-
Информация о материале
-
Автор: Caroline Glick
-
Категория: english
THE JERUSALEM POST Sep. 14, 2006
Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair is Israel's best friend in Europe.
And he's not a very good friend.
Immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, Blair was
instrumental in convincing US President George W. Bush to view the Palestinian
jihad against Israel as a conflict completely separate from the global
jihad. His success in convincing Bush of this distinction turned the anti-Semitic
- not to mention strategically disastrous - view that terrorists who kill
Israelis should be treated differently from terrorists who kill anyone
else into one of the cognitive foundations of the US war on Islamic terror.
This foundation was first enunciated in Bush's address of September 20
to a joint session of Congress where he identified "every terrorist with
global reach" - that is every terrorist who isn't part of the Palestinian
Authority - as enemies of the US.
Later, Blair was a principal force behind Bush's move to abandon the
guidelines for dealing with the Palestinians that he enunciated in his
speech of June 24, 2002. In that address, Bush stipulated that the Palestinians
needed to transform themselves from a society that supported terror into
one that combated terror in order to receive US support for Palestinian
statehood.
Shortly after Baghdad fell to coalition forces in April 2003, Blair
convinced Bush to accept the road map plan for Palestinian statehood. The
road map, which effectively locks in US support for Palestinian statehood
irrespective of Palestinian terrorism and radicalism, represented a practical
abandonment of the positions that Bush set out in his June 24, 2002 address.
During his visit to the region this week, in keeping with his studied
habit, Blair ignored the fact that the Iranian-backed Hamas government
was elected to lead the Palestinian Authority by a large majority of Palestinians.
He ignored the fact that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has voiced support for
the abduction and continued captivity of Cpl. Gilad Shalit and for the
continuation of the terror war against Israel. He ignored the fact that
rather than working to overthrow the Hamas government, Abbas has begged
Hamas to allow Fatah to join its government.
To this end, Abbas has accepted Hamas's policy guidelines rejecting
the possibility of recognizing Israel's right to exist and committing all
Palestinians to unite in the war against Israel. Ignoring all these inconvenient
facts, Blair called on the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government to renew negotiations
with Abbas on the basis of the road map.
And yet, for all this, Tony Blair is Israel's best friend in Europe.
He is Israel's best friend because, in contrast to all his colleagues in
Britain and the EU, Blair at least recognizes that the global jihad is
a threat to the free world and that the price of not fighting the forces
of jihad would be the loss of our freedom.
Soon, Israel's closest European friend will exit the world stage after
being effectively sacked by his own Labor Party last week. British political
commentators say the chances are slim that Blair will manage to hold onto
the reins of power as a lame duck for the next 12 months, as he pledged.
More likely, he will leave 10 Downing Street in a matter of months.
The two men most likely to succeed Blair - Chancellor Gordon Brown
and Tory leader David Cameron - will be more similar to French President
Jacques Chirac than to Blair in their attitudes toward Israel and the US.
This is the case first and foremost because that is what the British people
expect of them.
British antipathy towards the US and Israel was clearly exposed in
an opinion poll published on September 6 in the Times of London. The poll
reported that 73 percent of Britons believe that Blair's foreign policy,
and especially his "support for the invasion of Iraq and refusal to demand
an immediate cease-fire by Israel in the recent war against Hizbullah,
has significantly increased the risk of terrorist attacks on Britain."
More than 62% said that to "reduce the risk of terrorist attacks on
Britain, the government should change its foreign policy, in particular
by distancing itself from America, being more critical of Israel and declaring
a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq."
The day after the poll was published, Blair announced that he would
leave office in a year.
Also, on September 7, a committee of members of Parliament released
a report on anti-Semitism in Britain. The all-party committee found that
that since the Palestinian jihad against Israel began in 2000, anti-Semitism
in Britain has become a mainstream phenomenon. Attacks against Jews in
Britain were at an all time high over the summer.
In their anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, the British, of course,
are no different from their Continental brethren. And the situation in
Europe is alarming. Writing in Frontpage magazine this week, Islamic expert
Andrew Bostom reported that in November 2005, Stephen Steinlight, the former
director of education at the US Holocaust Memorial Council, told a conference
in Washington that on average, Muslims attack Jews in Paris 12 times a
day. According to Steinlight, this means French anti-Semitic violence is
approaching the level of anti-Semitic violence in Germany during the days
of the Weimar Republic.
These attacks against Jews in Europe are accompanied by ever increasing
official hostility towards Israel on the part of European governments.
On the second day of the war with Hizbullah, Chirac felt comfortable alleging
that "Israel's military offensive against Lebanon is totally disproportionate."
Chirac then acidly asked, "Is destroying Lebanon the ultimate goal?"
Chirac's remarks opened the floodgates for anti-Israel propaganda throughout
Europe. They were followed by the barring of El Al cargo planes carrying
weapons shipments from the US from European airports. That prohibition
still stands.
From the moment Chirac launched this unjustified diplomatic assault
against Israel, his government began acting as an agent of the Lebanese
government, which itself acted throughout the war as Hizbullah's mouthpiece.
So from the second day of the war, the groundwork was already laid for
UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which treats Israel and Hizbullah
as equals and lets both Syria and Iran off the hook for their central roles
in Hizbullah's illegal war against Israel.
THROUGH THEIR behavior toward both Israel and the US, Europe's leaders
have made clear that they will do just about anything to please the Muslim
world. Even though Iran has made absolutely clear that it refuses to end
uranium enrichment activities, or even to suspend them, the Europeans continue
to insist on negotiating with the mullahs and refuse to take even the smallest
concrete step against Iran in the UN Security Council.
As for the Palestinians, the Europeans have made no attempt to hide
their eagerness to renew their monthly transfers of tens of millions of
euros to the Palestinian Authority in the wake of Hamas's agreement to
let Fatah join its jihadist government.
And in Lebanon, together with the UN, the Europeans have defined the
rules of engagement for UNIFIL in a way that on the one hand protects Hizbullah,
and on the other hand, prevents Israel from defending itself. Above all
else, these policies clearly demonstrate that the Europeans have defined
ingratiating the Muslim world as their primary geopolitical interest.
Seemingly unaware of Europe's growing hostility toward Israel, the
Olmert-Livni-Peretz government has succumbed to the charms of the likes
of Chirac, Romano Prodi and Javier Solana and is systematically abandoning
Israel's positions in favor of Europe's pro-Arab stands. During his press
conference with Blair, Olmert renounced his previous well-considered demand
that Shalit be released before any meeting can take place between him and
Abbas.
During her visit to Washington, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni emphasized
Israel's desire to renew negotiations with the Palestinians on the basis
of the road map, and the government's continued support for Abbas. This,
in spite of the fact that the government Abbas is forming with Hamas will
not recognize Israel's right to exist and will be committed to continuing
its jihad against Israel. In so doing, Olmert and Livni are lending informal
approval to the renewal of European funding of the Palestinian Authority.
Even more troubling is the government's inaction, bordering on tacit
support, regarding the radical Left's campaign to transfer responsibility
for Israel's security from the IDF to Europe. The campaign, which New York
Times columnist Tom Friedman enthusiastically dubbed, "Land for NATO,"
in his column on Wednesday, involves the adoption of the UNIFIL model in
Gaza and Judea and Samaria. This newest messianic trend is based on the
blind belief that Israel can continue giving land to the Palestinians in
spite of the fact that the Palestinians are the most radical, pro-jihad
society on the face of the earth, because Europe will protect Israel from
them. Whether under the UN flag or the NATO flag, the new writ of leftist
faith maintains that Europe can replace the IDF in defending the Jews.
Blair's stubborn refusal to acknowledge the simple fact that just as
the Iranians will not cease uranium enrichment because they want to build
atom bombs, so the Palestinians will reject all offers of statehood because
they prefer to destroy the Jewish state is infuriating. And yet the fact
remains that he is the last European leader who truly believes that Israel
has an inherent right to exist and bases his policies on this belief. It
is absolutely clear that in the coming years, Europe's hostility towards
Israel and the Jewish people as a whole will continue to rise.
HOW THEN, is Israel to contend with Europe? As Israel's largest trading
partner, relations with Europe are vital to Israel's economic well-being.
So it is clear that Israel cannot simply turn its back on the free world's
Achilles heel.
At the same time, given Europe's hostility, it is similarly obvious
that the direction of the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government's policies toward
Europe must be reversed. Rather than enabling Europe to increase its influence
in the region, Israel must take every step possible to minimize Europe's
foothold in its neighborhood.
Israel should use Blair's exit from the world stage as an opportunity
to lock its doors and shutter its windows before any new European friends
can come inside.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1157913631570&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Russian version