A debt of gratitude to UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, the light from London

...Presumably, before we started annoying virtuous nations with Jewish construction beyond the 1949 armistice lines, all was hunky-dory. We were the toast of the Free World and loved to bits by the Brits. Much of that love was already evident on our first imperiled day as a sovereign state within a nightmarishly untenable mini-patchwork of territory. Already then, in Israel’s scariest neonatal hours, Britain played a proactive role in Arab plans to throw us into the sea.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
31 May '13..

We Israelis owe a debt of gratitude to UK Foreign Secretary William Hague. Were it not for his cogent clarifications last Friday, we’d have never known why we aren’t too popular with enlightened British opinion-molders and with the ever morally superior denizens of the EU.

But thanks to Her Majesty’s top diplomat, who has just graced us with a brief visit, we’re no longer benighted. He has opened our eyes and made us see the light from London.

Israel, he told us via Sky News, has lost support in Britain and elsewhere in Europe due to settlement activities of which the UK “disapproves” and which it “condemns.”

No other problems cloud London’s sky. It’s just all about settlements.

Presumably, before we started annoying virtuous nations with Jewish construction beyond the 1949 armistice lines, all was hunky-dory. We were the toast of the Free World and loved to bits by the Brits.

Much of that love was already evident on our first imperiled day as a sovereign state within a nightmarishly untenable mini-patchwork of territory. Already then, in Israel’s scariest neonatal hours, Britain played a proactive role in Arab plans to throw us into the sea.

The best-trained Arab army, the Jordanian Arab Legion, was established and organized on official orders from London by Maj.-Gen. Frederick G. Peake (a.k.a. Peake Pasha). In 1939, Peake was replaced by Lancashire-born Lt.-Gen. John Bagot Glubb (a.k.a. Glubb Pasha), who remained the legion’s commander until 1956. Glubb led the 1948 Arab Legion’s invasion of Israel and engineered the legion’s conquest of east Jerusalem, in direct contravention of the UN Partition Resolution.

British aircraft bombed and strafed Israel’s underdog fledgling forces. We won’t mention Britain’s pre-state refusal of asylum to desperate Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Europe nor Britain’s hunt on the high seas postwar for Holocaust survivors and their incarceration for years under appalling conditions in Cyprus prison camps.

We won’t focus on the turning over of strategic positions to Arab marauders at the conclusion of the British Mandate over this land. We won’t dwell on the arming of Arab militias.

There’s plenty more but suffice it to say that an abundance of such British affection was showered on Israel before it could plausibly have been denigrated as a menacing ogre; before Israel survived the genocidal onslaught upon it and won its War of Independence; before Israel was forced to defend itself in the Six Day War and found itself in Judea and Samaria; before Jews dared return to parts of Jerusalem and the so-called West Bank from which Britain had earlier assisted to expel them; and before all this was maligned as criminal occupation and illegal settlement.

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”

Daphne Anson
09 February '11

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.

(Read full "William Hague – Israel’s Fairweather Friend ...")

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Britain's least effective lobby?

Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
16 November 09

In respect of tonight’s TV programme on the allegedly malign influence of the Israel lobby in Britain -- previewed here in today’s Guardian by presenter Peter Oborne -- readers may find enlightening these comments by Robin Shepherd, who takes issue with Oborne’s claim that he is not peddling ‘Jewish conspiracy theory’, and Tom Gross, who observes that there is no effective British pro-Israel lobby.

A propos, in view of Oborne’s suggestion that pressure from pro-Israel donors upon the Tory party silenced criticism of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza by the Tories’ foreign affairs spokesman William Hague, it is instructive to see what Hague actually said about that operation.

He first called for restraint from Israel:

‘We deeply regret the loss of civilian life in Gaza today. We call on the Israeli government to show restraint. At the same time we call on Hamas to stop the rocket attacks which are an unacceptable threat to Israel’s security, so that the ceasefire, which Hamas failed to renew, can be urgently restored’.

A few days later, he amplified this when he called upon Israel to stop its action against Hamas:

‘I am gravely concerned about the continuing violence in Gaza and the numbers of civilians killed and injured. The crisis is exacting a terrible human toll on both sides and it is imperative that further loss of life is avoided. I join the Security Council’s call for an immediate ceasefire and call on Arab countries to use their influence to urge Hamas to end rocket attacks on Israel. I also call on Israel to work with the international community so that the humanitarian relief so desperately needed in Gaza can be provided. The British Government must work with the United States and other members of the Middle East Quartet to secure an early return to negotiations in 2009. The only long-term solution is a negotiated two-state agreement that achieves a viable and secure Palestinian state living alongside a secure Israel with her right to live in peace and security recognised by all her neighbours. The world looks to the new President of the United States to place these negotiations at the top of his foreign policy agenda and to pursue them with vigour and determination from the very outset.’

He also condemned the Israeli shelling of the UN headquarters and joined the outcry over the ‘humanitarian crisis’ in Gaza:

William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, said: ‘The shelling of the UN Headquarters in Gaza is unacceptable. This undercuts efforts to bring relief to the people of Gaza and is against Israel's own interests. The UNWRA provides food and aid to over a million Palestinian refugees in Gaza. The suspension of its operations will bring more misery to civilians. We desperately need a ceasefire by both sides, not further escalation. Both sides must meet their obligations to protect aid workers at all times.’

He also, as reported here, called for alleged Israeli ‘war crimes’ against the Palestinians to be investigated.

Given that Hague allied himself to some degree with the disproportionate canards of anti-Israel hysteria over Cast Lead and went along with at least some of the blood libels used to defame Israel– not mention the more extreme denunciations emanating from the Labour Foreign Secretary David Miliband -- can there ever have been in fact a weaker and more ineffective pressure group than Britain’s Israel lobby?

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