if one had saved the life of all mankind ( Al-Mai'dah, 5:32 ). This is both a principle and a command.
• We remain committed to working to ensure that the voice of the peaceful majority of Muslims overcomes that of the tiny minority who seek to promote distorted misinterpretations of Islam. We join our voices to those of scholars from across the world to say that we reject the cancer of terrorism. We pray for the guidance of those to whom extremism and violence may seem an attractive route.
•We also call on the world to work harder and more consistently to eliminate the injustices and grievances, like in Palestine, that have contributed to the hopelessness and despair of many Muslims and peoples across the world. [My emphasis] Wars are not the way to solve conflict and we should work together to find a humane and moral ways to solve problems.
• Finally, we concur with and respect the Amman Message of November 2004; with the Final Declaration issued by the International Islamic Conference held in Jordan in July 2005; with the statements and fatawa of numerous scholars from across the Muslim world that preceded this conference and upon which this conference was based; with the Makkah Declaration and Final Summaries of the OIC Summit held in December 2005, the final statement of the Islamic Fiqh Academy held in Jordan in June 2006; as well as the 15 th session of the European Council for Fatwa and Research in its declaration concerning engagement with society and positive integration and the declaration of European Muslims made by the Supreme Council of the Islamic Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina of 2005 – in essence to develop solidarity amongst Muslims and establish justice. We recognise that solidarity of the Ummah is a key priority for all Muslims – both in Europe and throughout the world. [My emphasis] We join our fellow Muslims the world over to challenge those who seek to misuse our faith corrupting its message. We call for solidarity between us and the upholding of Islam's universal vision of peace, fraternity, tolerance and social harmony.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office panders to Islamism at the expense of Israel, and enthuses about the Muslim presence in Britain – and the rest of Europe. Here, for instance, are extracts from Frances Guy’s speech at Beirut Arab University in March last year.
“London has traditionally been a place of refuge and tolerance; Marx after all wrote his classic work in the British Library. London was the favourite place of exile of anarchists and revolutionaries. More recently it has been seen as the home of Muslim opposition forces, even leading to the French coining the term Londonistan. This is a heritage that we are proud of, even if it makes us occasional enemies of other governments.” [My emphasis]
The first person plural presumably describes the elite that inhabits the FCO and other Whitehall departments – the transformation of London into “Londonistan”, with all it portends for national security and the demographic future of the island nation is surely not one that too many Britons regard with relish.
“Today in the United Kingdom we are proud to have Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews... Muslims represent about 3% of the total British population, about 2 million people. There are now over 1,200 mosques in the UK and more than 110 Muslim schools. Some of these are state schools. There are different arguments about the value or otherwise of faith schools. ... Muslims in the UK have been able to use human rights legislation successfully to argue that if the state provides other faith schools, in this case, Church of England and Catholic schools, then the state should also provide Muslim schools where demand justified such a provision.”
Notice how Jews, whose communal presence dates to 1656, are lumped in with communities she is citing as settling since the Second World War, and also notice how they bring up the rear in this list, reflecting a trend not untypical of British speeches of this kind.
“Trevor Griffiths of the Equality Commission in the UK argues that British commonsense provides an approach to human rights that is deeply ingrained in our British history that tells us for example, that while free speech cannot be traded for cultural sensitivity, the right to offend does not imply an obligation to insult. I agree that ordinary citizens understand that there are limits to how one exercise freedom to express your point of view but I think nevertheless that it takes a legal framework to ensure it – a framework that ensures that people demonstrating against the Israeli Embassy in London do not use abusive anti-Semitic language, and a framework that balances the right to publish with the protection of minorities.”
Notice how demonstrating against Israeli policy is taken as a given. Furthermore, her contention that “abusive anti-Semitic language” does not occur at such events is nonsensical.
Here, for example, is what the journalist Douglas Davis wrote following the ugly scenes in Londonistan (and elsewhere in Eurabia) during Operation Cast Lead:
‘At my dinner table on Friday night, a holocaust survivor admits that she is trying to persuade her son to take his family out of Europe to America, Canada, Australia, Canada, Australia, Israel...’They say they can’t leave me, but I tell them: “Go, get out. My parents left my grandparents behind in Berlin and brought me to safety in England. Now I want you to leave so that my grandchildren will be safe.”’ There is an unbearable desperation in her plea. But she has a point.
As tens of thousands of demonstrators march through the streets of Europe, the chants are modified but the message remains substantially intact: ‘Hamas, Hamas, Hamas – Jews to the Gas’. Or, more simply: ‘Death to the Jews’. Many European Jews, even well-established, affluent Jews, have been checking the suitcase they keep packed under the bed. They have been here before and many are (albeit reluctantly) reading the writing on the wall.
To some extent I thought I was inured. I grew up in postwar apartheid South Africa where a subtle undercurrent of anti-Semitism was a fact of everyday life. So while I was disturbed by manifestations of mob anti-Semitism, I was also less vulnerable to shock. That’s just how people are. Living in genteel, leafy Hampstead Garden Suburb provides an additional layer of protection from such crass outbursts.
But my sanguine state ends abruptly when I am out walking on Saturday. A hundred yards from my front door, I encounter the slogan, freshly painted in yellow, across the pavement: ‘Kill the Filthy Jews’. I am shocked. And shocked that I am shocked. The message is too close for comfort. The leafy gentility is, after all, an illusion.
Those who study these matters tell me that the current convulsion of anti-Semitism is the worst in a generation. They also say that there is a direct, causal link with the Israeli military operation against Hamas in Gaza. Once upon a time, anti-Israel protesters insisted they were motivated by political animus against Zionism rather than racial prejudice against Jews. The Hamas Charter, which sets out of the guiding principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement – xenophobic, racist and anti-Semitic – removes the distinction.’ http://www.spectator.co.uk/politics/all/3300206/letters.thtml
See also http://hurryupharry.org/2009/01/14/cause-and-effect/
The FCO’s dogged determination to court the Muslim world at the expense of Israel can be seen not only in the extreme anti-Israel blog (courtesy of the official website of the FCO) of British ambassador in Jordan James Watt (http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/01/through-lens-dhimmily-britains-middle.html ) but in that of Dominic Asquith, Britain’s ambassador to Egypt.
He’s a great-grandson of a former British prime minister, Herbert Henry Asquith (later 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith), and, incidentally, a relative of Emma Clark, Lord Oxford’s great-granddaughter, who’s one of a number of notable white British converts to Islam trumpeted as trophies on Islamic websites (these converts include the son of John Birt, who was once Director-General of the BBC, and the Earl of Yarborough).
Mr Asquith is himself a Catholic, and has often addressed the need to understand Islam.
In October, he had this to say:
‘The world over, people empathised with the case of Sufiyatu Huseini in Nigeria, who faced the threat of stoning for adultery, just as many do now with Sakineh Ashtiani in Iran. Similarly with Abdallah Abu Rahma, a Palestinian blogger sentenced last week to one year in prison by an Israeli military court. British diplomats attended his case in court: as my government declared, “We are concerned that his continued detention is intended to prevent him and other Palestinians from exercising their legitimate right to non violent protest against the annexation of Palestinian land to Israel. Or Hossein Derakhshan, another blogger who was sentenced last month to 19 years in prison in Iran...’
Bit thick, isn’t it, lumping a democratic ally’s treatment of a blogger who poses a security threat in with the Ahmadinejad regime’s draconian punishments. (And, anyway, Asquith's blog is supposedly about his work in Egypt just as Watt's is supposedly about the latter's work in Jordan, not with dissing Israel. Imagine the outcry if, say, Britain's ambassador in Germany blogged gratuitous criticisms of Poland ...)
(Notice, incidentally, how that exact latter phrase, obviously from the Camel Corps’ Corpus of Controlled Quotations, turns up in the FCO’s statement of 13 January this year, which condemns the raising of Abu Rahma’s term to 16 months: “We are concerned by the Israeli military court’s decision to extend Abdallah Abu Rahma’s sentence on charges of incitement and organising and participating in demonstrations to 16 months. British Diplomats, including the Consul General Sir Vincent Fean, as well as diplomats from other EU Member states have continued to attend all hearings in Abu Rahma’s case... We remain concerned that his extended sentence is intended to prevent Abdallah and other Palestinians from exercising their right to non violent protest against the annexation of Palestinian land to Israel”.)
Asquith goes on:
“Humanity and tolerance will continue to lose their chance of being heard if their aim is just silent co-existence. In Germany, the latest concerns about immigration and suggestions that multiculturalism has failed underline the importance of what Bill Clinton said when he was in Cairo recently. He referred to the fear that many non-Muslims felt about Islam. That was a reality which we all needed to face and try and deal with.... What Muslims should feel rightly angry about, he went on, was the way in which that fear was expressed.”
And then, of course, there’s the question of what the dhimmi dame should wear on state visits to Muslim countries. Just look at the way Foreign Secretary William Hague’s wife Ffion was forced to dress on a visit to Abu Dhabi last year – turned from educated, independent woman (she’s an Oxford graduate and an author) into a sinful female body that must be completely hidden from view, all for the sake of some perceived diplomatic advantage.
Surely a long-sleeved, high-necked western dress with a suitably modest hemline would have sufficed not to offend the hosts, rather than this bizarre affront to Ffion Hague’s dignity, and indeed an insult to all British women, especially since their protracted struggle for equal rights was won well within living memory. (I’m sure that greatest of Foreign Secretaries, Lord Palmerston – a philosemite, by the way – must be spinning in his grave, not necessarily on account of this insult to women, but owing to the self-imposed dhimmitude of those who “never never never shall be slaves”!)
Why, the FCO Camel Corps has even tried to dhimmify the Queen!
No prizes for guessing why there’s never been an official royal visit to Israel, by the way!
I shall be addressing that topic quite soon – so please stay tuned!
Forget the realities of living in the Islamic Middle East in a state of dhimmitude. Forget the jizya tax. Forget the imposed humiliations and the mandatory occupations. Forget the caprices of Muslim rulers and “protectors” towards the Jews and Christians in their midst. Forget the periodic outbreaks of cruelty. Forget enslavement. Forget the kidnapping of girls, the marriages by capture, and the incarceration in harems. Forget the enforced conversions to Islam. Forget the expulsions. Forget the mass exodus of Jewish and Christian refugees.
James Watt, Britain’s Ambassador to Jordan, and Frances Guy, Britain’s Ambassador to Lebanon, seem anxious to convince us of an alternative “reality” of their own.
These two “gone native” envoys share an unfortunate track record of blunders in their blogs, which appear on the official website of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).
Last year, Mr Watt (pictured), whom I believe it is fair to describe as an Arabist, displayed in several of his blogposts an outrageous denial of the facts of Jewish history and a concomitant lack of empathy with Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish People, and with the Jewish State.
On one post he mentioned that he was looking forward to reading Shlomo Sands’ The Invention of the Jewish People – a blueprint for delegitimisation if ever there was one. But he doesn’t seem to have needed any help from that book in accruing an anti-Israel attitude, comprising denying the right of the Jewish People to self-determination and of Israel to proper self-defence, for he’d already made such statements as these:
"No one is prepared – or very few – to take Zionist arguments at their face value any longer. Completely non-factual assertions – for example that a Jewish people was building Jerusalem 5,000 years ago - only serve to emphasise the absence of real content or reasoning. The strange thing is how long Western audiences tolerated such claims without challenging them: I think because they were hoping that a reasonable settlement with the indigenous Palestinian population would emerge in the course of things (and with some diplomatic heavy lifting)."
“The origin of the problem – the arrival of the Zionists in Palestine, with their commitment to avoiding any kind of integration into existing society, and their policy of importing their co-religionists from cultural and social backgrounds alien to Palestine, changed everything. So did the massive expulsion of huge numbers of Palestinians from their land. Their right to return, and to compensation, remains the central demand, backed by all Arab states and reflected also in the principles set out by the international community for peace."
“I offer my condolences to the families of those who were killed [aboard the Mavi Marmara], in what should have been an entirely avoidable tragedy... the entire world has had enough of the blockade of Gaza – a blockade which Israel should have long ago lifted under the terms of UN Security Resolution 1801, as well as other international law. And the world has had enough of the pretexts Israel uses to continue it.”
“Few observers would disagree with [David] Hirst [in the book Beware of Small States, which Watt had read with enthusiasm] that Israel has long committed itself to a policy of massive military deterrence, which is now becoming progressively more violent - and, by the account of its own officials, more ready to inflict civilian casualties on a large scale in pursuit of its political goals. Gaza showed that progression: more remote shelling and rocketing by the Israeli forces, with minimum risk to its own soldiers: ten lost their lives, and three Israeli civilians, while 1,330 Gazans (most of them civilians and 410 of them children) lost theirs. Compare that to the 43 Israeli civilians who died under Hizbullah rocket fire in July-August 2006, and 119 Israeli soldiers in the fighting, against over a thousand Lebanese civilians (one third of them children) and an unknown number of Lebanese combatants.”
As Melanie Phillips remarked when Watt’s blogposts came to public attention, thanks to a commenter on the blog Harry’s Place:
"Watt makes it clear he doesn’t think Israel has an overwhelming historic claim to its existence, thinks the Palestinian Arabs were indigenous to the land and that the idea that Israel was the Jews’ national home thousands of years ago is fanciful.
[H]e denies Jewish national self-determination .... [H]e denies Jewish and Middle Eastern history.... [H]e denies Jewish history and national self-determination and descends into rank bigotry....[H]e is peddling the Big Lie by Hamas, Hezbollah and the PLO that misrepresents Israeli defence as aggression and describes all Arabs killed by Israel as civilians whereas in fact most are terrorists .... [H]e is sympathising with the Turkish terrorists who were killed on the Mavi Marmara when they tried to lynch the boarding Israeli soldiers, and claiming that Israel’s reason for restricting the flow of goods into Gaza, that it is to prevent arms smuggling and weaken the grip of Hamas, is a lie ....
It is an old cliché that diplomats are sent abroad to lie for their country. But one inevitable effect of Watt’s demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel through such distortions and bigotry is to whip up yet more genocidal hatred throughout the Arab and Muslim world.
The British Government says it is committed to a two-state solution. Why is its Ambassador to Jordan suggesting that the state that already exists is illegitimate? Is this the British Government’s position? If not, why is it allowing its Ambassador to Jordan to represent such an obnoxious view? Will Foreign Secretary William Hague repudiate these distortions and the vicious hostility Watt displays towards Britain’s ally? Or are we to conclude that these are beliefs that he himself shares?" http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/6132169/camels-were-never-this-vicious.thtml
Now, in the wake of the New Year’s Eve atrocity in Alexandria that left 23 Coptic Christian churchgoers dead and another 100 or so injured, Mr Watt http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/watt/entry/living_in_harmony reflects on the Arabic concept of al-ta'ayush (co-existence). Its spirit, he tells us, “is part of the human and cultural richness of Arab civilisation”. It ‘conveys clearly the sense of “living in harmony”, rather than simply “existing together’ and its spirit “is part of the human and cultural richness of Arab civilisation”.
Uh huh.
“It is a term in common use in those Arab societies where Christians and Muslims live together (and as Jews did too not long ago). Those societies treasure ta’ayyush. They know it is a prize that calls for daily efforts and constant care. They know the disaster and grief that follows if those efforts fail.”
Note the dishonest comment about the Jews. Watt (whose second wife, Amal Saad, comes from an Arab family in Lebanon) implies that they lived alongside Arabs in harmonious paradise. He tells us nothing of dhimmitude, nothing of persecution, nothing of some 750,000 Jewish refugees from Arabic lands who fled to Israel.
Let him see this, for starters:
By coincidence (I assume) Frances Guy has been posting on a similar theme.
You may recall that in July 2010 Ms Guy (pictured), on her blog, blithely revealed her admiration for Sheikh Fadlallah, the Holocaust-denying Hezbollah terror merchant, who had just passed away:
“One of the privileges of being a diplomat is the people you meet; great and small, passionate and furious. People in Lebanon like to ask me which politician I admire most. It is an unfair question, obviously, and many are seeking to make a political response of their own. I usually avoid answering by referring to those I enjoy meeting the most and those that impress me the most. Until yesterday my preferred answer was to refer to Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, head of the Shia clergy in Lebanon and much admired leader of many Shia muslims throughout the world. When you visited him you could be sure of a real debate, a respectful argument and you knew you would leave his presence feeling a better person. That for me is the real effect of a true man of religion; leaving an impact on everyone he meets, no matter what their faith. Sheikh Fadlallah passed away yesterday. Lebanon is a lesser place the day after, but his absence will be felt well beyond Lebanon's shores. I remember well when I was nominated ambassador to Beirut, a Muslim acquaintance sought me out to tell me how lucky I was because I would get a chance to meet Sheikh Fadlallah. Truly he was right. If I was sad to hear the news I know other peoples' lives will be truly blighted. The world needs more men like him willing to reach out across faiths, acknowledging the reality of the modern world and daring to confront old constraints. May he rest in peace.”
Despite an outcry, she kept her job.
More recently, last September, Ms Guy blogged:
“There are nearly 60 Palestinian veterans in Lebanon who served with the British army during the 2nd World War. The tragic irony of their situation is heart-wringing. After loyally serving the Union Jack, in 1948 they were forced to flee their homes when the state of Israel was created. Some of them have been in refugee camps in Lebanon ever since. ... I am proud that a system is in place to give these brave men some comfort. I am less proud that 60 years after their flight from their homes, diplomacy has so far failed to find a solution to the Arab Israeli conflict. The Royal Commonwealth ex-services League is helping nearly 20,000 veterans all round the world. As they say, these people weren't forced to join up, they chose to. That's why the league is trying to help them. Their quiet dignity in the midst of hardship and poverty is to be admired and respected.”
In a speech made in Beirut on Armistice Day (reported in the Jordanian press and elsewhere in the Arab world), she was less guarded in her language, describing these men as being “chased out” of their homes by the Israelis.
I couldn’t help but think of that speech, and whether she’s been bamboozled, when I read in a newspaper report from 1945, as quoted by me in a recent post http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/01/palestine-government-did-its-best-to.html, that the Palestinian Arabs serving in units of the British Army proved restless and unreliable, mutinying often, deserting along with their rifles and ammunition, joining without authorisation a VE Day procession in Beirut in which they displayed a picture of the traitorous Mufti, and committing acts of hooliganism. After a subsequent similar disturbance they were discharged on the ground that “their services were no longer required”, so that whereas 15,000 Palestinian Jews remained under British arms, “few if any Arabs” did.
In her latest blogpost http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/guy/entry/cedars_of_lebanonMs Guy has been pondering the symbolism of a celebrated arboreal species. “The Cedars of Lebanon as symbol is poignant,” she writes. “It is an indigenous species that is listed as endangered. Quite – where do so many different confessional groups live in relative harmony?”
Well, it’s not too clear from that strange phraseology what inspired the leap from plant to people, but it would appear Ms Guy is trying to spin us the fiction is that Lebanon is a country in which Muslims and non-Muslims get along just fine, better in fact than in any other country.
The facts fail to support her.
During the 1940s there were about 24,000 Jews in Lebanon, about 3000 in 1975, and there are virtually none today – only aged survivors. Although Lebanon was the only Arab nation whose Jewish population increased following the Declaration of the State of Israel (when Lebanon had a Christian majority, be it noted), many Jews left the country after the 1958 Civil War. The situation of Lebanese Jewry deteriorated with the coming of the Civil War that began in 1975, and in 1982 radical Islamists captured and killed eleven of the community’s leaders.
As for that country’s Christians, Brigitte Gabriel (who comes from that background) has given a harrowing account of how they were reduced from 65% of the population in 1975 to less than 20% today, owing to persecution by militant Islamists, including Palestinian incomers, massacres, and polygamous marriages producing numerous offspring. She tells how tolerant, multicultural, open-bordered, progressive, entrepreneurial Christian-majority Lebanon – “the Paris of the Middle East” – became “a terrorist infrastructure, a hotbed of Islamic Jihad”.
Ms Gabriel also describes the torture and murder of Christians in Lebanon (even of leftist Christians who had aided the Muslim cause) including the nicety of tying one leg of infants to their father and one to their mother and then separating the parents so that the infants were torn apart.
She tells of the deliberate fouling of churches with human excrement and urine – and how the Bible was used as toilet paper.
The Bible as toilet paper, eh? Could that be why Frances Guy isn’t overly keen to give the Bible its due as a sourcebook for those Cedars of Lebanon?
There can be few people who grew up in the Judeo-Christian tradition who are completely unaware that the mighty Lebanese cedar is mentioned several times in the Bible. Cedar wood was used in the interior of Solomon’s Temple, for example.
This beautiful line from the Psalms is particularly famous: “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.”
Of the cedar Ms Guy writes: “It grows to be majestic and it has contributed to so many different civilisations; the Phoenicians used it for ships; the Egyptians for ships and its resin for mummification; the Ottomans and the British were more prosaic but the railways benefitted.”
Alarmed at the thought that Ms Guy believes that the ancient Israelites are as off-limits with her hosts as their descendants in the Zionist Entity are, I left the following comment beneath her post: “Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem was built of cedar, which figured prominently in Israelite civilisation, especially for building purposes, and there are numerous references to the cedar in the Bible.”
Short and perhaps not so sweet – from the standpoint of a British diplomat grovelling to the Arab world.
But fair dues to Ms Guy, for my comment has now appeared.
Amid all the hype about the engagement of Prince William and press preoccupation with the Wikileaks scandal, a sinister piece of European Union legislation has passed virtually unnoticed. Making “certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia”a criminal offence, it has implications that should worry everybody who values freedom of speech, what remains of the sovereignty of nations shackled together in an increasingly bizarre and bureaucratic tyranny that Stalin would envy, and who fears the creeping islamification of the European continent.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2008:328:0055:0058:EN:PDF
Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, an Austrian who has been prosecuted for voicing anxieties about the rise of Islam – the indictment charges her with “hate speech” for asserting that “Sharia is a definite no-no. We want no gender apartheid, no ghettoes, no social and cultural discrimination, no polygamy, no theocracy, no hate…” – has warned eloquently about the implications of this dastardly piece of folly: http://vimeo.com/17262291 http://europenews.dk/en/node/37479
Now, I'm no lawyer, but as I understand the matter, the new legislation permits the state to be the sole arbiter of what is acceptable speech, and allows any state within the EU to prosecute those who are deemed to have run afoul of this new law. Since it institutes the principle of cross-border transfer, any EU member state may prosecute the citizen of any other for "hate speech", and the police of the accused's country would be obliged to deliver the individual to the complainant state to stand trial.
A vigilant EU-watcher remarked to me:
“It is one of the most scary documents of control imaginable. It is pretty much the complete adoption of the deepest desires of the OIC [Organisation of the Islamic Conference] into European Law. If Turkey were to ever enter the EU, this would place all of the EU's citizens under Sharia.
It is also possible, as increasing Islamisation takes place in various countries, that people will be tried and convicted in a territory with the harshest laws preventing criticism of Islam.
And ... imagine if one country in the EU issues an arrest warrant for an Israeli. Every member state would be obliged to arrest and transfer that individual.
I'm not sure that travel to any state in the EU is possible or wise for anyone who criticizes Islam regularly or has fought for Israel."
Turkey’s admission to the EU – the Islamic hordes in its hinterland notwithstanding – is certainly high on the agenda of British prime minister David Cameron. He's expressed his determination to achieve it. And it seems that Sheik Fadlallah-loving Frances Guy (here she is, seated dhimmi-like, before the late sheik, a mastermind of terror) has taken a shine to Turkey’s Prime Minister.
In her latest blog (on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s official website) that contains her musings on the topic of “Dignity” - Britain's ambassador to Lebanon paid tribute to Erdogan’s “dignity” – just as she has to that of “The Palestinian veterans at our Remembrance service [who]carried themselves with great dignity despite all their difficulties and earned everyone's respect.” Her blog of 22 September, incidentally, expanded on the latter theme:
"There are nearly 60 Palestinian veterans in Lebanon who served with the British army during the 2nd World War. The tragic irony of their situation is heart-wringing. After loyally serving the Union Jack, in 1948 they were forced to flee their homes when the state of Israel was created.... Their quiet dignity in the midst of hardship and poverty is to be admired and respected.”
Maybe these elderly gentlemen are more worthy of Ms Guy’s adulation than was the elderly sheikh about whom she blogged so effusively back in July (see my blog archive for two posts on that topic). But I wish she’d get it through her frequently hijabbed head that there’s no dignity in dhimmitude.
(To those to whom it is relevant, and despite the gloomy tone of the above post, I wish a Happy Chanukah!)
On the London Daily Telegraph blogs over the weekend (blogs.telegraph.co.uk), Washington-based foreign affairs analyst and political commentator Nile Gardiner argued compellingly that British Foreign Secretary William Hague should sack Fadlallah-loving Ambassador to Lebanon Frances Guy.
Compelling to all people of good sense, though not, it seems, to Hague and his Arabist FCO pals. But it does seem that Britain downgraded its diplomatic presence at Fadlallah's funeral - his ambassadorial admirer does not appear to have attended.
Another photo of the lady - in her Eastern bonnet - with the terror-promoting sheikh has just surfaced (hat tip: Derek Pasquill, commenting over at CiF Watch). She sure seems to have enjoyed the old terror merchant's company, eh?
Enjoy! (If you can.) Personally, I wonder whether it's totally necessary for the non-Muslim representative of a (once?) great power to cover her locks, obeisant-like, in this way. Were she observing prayers in a mosque, I could understand it. But in a secular setting? Dhimmi - I mean dear me - no.
Foreign Secretary William Hague - himself no great shakes when it comes to standing up to the world's bullies - was reportedly 'very unimpressed' with Frances Guy's blogged infatuation with the Israel-loathing, West-hating, terror-peddling Sheik Fadlallal, and after 'mature consideration' that blog was removed.
Still, unlike Octavia Nasr, CNN's Middle East editor, who on Twitter described Fadlallal as 'One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot' and promptly lost her job as a result, Britain's envoy in Beirut has kept hers. Now, the woman who when head of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Engaging with the Islamic World unit met all kinds of unsavoury types in appeasement's cause, and who in her current role pioneered diplomatic talks with Hezbollah, has blogged an apology of sorts. (Well, she would, wouldn't she?)
Now, it turns out, Britain's man in Amman, James Watt, has been indulging in a lot of dodgy blogging of his own (hat tip: Harry's Place). It seems a youthful meeting with Lord Caradon opened his eyes to the wicked ways of those pesky Zionists, though perhaps Mrs Watt, Amal Saad, who's a member of an Arab family, has jaundiced the ambassador's view of Israel too.
"Completely non-factual assertions - for example that a Jewish people was building Jerusalem 5000 years ago - only serve to emphasise the absence of real content or reason" he thundered in March this year. "No one is prepared - or very few - to take Zionist arguments at their face value any longer." "The origin of the problem - the arrival of the Zionists in Palestine, with their commitment to avoiding any kind of integration into existing society, and their policy of importing their co-religionists from cultural and social backgrounds alien to Palestine, changed everything", he proclaimed on 1 July. "So did the massive expulsion of huge numbers of Palestinians from their land. Their right to return, and to compensation, remains the central demand, backed by all Arab states and reflected also in the principles set out by the international community for peace." Other blogs by Mr Watt mirror the view of his Arabist FCO masters regarding the Goldstone Report, the Gaza Blockade, the Mavi Marmara affair, and so on.
And, it would seem, just like Ambassador Guy (I talk from experience) Ambassador Watt is decidedly reluctant to allow non-sycophantic comments to blight his blog.
Back in 2007, right around the time of Iran's capture of 15 Royal Naval personnel whose vessel had drifted too near to Iranian waters, I was in London to attend a meeting of a specialist historical society entirely unconnected with Jews or Israel. Afterwards, five of us were guests of the chairman, at dinner at his club in Pall Mall. Just as the second course arrived, the man on my right (who despite my very Jewish surname had insisted on extolling to me, and not jocularly either, the virtues of the menu's pork, which he proceeded to order) was asked by the man on my left what he made of the Iran naval affair. To my astonishment, the reply was an invective-laden denunciation not of Iran, but of Israel - which, he claimed, was responsible for all of the ills of the Middle East.
I had a choice. I could either sit silent and ladylike, or I could give him a piece of my mind. Reluctant to embarrass our genial host, I nevertheless chose to do the latter - while my fellow diners, obviously uncomfortable, almost buried their heads in their plates.
Who was the man who spoke so ill of Israel? Why, a former officer in one of Britain's armed services and a leading official at the Ministry of Defence - that's who.
These days, it seems, the droppings of the FCO Camel Corps extend the length and breadth of Whitehall.
There she sits, hunched forward, her crowning glory hidden beneath a scarf, smilingly catching his every word. Frances Guy, Britain's ambassador to Lebanon, and Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, the popular Shia cleric who passed away a few days ago.
Sheikh Fadlallah apparently had many sterling qualities - his progressive view of women's role and status being just one of them - and attracted numerous admirers.
However, the man said to be Hezbollah's spiritual leader had less palatable views regarding Israel and the West. He justified terror. He wanted Israel annihilated. For instance, he encouraged suicide bombers against the Jewish State, declaring that "All of Palestine is a war zone and every Jew who unlawfully occupies a house or land belonging to a Palestinian is a legitimate target. There are no innocent Jews in Palestine." He declared that Zionists had vastly exaggerated the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. And he praised the deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Beirut 27 years ago.
Notwithstanding all that, Ambassador Guy has blogged a eulogy for Sheikh Fadlallah, in which she reveals him as her "favourite politician" (hat tip: Elder of Ziyon). In the course of that eulogy - headed "The passing of decent men" - she has not made any attempt to dissociate herself from his uncompromising attitude towards Israel.
Is this acceptable to the British Foreign Office - whose Arabist predilections are well-known though sometimes (weakly and implausibly) denied: that their envoy to one country should be permitted to express adulation for a politically influential public figure of that country who advocates violence against the citizens of another country and, for good measure, that country's destruction? A country that is an ally, no less, of Britain? Is this the shameful reality of Britain today?
[Update: Ms Guy's ill-conceived eulogy has now mysteriously disappeared into cyber heaven; however, a screen-shot of her extraordinary post may be viewed on Elder of Ziyon's blog, official Foreign and Commonwealth Office heading and all. ]
[Further update: as of Friday morning, the post is retrievable via Bing - but not Google. Type her name into Bing and when the start of the post appears onscreen press Cached Page, and you'll get it all - except, that is, for the comments accompanying it.]
