Friday, February 18, 2011

Open Letter to Rt. Hon. William Hague – UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs


Open Letter to Rt. Hon. William Hague – UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
Interview with The Times – Wednesday 10 February 2011

It was nauseating to learn of your interview with The Times on 9 February 201. According to The Times you gave a blunt instruction to Israel’s Prime Minister to tone down the belligerent language he used since the uprising and protests, which have spread from Tunisia to Egypt and beyond. This is the same tone and type of language that was used to blame the Black Death [1348-49] on the innocent Jewish communities who it was claimed had poisoned the water wells. This brought about the worst massacre of innocent Jews from that period until the rise of the Nazi regime, some 600 years latter. Exactly what were you trying to achieve?


This was an unprecedented, unwarranted and unacceptable attack by you on the Israeli Prime Minister in the name of HM Government, yet there had not been one instance of belligerent language on these uprisings from Israel. Is not the duty of a Prime Minister of a sovereign democratic country to alert the citizens of a possible military or terrorist threat for an adjacent country by telling his country to prepare for “any outcome” and “reinforce the might of the State of Israel”? This is not belligerent but plain common sense and resembles Churchill’s warning the UK before and during the Second World War. Not only have you insulted the government and people of Israel but also the Jewish people worldwide by advising them that 56 years after the end of the Nazi German attempt to commit genocide against the Jewish people when six million unarmed Jews were annihilated in cold blood, that Jews should not prepare if necessary to defend themselves in their own country? Exactly, who do you think you are commanding a Prime Minister of another country what to do when you and HM Government have remained silent over the dictators, the abuse of human rights and the corruption etc in many of the Arab countries ranging from Tunisia, through Sudan, Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq and Jordan, not one of whom is in any way democratic. Your temerity is beyond belief.

Both you and PM Cameron appear to do anything to appease the Muslim world and consider it acceptable to attack Israel when she legitimately takes internationally acceptable practices[1], including those used by the British Armed Forces overseas, to defend herself. PM Cameron commented on 27 July 2010 in Turkey that Gaza was a “Prison Camp” in relationship to the legitimate blockage of Gaza by Israel to prevent the entry into this area of offensive military hardware as stated in all the various Agreements and Protocols signed between Israel and the PLO and witnessed by both the USA and others since the Oslo Agreement in 1993. Furthermore, how dare Cameron have the temerity to say [2] that the “ Israeli attack on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza "was totally unacceptable"- knowing full well that it was a deliberately planned publicity stunt by the Turkish organisers of the flotilla to provoke Israel to prevent the entry in to Gaza of unchecked cargo – did not the doyen of British Intelligence MI5 & MI6 advise the British Prime Minister?

On the 2 June 2010 you stated in the House of Commons “stress to the Israeli Government the need for them to act with restraint and in line with their international obligations, given that their actions appear to have gone beyond what was warranted or proportionate[3]

Clearly you must have been aware of Britain’s actions when she held the Mandate and illegally and inhumanly restricted by military force of the Royal Air Force, Royal Navy, Royal Marines and the British Army against Jews fleeing from the Nazi persecution in Europe [4] attempting to gain access to the “Jewish National Home” as defined in the League of Nations Mandate. As a result of the Peel Commission, the authorities, despite pleas from the USA refused both during the Second World War and after, maintained a quota system to restrict Jewish immigration and totally ignored international obligations and the use of brutal force was totally unwarranted against unarmed people, many of who were survivors of the Nazi Concentration Extermination Camps. The action was totally disproportionate [4]! It is completely unacceptable for HM Government minister to make such statements given the actions of Britain during the period 1936 to 1948, for which no apology or inquiry has even been forthcoming or held.


Prior to 1967, Israel, was at it’s narrowest point according to the 1949 armistice lines less than 9 miles wide, less than half the distance across London, and HM Government is now openly calling for a return to this situation despite all military logic and plain common sense dictating the opposite, with the proposed establishment of another Arab state in the region, bringing the total to 22. Secretary of State for the Middle East Burt during his visit to Israel in January this year stated that the armistice lines of 1949 were actually pre 1967 borders – such ignorance is unbecoming of one of HM Majesty’s ministers.

You have stated you “made it clear that he (you) regarded the Israeli attitude to settlements as “disappointing”. What gives HM Government the right to deny the Jewish people the right to live anywhere in their Biblical homeland? It is insulting to say the least, that a country that acquired land by force during the preceding four hundred plus years and still occupies them ranging from Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands to St Helene and 20 plus other British Overseas Territories is prepared to deny Jewish rights that extend back over 3000 years as delineated in the Bible. What gives HM Government the right to object to Jews living even in Jerusalem, in properties that HM Government forced the Jewish Communities to abandon during the period of civil unrest from the commencement to the termination of the Mandate. Perhaps this shameful period has got lost in the Foreign Office and former Colonial Office archives and you were not properly briefed by your subordinates. As Chaim Weitzmann quoted to Prime Minister Balfour, “We had Jerusalem as our capital when London was a marsh!”

I listened to your subsequent interview on the BBC radio 4 World at One last Friday and was amazed to hear that you stated all your actions were in the National Interests of the UK. If this is the case, is not Israel legitimately permitted to make statements and take in to account its National Interests as a priority over that of another country? Perhaps your advisers forgot to tell you that the British Mandate ended on the 14 May 1948.

References

1. Gaza-Jericho Agreement Annex I
4 May 1994
www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/Gaza-Jericho+Agremeent+Annex+I.htm...

Article XI
Security Along the Coastline and in the Sea of Gaza 1. Maritime Activity Zones b. General Rules of the Maritime Activity Zones 4. As part of Israel's responsibilities for safety and security within the three Maritime Activity Zones, Israel Navy vessels may sail throughout these zones, as necessary and without limitations, and may take any measures necessary against vessels suspected of being used for terrorist activities or for smuggling arms, ammunition, drugs, goods, or for any other illegal activity. The Palestinian Police will be notified of such actions, and the ensuing procedures will be coordinated through the Maritime Coordination and Cooperation Center.

2. http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/speeches-and-transcripts/2010/07/ress-conference-with-turkish-pm-53984

3.http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm100602/debtext/100602-0004.htm

4. Some web references to the disproportionate and inhuman action of the British Forces

See http://wertheimer.info/family/GRAMPS/WEBINDEX/haapalahindex.html

Also http://www.amazon.com/Royal-Palestine-Patrol-Whitehall-Histories/dp/0714682543

Regardless of what one might think about the British White Paper of 1939, which had the effect of severely curtailing Jewish immigration to Palestine just as the European Holocaust got underway, one can appreciate how the Navy had no recourse but to comply with the policy set by Whitehall for their own reasons of state

Also http://www.amazon.com/Britains-Political-Immigration-Palestine-1945-1949/dp/0714656372#reader_0714656372
Worth a look inside of sample texts

Best possible http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=164340


Waiting for the Exodus was a British cruiser and a convoy of destroyers, which trailed the ship for several days before stopping it 20 nautical miles (40 kilometers) from the shores of Eretz Yisrael. "On our last night, the British ships came in one at a time, rammed us, threw tear gas bombs and stun grenades, and succeeded in getting a large party of club-swinging marines on board," added Livney

The Pan Crescent (also known by its Hebrew name, Atzmaut) and Pan York (Kibbutz Galuyot), nicknamed the "pans," left from the port of Burgas, Bulgaria, on December 27, 1947 - 62 years ago to the day - with over 15,000 immigrants. Several days later they were also stopped by British warships, after passing through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles in Turkey into the Aegean Sea toward the Mediterranean

Also http://www.scribd.com/doc/32266821/IL-11-Israeli-Navy

On nearing Haifa, the British intercepted the boat, the British destroyer 'Ajax', which had trounced the German battleship 'Graf Spee' in a famous sea battle, rammed the boat, the soldiers boarded and captured the passengers and transferred them to Tent Camp No. 55 near Famagusta , on Cyprus[3].




1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Very well written!!

Sidney