Are you British enough to snap your fingers at Israel, Mr Cameron?

- 30. Apr, 2011

On the morning after the Royal Wedding…
An open letter to the British Prime Minister

By Stuart Littlewood

Dear Prime Minister,

I see your image is splashed across the main page of the Conservative Friends of Israel website and your words warmly endorse that country and its regime.

CONSERVATIVE FRIEND OF ISRAEL

Your loyal lieutenant, the foreign secretary William Hague, cancelled the Syrian ambassador’s Royal Wedding invitation, not that I disagree with such a move. However, the Syrians are only slaughtering their own people whereas the Israelis have been slaughtering their neighbours for 63 years in much larger numbers and continue to do so on a daily basis.

The words Dr Mohamed Khodr uses in his petition  to the UN Secretary General and the Security Council calling for a No-Fly Zone over Gaza describe the appalling situation in the Holy Land excellently well…

For 44 years of Israel’s brutal military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, the world has been complicit with this illegal occupation in its silence to the suffering, death, injury, home demolitions, imprisonment and torture of civilians, constant confiscation of Palestinian land to build illegal settlements that now house over 500,00 settlers, the Judaization of Jerusalem, destruction of mosques and excavation of Muslim cemeteries, theft of fourth fifths of the water supply to the Palestinians, settler violence, no freedom of movement, the presence of hundreds of humiliating checkpoints, closure of schools and universities at whim, prohibition of Palestinian Muslims and Christians outside of Jerusalem to pray at their Holy Sites, the construction of a “Separation” Fence that confiscates more Palestinian land and divides villages and families, and the outrageous siege of Gaza’s 1.5 million people for 4 years that has led to a deteriorating economy, high unemployment, mass poverty, malnutrition of children, death of civilians due to lack of adequate health care, food, clean water supplies, widespread mental and psychological illness, especially among traumatized children, and thousands of destroyed homes from “Operation Cast Lead” that Palestinians are unable to be rebuild due to Israel’s prohibition of entry of cement and construction materials.


No other nation on earth could commit these “war crimes” for such a lengthy time without an enraged world acting immediately to end the illegal occupation and suffering of millions of Palestinian refugees in and out of the Occupied territories.


Throughout its history Israel has defied the UN Charter, hundreds of UN resolutions, international laws and the Fourth Geneva Convention, nor has it ever accepted US, EU and Quartet peace initiatives, nor the Arab Peace Plan of 2002 that met all of Israel’s “peace” demands.


Israel has never accepted or cooperated with any International investigation into its atrocities against Palestinian civilians, nor has it ever been held accountable for its history of war crimes against the Palestinians that continue till this day.


On April 2006 the U.N. Security Council affirmed the principle of  “Responsibility to Protect” against four crimes: genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity… “If a State is manifestly failing to protect its citizens from mass atrocities and peaceful measures are not working, the international community has the responsibility to intervene at first diplomatically, then more coercively, and as a last resort, with military force.”

Under International Law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel is considered the “occupying power” and thus the sovereign state responsible for protecting Palestinian civilians, the principle and norm of the “Responsibility to Protect” is applicable to Israel.

Israel, as you must know, Mr Prime Minister, was founded on terror and thrives on land theft, ethnic cleansing and aggression. True to form, your friends in Tel Aviv now respond to the news of unity between democratically elected Hamas and rivals Fatah in the Occupied Territories with dire threats.

It crosses a “a red line”, says foreign minister Lieberman who talks of taking an array of measures against the Palestinian Authority, such as preventing free movement for Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad and freezing (again) the transfer of taxes collected by Israel for the PA.

Netanyahu. I hear, warns that Abbas must “choose between peace with Israel or peace with Hamas” – as if peace has ever been possible with Israel – while Ehud Barak as usual is all for using the “iron fist”.

You told the Conservative Friends of Israel: “The ties between this party and Israel are unbreakable. And in me, you have a Prime Minister whose belief in Israel is indestructible.”

And you recently told a Jewish audience: “I want to be clear, we will always support Israel… when Iran flouts its international obligations Britain is and will remain at the forefront of the international community in ratcheting up the pressure with tough sanctions. We will not stand by and allow Iran to cast a nuclear shadow over Israel or the wider region.”

Is this not an irresponsible thing to say when it is Israel which casts the nuclear shadow, menaces the region and flouts international obligations? You seem keen to make Israel’s enemies Britain’s enemies when we have no quarrel with them. In which case how can it be in our national interest to ratchet-up anything?

James Arbuthnot, chairman of the Defence Select Committee and Parliamentary chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel – a dangerous conflict of responsibilities if ever there was one – has said: “Everyone in this House should have an interest in Israel, because it is a country that embodies the values that we should stand for. Israel [has] become a bastion of the rule of law…”

The strenuous efforts by your administration to shield and cosset Israel make us all complicit in that regime’s crimes – that is how the rest of the world sees it.

How does this devotion to a foreign military power square with the Seven Principles of Public Life which your government is supposed to uphold, especially the Principle of Integrity? This lays down that holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their official duties.

If the Israel lobby has no influence, how do you explain the claim that 80 percent of Conservative MPs are Friends of Israel? How do you explain the appointment of a Foreign Secretary who has been a Friend of Israel since boyhood and a minister in charge of Middle East affairs who is a former officer of the Conservative Friends of Israel?

And why is our Prime Minister, of all people, a patron of the Jewish National Fund, an organization that stands accused of racist land practices?

Your parliamentary colleague, Sir Gerald Kaufman, a Jew whose family suffered horribly during the Holocaust, knows the Israeli regime for what it really is… “They’re not simply war criminals, they’re fools”.  He calls Israel itself a “pariah state”.

After the Israelis’ Operation Cast Lead against Gaza in which they slaughtered 1400 mostly civilians including hundreds of children, the decent thing, surely, would have been to immediately shut down the Friends of Israel movement. “My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza,” observed Kaufman.

But for the Friends of Israel, and the political parties that harbour them, it’s been business as usual. After all, what’s a little wholesale slaughter between “friends”?

I write this on the day of the Royal Wedding – a day that’s supposed to make us intensely proud to be British. The bride came into Westminster Abbey as plain Miss Middleton and left as Duchess of Cambridge and Countess of Strathearn and a senior member of a glittering royal family. Such fairy-tale dreams can only come true in England.

You. of course, were at the wedding. As you sat in the Abbey, with its thousand-year history, soaking up the pageantry and splendor and humming along to the anthem “Jerusalem”, did it not cross your mind that in the Holy Land your Israeli friends prevent Palestinian Christians and Muslims from visiting and worshiping at their holy places, many of which are older than Westminster? Thanks to the failure of the international community to discharge its responsibilities their most modest dreams of basic freedoms have remained at the fairy-tale level for decades.

Basking in the glory of this great Royal occasion, as we all are, you’re no doubt feeling extremely British right now, Mr Prime Minister. But true Britishness includes a fearless sense of fairness and justice. The question is, are you British enough to snap your fingers at the evil and unjust Israeli regime?

Stuart Littlewood is a marketing specialist turned writer-photographer in the UK. His articles are published widely on the web. He is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation.Read Full Bio

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“Aljazeera” Channel Merchandises the “Arabic Spring”: From Bahrain to Syria

Qatar use Al-jazeera as a blakmailing tool

By Hussein Hamiyyeh

The Qatari "Aljazeera" Channel has renounced the professional standards it claims to possess; this was once it decided, with prior planning and determination, to strangle the Bahraini uprising at the level of its media and to keep secret the massacres that the royal family "Al Khalifa" is committing against the people of their country. Hereupon, most of those astonished by this surprising fact have tried to dwarf the reasons beyond such renouncement and restrict it within two limits; the first is that the State of Qatar (the Channel's owner) has commitments to fulfill as regards its neighbors of the Gulf Cooperation Council, and this prevents it, thus, from exposing the Bahraini events with at least a neutral eye of media.

As for the second reason, it has been related to the level of the doctrinal recruitment of this Channel's staff, which is a recruitment that holds hatred and rancor for the Shiites that constitute the great majority of the Bahraini people.

It's actually silly to reckon to such explanations, especially when Qatar (that owns this Channel), has used the Channel as a political instrument to grow more dominant and break the regional equations in order to acquire roles and locations in these equations, which do not meet with the strategic capabilities of this humbly sized and populated country in comparison with the other players in the regional arena. In fact, there are other situations and previous times when "Aljazeera" Channel performed its media share honorably - totally disregarding what is said today as respects the Bahraini situation. The media performance of "Aljazeera" did embarrass very much Qatar when it came to its gulf neighbors and caused tension at the level of diplomatic relations (as was the case with Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia) in the past.

"Aljazeera" would respond to that by saying it had a media policy independent from the Qatari State and not submissive to the government (despite the fact that none is ready to reckon this allegation as correct or take it seriously). Likewise, it is unbelievable that the doctrinal belonging of "Aljazeera's" staff is the reason beyond the renouncement, for the renouncement has come in the context of a mission that "Aljazeera" impossibly has no relation with and that is the exposure of the Bahraini uprising as a doctrinal one.

Anyway, in case "Aljazeera" has to a certain extent succeeded at shadowing what is going on in Bahrain concerning the oppressive and inhumane acts, then the Bahraini rebels, in spite of the expensive price of torture, coercion, and martyrdom they have paid, have highlighted (through exposing "Aljazeera's" stance towards their uprising) the attempts that are taking place at the black chambers of international capitals and the "role" of some regional capitals to encompass the Arabic revolutions and place barriers and obstacles ahead of their flow or seek to exploit these revolutions to protect the gulf crowns and treasuries at a side and lessen their dangers for the "Israeli" security and the Western interests at another side.

Definitely, the attempts at this level are countless, and the sides orchestrating these attempts are today on a feverish race to gain the American approval to accredit them. At this level, the racers are clearly using all that they have (whether it's their provisions or reserves) to show their political, diplomatic, military, security, and media potentials and competencies to win the American prize. It is not confidential that for a period of time, Qatar has been allured by the game of playing the major roles and showing at the stage of the grandest events to please its ambitions, which over exceed Qatar's strategic need as a small country.

Therefore, it has decided to enter the competition for the American accreditation, even if this competition places Qatar into a crowdedness with countries like Turkey and those of the European Union or even if this might bring Qatar into antipathetic relations with Syria and Iran; yet, even if this brings about the envy among Qatar, Riyadh, and the other Gulf capitals. However, Qatar is not going to miss this chance, particularly when it sees that it is the most capable of accomplishing the list of the American conditions and wishes at these critical times the region is going through. The wishes can be summarized as such:

- Isolating the influence of the Arabic revolutions and the uprising climates they provoke in the Nation's atmosphere away from the "Israeli" security, in addition to maintaining the present security equations that ensure the sustenance of the Western interests and their expansion in the area
- Holding control over these revolutions and redirecting them in a manner serving the Western policies in general and the American ones in particular; this means creating barriers and obstacles to prevent revolutions from breaking out in the remaining countries of what used to be called the "Arabic Moderation Camp"; in the meantime, cloning revolutionary models (specifically the Libyan model) at the States of the withstanding and resisting axis, even if this means doctrinal riots (as is the case of Syria today)

- Diverting the change produced by the Arabic revolutions towards the direction that serves the continuation of the "Israeli"-American project that failed in both the July Aggression and the Gaza War; this means continuing to partition the Islamic World and divide it into combating doctrines (Sunnites and Shiites), in addition to altering the priorities of the Arabic world from the "Israeli" enmity to the antagonizing of Iran and the resistance movements in Lebanon and Iraq.

To render its regional role greater and receive the American signature for this role, Qatar relies on its credit, which enables it to do so. In fact, it has accumulated this credit through the past era, and this credit can be exposed as such:

• Since Washington D.C. wants to continue the "Arabic Spring" in the remaining Arabic countries similarly to the Libyan model (currently dragging Syria to trap it in this model), it sees that supporting the Qatari role is beneficial and can be used later on as an international and regional mediator upon the long Qatari expertise in regard to this domain; Qatar has gained this expertise through leading mediations in several internal conflicts in different Arabic countries, among which are its mediation in the Lebanese-Lebanese conflict (the Doha Agreement), its mediation in Yemen (between Sana'a and the Houthis), and the agreement it has made between Khartoum and the rebels of Darfur.

• Making use of Qatar's media capabilities through "Aljazeera" Channel or the media means that it owns in more than an Arabic country, especially when both of the internal and external Qatari media claim to have inspired the Arabic revolutions and to have been the main reason beyond their breaking out and success

• Making use of Qatar's diplomatic competency and qualifications at this level, regarding its branched relations with most of the parts involved in the ongoing, regional conflict, whereby Qatar has relations with Iran, Syria, the Gulf States, "Israel", the Islamic disciplines (particularly the Salafis), and the non-governmental organizations that are active in several Arabic countries

• Its role concerning passing the Western desires directly while treating the Libyan case, dissimilarly to the hesitation of the American allies in such situations, whereby in the "London Meeting", Qatar broke all nationalistic interdictions "and supported the international military interference after it had provided the official Arabic cover for that." It also called for "arming processes of the Libyan opposition and sought to encourage the States of the Libyan neighborhood to share the interference process against Libya".

While Washington D.C. is facing confusion and hesitation in dealing with the flowing regional hesitations, research centers leak sayings that "all of these stances have created a growing American realization that the Qatari diplomacy will be better for the United States as long as all diplomacies of the other American allies oppose the American intentions and drives when it comes to international interference against another Arabic side." The leaks also say that "the problem that will face Washington D.C. is how to encourage Riyadh to accept the diplomatic and regional Qatari power and how to find an alternative role for Riyadh that keeps its regional weight, whereby no Qatari diplomacy arises at the expense of the Saudi Arabian one."

Hereupon, it is easy to understand the stance of "Aljazeera" Channel towards the Bahraini uprising (or towards what is going on in Syria), whereby the media shadowing that it has practiced to cover up the savagery of Al Khalifa's Bedouin governorship (or its practice that is counter to the Syrian incidents) has aimed at Doha's reaching to a double satisfaction of both Riyadh and Washington D.C. to convince Saudi Arabia of accepting the new Qatari role as the United States undertakes finding an alternative role that keeps Riyadh's regional weight, whereby no Qatari diplomacy arises at the expense of the Saudi Arabian one."

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian