by Mark Curtis
I said to Shimon, it was very important for Israel and for Israel’s reputation in the world that this fact-finding mission should be admitted as soon as possible … If you have nothing to hide, let’s get this fact-finding mission in as soon as possible. I’m quite sure, knowing Kofi Annan as I do, that he will be able to make arrangements to ensure that the legitimate concerns of the Israeli government can be met.
Straw related that Peres told him that while Israel would accept the fact-finding mission it could not allow individual soldiers to be interviewed without any involvement by the Israeli government. Straw then said, paraphrasing Peres’ remarks, that ‘these circumstances are very special because the Israeli defence forces are operating not in their own territory but in the occupied territories of the Palestinian Authority’. Amazingly, Straw is here endorsing Israel’s argument that it is entitled to special treatment precisely because it is occupying territory!5
When Ben Bradshaw was asked whether the International Criminal Court might be brought to bear against Israel, he replied that ‘in the case of Israel, being a country that has respect for the rule of law, we would expect it to carry out its own investigations’.
Britain publicly criticised the Israeli re-invasion of the occupied territories begun in March 2002. London supports the creation of a ‘viable’ Palestinian state alongside Israel and adheres to the international legal position that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal (Bradshaw adding that ‘the vast majority would have to go’ in any peace deal). It has also said that it would expect East Jerusalem to be the capital of a Palestinian state.6 These positions are in line with the international consensus.
But Britain is doing nothing to bring any of this about; indeed, its actual policies are undermining its public positions to the extent that the latter appear largely for public relations. The Blair government has consistently failed to identify Israel as the primary aggressor and has refused to seriously press Israel to change policies that are systematically violating international law through its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Instead, London acts as a de facto condoner of Israeli aggression as trade links are stepped up and arms exports are subject to minimal disruption, as outlined further below. The Blair initiative, taken in early 2003, to organise a conference in London to discuss the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, is easily explained as needing to be seen to be doing something on Palestine to better justify the obliteration of Iraq. The minimal efforts made to argue the Palestinian case appear mainly intended to placate world opinion. The balance sheet is clearly a pro-Israel strategy, amounting to complicity in human rights atrocities.
All this is despite Britain’s obligation – along with the rest of the international community – to take action against Israel under the terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention. This obligates all parties to ‘respect and ensure respect for’ the Convention’s human rights articles, numerous of which Israel is systematically violating. London easily ignores such obligations under international law while it professes its undying commitment to the same in the case of official enemy, Iraq.
Tony Blair has personally been very careful not to condemn Israel outright. The customary formulation is to blame ‘both sides’ for the violence, as though guilt is equally shared. By doing this, the British government is ignoring the gross imbalance in the fact that Israel is occupying Palestinian territory. The ‘both sides’ formulation is a propaganda victory for Israel.
When George Bush declared Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a ‘man of peace’ – while Israel’s invasion of the West Bank was in full swing – Blair was asked repeatedly by Jeremy Paxman on BBC’s Newsnight whether he agreed that Sharon was such ‘a man of peace’. Blair was unable to state the obvious and said that he believed Sharon wanted peace over the long term. Two months earlier, Sharon had declared that ‘the Palestinians must be hit and it must be very painful: we must cause them losses, victims, so that they can feel the heavy price’. Blair’s line matched the Foreign Office view – stated in October 2000 – of avoiding ‘attempting to apportion blame for recent events’.7
Britain does not find it difficult to identify some leaders as incarnations of evil, such as former Yugoslav President Milosevic and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, not to mention Saddam Hussein. Britain has exerted huge diplomatic pressure to expel Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth and to press the EU to condemn and marginalise the Mugabe regime. By contrast, with Israel Britain is unable even to identify the primary aggressor, let alone take any significant action against it. Sanctions against Israel, unlike against Milosevic and Mugabe, are not even a serious option – sanctions are largely unmentionable in the mainstream media, whose framing of policy options is largely set by the priorities of the state.
The British position of apportioning equal blame to both sides sometimes reaches hysterical depths, as when Blair declared to the House of Commons that:
The Israelis must allow a state of Palestine, secure in its own borders. And in exchange the Palestinians and the whole Arab world must recognise and respect Israel’s borders.8
In fact, the Palestinians and the Arab world have recognised Israel’s borders and right to exist for some time. Only the first of Blair’s sentences is correct – something that our Israeli ally is refusing to implement.
Even more amusing, if it weren’t so tragic, was Blair’s statement that ‘I agree UN resolutions should apply here [Israel] as much as to Iraq. But they don’t just apply to Israel. They apply to all parties’ – meaning the Palestinians.9 Thus the Palestinians are equated with Israel in terms of implementing UN resolutions, numerous of which Israel is defying while occupying the territory of the other side.
Britain’s pro-Israel stance while Tel Aviv continues to defy the UN is sufficient to ridicule the Blair government’s professed commitment to upholding UN security council resolutions in the case of Iraq. But few commentators fall about laughing when Whitehall insists on Iraq upholding UN demands, and fewer still mention that the issuer of the demand is himself head of an outlaw state guilty of numerous violations of international law in the past few years.
In recent months, more than five times the number of Palestinians have been killed by Israel than vice versa. The number of Palestinians living below the poverty line is around 65 per cent, which has doubled since the new phase of the Palestinian uprising began. The rise in poverty is mainly due to the Israeli policy of ‘closures’, imposing harsh restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement and in effect confining Palestinians to a siege situation and the freedom of a glorified prison camp. In late 2002, round-the-clock curfews were affecting about one million Palestinians. The horrific suicide bombing attacks, which are clearly completely indefensible and grotesque, arise from the frustration of a brutally oppressed people and are clearly more responses to Israeli aggression and occupation, rather than vice versa.
Robin Cook said that to play a part in brokering a future peace deal ‘we have to retain an even-handed approach’. This ‘even-handed approach’ is towards a government engaged in ‘a long term project which will complete the destruction of a Palestinian administration, paralysed for eighteen months by Israeli bombardments and blockades’, in the Guardian’s Suzanne Goldenberg’s words. The March 2002 re-invasion of the occupied territories was Israel’s largest military offensive since the invasion of Lebanon two decades ago.10
However, it is a myth that British policy is ‘even-handed’. Blair’s personal envoy, Lord Levy, has close ties to the Israeli Labour party and has helped develop ‘a strongly pro-Israel line from No. 10’, according to the Guardian. The paper also describes Foreign Secretary Jack Straw as ‘a strong defender in public of Israel’.11 With the invasion of the West Bank under way and with Israel laying siege to Yasser Arafat’s headquarters, the Guardian reported that ‘the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, yesterday pleaded for greater public sympathy for Israel’s position in its conflict with the Palestinians’. Straw has also written that ‘whether one agrees wit
h the stance of the Israeli government is not the point. What is important is to understand the huge pressures on them.’12
Blair applies a similar apologia for Israeli assassinations of Palestinians – ‘targeted killings’ in the Israeli term. Britain’s condemnation of these acts – completely illegal under international law and akin to terrorism – is usually immediately qualified. For example, in November 2001, Blair stated in Jerusalem:
I understand the pressures that Prime Minister Sharon is under, the pressure that he feels and the position of Israeli people who have seen their citizens killed by terrorist acts. I believe it is important that any measures that are taken in relation to security are measured and proper in accordance with international law, but let us be absolutely clear, we are never going to get back into a process again unless the violence and killing everywhere stops.
This statement was carried in a press release by the Israel embassy in London, understandably since it apologises for the ‘pressures’ Sharon is under and adopts the Israeli line that the suicide bombings must stop first, as though the Palestinians are the primary aggressor responsible for the political impasse, when the opposite is the case.13
Indeed, Britain has been so concerned not to condemn or punish Israel, that in December 2001 it abstained on a UN resolution criticising Israel, saying that the wording did not sufficiently criticise the Palestinians. Britain was the only EU state to abstain, which is an instance of how some British policies are worse under Labour than under the Conservatives, who at least voted to condemn Israel in such resolutions in the past.14
Britain has also led the way in supporting US ‘leadership’ in the peace process and ensuring that the EU offers no alternative, arguing that ‘the European Union role has been to complement the [US] leadership’.15 This occurs at a time when it is clear that the Israeli government has no interest in the creation of a viable Palestinian state or a peace agreement on anything other than Israeli terms, and after the US gave Sharon a de facto green light to invade the West Bank. The US effectively backs the Israeli strategy, even if there are some US concerns over Israeli tactics.
When President Bush gave a speech demanding that Arafat stand down as chair of the Palestinian Authority, to which he had been elected, Blair unusually appeared to distance himself from the US. He said that ‘it is up to the Palestinians to choose their own leaders’ (that is, as we arm and step up trade with the aggressor trying to destroy them). But the Guardian reported that ‘Mr Blair tried to minimise the split by emphasising his disappointment with Mr Arafat’s political leadership, and agreeing that the peace process might be easier if the Palestinian Authority president stood down.’ Britain then called for new elections for the Palestinian Authority.16
If British policy were even-handed perhaps it would arm the Palestinian Authority so that British equipment could be used against Israeli forces. It could also establish high-level military contacts with Palestinian security forces engaged in operations against Israel. Perhaps it might also designate Palestine as one of a handful of ‘target markets’ worldwide for British exports, and deliver speeches in favour of greatly expanded trade at a time when atrocities mount. Or it could agree with its EU partners a beneficial trade and aid agreement (the EU’s association agreement) with a clause saying that all parties must support human rights – and then refuse to call for its suspension when human rights are being clearly violated. But this is the reality of current British policy only towards Israel.
In 1999, Britain sold Israel £11.5 million worth of arms, and in 2000, £12 million. This almost doubled to £22.5 million in 2001, as Israeli aggression mounted during the year. Supplies include small arms, grenade making kits and components for a range of equipment such as armoured fighting vehicles, armoured personnel carriers, tanks and combat aircraft. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, military officials in Israel say that it’s military purchases from Britain are not especially large ‘but some are critical items of equipment’. The level of violence undertaken by the recipient appears of little concern to London. Throughout the Palestinian uprising against Israel, the Blair government has been busy approving licences for arms and military equipment: 297 export licences were granted between January 1999 and November 2000; 300 from January 2001 to April 2002; and twenty were issued in March 2002 when Israel invaded the West Bank.17
BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme in August 2001 reported a senior Israeli Ministry of Defence official confirming that British equipment was being used in the occupied territories. Armoured landrovers and British personnel carriers were ‘ferrying IDF troops into occupied territories’ [sic]. Britain was also supplying components, including transponders, for Bell Huey helicopters, which back up the front-line Apache helicopters that regularly assault Palestinian targets in the West Bank.18
The British government disclosed in March 2002 that Israel had modified Centurion tanks sold between 1958 and 1970 to be used as armoured personnel carriers by the army. This broke Israeli ‘assurances’ to London that British equipment would not be used. However, Jack Straw told parliament that the Israelis:
did not however accept that this [i.e. the Centurions] was a breach of the assurances given and they have not committed to stop using the armoured personnel carriers in the occupied territories … We also have questions about other possible breaches of the assurances with regard to equipment supplied under previous administrations.19
It was also revealed in 2002 that Israeli Merkava tanks have been equipped with cooling systems made by a British company, and that were last supplied in 1996. And British equipment, including missile trigger systems, was being used in the US-made Apache helicopters supplied to Israel. The Blair government also allowed the export of British components for US F16 warplanes sold to Israel, which have also been repeatedly used against Palestinians. Also reported was that Israel was upgrading British Jaguar bombers made by India under licence to enable them to carry nuclear weapons.20
The approval of the F16 spare parts deal occurred after press reports noted in 2002 that the British government had begun delaying the approval of arms-related exports to Israel. A number of export licences were apparently blocked and being considered on a case-by-case basis. But the ‘embargo’ to which some commentators refer covers only some types of equipment; the government is continuing to reject a formal arms ban despite the public knowledge that British equipment has been used, that Israel has not promised to stop using such equipment, and that there may be other equipment being used not already acknowledged. Judging by previous cases – such as the mythical arms ‘embargo’ to Indonesia in 1999 that simply delayed all exports for a few months before continuing as normal – Britain may also be delaying the supply of military equipment to Israel until public attention on Israeli aggression dies down.
These supplies show that the government’s arms export ‘guidelines’ are largely for public relations purposes, as discussed further in chapter 8, and to be taken seriously only by the most ideologically disciplined of observers. Military-related exports to Israel violate almost all the guidelines in a flagrant way: Israel is occupying territory, is guilty of gross human rights abuses, and refuses to sign any international treaty regulating nuclear weapons, all of which should invoke formal arms restrictions by Britain. Meanwhile, the government admits that it ‘has not placed specific limitations or end-use conditions on licences for exports to Israel’.21
Arms exports are just part of a much wider military and commercial relationship with Israel. Britain has a Memorandum of Understanding on Defence Material Cooperation signed with Israel in 1995, the details of which have never been made public. The British government noted in April 2000 that ‘during the past year there have been numerous meetings between MoD and Israeli officials in the UK and a wide range of issues were discussed’. Britain’s police have brought Israeli bullets and the MoD has purchased Israeli grenades, shells and military avionics.
Overall, the British embassy in Tel Aviv noted r
ecently a ‘flourishing relationship’ between the two countries. ‘Britain is a good friend of Israel’, it says, and ‘our two prime ministers are in regular contact and have a good working and personal relationship’. ‘Significant UK investment in Israel continues to grow.’22 This was just before the spat between Sharon and Blair over Britain’s invitation to Palestinians to attend the London conference, which incensed the Israeli leadership.
Israel is one of fourteen ‘target markets’ worldwide for the Department of Trade and Industry. ‘One of the main aims of the target market campaign is to encourage more British companies to look at the possibilities offered in the Israeli market’, Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt explained to the British–Israel chamber of commerce in January 2002. The previous year, British trade with Israel reached a record £2.5 billion. ‘And what of the future for trade?’, she asked, ‘well, it looks bright.’ The DTI says that ‘Israel is a remarkable success story for British exporters’. It is the second largest customer in the Middle East after Saudi Arabia.23
Much media reporting has essentially followed the government line on Israel. The country’s leading independent media analyst is the Glasgow University Media Group (GUMG), which has consistently exposed the distortions of mainstream media reporting over the past three decades. One of its recent reports, by Greg Philo, begins by saying that ‘if you don’t understand the Middle East crisis it might be because you are watching it on television’. Philo notes that the history and origins of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict are rarely addressed in the media. The reason is that to do so would be controversial, since Israel is closely allied to the United States and there are very strong pro-Israel lobbies in the US and Britain. But, with little discussion on the background, the accounts focus only on day-to-day events in which it can appear that the ‘normal’ world is disrupted only when Palestinians riot or bomb.