Writing in the Israeli paper Yedioth
Ahronoth today –
the very day Netanyahu threatened to commence extending Israeli
sovereignty to illegal Jewish squatter communities and the
Jordan Valley, in a blatant bid to thieve more Palestinian land
– UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson makes this disgraceful claim:
“I am a passionate defender of Israel… a life-long friend,
admirer and supporter.” On other occasions he has declared
himself “a passionate Zionist”, an equally tasteless thing to
be. He also said:
@Few causes are closer to my heart than ensuring its people
are protected from the menace of terrorism and anti-Semitic
incitement. The UK has always stood by Israel and its right
to live as any nation should be able to, in peace and
security. Our commitment to Israel’s security will be
unshakable while I am prime minister of the United Kingdom.
The trouble, dear Boris, is that the Israelis, who are violent
intruders, won’t let their neighbours live in peace and security
and cry blue murder whenever they put up resistance which they
have every right to do. Your brilliant solution to the Holy Land
problem is to force the Palestinians and Israelis back to the
negotiating table and never mind implementing international law
and scores of UN resolutions. Will you never learn?
On 30 June, at Westminster, the scene was Questions to the
Foreign Secretary, the subject “Planned Annexation of the West
Bank”.
– Tonia
Antoniazzi: What recent representations he has made to the
Israeli government on their planned annexation of parts of
the West Bank.
– Julie
Elliott: What assessment he has made of the effect of
Israel’s plan to annex parts of the West Nank on human
rights in that region.
– James Cleverly (Minister of State for Middle East and
North Africa): The UK’s position is clear: we oppose any
unilateral annexation. It would be a breach of international
law and risk undermining peace efforts. The prime minister
has conveyed our position to Prime Minister Netanyahu on
multiple occasions, including in a phone call in February
and a letter last month. The UK’s position remains the same:
we support a negotiated two-state solution based on 1967
borders, with agreed land swaps, Jerusalem as a shared
capital and a pragmatic, agreed settlement for refugees.
– Tonia
Antoniazzi: Current sanctions are clearly not working as a
deterrent for Israel’s plan to annex the West Bank
illegally. Strong words at this point are a betrayal of the
Palestinian people – they need actions. Can the minister
outline what action the government will take against
annexation?
– James Cleverly: The government have maintained a dialogue
with Israel. We are attempting to dissuade it from taking
this course of action, which we believe to be not in its
national interest and not compliant with international law.
– Julie
Elliott: In 1980, the UN Security Council condemned Israel’s
illegal annexation of East Jerusalem and, in ’81, its
illegal annexation of the Golan Heights. What lesson does
the minister think the Israeli government took from the
failure to see those Security Council resolutions adhered
to? Are the UK government abandoning the Palestinian people,
as suggested in a recent open letter by UK charities?
– James
Cleverly: The UK government remain a friend of
Israel and also a friend of the Palestinian people. We have
continued to have dialogue both with the leaders of the
Palestinian Authority and with the government of Israel, and
we encourage them to work together to come towards an agreed
settlement that will see a safe, secure state of Israel
alongside a safe, secure and viable Palestinian state. There
is still the opportunity for that negotiated settlement to
be the outcome, and we will continue working with both the
Israelis and the Palestinians to facilitate that.
– Lisa Nandy: World
leaders are warning of consequences should annexation go
ahead, but the silence from this government has been
deafening, so much so that the Israeli newspaper Haaretz says
that France is now the world’s “last, best hope” to stop
annexation. This really is shameful. I raised my concerns
with the US ambassador – has the minister? Will he commit to
a ban on settlement imports and recognise Palestine, as this
House voted to do? Forgive me, I may have missed it. If he
will not do those things, can he tell us what exactly he is
proposing to do?
– James Cleverly: The UK remains a friend and ally to the
state of Israel and a good friend to the Palestinian people.
It is tempting – and I am sure it will placate certain
voices on the left of the political spectrum – to stamp our
feet and bang the table, but we will continue to dissuade a
friend and ally in the state of Israel from taking a course
of action that we believe will be against its own interests,
and we will do so through the most effective means
available.
– Alyn Smith: I listened carefully to the previous exchange,
and I have much respect for the minister, but I am not
asking him to stamp his feet or bang the table – I am asking
him to match the sensible position that he has outlined
today on the illegal annexation of the already illegally
claimed settlements with some actual action. No amount of
warm words and sympathy are going to cut it in this
discussion. My party, likewise, is a friend of the two-state
solution. We are a friend of the Israeli state, and we are a
friend of the Palestinians as well. We want to see a viable
solution, but there is a lively debate that we can influence
right now within Israel, and we need to put action on the
table, not warm words and sympathy. Settlement goods should
at the very least be labelled as illegal, and targeted
sanctions need to be put on the table to focus the minds of
the coalition. I urge him to act, not just talk.
– James Cleverly: My right Hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary
has spoken with his opposite number and other members of the
Israeli government, as have I and indeed our prime minister.
We are working to dissuade Israel from taking this course of
action. There will always be voices in British politics that
would jump at any opportunity to bring in sanctions and
disinvestment. We do not agree with those voices, and we
will continue to work towards a negotiated two-state
solution, using the diplomatic means we have at our
disposal.
– Alyn Smith: I appreciate that answer, and I would urge
more. When Russia illegally occupied Crimea, the UK
government, with our support, implemented sanctions with the
international community. We need that sort of action now,
and I would urge the minister to greater efforts than we
have heard today.
– James Cleverly: I reiterated the UK’s position at the UN
Security Council on 24 June. I made it clear that annexation
would not go unanswered. However, I will not stand at this
Dispatch Box in order, as I say, to placate some of the
traditional voices in criticism of Israel when the best way
forward is to negotiate and speak with a friend and ally, in
the government of Israel, to dissuade them from taking a
course of action that we believe is not in their own best
interests.
Well, you get the picture – a bizarre piece of parliamentary
theatre in which a British minister of the Crown plays chief
pimp for a foreign racist entity. What a pathetic performance by
Mr Cleverly. He mouths the same tired and obsolete excuses for
inaction as his predecessors and cannot bring himself to show
principle or backbone. Perhaps that’s because Her Majesty’s
Government simply hasn’t any.
So here is a question of my own: Why
would anyone want to be “a friend and ally to the state of
Israel”, as government ministers like to describe themselves,
when outside the Westminster bubble of Zionist stooges the
racist regime has no friends? And for the simple
reason that being a Friend of Israel means embracing the terror
on which the state of Israel was built, approving the
dispossession of the innocent and oppression of the powerless
and applauding the discriminatory laws against indigenous
non-Jews who inconveniently remain in their homeland.
It means aligning oneself with the
horrific mindset that abducts civilians — including children —
and imprisons and tortures them without trial, imposes hundreds
of military checkpoints, severely restricts the movement of
people and goods, and interferes with Palestinian life at every
level.
And never mind the shooting up by Israeli gunboats of
Palestinian fishermen in their own territorial waters, the
strangulation of the West Bank’s economy, the cruel 14-year
blockade on Gaza and the bloodbaths inflicted on the tiny
enclave’s packed population. And don’t let’s even think about
the religious war that humiliates the Holy Land’s Muslims and
Christians and prevents them visiting their holy places.
If, after all that, you are still Israel’s special friend, where
is your self-respect?
Will annexation happen? As I
write this the news agencies remain silent and the world holds
its breath. If Israel goes ahead it will be another step in the
fulfilment of Plan
Dalet, the Zionists’ dirty ploy
to take over the Palestinian homeland as a prelude to declaring
Israeli statehood. Its intention was, and still is, to gain
control of all areas of Jewish presence and strategic and
economic importance and keep expanding Israel’s (deliberately
fluid) borders in order to satisfy their insatiable greed.
Don’t you think Netanyahu and his loathsome crew make superb
recruiting sergeants for the BDS (Boycott,
Divestment, Sanctions) movement? I now expect BDS to expand
dramatically and hit the rogue state where it hurts if it
doesn’t get civilised.
An obvious response from even the most retarded Western
politicians would be to suspend the EU-Israel Association
Agreement and the new UK-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement.
To enjoy the Association’s privileges Israel promised the EU to
show “respect for human rights and democratic principles” as set
out in Article 2, an essential and enforceable element of the
Agreement. But Israel, as usual, shows contempt for these
principles and its membership ought to have been terminated long
ago.
To its shame the go-it-alone UK government remains committed to
rewarding its evil creature’s most obscene crimes, having announced that
it is “working closely with the Israeli government to implement
the UK-Israel trade and partnership agreement… and to host a
bilateral trade and investment summit in London”. This suggests
that the provisions of Article 2 were not carried over from the
EU to the new UK-Israel Agreement. However, exactly a year ago
Lisa Nandy put this
question:
To ask the secretary of state for international trade, if he
will seek the inclusion of a binding human rights clause in
a future free trade agreement with Israel to establish that
the (a) relations between the parties and (b) provisions of
the agreement shall be based on respect for human rights and
democratic principles as is provided for in Article 2 of the
EU-Israel Association Agreement.
The answer from the minister of state
for trade policy was: “The UK-Israel Agreement incorporates
human rights provisions of the EU-Israel Trade Agreements,
without modification.”
Let’s see if they mean it and suit action to their words.