The Right Dishonourable Foreign Secretary
The foul odour emanating from King Charles Street has become even more rank
The British Foreign Secretary, Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, has more than once let it be known that he is an ally of the State of Israel and a friend to the Jewish people. And Cameron is an honourable man.
In recent weeks, Cameron — now backed by several parliamentarians — has been threatening to block arms sales to Israel. British arms sales to Israel are actually minimal; Britain buys more arms from Israel. Britain also benefits mightily from Israeli intelligence and shared military know-how, so a stand-off like this threatens to hurt Britain in practical terms more than it would Israel.
The main purpose of the threat, however, is to isolate Israel in the world as a pariah state and ride the politically ferocious tiger of Muslim and left-wing Jew-hatred. Since Israel is fighting for its survival against a genocidal enemy which slaughtered, tortured, beheaded or raped 1200 Israelis on October 7 and took 240 hostage, and threatens to do the same over and over again until it has destroyed Israel and killed every Jew, this would suggest that Cameron is vicious, cynical or amoral — or all three.
But Cameron is an honourable man.
Boris Johnson wrote today in the Mail on Sunday:
If we ban the sale of arms ourselves, it surely follows that we do not think any self-respecting country should be arming the Israelis. And if we are willing everyone, including the U.S., to end their military support, be in no doubt what that means. There is only one logical conclusion.
We are willing the military defeat of Israel and the victory of Hamas. Remember that in order to win this conflict, Hamas only has to survive. All they need at the end is to hang on, rebuild, and go again.That’s victory for Hamas; and that is what these legal experts seem to be asking for.
But that would be a act of supreme malevolence against the Jewish state that’s fighting for its life against an enemy which committed the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. And Cameron is an honourable man.
Now the Foreign Secretary has redoubled his attack, and the foul odour emanating from King Charles Street has become even more rank.
In an article published today by the Sunday Times (£), although Cameron writes that
Israel has a right to self-defence that we should support,
he also says:
That backing is not unconditional: we expect such a proud and successful democracy to abide by international humanitarian law, even when challenged in this way.
But Israel is abiding by international humanitarian law — far more than the US and UK did when they bombed Iraq or Afghanistan. No one then accused the US or UK of causing starvation, or blamed them for failing to provide enough humanitarian supplies to Iraqi or Afghan civilians. TV bulletins didn’t obsessively focus night after night on scenes of devastation under those American and British bombing raids. They didn’t interview Taleban doctors or anti-American “humanitarian” agencies providing harrowing stories of terrible injuries or houses reduced to rubble.
No-one gave a second thought to the number of civilians being killed in those wars. Moreover, it’s always been accepted that humanitarian aid is actually aid to the enemy and therefore, in a just war to defeat a savage aggressor, must be denied. By contrast, Israel has let a great deal of aid into Gaza, thus aiding Hamas, causing more of Israel’s conscript army to be killed and dragging out the war. As John Spencer, the military expert at America’s West Point military academy has written:
In my long career studying and advising on urban warfare for the US military, I've never known an army to take such measures to attend to the enemy's civilian population, especially while simultaneously combating the enemy in the very same buildings. In fact, by my analysis, Israel has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history—above and beyond what international law requires and more than the US did in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In his article, Cameron writes that
aid will not make a difference unless it can be properly distributed.
Correct. The problem with distribution is that Hamas steals the aid. But Cameron doesn’t mention this. Instead he says:
We are pushing for a representative of humanitarian organisations to have a seat in COGAT, the Israeli body which handles these issues in Gaza.
Wow. Britain’s Foreign Secretary is demanding that foreign bodies be represented in an organisation run by another sovereign country — foreign bodies, or humanitarian organisations, note, which are overwhelmingly venomously hostile to Israel. As is the World Central Kitchen, whose seven workers were tragically killed when Israeli troops misidentified their convoy as carrying Hamas gunmen, but which subsequently made the vile and wholly unjustified claim that Israel had deliberately killed them because it wanted to stop humanitarian aid. And if Cameron meant the UN’s own relief organisation, UNWRA, this has been shown to employ thousands of Hamas members.
Cameron’s suggestion would thus mean forcing into Israel’s own administration bodies that commit blood libels against Israel or are deeply compromised by Hamas. But that would be a vile act with unmistakeable colonialist overtones, and promoting still further the demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel — the strategy aimed at its destruction. Yet Cameron is an honourable man.
Cameron notes that the conflict started on October 7 with
the Jewish people suffering the worst and most murderous pogrom since the Holocaust.
He joins demands for
the immediate release of all hostages
and says:
Israel cannot be expected to live next to an organisation that carried out such brutal attacks and has declared that, if possible, it would do the same all over again.
Yet he also says this:
But a temporary cessation of fighting — such as the Ramadan pause we supported at the UN — is a different matter. That could be used to get aid in and the hostages out. And, crucially, it could be used to put the conditions in place to stop the fighting permanently and start a process of building a lasting peace. Two of the conditions we set out were for Hamas leaders to leave Gaza and for the infrastructure of terror in Gaza to be dismantled. In other words, we would be ending the war by political rather than military means. This remains the right approach.
Is Britain’s Foreign Secretary unaware that Israel has again agreed terms for a ceasefire that Hamas has again rejected? Can he really not understand that the only conditions under which Hamas would release the hostages would be Israel’s total surrender and the release of all its Hamas prisoners?
Does he really fail to grasp that the hostages with whom Yahya Sinwar has reportedly surrounded himself are the Hamas leader’s ultimate bargaining counter to protect his life, and so he will never voluntarily give them up? Is Cameron really so badly informed that he thinks a man like Sinwar would choose to go into exile rather than die the “martyr’s” death he craves if he is defeated, taking the hostages with him? Does he really imagine that the unconscionable threat posed by the psychopathic, religious fanatics of Hamas and its equally fanatical patron, Iran, can be solved by political means?
Surely Cameron, with his first-class degree from Oxford and reputedly stellar intellect, cannot possibly be so stupid and ignorant as to think like this? But the only alternative to that is that he is driven by profound malice towards Israel. And Cameron is an honourable man.
Then comes the article’s zinger. For it turns out that Cameron is indeed well aware that Hamas has refused a deal that releases the remaining hostages. So he says:
We all want to see an end to the fighting, but we must face up to the difficult question: what should we do if Hamas refuses a deal and if the conflict continues?
What indeed. And then he comes up with this astonishing answer:
We cannot stand by with our head in our hands, wishing for an end to the fighting that may well not come — and that means ensuring the protection of people in all of Gaza including Rafah.
As an occupying power, Israel has a responsibility to the people of Gaza. But it also means that the international community must work with Israel on humanitarian efforts to keep people safe and provide them with what they need.
Ordinary civilians must be safe and able to access food, water and medical care. We need the UN, with the support of the international community, to work with Israel to make practical, deliverable plans to achieve this in Rafah and across Gaza.
He doesn’t want a solution that ensures the protection of all the people of Israel. He want instead a solution to protect all the people of Gaza — while Israel, the victim of the monster born from the people of Gaza, has to produce it. The absolute and overriding requirement to protect Israel against further genocidal attack from Gaza is nowhere in Cameron's vision. His only gesture is a meaningless bromide about wanting
the people of Israel and the people of Gaza to be able to live their lives in peace and security.
Yes, Gaza’s civilians should be protected as far as possible from the war — but this cannot take precedence over the requirement to stop Hamas once and for all. It is Israel that is threatened with being wiped out, not the people of Gaza. They are the unfortunate casualties of the Hamas strategy to maximise the numbers who die in order to turn the west against Israel — an infernal manipulation of gullible westerners that has worked to the letter — plus the refusal by Egypt to open its border to the Gazan refugees, and indeed the refusal by every other Muslim state to allow any of them in.
Moreover, the majority of Gazans voted for Hamas, still support Hamas, and exulted over the October 7 pogrom. Untold numbers of “ordinary” Gazans took part in that pogrom, murdered Israelis, took them hostage and are currently keeping some of them locked up in their homes where they are reportedly using them as slaves. And the vast majority of Gazans, when asked, say they support the further killing of Jews and the destruction of Israel.
These are the people whose welfare Cameron is more concerned to protect than the lives of the Israelis who would continue to be subjected to genocidal attack if he had his way.
This is presumably what he means by Britain aiming to “exercise leadership in the region and at the United Nations”.
For Cameron is an honourable man.
Recent posts
My most recent exclusive post for my premium subscribers argues that, beyond the transgender cult, the therapeutic world has become a force for totalitarianism. This is how the piece begins:
How psychology itself has gone mad
You can read my most recent post that’s available to everyone, arguing that Britain and America have made Israel their scapegoat, if you click here.
And you can access the links to all my work by visiting my website here.
One more thing…
This is how my email posts work.
There are two subscription levels: my free service and my premium service.
Anyone can sign up to the free service on this website. You can of course unsubscribe at any time by clicking “unsubscribe” at the foot of each email.
Everyone on the free list will receive the full text of pieces I write for outlets such as the Jewish News Syndicate and the Jewish Chronicle, as well as other posts and links to my broadcasting and video work.
But why not subscribe to my premium service? For that you’ll also receive pieces that I write specially for my premium subscribers. Those articles will not be published elsewhere. They’ll arrive in your inbox as soon as I have written them.
There is a monthly fee of $6.99 for the premium service, or $70 for an annual subscription. Although the fee is charged in US dollars, you can sign up with any credit card. Just click on the “subscribe now” button below to see the available options for subscribing either to the premium or the free service.
A final point…
If you purchase a subscription to my site, you will be authorising a payment to my company Dirah Associates. In the past, that is the name that may have appeared on your credit card statement. In future, though, the charge should appear instead as Melanie Phillips.
And thank you for following my work