[British Prime Minister Gordon] Brown told reporters that Britain will always be a genuine friend of Israel, and guaranteed that the Jewish State’s security is of top concern for the United Kingdom. He added that he understood the obstacles [in the region], but “also the opportunities” that lie ahead.
Britain hasn’t been a friend of Israel since the Balfour Declaration (1917), which it has been trying to take back ever since. Britain turned its back on the Jews in the 1930’s when it closed the door on Jewish immigration to Palestine just as Hitler began his genocidal project. Later, near the end of the mandate, it tilted sharply toward the Arabs and aided them in their war against the new Jewish state.
Earlier Sunday, Brown called on Israel to stop settlement construction, and offered additional financial support and police training to the Palestinian Authority government.
Britain here demonstrates its genuine friendship with Israel by arming and training its enemies, just as it did for the Jordanian Arab Legion in 1948.
The British leader said economic prosperity was the key to peace, and urged an easing of Israeli travel restrictions in the West Bank that have hindered commerce.
He promised British support in developing housing, industrial parks and small businesses…
Brown said he supported those who understand that “the prospect of prosperity encourages people that the return to violence is something that is an unacceptable price to pay, and something that should be rejected.”
Of course, it’s all due to ‘Israeli restrictions’, not mentioning the reason that these restrictions exist. If there weren’t ‘restrictions’, would the Palestinian economy thrive? Take, for example, Gaza when Israel totally withdrew all her forces, and Jewish donors presented the Palestinians with a profitable system of hothouses growing flowers for the European market. There were no ‘restrictions’, but in an orgy of hatred the hothouses were destroyed and the Palestinians went into the rocket business full time.
As if it had anything to do with economics! Palestinian politics is not the politics of rational decision-making, in which the goal is to improve the lot of the population. Rather, it is a contest between extremist groups, gangs with guns competing to see who can kill the most Jews, which group can get the most with the least compromise, and who is most likely to bring the about day that all of Israel is replaced by an Arab state, the nakba reversed.
It’s hard to believe that sophisticated people like Gordon Brown actually believe that they can move the Palestinians away from violence and toward a desire for peace with aid of any sort — particularly military assistance (Palestinian ‘police’ are more like an army than a police force). Certainly the billions that have already been pumped into the Palestinian hole have not done so in the slightest.
My conclusion is that they do not actually believe this, but present it for public consumption; the real motivation is to appear to be doing something that will lead to an Israeli withdrawal from the territories. This is demanded by the Arab world and by a large segment of Brown’s constituency.
Brown’s first stop in Israel was Yad Vashem, the country’s official Holocaust memorial, where he attended a ceremony for the Jewish victims of Nazi Germany.
Sympathy for dead Jews is cheap, even free. Standing up for the self-determination and security of live ones is another matter entirely, one on which Britain historically has a very poor record.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Gordon Brown, Britain, Palestinians
Brown also promised that he would not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. He mentioned Ahmadinejad’s ‘wipe Israel off the map’ remark and condemned it.
He presents himself as pro- Israel, as one who is an open friend of Israel.
When one considers the BBC, the anti- Semitic tone of much of the British chattering class, one must understand that Brown’s friendship or warmth to Israel is not something to be dismissed, and ridiculed.
Surely he has the same misconception regarding what will move the Palestinians that almost every Western leader has had.
But I would not spurn or scorn his friendship.
Here is a statement of his position from the Jerusalem Post:
Sorry, I suppose he is a better friend then Bashar Assad, but that’s about all I can say.