TONY BLAIR'S FAILURE AS MID-EAST ENVOY - GAZA IS REALLY HIS FAULT

29 DECEMBER 2008
Mr. Tony Blair
Middle East Quartet Envoy
9 Grosvenor Square
London
WC1

Dear Mr Blair,

Your recent comment that Israel should immediately stop its military actions in Gaza is ironic since you are partially responsible for the situation.

Consider the many visits at this time of the year you and your family paid to the resorts on the Red Sea coast courtesy of the Egyptian Government. It was to your shame that with your meetings with President Mubarak at Sharem and Cairo during these visits you remained silent about the tunnels between Egypt and Gaza.

Given these opportunities, not once did you ever discuss the halting of the tunnels from Gaza into Sinai with Mubarack and certainly no public statements were ever made to this effect. You were approached as early as January 2004 but your office at number 10 Downing St advised this was the responsibility of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and not yours – what duplicity. (Letter on 10 Downing St. notepaper signed by Robert Gardikiotis 8 January 2004 in response to my letter of 4 January 2004)

At a subsequent meeting on 7 March 2004 in Chequers with Mubarack, once again the tunnel issues were not discussed and no public statement was made despite the main topic on the agenda being the Middle East "Road Map".

I am enclosing a copy of a letter sent to you on the 9 March 2004 immediately after this meeting to which there has never been the courtesy of an acknowledgement or a reply. The sentiments I expressed in this letter were applicable then as they were up to last Friday night.

In your role as Prime Minister and subsequent Quartet Mid East Envoy you have employed double standards, duplicity and above all spin to denigrate Israel.

Ironically, for the past 60 years it has been the wealthy oil rich Arab Mid East states who ignored the plight of their Arab brethren and still only play financial lip service whilst turning up the anti Israel/Jewish politically rhetoric. If they would have provided financial assistance to their brethren instead of using the oil wealth to wallow in luxury the problems of the area would have been solved a long time ago.

It is not for the west to provide such aid and certainly not for Israel or the Jewish Diaspora to provide these funds – lets stop this nonsense once and for all.

The blame lies fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the British Government for appeasing the Arab tribes of today’s Saudi Arabia by their duplicity in handling the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.
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9 March 2004
Rt. Hon. Tony Blair
Prime Minister
10 Downing St
London SW1
By Fax

Dear Prime Minister,

Meeting with Egyptian President in Chequers 7 March 2004

I understand from press reports and the official Egyptian Government web site that at your meeting with President Mubarak of Egypt the main topic on the agenda was the situation in the Palestinian territories and the Middle East "Road Map" and that a Foreign & Commonwealth Office spokesman said that the meeting has a special significance due to the successive developments in the Middle East region.

On the 4 January 2004 I wrote to you after your meeting with President Mubarak in Egypt and stated. "Whilst Israel signed the Peace Treaty with Egypt over twenty years ago, this has been a cold peace, Israel returning Sinai and the Egyptian media still continue promulgating anti-Semitism of the highest order even today, not seen since the period of the Nazis. President Mubarak has made no effort to prevent this promulgation of anti-Semitism.

During your discussions with Mubarak over the role Egypt could play, you had a responsibility to clearly indicate the displeasure of the UK with this situation.

Furthermore, this responsibility extends to clearly and unequivocally advising Egypt that it can have no role to play whilst it allows the smuggling of weapons, explosives and ammunition through the tunnels from Egypt that terminate in the southern residential extremities of the Gaza Strip. The International Solidarity Movement who have a number of vocal UK members, deliberately hinders the work of the Israel Defence Forces which seek to destroy these tunnels since the munitions etc. are being used by terrorists against Jewish civilians, and no other purpose." (see enclosure).

It would appear that you chose not to discuss the matter of these tunnels with the President and Government of Egypt in January. Since then the Israeli Defence Forces have uncovered numerous tunnels that were and are still in active service today. How is it that you are prepared to accept that a sovereign country is prepared not enforce the rule of law to prevent the construction and use of these tunnels for smuggling weapons, ammunition and explosives to fan the flames and attack Israel? I have enclosed an article by Uri Dan that was published in The Jerusalem Post on the 4 March 2004 where he deals in depth with this issue and considers Egypt’s refusal an "Invitation to War".

I am also enclosing a reply from the Direct Communications Unit which advised me that the matter I raised in my letter of 4th January is the responsibility of the F&CO and my letter has been forwarded to them for a reply. Is it that the staff at the Unit cannot understand plain English since the letter related to topics that you personally discussed with the Egyptian President in January and not the F&CO, which incidentally still has not provided a response.
You have failed in your moral responsibility as Prime Minister to publicly apprehend President Mubark for his failure to act on this issue.
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4 January, 2004
Rt. Hon. Tony Blair
Prime Minister
10 Downing St
London SW1
By Fax

Dear Prime Minister,
Meeting with Egyptian President in Sharm-el-Sheik

I understand from Israeli press reports that prior to your departure to Iraq you met with President Mubarak of Egypt to discuss the way forward with respect to Israel.

It is reported on the BBC website that you also spoke about the virus of Islamic Terror. In the latter context, Israel has suffered at the hands of Islamic terror since before the modern state came into being in 1948. It is somewhat ironic that you make such statements when as early as August 1929, during the period of the British Mandate, Islamic terrorists took to the streets to murder Jews, yet at the same time you have the temerity to say that the terrorism that Israel experiences currently is different from the Islamic terror you openly discuss.

Whilst Israel signed the Peace Treaty with Egypt over twenty years ago, this has been a cold peace, Israel returning Sinai and the Egyptian media still continue promulgating anti-Semitism of the highest order even today, not seen since the period of the Nazis. President Mubarak has made no effort to prevent this promulgation of anti-Semitism. During your discussions with Mubarak over the role Egypt could play, you had a responsibility to clearly indicate the displeasure of the UK with this situation. Furthermore, this responsibility extends to clearly and unequivocally advising Egypt that it can have no role to play whilst it allows the smuggling of weapons, explosives and ammunition through the tunnels from Egypt which terminate in the southern residential extremities of the Gaza Strip. The International Solidarity Movement who have a number of vocal UK members, deliberately hinders the work of the Israel Defence Forces which seek to destroy these tunnels since the munitions etc. are being used by terrorists against Jewish civilians, and no other purpose.

I am enclosing a copy of the editorial that appeared in the Jerusalem Post of 17 October 2003, entitled "Egypt's Responsibility", which summarised the position of three months ago and is clearly applicable today.

Unlike other correspondence that I have sent to you, on this occasion I believe I am entitled to a detailed reply. I appreciate, as Prime Minister, that you receive numerous letters, however there is a special department set up to deal with them. Regrettably this facet of your organisation does not have the courtesy to provide even an acknowledgement - a sad reflection on what you claim to be a 'Listening Government'.
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Invitation to war by Uri Dan, Jerusalem Post 4 March 2004

The absurd idea that Israel should transfer responsibility for security for the southern Gaza Strip - the Philadelphia corridor - to Egypt arose during Labor Party leader Shimon Peres's visit to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak last week.

Peres returned with a rosy message: Egypt is willing to assume responsibility for security on its border with Gaza once Israel uproots its settlements there. Mubarak also demanded that Israel uproot the settlements in Judea and Samaria.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon proposed his plan for disengagement from the Palestinians after he despaired, with good reason, of reaching even some kind of interim arrangement with the Palestinians in this generation. But transferring responsibility for the security of the southern Gaza-Egypt border to Cairo would endanger the cold peace with Egypt.

For years Egypt made no effort to prevent the smuggling of arms through Egyptian-controlled Rafiah into Palestinian Rafiah. Numerous discussions between the heads of the Shin Bet Egyptian intelligence boss Omar Suleiman - as well as direct appeals to Mubarak - have been to no avail.

If Egypt wanted, it could have stopped the smuggling years ago. Cairo did not hesitate to arrest - and kill - hundreds of Egyptian Islamic Jihad members, far from the media spotlight, who threatened the regime. Egyptian Jihad is the spiritual father of Bin-Laden's gang.

In contrast, on the border with Gaza the Egyptians prefer turning a blind eye to the numerous professionally excavated tunnels dug by the Palestinians. In this way, the Egyptians demonstrate their support for the Palestinian struggle.

Consequently, only the persistent and heroic efforts of IDF soldiers to detect and destroy the tunnels have prevented the smuggling of Katyushas capable of threatening Ashkelon and Ashdod, and AA missiles that would threaten Israel's air space.

The army has fought bitter battles in the Philadelphia corridor against Palestinian terrorists, destroying houses that conceal the entrances to the tunnels, and the tunnels themselves.
Yasser Arafat attaches tremendous importance to this smuggling route from Egypt. Only this week he lauded the battles there as Rafiahgrad.

DOES PERES really think that if Israel were to transfer total responsibility for security on this border to Egypt, Cairo would suddenly halt the weapons smuggling? Perhaps the Egyptians would find it politically convenient to halt the smuggling for a few months because of their relations with the US or in order to deceive public opinion here.

However, only a self-deluded politician or general could believe that Egypt intends to change its policy of encouraging Palestinian terror aimed at weakening Israel.

It was an earlier delusion that explains why Yitzhak Rabin and Peres allowed Arafat to return to Gaza from Tunis in the summer of 1994. Arafat promptly smuggled weapons and known terrorists in the trunk of his Mercedes. In Oslo days, arms intended for the PA passed freely across the Egypt-Gaza border.

Ceding the security of southern Gaza to Cairo after an Israeli withdrawal would endanger the cold peace. Not only would there be no peace with the Palestinians, but even the peace agreement with Egypt would be undermined. Israel would then return to square one, but under more dangerous conditions.

Recall that Israel was forced to go to war against Egypt in 1956 when terrorist attacks from the Egyptian-controlled Gaza Strip against the south became unbearable. In 1967, as a first step in the build-up of Egyptian forces in Sinai, president Gamal Abdul Nasser expelled the UN forces from the Gaza Strip, where they had been deployed since 1957 in accordance with the cease-fire agreement between Israel and Egypt.

Peres should have remembered these facts, since he was a member of the government that went to war against Egypt. Is Peres now prepared to transfer responsibility for security on the Israeli-Egyptian border to Mubarak and thus invite the possibility of another war with Egypt? It is not surprising that the Egyptians themselves hesitate to accept this poisonous gift. At least they remember the destructive results of those wars with Israel.
The writer is a correspondent for The New York Post.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1078373358451

OPEN LETTER TO UK PRIME MINISTER GORDON BROWN (26 JANUARY 2009)

My friends in Jerusalem advise me that last week they were subject to great inconvenience as a result of the Tel Aviv / Jerusalem main highway being closed so that you and the President of France Sarkozy, Prime Minister of Spain Zapatero, Prime Minister of Italy Berlusconi and Chancellor Merkel of Germany could go to Jerusalem to pressurise the Israeli Government to open the crossing points into the Gaza Strip after Israel’s unilateral cease fire.

I am surprised that when you all met President Mubark in Sharem el Sheikh you did not pressurise him to stop the trafficking in weapons and ammunition and rockets that pass through Sinai to the Egyptian / Gaza border or forcing him to open up the crossing point into Gaza from Egypt, after of course ensuring that the material passing through the crossing could not be put to military / terrorist use. This was drawn to the attention of your predecessor, Tony Blair, twice in 2004 about the tunnels from Egypt to Gaza requesting he exert pressure on Egypt to take preventative action against smuggling. These communications were utterly ignored as recent history has shown.

The concern of your Government for the inhabitants of Gaza by increasing direct UK Government aid to the tune of £50m, does not take into consideration the reality on the ground.
I am one of the few UK citizens who had the privilege in the late 1970s of visiting Gaza and the surrounding areas. I well recollect travelling through the barren sand dunes where there were no villages or agricultural enterprises to get from Israel to Gaza City. For 19 years under Egyptian rule from the termination of the mandate, not one world body let alone Arab countries, showed any concern for the inhabitants of what is commonly known as the Gaza Strip but deliberately kept the people in abominable conditions, to be used as a political pawn to attempt to bring about the destruction of Israel. Between 1948 and 1956 the nascent State of Israel was subject to constant Fedayin raids emanating from Gaza and encouraged by the Egyptian Government, during that period over 500 Jews were slaughtered in cold blood by these terrorists. This culminated in the 1956 Sinai Campaign. When I visited Gaza City I was shown the two storey buildings that the Israeli Government had constructed to rehouse the residents of the shanty towns where I saw the raw sewage run through the streets and the buildings were constructed of flimsy materials with little adequate covering. However, year after year, until 2005, as a result of the Israeli so-called disengagement, HM Government together with those of Europe and most western states, voted in the United Nations for a Resolution that condemned Israel for attempting to rehouse these Gazan residents in proper acceptable residential accommodation with piped running water, electricity and sewage disposal facilities.[1] Thus, the blame for the condition of the Gazan people rests solely upon those governments including HM Government, who prevented Israel from rehousing these people.
Furthermore, as a result of disengagement in 2005, some 30 months ago, Israel left behind over 22 prosperous agricultural villages that had been built on the neglected sand dunes. Included amongst the items left behind were public buildings (schools, libraries, communal centres and synagogues) industrial buildings, offices, factories and greenhouses, yet the Gazan residents instead of using these premises to make themselves economically viable and increase their prosperity, deliberately destroyed all traces of these villages, their buildings and their agricultural equipment. Israel, having withdrawn from the Gaza district on the basis of the world demand that this would result in peace, both the Palestinian Authority and the various factions decided that this wasn’t sufficient for them and they continued their barrage of rockets and mortars, akin to the doodle bugs of WW2 in London, into the Israeli towns and villages adjacent to and within firing range of the Gaza Strip. In this they destroyed homes, schools, synagogues, medical centres and the citizens of Israel suffered trauma, injury and were killed just as they had been in the 5 previous years before Israel disengaged in the Gaza Strip.
The responsibility for the actions of both the Palestinian Authority and the associated terror groups lies clearly with the western governments and with the United Nations Agencies. It was noticed that prior to the disengagement, the world media, including the UK state operated BBC, (the World Service being operated from finance provided by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office) showed pictures of Gaza as if it was composed of hovels and shantytowns. But immediately after disengagement it was observed that these had suddenly disappeared overnight and had been replaced by villas, two storey and multi storey homes, all of which had been constructed after the 1995 interim arrangement between Israel and the PA. These buildings were constructed out of the equivalent of the UK cinder or breeze blocks, just as they are in Israel and there cannot be any subtle distinction between them. However, both the UN agencies and those of so-called international charities, currently appear to think that they are tugging at the heartstrings of the world pubic who are so gullible by pointing out that these buildings were made from blocks as opposed to brick or stone.
Having been given the opportunity 30 months ago to engage in complete self rule, all the Gazans could do was to ignore making themselves economically self sufficient and instead set themselves up as a military base especially after the Hamas terrorist party came to power in 2006. Instead of setting up industries for export or making themselves self sufficient, they set up a military arms industry to manufacture missiles, rockets, mortars etc. As they continued to do so, Israel which had been subject to suicide bombings for so many years, decided as the UK would have done, to restrict the entry of labourers from this area. As a result there was a world outcry led by your predecessor in 10 Downing Street. At the same time, Israel imposed restrictions on what passed through the crossings between Israel and Gaza to attempt to ensure that no precursor material for either the arms industry or the manufacture of explosives could enter. Of course we all know how HM Government stated that this was inhumane.
Several generations of Gazans have grown up and been educated in UNWRA schools. Instead of these schools providing a basic education, which would be aligned to producing industrious citizens, they educated the children in hate against Israel and the Jewish People. They inculcated in every possible way their hatred, be it in their mathematical or geographical lessons and certainly in their religious teachings. All this was going on under the auspices of the eagle eyed world body with a clear agenda to denigrate Israel and the Jewish People at every possible opportunity. This brainwashing has continued unabated for years yet no government has had the conviction to condemn this but has turned a deliberate blind eye. Indeed, when film was shown years ago of children in military uniform and carrying out paramilitary training exercises there was no word of condemnation from any world government. Are these the children that HM Government and UK charities are crying out for?

To look at those children compared with those of Darfur, Chechnya, Zimbabwe, is comparing chalk and cheese. The former in Gaza look well fed and well clothed and certainly not under nourished or diseased. Yet those of the latter are suffering from starvation as are their parents, clothed in rags and under nourished and subject to disease brought about by the political circumstances in which they live. Why don’t you and your government treat their plight to a higher degree of concern than that in Gaza? Added to this one can ask why the UK media and charities don’t make a play about these people’s plight to the same magnitude as they express their concern about Gaza? Could it possibly be that the correspondents and workers are loathed to go to places in their masses because of the absence of suitable luxury accommodation where they can draw on large expense accounts?
At every possible opportunity the media together with UK charities has expressed their concern of the plight of the children of Gaza. However, on careful analysis it has become clear that each family in Gaza has between 5 – 12 children and the average woman in Gaza gives birth to more than 5 children whilst each husband is permitted under Islamic law to have up to 4 wives. Of course monogamy, the norm throughout Europe, is exempt when it comes to Islamic immigrants as exhibited by the UK State Benefit System where the additional wives are also provided with Benefit Allowances [2] as you personally well know from your period as Chancellor. So instead of encouraging the Gazan citizens to live within their means the UN international agencies as well as UK based charities are encouraging them to procreate well beyond their economic means by giving them financial aid. How can this be possible that these organisations have turned such a blind eye to this stupidity?
On this basis there can be no grounds for HM Government to pour more money into this leaking bucket since it does not encourage the Gazans to be self-sufficient. The enormous wealth of the Arab oil producing countries has been squandered on luxuries rather than help their brethren. Instead of rehabilitating these so called ‘refugees’ into one of the 21 Muslim countries they have like no other refugee body not been resettled or rehoused but deliberately maintained in this refugee status for generation after generation by UNWRA.

It is time the Islamic dream of destroying the reborn Jewish State after 2000 years in its Biblical homeland was forced to come to an end. Islam is a modern religion, created some 1600 years ago and should not be permitted to practice such racism. Certainly Islam does not tolerate either Judaism or Christianity but considers these people to be second class citizens - dhimmis.

Their objective is to once again establish a Caliphate across Europe and the Middle East.

[1] While decrying the plight of the piteous refugees supposedly victimized by Israeli aggressors, Arab governments have caused the UN to pass resolutions that decried Israeli attempts to resettle refugees in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank. Any effort by Israel to improve the living conditions of Palestinian refugees in the Gaza strip or to give them new homes outside the refugee camps, was met with UN resolutions with wording such as this:
Calls once more upon Israel to desist from removal and resettlement of Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip and from destruction of their shelters;
2. Requests the Secretary-General, after consulting with the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, to report to the General Assembly by the opening of the thirty-fifth session on Israel's compliance with paragraph 1 above. ( UN A/RES/34/52(A-F) 23 November 1979 )

[2] http://www.dwp.gov.uk/housingbenefit/claims-processing/operational-manuals/hbgm/parts/ptbw_03b.asp,