"As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up you are never going to make progress"
Cherie Blair in an address to the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, alongside Queen Rania of Jordan, 2002

Suicide attacks are caused "first and foremost [by] religious fanaticism, combined with nationalist extremism and a wish for revenge, but not [by] personal despair"
Israeli terrorism expert Boaz Ganor

"If you observe the way things are developing in the world in terms of security and the expansion of terrorism - not just in the Middle East but throughout the world - if you look at all that, you cannot say, and be credible, that the situation has significantly improved"
French President Jacques Chirac referring to the Bush-Blair Iraq policy 'failure', Guildhall, London speech, November 2004

"And just imagine the difference that a stable and democratic Iraq would make - not just to people in Iraq but throughout the whole of the region and the world - now when I see that, yes, I believe we did the right thing"
Tony Blair, responding to BBC Political Editor Andrew Marr's Question, Baghdad, December, 2004

It is not easy to assess the importance of Britain as a force in the world. Britain is a second-rate power possessed of considerable technical capability and small, not particularly well equipped armed forces, which tries, wherever possible, to punch above its weight and exert political or economic influence throughout the world. For this purpose, it has utilised the apparatus and personnel of the European Union, enhancing its prestige and military weight.

Britain's long imperial history links it to many regimes and countries. It claims to have promoted its "values and way of life". However, the BBC and left-wing educational mores decrying "the evils of empire" have left their mark on historiography and popular sensitivities. As regards Palestine, there was no outcry about the dubious morality of the betrayal of Zionism and the League of Nations Mandate during the 1920-1948 period, while the resulting Jewish "terrorism" against the British was highlighted and condemned. The Mandatory power was to provide a homeland for the Jewish people on both sides of the River Jordan. Instead, it created a new Arab state of Transjordan, closing it to Jewish settlement, made cynical deals with France over the Golan and Lebanon, finally severely limiting legal Jewish immigration to Western Palestine too. The intention was to turn over Palestine to the Arabs in blatant contravention of the terms of the Mandate. Meanwhile in Britain, academic histories and university entrance examinations carefully ignored this unethical behavior and most manifestations of Arab terrorism against Jews and British alike.

The article "Israel-Palestine: The tale of two states" in the Student Times of 11th November 2004 nicely reflected this deliberate re-writing of history. Under the heading "The seeds of aggression are sown", the self-proclaimed leading student newspaper stated "The Jews extended the state of Israel beyond the borders that had been drawn up originally by the United Nations" without mentioning the preceding attack on these UN borders by several Arab states intending to destroy Israel. Later in this article we are told under the heading "Invasions, attacks and settlements", "In 1967, Israel won control over the Golan Heights, Gaza, and the West Bank after the Six-Day War with Egypt, Syria and Jordan." Who attacked first and why is again not mentioned, although Egypt trumpeted its plan to annihilate Israel in all its media. Thus was the Middle East conflict portrayed to Britain's aspiring university elite, in a manner which does not recognize Israel's right of self-defense.

Much more serious, however, was a widely reported open letter to Mr. Blair published on 26 April 2004, revealing the strong anti-Americanism of 52 dignitaries regarded as experts in Britain. The text, slightly abridged, was:

"We the undersigned former British ambassadors, high commissioners, governors and senior international officials, some with long experience of the Middle East, have watched with deepening concern the policies which you have followed on the Arab-Israel problem and Iraq, in close co- operation with the United States. Following the press conference in Washington at which you and President Bush restated these policies, we feel the time has come to make our anxieties public, in the hope that they will be addressed in Parliament and will lead to a fundamental reassessment.

The decision by the USA, the EU, Russia and the UN to launch a Road Map for the settlement of the Israel/Palestine conflict raised hopes that the major powers would at last make a determined and collective effort to resolve a problem which, more than any other, has for decades poisoned relations between the West and the Islamic and Arab worlds. The legal and political principles on which such a settlement would be based were well established: President Clinton grappled with the problem during his presidency; the ingredients needed for a settlement were well understood and informal agreements on several of them had already been achieved. But the hopes were ill-founded.

Nothing effective has been done to move the negotiations forward or to curb the violence. Britain and the other sponsors of the Road Map merely waited on American leadership, but waited in vain. Worse was to come. After all those wasted months, the international community has now been confronted with the announcement by Ariel Sharon and President Bush of new policies which are one-sided and illegal and which will cost yet more Israeli and Palestinian blood.

Our dismay at this backward step is heightened by the fact that you yourself seem to have endorsed it, abandoning the principles which for nearly four decades have guided international efforts to restore peace in the Holy Land and have been the basis for such successes as those efforts have produced. This abandonment of principle comes at a time when rightly or wrongly we are portrayed throughout the Arab and Muslim world as partners in an illegal and brutal occupation in Iraq.

The conduct of the war in Iraq has made it clear that there was no effective plan for the post-Saddam settlement. All those with experience of the area predicted that the occupation of Iraq by the Coalition forces would meet stubborn resistance, as has proved to be the case. To describe the resistance as led by terrorists, fanatics and foreigners is neither convincing nor helpful. Policy must take account of the nature and history of Iraq, the most complex country in the region. However much Iraqis may yearn for a democratic society, the belief that one could now be created by the Coalition is naive. This is the view of virtually all-independent specialists in the region, both in Britain and in America.

The military actions of the Coalition forces must be guided by political objectives and by the requirements of the Iraq theatre itself, not by criteria remote from them. It is not good enough to say that the use of force is a matter for local commanders. Heavy weapons unsuited to the task in hand, inflammatory language, the current confrontations in Najaf and Falluja, all these have built up rather than isolated the opposition.

The Iraqis killed by coalition forces probably total between 10,000 and 15,000 (it is a disgrace that the coalition forces appear to have no estimate), and the number killed last month in Falluja alone is apparently several hundred, including many civilians, men, women and children. Phrases such as `We mourn each loss of life. We salute them, and their families for their bravery and their sacrifice,' apparently referring only to those who have died on the Coalition side, are not well judged to moderate the passions those killings arouse.

We share your view that the British Government has an interest in working as closely as possible with the United States on both these related issues, and in exerting real influence as a loyal ally. We believe that the need for such influence is now a matter of the highest urgency. If that is unacceptable, there is no case for supporting policies which are doomed to failure."

Besides their patronizing criticism of American goals and actions in Iraq, underlying which is the rejection of the US President's war against Moslem terrorism, the writers display ignorance of international law and of Arab political culture. They try to appease Arab opinion by accepting the Arab argument that failure to side with the Palestinians' position in their "conflict" with Israel has "for decades poisoned relations between the West and the Islamic and Arab worlds." Apparently justifying the killing of Jews, they ignore PLO and other Palestinian terrorism, and want to reward it by the big state it demands at Israel's expense. Ironically, the creation of such a state - and even more so the destruction of Israel - would be the ultimate proof that terrorism pays and only lead to more Moslem terrorism in Europe. The fact that the presence of western troops in Arab states already evokes references to the Crusades and colonialism in the Arab "street" has nothing to do with Israel. It reflects the profound hatred of Western culture and its values instilled by the Moslem religion. But many Western academics and Western statesmen are reluctant to admit this.

One English academic wrote: "Europe is also awash in post-imperial guilt, and I frequently get the sense that Israel's claim to a piece of land in the Middle East revives guilt-inducing memories among my English countrymen and others, of white Europeans carving up the Third World and subjugating 'lesser peoples' in the 19th century.¹"

On 4 May 2004, the BBC broadcast the text of another open letter, from the USA, claiming that "unqualified support of Sharon's extra-judicial assassinations, Israel's Berlin Wall-like barrier, its harsh military measures in occupied territories" and the "endorsement of Sharon's unilateral plan are costing our country its credibility, prestige and friends." It continues: "A return to the… American tradition of fairness will reverse the present tide of ill will in Europe and the Middle East - even in Iraq."

The truth is very different: The anti-Semitic Europe of today is trying to gain influence in the Middle East at the expense of the USA by promoting Sunni Arab political objectives - especially when this harms American interests. In Iraq, the Sunni Arabs constitute a minority of only 17%, which has ruled and oppressed the Shiite majority (60%) and the Kurds (20%) ever since the country achieved independence. So Sunni Arabs overwhelmingly supported Saddam Hussein and are now the backbone of the resistance to the Coalition. Such Shiite resistance as exists is due more to the influence of Musab Al-Zarqawi and his links to al-Qaeda than to anything British or American forces may or may not have done in Basra, Najaf or Karbala.

The US plan to empower the Shiites and give an as yet undefined degree of autonomy to the Kurds in the North is not welcomed in other Arab states, which are overwhelmingly Sunni. This gives the Europeans ample scope to fish in troubled waters and explains their criticism of democracy in Iraq. Moreover, it strengthens their motive to pretend that all the above problems are due to the Arab-Israel conflict and the US attitude towards it. Though the scale and deadliness of Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitism do not bear comparison with any other, he exploited it in much the same way to gain support for his regime in Europe. And it should be recalled that Britain did nothing to save the Jews in Hitler's death camps because it did not want them to emigrate to Palestine, even though the Palestinian Arabs openly sided with Germany during World War II.

Dr. Neill Lochery, Director of the Centre for Israel Studies at University College, London, mentions in his book Why Blame Israel? The Facts Behind the Headlines, that allegations of a Lawrence of Arabia complex among Foreign Office officials may have some foundation in fact². The same idea was voiced by the then Minister of State in the Foreign Office, Alun, Lord Chalfont, in a review of his six years in that Ministry cited in the New Statesman and Nation, already in 1970³.

Dr. Lochery has characterized Tony Blair's position on the Middle East as follows: "He informs Israeli Prime Ministers that he defends Israel's interests in the EU, while at the same time making speeches in the House of Commons calling on Israel to make the kind of concessions that many Israelis regard as a collective form of national suicide… In truth Israel's only recent friend in the UK has been Margaret Thatcher, who placed Israel very much in the category of the front line against terrorism, not the cause of it. Blair thinks that Israel is both, and this inconsistency makes the relationship Israel has with the UK insecure and problematic."

The domestic political environment of the British Labour Party and Britain's almost endemic desire to matter in the world are crucial factors. British foreign policy has much greater pretensions to ethical content than that of the Quai D'Orsay. Yet Britain and France use military capability to strengthen their influence, both through the EU and by independent action. For sales contracts, Britain's "special relationship" with the USA is handy, practical and worth the trouble it sometimes creates when the Cabinet agrees with Washington, despite elites and public opinion that view the Middle East only through the distorting prisms of the British media and political spokesmen. Nevertheless, Britain is determined to have a major role in determining in what happens in the region.

Great pains have been taken by the British government to emphasise that the "war on terror" is not a war against Islam (though most terrorist acts are perpetrated by Moslems). To facilitate good will among Arab states, Tony Blair's timing has been very careful and he has been assiduous in reassuring the Arab world by focusing on British and EU support for immediate steps to promote an Arab state to be called Palestine.

Tony Blair has made himself appear a driving force pushing the USA to demand concessions from Israel and force the disengagement to turn into the 'Roadmap'. It is therefore necessary to look closely at US competition with the EU for favors in the Middle East, at the promotion of dangerous Israeli concessions as a means of mending broken bridges between the EU and the USA, and at the deliberate British pressure to make Israel's position diplomatically impossible.

A starting point for an understanding of how dangerous the current Middle East policies of Britain, the EU and the USA are for Israel, must bear in mind that there is now a real determination to stick together constantly using coercive rhetoric. Condolleeza Rice has stressed that the Israelis would have to recognize the need for a Palestinian state on contiguous land. Israeli commentators were quick to point out that this means cutting Israel in two, as Judea-Samaria cannot be linked with Gaza except by a corridor or worse. This kind of solution for geo-strategic problems has a very poor record in modern history (e.g. the Polish corridor separating Germany from East Prussia after World War I.) However, the new US Secretary of State seemingly regards "the opportunity to support the parties in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to try and find a two-state solution" as the main means of securing EU-US reconciliation. This is reminiscent of James Baker III's "window of opportunity" after the 1991 Iraq war that led to the Madrid Conference and the so-called Oslo process⁴.

James Baker is in fact responsible for much of the George W. Bush policy, effectively bringing it in line with Britain and the EU by renewing the initiative for replacing Israel's defensible post-1967 frontiers with Abba Eban's pre-1967 "borders of Auschwitz". It was recently exposed that the "Road Map" concept came from James Baker's Institute for Public Policy at Rice University and more recently a paper detailing the Baker "Road Map" written at the Rice Institute was handed to Condolleeza Rice before she left for Israel⁵. The so-called "two state solution" is now US policy as well as British policy -- and Tony Blair believes he can push it along and make a difference: In his view, London can act as a kind of bridge and broker between the US and the EU, as well as between Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen).

Britain has consistently furthered the interests of the Palestinians and tried to reverse the outcomes of the 1948-9 and 1967 wars. The EU did the same in the Venice Declaration of 1980, from which it has not deviated: "The Nine stress the need for Israel to put an end to the territorial occupation which it has maintained since the conflict of 1967… They are deeply convinced that the Israeli settlements constitute a serious obstacle to the peace process in the Middle East. The Nine consider that these settlements, as well as modifications in population and property in the occupied Arab territories, are illegal under international law."⁶

In October 1994, Tony Blair told the Blackpool Labour Party Conference "We applaud Yitzhak Rabin's Labour government and Yasser Arafat's PLO, for breaking new ground to help the Palestinian people towards self government in the Gaza Strip and Jericho and bring peace to the Middle East." Rabin's Oslo Agreement created the Palestinian Authority, imported Yasser Arafat from exile in Tunisia to head it, and gave the PLO a territorial base. In return, Israel received nine years of Palestinian terrorism. Blair's idea that the PLO can bring peace to the Middle East is arrant nonsense - even if Israel disappears from the map. It merely betrays his prejudices.

These are also reflected in the October 2004 speech of Blair's Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw: "I am deeply concerned by the level of violence and number of deaths, including children, in the Gaza Strip over the past week. Speaking to the Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom this morning I have made clear that while Israel has a right to defend itself against terrorism, it must act within international law; its response must be proportional. IDF action is causing civilian deaths and injuries and unnecessary suffering. I call on Israel to act with restraint, and on the Palestinian Authority to fulfil its Roadmap commitments on security. Both sides should work to put a stop to bloodshed and violence."

To the best of my knowledge, international law does not demand a "proportional" response to terrorism and the British themselves never practised such a policy. Yet Straw not only regards Palestinian terror and Israel's self-defense as morally equivalent, but actually censures Israel more than the terrorist Palestinian Authority.

Nevertheless, James Baker notwithstanding, and despite his own important contribution to the Iraq campaign, Blair's attempt to "mediate" between the United States and the EU must ultimately fail, because the Europeans are afraid of the Moslems and want to conciliate them not only at Israel's expense but also at the expense of American policy objectives. The latest example was Spain's reaction to the bombing of its railways in Madrid, which was to unseat a pro-American conservative government and elect a left-wing government that promised - and carried out - the withdrawal of the Spanish contingent from Iraq.

There are good reasons for fearing Moslems. The undiscriminating immigration policies of Western Europe (including Britain) and the unwillingness to admit that Islam is a religion preaching jihad - i.e. the gradual takeover of unbelievers' land by any means including demography and violence - have created large Moslem minorities in all EU countries containing a relatively high proportion of potential subversives. The growing electoral importance of these minorities, which constitute a security hazard and often prefer to live by their own laws rather than the laws of the state where they reside, creates serious dilemmas for the authorities, especially in Britain and France. ⁷

One example is the remarkable tale of the Finsbury Park mosque in London. Mohammed Kassem Sawalha became one of the five trustees supposed to give the mosque a fresh start after it was closed when its employee Abu Hamza Al-Masri was arrested and faced charges in both Britain and the United States. Sawalha is a former commander of the Hamas terrorist movement in Judea-Samaria. Yet he was allowed to enter Britain and has lived there for the past 15 years. He still supports Hamas and has been charged with racketeering and conspiracy in the US. Chief Superintendent Barry Norman of the Metropolitan Police commented dryly: "I am aware of the background but if I took the view that I am not working with this or that person I'd end up spending my whole life in my office." London's The Sunday Times published the story under the heading "Hamas Link to London Mosque." ⁸

Hundreds of people like Mohammed Sawalha have been slipping legally in and out of Britain or other EU states and influence Moslem communities in Europe through mosques. Yet an even more serious problem, perhaps, is that even Moslems unconnected with terrorist movements are usually fiercely anti-American and hate Israel, spreading their message far and wide while local security services ignore them. Some of the consequences are described in the following passage from a study published in February 2005:

"British Muslim organizations are becoming far more vocal on foreign policy matters. Two positions would appear to be axiomatic: opposition to the Iraq war and Britain's continued involvement in Iraq, and a resolute anti-Zionism which both delegitimizes the State of Israel and scorns Jewish anxieties when it comes to anti-Semitism."⁹

Immigration and a high birth rate have made Islam a major political force in Western Europe. This has influenced many ministers and members of parliaments to take Moslem views into consideration, the media often following their example. The resultant intensification of anti-American and anti-Israeli feeling is sometimes even accompanied by the failure of the police and the secret services to deal effectively with Moslems when they constitute security risks. Moreover, Islam has attracted many converts in the West and the world over, some of whom join or support Moslem terrorist movements. So there must be quite a number of terrorists working unmolested by the police or security forces in Mr. Blair's Britain. They require urgent attention.

The European Union may dream of 'Eurabia' - a synonym for the expulsion of US influence from the Middle East, perhaps to avenge the expulsion of Britain and France from there by the joint US-Soviet intervention in the 1956 Suez Canal War. But Tony Blair would do well to keep his American option open. Eventually, his present policy must put him on a collision course with the United States. And, within the European Union, Britain may always struggle not to be the junior partner of France and Germany. Without the USA, it will matter much less than he desires.

NOTES:
¹Robin Shepherd, 'Europe's growing hostility to Israel', The Jerusalem Post, 1 February 2005.
²See op. cit. Icon Books, 2004, p.17.
³The New Statesman and Nation, 6 November 1970: 'The Praying Mantis of Whitehall'. The reference comes from Shmuel Katz's Battleground.
⁴For much of this paragraph see Caroline Glick, Column One: 'The peacemongers are back', The Jerusalem Post, 4 February 2005.
⁵Emanuel E. Winston, 'Is James Baker III Running President Bush?' Internet Article, Communication, 13 February 2005.
⁶Clause 9, Declaration of the European Council on the Middle East in Venice, 13 June 1980.
⁷For many of these points, cf. Bat Ye'or's book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, Fairleigh Dickinson, 2005.
⁸From Nick Fielding and Abul Taher, with additional reporting by Jessica Berry, 'Hamas link to London mosque', The Sunday Times, 13 February 2005, p. 13.
⁹Ben Cohen, 'Evaluating Muslim-Jewish Relations In Britain', Jerusalem Viewpoints, The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 1-15 February 2005.