Israel's false friend

Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
24 November '10

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, is one of a (small) minority of Conservative Cabinet ministers – let alone if you include the LibDems in the Coalition – who is a staunch Atlanticist and well-disposed towards Israel. It is an open secret that his hawkish views on foreign affairs do not coincide with those of David Cameron. So it was to be expected that, as the guest of honour at the annual dinner of the Board of Deputies of British Jews last night, he would present himself as a friend of Israel. And he acordingly declared that Britain was a friend of Israel.

Methinks he did protest far too much. For his speech was full of easy platitudes. It was a kind of check-list of all the buttons that he knew he had to press to curry favour with that audience.

And then there was this

Like many, many people in this room we want to see the Israeli Government negotiate peace, and we urge upon them an end to settlement building, and an opening up of Gaza.

This paragraph negates Osborne’s professions of friendship and shows them to be cynical and false. The implication was that the Israelis were the ones preventing those negotiations – one of the great canards of the day.

(Read full article)

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